News
WSJ | Disputed Trade Pacts Advance
Obama Nears Long-Delayed Deals With South Korea, Colombia and Panama.
CNN: Money | Forecast says double-dip recession is imminent
The official word on when recessions begin or end comes from the National Bureau of Economic Research, which has a committee that weighs economic data. But since the committee must wait for final revisions of the data, a call on the start or end of a downturn typically comes a year or more after it actually takes place.
WSJ | Gas Stays High as Oil Drops
Prices at the Pump Have Yet to Reflect the Substantial Decline in Crude Futures.
CNN: Money | U.S. to decide the Keystone XL pipeline's fate
The heated discussion over whether to build a 1,700-mile oil pipeline from the oil sands region of Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico is almost over.
WSJ | Greek Economy to Keep Shrinking
Greece presented a 2012 austerity budget Monday that includes sharp increases in taxes and spending cuts amid a fourth year of recession and a deteriorating labor market.
Politico | China picks up U.S. slack in trade
Hungry for natural resources, China has overtaken the U.S. as the chief trading partner in Brazil, Chile and Argentina.
Econ Comments
NY Times | Foreclosures Are Killing Us
Foreclosure is not just a metaphorical epidemic, but a bona fide public health crisis.
RCM | Thank Dodd-Frank For Your Debit Card Fees
Damned as an "outrage" in the press, Bank of America's just-announced $5 monthly fee for ATM use was a logical and predictable result of a Dodd- Frank financial bill that fixed prices. Guess who gets to pay for it?
Washington Post | Risk-averse America
We are prisoners of our rotten mood. Everywhere, the bias is to spend less and wait to see how things turn out. Just as optimism sustained the boom, pessimism prolongs the bust.
Financial Times | Why business despairs of Obama
Mr Obama’s administration predicted a V-shaped recovery, based on the historical experience of the 1970s and 1980s. Not this time. The $4,000bn of fiscal and monetary stimulus produced less than $1,000bn in growth. Gross domestic product is now running at about 1.8 per cent this year but two-thirds of this will come from growth in business inventories, not final sales.
RCM | Mass Refinancing Won't Solve the Housing Problem
With the country's housing market still anemic and a backlog of pending foreclosures, the Administration is reportedly considering a plan to refinance millions of extant mortgages at today's historic low interest rates - an idea kicking around the Beltway for at least a couple of years.
Politico | Hill finds elusive harmony on trade
Congress hasn’t had much to celebrate in a year dominated by bitter spending battles and partisan dysfunction. So lawmakers from both parties are heralding the pending passage of a major free-trade package as a victory — and a sign that Washington isn’t entirely broken.
Blogs
Calculated Risk | Schedule for Week of Oct 2nd
The key report this week will be the employment situation report for September on Friday. Also Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's Congressional testimony on Tuesday will be closely watched.
Political Calculations | Forecasting GDP for 2011-Q3
Assuming that the deviation between our modified limo forecast value and actual GDP can be described by a normal distribution, we estimate a 68.2% probability of the BEA recording real GDP for 2011-Q3 somewhere between $13,160.1 billion and $13,439.5 billion, and a 95% probability of it falling between $13,020.4 billion and $13,579.2 billion. There is a 99.7% probability of 2011-Q3's GDP figure being recorded somewhere between $12,880.8 billion and $13,718.8 billion.
Calculated Risk | Unofficial Problem Bank list at 986 Institutions
The Unofficial Problem Bank List finished the month unchanged at 986 institutions with assets of $405.4 billion after six additions and six removals this week. A year-ago, there were 872 institutions with assets of $422.4 billion on the unofficial list.
Cato @ Liberty | Happy Fiscal New Year
We don’t have final numbers for the fiscal year that just ended, but let’s look at the CBO Monthly Budget Report, the CBO Economic and Budget Update, and the OMB Historical Tables, and see whether there’s anything worth celebrating.
Reports
RCM: Wells Fargo | Weekly Economic & Financial Commentary
Most of this week’s economic reports that dealt with the consumer continued to flash warning signals. Consumer confidence remains weak, income growth is lagging and home sales remain dead in the water.
