33 results for:

Charles Wallace

• GDP Rises, But Other Indicators Point Down

  The U.S. economy grew in the third quarter and people are already celebrating the end of the worst recession in 70 years. Is such jubilation justified? I think not. The Commerce Department report said GDP in the July to September period grew at an annual rate if 3.5 percent, ending four...

  Blog posts | Oct 29, 2009

• Commercial Real Estate is the Latest Worry

  Behind all the good news about the economy, one thing is keeping bankers awake at night: commercial real estate is looming as the next asset bubble to pop. This comes just as residential real estate appears to have hit bottom and is rebounding. According to the National Association of Realtors,...

  Blog posts | Oct 22, 2009

• Should Congress Extend the Tax Credit for Home Buyers?

  Congress is currently debating two bills that would extend the life of the $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers, which expires December 1. Is this a good idea? The answer recalls the joke about putting two economists in a room with a problem and getting three answers. There's no...

  Blog posts | Oct 15, 2009

• Retail Sales Are Still Hampered by Credit Crunch

  Retail sales rose slightly last month, but the trend is a lot less positive than the figures suggest. It's a case of things not being as scary as some analysts expected, but is that really a sign of improvement? Sales at stores open a year or more climbed 0.6 percent, according to Thompson...

  Blog posts | Oct 8, 2009

• Economy is Struggling With a Jobless Recovery

  A number of key economic measures declined this week, indicating the country is still struggling to emerge from the recession. While none of the data points was cause for alarm, taken together they indicated a much slower recovery than economists had expected. The biggest surprise was the...

  Blog posts | Oct 1, 2009

• How the G20 Meeting Will Hurt Your Wallet

  Some people believe that the summit meeting of G20 countries that opens today in Pittsburgh is nothing but a boring gabfest with leaders making more empty promises they have no intention to keep. They would be wrong. The ideas being discussed in Pittsburgh have the potential to hit you in the...

  Blog posts | Sep 24, 2009

• Obama Warns Wall Street is Returning to Past Errors

  President Obama warned Monday that some in the financial industry have failed to learn from last year's failure of Lehman Brothers and the financial meltdown that followed. He pledged to make it harder for financial firms to be too big to fail. Obama travelled to Wall Street to make a strong...

  Blog posts | Sep 14, 2009

• Does the Rise in Gold Price Reflect Economic Fundamentals?

  What are the lessons of a surging gold price? It has always been perplexing that commodities sometimes soar to new highs even when fundamentals are negative. Last year, it was oil: even though demand was unchanged and supply was bountiful, the price of a barrel of oil rocketed above $140. This...

  Blog posts | Sep 10, 2009

• Weak Retail Sales Show Economy is Still Near Bottom

  Weak retail sales continue to bedevil the economy. About the only good news coming out of the retail sector is that sales were not as bad as everyone expected. Retail sales in August fell by an average of 2.9 percent compared to a year ago. That was marginally better than the 3.8 percent...

  Blog posts | Sep 3, 2009

• Bernanke Well Deserved Reappointment to the Fed

  It was really dismaying to read the stream of vitriol that followed President Obama's decision to reappoint Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve. I think history will show that Bernanke was a true hero whose out-of-the-box thinking saved the global economy from collapse. The...

  Blog posts | Aug 27, 2009