Tag Archives: Slow recovery

From the Federal Reserve Board press release: "The Committee currently expects that, with gradual adjustments in the stance of monetary policy, economic activity will expand at a moderate pace and labor market indicators will continue to strengthen. However, global economic and financial developments continue to pose risks. Inflation is expected to remain low in the near term, in part because of earlier declines in energy prices, but to rise to 2 percent over the medium term as the...

From Papadimitriou, Nikiforos, and Zezza's new Levy Strategic Analysis: "over the last 25 years policymakers in Washington have become increasingly fiscally conservative. The current recovery is the only one in the postwar period during which government expenditure has decreased in real terms. Fiscal austerity, together with weak foreign demand, has put the entire burden of supporting aggregate demand on the private sector spending in excess of its income and borrowing. This has led to a...

Obama went to Detroit this week, and defended his economic record, including the bailout of the auto-industry. He went further on the offensive, as in the State of the Union, and suggested that Republican candidates that complain about the economy don't have a clue. In his words: "The United States of America, right now, has the strongest, most durable economy in the world... So when you hear people -- I won't say who -- but when you hear people claiming that America is in decline, they...

BEA released the advanced estimate for GDP growth in the third quarter, 1.5%, well below the 3.9% growth of the second quarter. One can see that the recent recovery is slow even when compared to the Clinton and Bush II recoveries. So, nothing new, the slow recovery continues. If the budget deal gives some hope that at least we're not going to shutdown the government, and as a result avoid an even worse slowdown, there is very little reason to hope for the kind of fiscal stimulus we need.