What I find equal parts puzzling and laughable is how inflation is calculated, and perhaps one of you can explain why they do so for me, as it makes no sense.   They (the covernment) exclude fuel and food prices from reported inflation stating that their prices are far too volatile to figure in. To me, this seems l...more

Well, if the majority of the comments threaded here each day are any indication, it's going to be an equally amusing campaign in 2012...   The non-stop comedy act of "it's his fault, no, it's HIS fault" garbage surrounding our nation's economic recovery, or lack thereof is equal parts amusing and tiresome.   Th...more

Also, to raise a question to those with a far better understanding of maco/micro-economic theories than myself...   The methodology for the consumer price index/inflation; their methodology for measurement, where they exclude food and energy prices as part of the measure. How is this even reasonably effective/accur...more

Just seems a little odd that the markets are cheering a continuation of the monetary shell game in Europe as opposed to anything substantive in the way of fixes; combined with more lackluster numbers out of the United States...   It isn't a matter of my wanting to watch things fall apart, although I must admit ther...more

if the rumored $300 billion stimulus package is actually what Obama's going to propose, then its a failure before it even gets to congress. There's major structural ills that need to be addressed that this capital injection is simply not going to fix. My biggest point of contention with it is the planned money to be se...more

talk about a ton of conflicting data...   First, the jobs report this morning missed projections, granted, only by about 9K jobs added, but still, falls short. 51K jobs are cut, with projected increases in public-sector employment due to state and federal government spending cutbacks. Combine that with year-over-ye...more

Correct me if I am (quite likely) wrong, but doesn't there need to be job creation of 120K or more per month just to keep up with new additions to the workforce? If they're already congratulating themselves on anticipated gains of 100K (projected) in Friday's jobs-report, combined with a reported 54K layoffs, correct m...more

isn't it a rather flawed thought process that is being touted in these daily articles that the markets are, or have been surging in expectation of the government announcing some new artificial market support program at the end of this week?   It seems to me that this is just a case of people manipulating the market...more

correct me if I am wrong, but isn't China a net exporter in the grand scheme of things trade-wise? Meaning that they export quite a bit more finished goods, etc. than they import? So why are the markets so cheery over their manufacturing numbers coming in higher than expected? It would seem that expansion on their end ...more