United States
U.S. and Canadian Trends in Trade
March 11, 2010
The $37.3 billion U.S. trade deficit in January interrupted a rising trend seen in recent months. The January gap was near to the average shortfall of $36.3 billion last quarter, worse than the mean monthly deficit last year of $31.6 billion but much narrower than the average 2008 gap of $58.0 billion per month. Merchandise [...] More
A Couple of Falling Stars
February 23, 2010
A column in Tuesday’s Financial Times observes that some forty years in which the United States and Japan have held the top two slots in national GDP rankings will end sometime this year when China overtakes Japan. Although those Asian economies remain far apart on a per capita basis, Japan’s star has indeed fallen many [...] More
Fourth-Quarter Economic Growth in The United States and Japan
February 15, 2010
The United States and Japan had similar growth in GDP, consumption, business investment, and exports last quarter. The following table expresses fourth quarter against third quarter growth off GDP and its main components — consumption C, non-residential investment I, residential investment H, government spending G, exports X and imports M — as percentage changes at [...] More
Canadian and U.S. Trade Trends
February 10, 2010
All nations, including Canada and the United States, experienced a sharp reduction of two-way commerce during the Great Recession, which is now reversing. U.S. trade faired better than Canadian trade during the economic downturn, as exemplified by 2009 versus 2008 comparisons of exports and imports. In Canada’s case, exports (off 24.6%) plunged more sharply than [...] More
Mixed Signals
January 28, 2010
The wire service headline observed that the Fed statement used the word recovery for the first time. Market behavior suggests a darker and more complex landscape. In less than six full trading sessions since closing at 10,725 on January 19, the Dow has dropped 6.0%, more than its 3.6% drop in the an equivalent interval [...] More
U.S. and Canadian Consumer Price Inflation
January 20, 2010
Seasonally adjusted consumer prices dipped 0.1% in December but firmed 0.4% in the United States. The December-over-December CPI increases were respectively 1.8% in the U.S. and 1.3% in Canada. Canada enjoyed an even greater advantage in comparisons of whole 2009 inflation, where the readings were merely 0.1% in Canada but 2.7% on average in the [...] More
Commercial Trade Flows in November
January 12, 2010
Monday brought news that Chinese exports in November were 17.7% larger than in November 2008 level, including advances of 15.9% in sales to the United States and 10.2% to the EU. There had not been an on-year increase in total exports since September 2008. Imports shot up 55.9% in the latest statement year. China’s economy [...] More
How Fast Must U.S. Employment Expand to Recapture Lost Ground?
December 14, 2009
This past Friday in the New York Times, Paul Krugman’s column projected that U.S. jobs might have to growth about 300K per month to return to full employment by the end of 2014 five years from now. To an economist, full employment connotes a state where all labor that wants to work is working and [...] More
