Word: rates
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...today, the snow is back—and it'll probably be around for the next day or so. Supposedly, today's snowstorm is "just a tease for what's coming tonight." We're talking 10 to 15 inches, and a snowfall rate of 2 to 3 inches per hour around midnight...
...free fall. When the bean counters at the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) came out a month ago with their first estimate of how fast the economy shrank in the fourth quarter, economists and investors were surprised that it was at a mere 3.8% annual rate. Now, after some of the updates and revisions that are a standard part of the process of estimating gross domestic product (GDP), the number is a far more dramatic...
...historical? The -6.2% figure represents the worst quarter for economic growth in the U.S. since 1982, when the economy shrank at a 6.4% annual rate. And the BEA - which said new data on exports, consumer spending and inventories were the main causes of the dramatic change in its estimate - isn't done revising: there will be one last estimate of fourth-quarter GDP on March 26, then what are called benchmark revisions a couple of years down the road. The revision trend is clearly downward, and the 1982 mark is likely to be overtaken...
...sources of economic weakness in the fourth quarter were across the board. Consumer spending dropped at a 4.3% pace, its worst performance since 1980. Nonresidential private fixed investment - a.k.a. capital spending - fell at a 21.1% rate, the worst since 1975. Exports fell at a 23.6% annual pace, the worst since 1971. And residential investment was down at a 22.2% pace, but that's the worst only since the first quarter...
...crucial, since the effects of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will be strongly diminished if the credit crunch continues. The weeks spent debating the merits and drawbacks of the stimulus plan cannot go to waste. In an ordinary recession, the Federal Reserve could cut interest rates to get credit flowing, sparking the economy. However, in the words of our president in an interview with ABC News, “…we are in not just an ordinary recession.” With the target for the Federal Funds rate against the zero lower bound...