Word: slump
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
What makes the virulence of the slump most remarkable is that it happened so fast. To be sure, the housing and auto industries turned down sharply last year. But only weeks ago there were still no conclusive signs that the weakness had spread to the rest of the economy. In the steel industry, for example, buying by nonauto customers kept sales and production fairly high until March. Says Donald Barnett, chief economist of the American Iron and Steel Institute: "Orders dropped 40% within a week...
...fact, it was only last week that the slump got its official credentials from the National Bureau of Economic Research, the private Cambridge-based organization that establishes the starting and ending dates of recessions. At a special meeting, its Business Cycle Dating Committee decided that the evidence is unmistakable: the U.S. is indeed in a recession. The economy reached its high point in January and has gone downhill ever since...
...that the slump has begun, it poses a severe dilemma for Government policy: How far can recession-fighting measures go before they worsen the inflation that helped bring on the recession in the first place? Speaking to bankers in New Orleans last week, Treasury Secretary G. William Miller asserted that the Administration has "got to stay with fighting inflation as the No. 1 priority." Paul Volcker, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, has indicated no relaxation of the board's tight squeeze on money supply. But the nation's central bank already has begun to dismantle the restrictions...
...sharp slump mil be followed by an anemic recovery...
...recession of 1980 will be longer, deeper and more painful than was expected only a few weeks ago. Unemployment threatens to climb to a peak of 9% or more by early 1981, matching and perhaps even surpassing the 9% jobless rate that was briefly touched during the 1973-75 slump. Next month's release of growth figures for the second quarter is expected to show the economy dropping by about 8% on an annual rate during April, May and June...