The first estimates of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) for 2016 arrived this morning. The headline number: real GDP grew about 0.5% from January through March. That’s pretty slow, especially compared to the 2015 annual rate of 2.4 percent. The picture above shows real GDP relative to its potential. Potential GDP measures the amount of final goods and services the US economy could produce … [Read more...]
Source: Flikr Creative Commons Welcome to my website, especially listeners from News and Views with Roshini Rajkumar (WCCO) and MPR News Presents on Minnesota Public Radio. I hope you'll continue the conversation we began on the radio and in person. I try to write a blog post every day on topics that touch on economics and their relation to current events. (You'll notice the last 10 days have … [Read more...]
Last month I discussed the inflation! debasement! phenomenon: the certainty that, no matter what the data tells us, accelerating inflation and a depreciating currency are just around the corner. Let’s take a look at the latest information, for March 2016: Inflation: holding steady. Prices overall rose 0.9 percent since March 2015. If we exclude food and energy prices, the Consumer Price … [Read more...]