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Is Wall Street’s Thirst for Water Really a Dire Threat? Nonsense, Says David Zetland
Journalist Frederick Kaufman made a few waves last week with an article on water markets in Nature and a related interview in Wired. His cautionary story envisions a global water derivatives market that would allow speculators to rake in billions while poor farmers, priced out of the market, would be unable to irrigate their crops. [...]
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US Q3 GDP: Good News in the Headlines, Not So Good in the Details
We all breathed a sigh of relief when yesterday’s advance estimate of U.S. Q3 GDP showed the economy growing at an annual rate of 2 percent. In normal times, 2 percent would be a disappointment; it is a sign of how far we are from normal that we can only think how much worse it [...]
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Is China Still a ‘Currency Manipulator’?
“On day one, I will label them a currency manipulator.” So spoke Mitt Romney during Monday’s Presidential debate, threatening, as he has innumerable times, to hit China with new tariffs if it doesn’t stop using a cheap yuan to steal U.S. jobs. But does the label still fit? We all know the story by heart. [...]
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Why Do We Need Government to Tell Business to Be Energy Efficient?
In response to my interview “The Myth of Affordable Energy,” my friend and fellow blogger Gary Alexander asks an excellent question. Many readers of the interview on various sites where it has been reposted have asked similar questions, and the following is addressed to them, as well. Gary asks: Ed, I need your clarification on [...]
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The Myth of Affordable Energy — Interview with Ed Dolan
Posted by James Stafford: We were fortunate enough to speak with the well known economist Ed Dolan on various energy and economic issues. In the interview Ed talks about the following: • Why cheap energy is not vital to economic growth • Why high oil prices aren’t necessarily a bad thing • Why the U.S. [...]
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Headline Inflation Stays High in September on Energy Prices but Other Indicators Show Calm beneath the Surface
The BLS reported today that the headline all-items CPI rose by a seasonally adjusted 0.6 percent in September. If we restate the unrounded data as an annual rate, that comes to 7.4 percent, just a whisker lower than August’s annualized rate of 7.5 percent. The elevated inflation rates of the past two months have their [...]
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Forward guidance: Does Bernanke Talk Too Much about How Good his Exit Strategy is?
In an October 1 speech to the Economics Club of Indiana, Chairman Ben Bernanke addressed the risk that the Fed’s latest round of quantitative easing (QE) could lead to inflation. Here is his resolutely reassuring answer, as quoted by Dave Altig on the Atlanta Fed’s Macroblog: I’m confident that we have the necessary tools to [...]
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By One Key Budget Indicator, the Structural Primary Balance, Even Greece Is Doing Better Than the United States. Why That Should Worry Us.
We in the United States know that we have a deficit problem, but when we hear news of the ongoing crisis in Europe, we feel a little better. At least we’re in better shape than Greece, Italy, and the other Eurozone basket cases. Aren’t we? Think again. By one key measure of fiscal health, the [...]
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September Jobs Report is the Strongest in Months; Unemployment Falls to 7.8 Percent
After a spring and summer when the monthly jobs reports have brought nothing but gloom, the September data are strong across the board. The headline numbers—114,000 new payroll jobs and an unemployment rate of 7.8 percent—are themselves encouraging enough. In many respects, the details behind them look even better. Let’s begin with the payroll jobs [...]
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Latest GDP Revision Carries a Mixed Message for the Election: Economy Weak, but Corporate Profits Strong
The revised third estimate of GDP for Q2 2012, released Thursday by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, carries a mixed message for the election campaign. The revised data show real GDP growing at an annual rate of just 1.3 percent in Q2, down from the already weak 1.7 percent of the previous estimate. The slowdown [...]
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Thomas Grennes
Thoughts From Across the Atlantic
Thomas Grennes is a professor of economics at the North Carolina State University and a former visiting faculty member at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga. His research has dealt with various aspects of international economics, including open economy macroeconomics, international finance, and international trade in agricultural products. Recent research topics have included macroeconomic aspects of the Great Moderation, offshore outsourcing, sovereign wealth funds, and the relationship between government debt and economic growth. Earlier work dealt with emerging market issues in the Baltic countries and Russia and trade and macro policies in Sub-Saharan Africa. Economic history topics include the Columbian Exchange of plants and animals, the effects on food markets of introducing mechanical refrigeration, and the integration of Tsarist Russia into the world grain market. When he is not involved in economics, he enjoys mountain hiking.
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