From Calculated Risk: How about this headline from Rex Nutting at MarketWatch: Biggest drop in industrial output since VE Day Industrial production is down 13.3% since the recession began in December 2007, the largest percentage decline since the end of World War II. … Factory output has fallen 15.7% during the recession, also the largest […]
Carolyn Said, Chronicle Staff Writer A vast “shadow inventory” of foreclosed homes that banks are holding off the market could wreak havoc with the already battered real estate sector, industry observers say. Lenders nationwide are sitting on hundreds of thousands of foreclosed homes that they have not resold or listed for sale, according to numerous […]
The UK economy could decline for another year and take a further two years to recover, according to a respected think tank. A National Institute of Economic and Social Research study says the current economic decline is “very similar” to the slowdown at the start of the 1980s. … Their forecast is consistent with what […]
From Calculated Risk: This graph shows the job losses from the start of the employment recession, in percentage terms (as opposed to the number of jobs lost). For the current recession, employment peaked in December 2007, and this recession was a slow starter (in terms of job losses and declines in GDP). However job losses […]
From Calculated Risk: Here is a quick look at a few credit indicators: First, the British Bankers’ Association reported that the three-month dollar Libor rates were fixed at 1.166%. The LIBOR was at 1.30% a couple of weeks ago, and peaked at 4.81875% on Oct 10, 2008. This is near the January 14th low of […]
From Calculated Risk: The graph shows monthly vehicle sales (autos and trucks) as reported by the BEA at a Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR). This shows that sales have plunged to a 9.29 million annual rate in February; the lowest since Dec 1981. March 2009 sales will be down sharply from March 2008 too, but […]
by Fred Pearce, environment correspondent for New Scientist “I AM shocked, truly shocked,” says Katey Walter, an ecologist at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. “I was in Siberia a few weeks ago, and I am now just back in from the field in Alaska. The permafrost is melting fast all over the Arctic, lakes […]
From Calculated Risk: The graph shows New Home Sales vs. recessions for the last 45 years. New home sales have fallen off a cliff. Sales of new one-family houses in February 2009 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 337,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department […]
From Calculated Risk: Here are the Kennedy-Greenspan estimates (NSA – not seasonally adjusted) of home equity extraction for Q4 2008, provided by Jim Kennedy based on the mortgage system presented in “Estimates of Home Mortgage Originations, Repayments, and Debt On One-to-Four-Family Residences,” Alan Greenspan and James Kennedy, Federal Reserve Board FEDS working paper no. 2005-41. […]
From Calculated Risk: The Dept of Transportation reports on U.S. Traffic Volume Trends: [T]ravel during January 2009 on all roads and streets in the nation changed by -3.1 percent (-7.0 billion vehicle miles) resulting in estimated travel for the month at 222.4 billion vehicle-miles. The graph shows the annual change in the rolling 12 month […]
