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WASHINGTON — With the U.S. economy in crisis and military spending at its highest level since World War II, military officials and experts are worrying that America may have to start reining in defense spending. In the fiscal year that just ended, the U.S. spent $694.2 billion on defense, up 52 percent from the 2000 defense budget in constant dollars. (That year, the department spent $292 billion .) The fiscal 2008 total includes $514.2 billion in the defense budget and another $180 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan , which have been financed through so-called "supplemental"...

Kurt Hauser is a San Francisco investment economist who, 15 years ago, published fresh and eye-opening data about the federal tax system. His findings imply that there are draconian constraints on the ability of tax-rate increases to generate fresh revenues. I think his discovery deserves to be called Hauser's Law Like science, economics advances as verifiable patterns are recognized and codified. On this page in 1993, he stated that "No matter what the tax rates have been, in postwar America tax revenues have remained at about 19.5% of GDP." The chart nearby, updating the evidence to 2007, confirms Hauser's Law....

In recent months, investors have been unjustly chastised for their lack of consistency. In truth, they have an unblemished record of drawing the wrong conclusions. Last week’s 2nd quarter GDP report provides the freshest evidence of market cluelessness.... Without raising an eyebrow on Wall Street or in the press, the GDP deflator, used in the report to downwardly adjust GDP to account for inflation, was shown at just 1.2% annualized.... the lowest deflator in ten years. In other words, to arrive at a 3.3% growth rate, the government assumed that inflation is running at a ten-year low! In contrast, the...

In its preliminary 2Q08 GDP estimates, the Commerce Department said on Thursday, the countryÂ’s gross domestic product was revised up at an annual rate of 3.3% for the April-June period, exceeding analystsÂ’ initial estimates of a 1.9% increase as well as economistsÂ’ forecast of a 2.7% gain. Constant dollar GDP is now up 2.2% versus a year ago. The acceleration in real GDP growth in 2Q08 reflects a larger decrease in imports of 7.6% compared with a decrease of 0.8% in the 1Q08, and an acceleration in exports of 13.2% in the second quarter, compared with an increase of 5.1%...

The US economy grew at a revised 3.3% annually in the second quarter of 2008, the Commerce Department said, much higher than its first estimate of 1.9%. The rebound was linked to strong US exports, helped by the weak dollar, while government tax rebates also boosted consumer spending. GDP grew at a rate of 0.9% in the first quarter, after a 0.2% contraction in the last three months of 2007. The Federal Reserve has warned the economy will remain weak this year. "While we're not out of the woods yet, maybe we're beginning to see some sunlight," said John Wilson,...

The U.S. economy was much stronger in the spring than first thought because of better exports and less inventory liquidation by businesses, according to a government report that surprised economists. Gross domestic product rose at a seasonally adjusted 3.3% annual rate April through June, the Commerce Department said Thursday in a new, revised estimate of second-quarter GDP. Originally, the government had estimated second-quarter 2008 GDP climbed 1.9%. First-quarter GDP increased 0.9%. snip

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Boosted by stimulus checks from Uncle Sam and big drop in imports, real growth in the U.S. economy accelerated in the second quarter to a 1.9% annual rate, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. Consumer spending was supported by the largest increase in disposable personal income in six years, thanks largely to about $80 billion in tax-rebate checks from Washington. The economy was held back by the crumbling housing market and by a huge drop in inventories. Investments in equipment and software also fell during the quarter. snip

Monday, July 28, 2008 Has Deleveraging Even Begun? (Not For the Fainthearted) It no doubt seems absurd to question the idea that deleveraging in underway. We've had three heroic central bank interventions, starting in August 2007, to reverse seize-ups in the money markets. The asset backed commercial paper market has been almost in run-off mode. Leveraged buyout loans have been scarce to non-existent. Banks have cut home equity credit lines and credit card borrowing limits. Commercial and industrial loans have fallen. The private mortgage securitization market is a shadow of its former self. Yet the macro level data, at least...

The gross totals of debt in the United States are, well, gross. Private debt owed by Americans is nearly $14 trillion—approximately the size of our Gross Domestic Product. Corporate debt exceeds $6 trillion. Uncle Sam’s official debt is $9.4 trillion. If one includes unfunded liabilities for Social Security, Medicare, and who-knows-what, then you can add several more multiples of GDP to our total national indebtedness.

Every nation could be described as a manifestation of a unique trait of character and most countries furthermore nurture, give emphasize to and celebrate this national identity of theirs. Some examples of such key national characters (please DO comment if you feel inclined to); USA: Liberty Italy: Creativity France: Refinement India: Spirituality Germany: Self-discipline Finland: "Sisu" (a Finnish term meaning "To have guts") Britain: Elevatedness Denmark: "Hygge" (a Danish word meaning "Good-naturedness", of mind as well as of deed) Spain: Passion China: Cultivation Russia: Chaos - just joking, I would actually say "Heart" (in the sense of having a big...

Kurt Hauser is a San Francisco investment economist who, 15 years ago, published fresh and eye-opening data about the federal tax system. His findings imply that there are draconian constraints on the ability of tax-rate increases to generate fresh revenues. I think his discovery deserves to be called Hauser's Law, because it is as central to the economics of taxation as Boyle's Law is to the physics of gases. Yet economists and policy makers are barely aware of it. Like science, economics advances as verifiable patterns are recognized and codified. But economics is in a far earlier stage of evolution...

President George W. Bush may turn out to be the top economic forecaster in the country. About a month ago he told reporters, “We’re not in a recession, we’re in a slowdown.” At a White House news conference a few weeks later, despite the fact that reporters pressed him to use the “R” word, Mr. Bush refused. And on Friday, after the most recent jobs report -- which produced a much-smaller-than-expected decline in corporate payrolls, a huge 362,000 increase in the more entrepreneurial household survey (the best gain in five months), and a historically low 5 percent unemployment rate (4.95...

The government reports that the economy grew 0.6% in the 1st quarter, the same rate as in the 4th quarter of 2007.

U.S. retail sales took a surprising turn upward during March, a promising sign for the economy given the punishment consumers have absorbed. Retail sales increased by 0.2%, the Commerce Department said Monday. Sales went down a revised 0.4% in February. Sales that month were originally seen 0.6% lower. Excluding sales of gasoline stations, which were helped by high energy prices, retail sales didn't budge in March. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires estimated a 0.1% decrease in overall March retail sales. The actual, 0.2% increase could be seen as bright news, considering many analysts argue the U.S. has gone into...

WHICH economy has enjoyed the best economic performance over the past five years: America's or Japan's? Most people will pick America. The popular perception is that America's vibrant economy was sprinting ahead (albeit fuelled by credit and housing bubbles that have now painfully burst), whereas Japan crawled along at a snail's pace. And it is true that America's average annual real GDP growth of 2.9% was much faster than Japan's 2.1%. However, the single best gauge of economic performance is not growth in GDP, but GDP per person, which is a rough guide to average living standards. It tells a...

The most important story to come out of Washington recently had nothing to do with the endless presidential campaign. And although the media largely ignored it, the story changes the world. The story's unlikely source was the staid World Bank, which published updated statistics on the economic output of 146 countries. China's economy, said the bank, is smaller than it thought. About 40% smaller. China, it turns out, isn't a $10-trillion economy on the brink of catching up with the United States. It is a $6-trillion economy, less than half our size.

(RTTNews) - The Commerce Department released its final report on gross domestic product in the third quarter on Thursday, showing that the pace of GDP growth for the quarter was unrevised compared to the preliminary estimate. The report showed that GDP increased at an annual rate of 4.9 percent in the third quarter compared to the 3.8 percent growth seen in the second quarter. Economists had expected GDP growth to remain unchanged at 4.9 percent. The GDP growth in the third quarter marked the fastest pace of growth since the third quarter of 2003, when GDP surged up 7.5 percent....

Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez today released the following statement on the revised third quarter real gross domestic product (GDP) report, which showed that the American economy grew at 4.9 percent in the third quarter of 2007, the highest rate of GDP growth in four years: “In the face of real challenges, our resilient economy has now experienced six years of uninterrupted growth. As the holiday shopping season begins, I am pleased with today’s strong GDP report, coupled with the 1.68 million jobs added over the past year and low unemployment. President Bush’s pro-growth policies are moving our economy forward....

Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released new jobs figures – 94,000 jobs created in November. Since August 2003, more than 8.3 million jobs have been created, with more than 1.5 million jobs created over the 12 months that ended in November. Our economy has now added jobs for 51 straight months – the longest period of uninterrupted job growth on record. The unemployment rate remains low at 4.7 percent. The U.S. Economy Remains Strong, Flexible, And Dynamic Real GDP grew at a strong 4.9 percent annual rate in the third quarter of 2007. The economy has now experienced six...

The 2007 Human Development Report says Iceland now leads annual United Nations Index. Iceland has narrowly passed Norway to take the top spot on the Human Development Index (HDI), according to the 2007/2008 Human Development Report (HDR) released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) today. Norway had held the number one ranking for the previous six years. This change in ranking is a result of new estimates of life expectancy and updated GDP per capita figures, stress the Report authors. Introduced with the first HDR in 1990, the HDI assesses the state of human development through life expectancy, adult...

Yesterday, as the dollar fell to new record lows and oil and gold prices surged to new highs, Wall Street remained fixated on wholly meaningless government data that managed to report the lowest inflation in the last half century. These bizarre numbers were integral in allowing the Commerce Department to report 3.9% annualized GDP growth in the third quarter, which was heralded by the bulls as evidence that a resilient U.S. economy had shrugged off the problems in the housing and mortgage markets. However, the government’s ability to make “economic growth” magically appear is based purely on statistical finesse. To...

Norway's oil-fuelled economic growth has outpaced all other western countries durng the past four years, and statistics experts think the good times will keep on rolling.

The U.S. economy bounced back in the second quarter, growing at a 4% annual real growth rate, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. The upward revision to second-quarter gross domestic product is likely to have a minimal impact on financial markets, however, which are preoccupied by the credit crunch.

131 - US States Renamed For Countries With Similar GDPs Filed under: Uncategorized — strangemaps @ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a convenient way of measuring and comparing the size of national economies. Annual GDP represents the market value of all goods and services produced within a country in a year. Put differently: GDP = consumption + investment + government spending + (exports – imports)Although the economies of countries like China and India are growing at an incredible rate, the US remains the nation with the highest GDP in the world – and by far: US GDP is projected to be...

Eurozone economic growth outpaced the US for the fourth consecutive quarter at the start of 2007 as the damaging impact of higher German value-added-tax did not live up to expectations. Growth in gross domestic product in the 13-country region decelerated modestly in the first three months of the year, but at 0.6 per cent the rate of increase was higher than expected and faster than the 0.3 per cent seen in the US, according to Eurostat, the European Union's statistical office. Eurozone GDP had increased by 0.9 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year. The data highlighted the...

"The development of the Norwegian economy is very good," she told Parliament, citing strong growth, low inflation and the lowest unemployment rate in 20 years. "At the same time, the use of capacity in the economy is high." She said the risk of wage and cost increases that could hurt Norwegian industry had prompted the government to hold back of revenues from oil and natural gas production that make the nation a major world exporter.

Economy: If you've been waiting for a slowdown, you can stop. It's officially here. Growth in the last three quarters has been well below what the economy could be doing. Ben Bernanke, call your office. Much of the data we see these days look pretty weak. Over the past nine months, GDP grew at a 2.4% rate — well below the 3.5% average since 2003. Parts of the housing market are in recession, oil prices top $66 and job creation isn't what it was. Granted, we're coming off a period of powerful growth, thanks to the tax cuts that President...

Chris Edwards is director of tax policy studies and author of Downsizing the Federal Government. On St. Patrick's Day, we wear green and celebrate the culture of Ireland. I'll be down at the pub tomorrow, but I'll be toasting Ireland's success at attracting greenbacks -- all that investment flowing into the Emerald Isle and the resulting prosperity. Ireland has boomed in recent years, and it now boasts the fourth highest gross domestic product per capita in the world. In the mid-1980s, Ireland was a backwater with an average income level 30 percent below that of the European Union. Today, Irish...

Well, are the inhabitants of the EU prosperous or not? Yes and no. Many Europeans (and Americans as well) would say the US is part poor, part affluent, arguing that wealth is distributed in a very uneven way in that country. However, regarding regional GDP/capita, there probably are even greater differences between the EU citizens than between US Americans (regardless of the reasons to this situation)! For instance, according to the study, Inner London is more than 36 times richer than North Eastern Romania! The article: "Regional GDP per inhabitant in the EU27 GDP per inhabitant in 2004 ranged from...

The U.S. economy resurged at the end of 2006, overcoming a slump in housing as consumers, sustained by lower energy prices, ramped up spending. Gross domestic product climbed at a seasonally adjusted 3.5% annual rate October through December, the Commerce Department said Wednesday in its first of three readings on fourth-quarter GDP. That was up from 2% in the third quarter. A price inflation gauge within the report posted its biggest drop in 52 years. For the whole year, GDP, which acts as a scoreboard for the economy by measuring all goods and services produced, advanced 3.4%, compared to a...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The economy snapped out of a sluggish spell and grew at a faster-than-expected 3.5 percent pace in the final quarter of last year as consumers ratcheted up spending despite a painful housing slump. The fresh snapshot of business activity, released by the Commerce Department Wednesday, underscored the resilience of the economy; it has managed to keep on moving despite the ill effects of the residential real-estate bust. The economy's performance in the October-to-December quarter, which followed two quarters of rather listless activity, exceeded analysts' forecasts for a 3 percent growth rate. The economy opened 2006 on a...

No malice. I think nations ought to compete, in a benign way. - That's what the game of constructive capitalism should look like. My home country, Sweden, has been chasing the US in the (nominal) GDP/capita development area for several quarters now and finally it seems we have surpassed the US in this respect. Silly pursuit? Yes, most Swedes (and probably Americans too) think it is, but personally I think competition of this sort always is good natured and constructive in nature. Swedes probably understand more about the US (and have closer cultural bonds to the US) than most other...

Some people claim the iPod index tells you more about the economic situation of different countries than the Burger Index or GDP/capita statistics, in fact, some will even tell you it says more about this issue than any other stats available. Anyhow, In this case, what could one possibly make out of the compilation featured in the article below? What does the economies of Brazil, India and Sweden (my home country) have in common? I've heard of research reporting that Sweden is poorer than Mississippi (at least an internet profile like Instapundit - perhaps not the most frequent visitor to...

White House blames unexpectedly soft housing market Prediction on inflation shows improvement as energy prices plummet A slowdown in the United States housing market has driven the White House to lower its forecast for economic growth for this year and next. "The housing market, as you know. has been hit harder than most of us had expected," Edward Lazear, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told reporters during a conference call yesterday. He predicted the worst of that decline could be over by the first quarter, if it isn't already. "Whether it's bottomed out now is still...

The report on climate change by Nicholas Stern and the U.K. government has sparked publicity and scary headlines around the world. Much attention has been devoted to Mr. Stern's core argument that the price of inaction would be extraordinary and the cost of action modest. Unfortunately, this claim falls apart when one actually reads the 700-page tome. Despite using many good references, the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change is selective and its conclusion flawed. Its fear-mongering arguments have been sensationalized, which is ultimately only likely to make the world worse off. The review correctly points out that...

The U.S. economy was stronger than initially reported during the second quarter. The Commerce Department revised gross domestic product growth upward to 2.9%. The advance reading last month had shown the economy growing at a 2.5% annual pace. Core inflation increased 2.8% during the second quarter, down slightly from 2.9% in the advance report. Final sales were revised higher to 2.3% from 2.1%. Spending on durable goods reversed a previously reported 0.5% decline and was revised to a 0.5% advance. Howard Dean, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee labeled the Commerce Department announcement “unwelcome news.” “This contradicts our whole economic...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The economy ambled into the fall steadily but unstartlingly, with fresh signs of a slowdown as consumers watched spending more warily. The Federal Reserve's latest survey of America's business climate, released Wednesday, found that "economic activity continued to expand ... but five districts indicated deceleration, while the remaining seven reported little change in the pace of growth." People held back, especially, on spending for automobiles and household items.

The U.S. economy was stronger than initially reported during the second quarter, as the Commerce Department revised gross domestic product growth upward to 2.9%. The advance reading last month had shown the economy growing at a 2.5% annual pace. Economists had anticipated a revision to 3%. Core inflation increased 2.8% during the second quarter, down slightly from 2.9% in the advance report. Still, the year-over-year change remained constant at 2.3%, a figure a bit outside of the Federal Reserve's comfort zone. Final sales were revised higher to 2.3% from 2.1%, while the chain deflator remained unchanged at a 3.3% clip....

Suspicion over Persson's growth prediction Published: 11th August 2006 19:31 CET Online: http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=4581 Secret figures about the Swedish economic growth rate which should have been made available to the government and the public at the same time were known to officials in the Ministry of Finance several days in advance. Among them was a politically-appointed state secretary, TV8 news has reported. Now opposition politicians believe the figures were leaked to prime minister Göran Persson and used by him in a speech last weekend. The day before the official report from Statistics Sweden was released, Persson predicted remarkable economic growth for...

Perhaps the oddest and most depressing fact about the U.S. economy these days is the lack of real wage growth. The unemployment rate has been below 5% since December, and productivity growth is still looking strong. Yet wages and salaries, adjusted for inflation, are down for virtually every broad occupational category. According to the latest numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory workers are up by 3.8% over the past year. That may sound halfway decent, but it still lags the 4.3% increase in consumer prices over the same period (see BusinessWeek.com, 8/4/06,...

Since the recession of the early 1990's, Sweden has successfully steered away from socialist experiments, trade union hegemony over society as well as excessive government intervention in business life. Contrary to Germany, Italy and France, the scandinavian countries are no longer stern believers in the outdated "Swedish Model" of the 1950 - 1970 era. Hardly surprising to friends of capitalistic progress, swedes nowadays are used to reading news like this: "Sweden's GDP: +5.5 per cent in second quarter 2006 Sweden's GDP rose by 5.5 per cent during the second quarter, calendar-adjusted and compared to the second quarter of 2005. Seasonally...

The Comptroller General of the United States warns the nation will go broke within a generation - unless it takes radical steps now to rein in out-of-control federal spending. In an exclusive interview with NewsMax, Comptroller David M. Walker, explained his mission: Save America from the brink of financial disaster. Walker has revealed America's collision course in computer simulations that show balancing the budget in 2040 (under the status quo of spending like there's no tomorrow) could require cutting total federal spending by an incredible 60 percent - or raising federal taxes 200 percent over today's level. Serving a 15-year...

The Nation's Accountant Tells It Like It Is Dave Eberhart, NewsMax.com Thursday, Aug. 3, 2006 WASHINGTON -- NewsMax caught up with U.S. Comptroller General David M. Walker, who, at age 54, is a bona fide baby boomer. The energetic CPA was direct about what most motivates him: "The baby boomers are on the path to be the first generation in the history of this country not to leave the country better positioned for the future. "That is unacceptable to me, and I will continue to fight as long as I can to try to make sure that that doesn't become...

Economy Zips Ahead at a 5.6 Percent Pace Jun 29 8:45 AM US/Eastern Email this story By JEANNINE AVERSA AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON The economy sprang out of a year-end rut and zipped ahead in the opening quarter of this year at a 5.6 percent pace, the fastest in 2 1/2 years and even stronger than previously thought. The new snapshot of gross domestic product for the January-to-March period exceeded the 5.3 percent growth rate estimated a month ago, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. The upgraded reading _ based on more complete information _ matched economists' forecasts. The stronger GDP...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. economy shot forward at an upwardly revised 5.3 percent annual rate in the first quarter, the fastest growth in 2-1/2 years, as companies built up inventories and exports strengthened, a Commerce Department report on Thursday showed. First-quarter growth in gross domestic product was more than triple the 1.7 percent annual rate recorded in last year's fourth quarter, though still slightly below Wall Street economists' forecasts for a 5.7 percent pace.

Does illegal immigration help or hurt the U.S. economy? It sounds like a simple enough question. But, like the classic Japanese movie "Rashomon," in which truth depends entirely on point of view, the answer hinges on where you fit in the economy. "GDP per domestic person goes up," said James Smith, a senior economist at the Rand think tank in Santa Monica and lead author of the National Research Council's study "The New Americans: Economic, Demographic and Fiscal Effects of Immigration." Since 1980, he said, all immigrants, including both undocumented and legal, have boosted GDP by $10 billion per year....

Economists and Statisticians, I have a problem for you to tackle. Of late, it has been obvious that our nation's revenues have been risng rapidly, and have resulted in a two year reduction in the deficit. In fact total revenues look like this: 2000 2,025.5 2001 1,991.4 2002 1,853.4 2003 1,782.5 2004 1,880.3 2005 2,153.9 Now there has been a counter argument based on Democrat talking points that the revenues when adjusted to 2000 chained dollars is actually lower than in 2000. Observe: 2000 2025.2 2001 1944.6 2002 1778.7 2003 1676.6 2004 1723.3 2005 1920.6 These are CBO numbers, in...

The nation's economy regained momentum in the first quarter of the year as it recovered from the hurricanes of 2005, the Commerce Department reported yesterday, growing at a rate of 4.8 percent, compared with 1.7 percent in the previous quarter. It was the hottest annualized pace for the gross domestic product in 2 1/2 years, with robust spending by consumers, business and government all doing their part. "This rapid growth is another sign that our economy is on the fast track," President Bush said. But the Commerce Department report was no surprise to economists, who expected a bounce-back from the...

AUSTRALIANS are richer than ever, with new figures showing the country's private wealth has rocketed to more than $6000 billion. Treasury figures released today showed the market value of Australian net private sector wealth was $6200 billion in June last year - up almost 12 per cent in a year. This represents around $300,000 per Australian. The growth in private wealth was lower than the previous three years, but still above the average for the past two decades. Home ownership made a smaller contribution in the past year - only 3.3 per cent to the growth in private wealth, but...

March 16, 2006 A THOUSAND POINTS OF LIGHT, BUT NOT ONE BULB BURNING: Hey, Big Spender: Should we have known that President Bush would bust the budget? (Peggy Noonan, March 16, 2006, Opinion Journal) This week's column is a question, a brief one addressed with honest curiosity to Republicans. It is: When George W. Bush first came on the scene in 2000, did you understand him to be a liberal in terms of spending? I, for one, am perfectly willing to admit that I didn't forsee the WoT and the 2% of GDP increase in spending on Defense it would...