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Today’s post is focused on the latest economic news: Growth slowed to a barely discernible 0.1 percent annual rate in the first quarter of 2014 according to the the Commerce Department. That’s the weakest pace since the end of 2012 and down from 2.6 percent in the previous quarter. A toast! We’re number .001! According to reliable sources, were it not for increased Federal spending on Obamacare, there would be no growth at all.China has apparently overtaken the U.S. as the world’s largest economy.The Stock Market closes at an all time high because…well, who the hell knows?The government announced it...

The U.S. economy stalled in the first three months of 2014, but don't panic yet as it's probably just the winter weather effect. Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, grew at a 0.1% annual pace in the first quarter, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Wednesday. That's brutally slow, even by sluggish post-recession standards. Since the Great Recession ended in June 2009, the economy has been growing at a rate of about 2% to 3% per year.

Reagan Turned It Around in Two Years; Obama Has Made It Worse in Five Years It’s a tired and shopworn refrain, but the Obama administration still claims that the so-called economic recovery that started in 2009 is struggling because of the mess the president inherited when he took office. So how does he explain a jobless recovery with no economic growth? We’ll probably never see it in the mainstream media, but thanks to political observer Michael Hausam, we can make a comparison of policy and politics that pits 2009 against 1981. That would directly compare the economy Ronald Reagan inherited...

Russia Warns It May Enter Recession As Soon As This Quarter Tyler Durden 04/21/2014 08:14 -0400 While hardly coming as a surprise to anyone, Russia is getting increasingly more vocal about the near certainty that the country is about to slam headfirst into a technical (at first), and then outright recession. Bloomberg reports that Russia’s economy may halt or contract in 2Q or 3Q, citing Maxim Oreshkin, head of Finance Ministry’s strategic forecasting dept. "It seems that we’ll get negative growth again in the second quarter compared with the previous quarter." Oreshkin says He added that capital outflows may reach...

The One Word Democrats May Not Utter During the Campaign Posted By Rick Moran On April 19, 2014 @ 11:26 am In Politics | And it’s not “Obamacare.”As important as Obamacare is to the Republicans in the midterm elections, the economy still tops everyone’s list as the number one issue facing the country.Some Democratic political consultants are advising candidates to avoid using the term “recovery” when describing the economy — for obvious reasons. This Fox News poll from January shows that 74% of Americans still think we’re in a recession. Any Democrat uttering the word “recovery” is likely to...

The Obama administration once again has punted on a final decision for the Keystone XL pipeline, announcing ahead of the holiday weekend that it is extending a key review period indefinitely -- a move that could push off a determination until after the midterm elections. Republicans, as well as red-state Democrats who want the pipeline approved, slammed the administration for the delay. "It's absolutely ridiculous that this well over five year long process is continuing for an undetermined amount of time," Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.H., said in a statement.

The U.S. economy has been in a recession since 1997. While I am not referring to the NBER’s definition of a recession (that allegedly ended in June 2009), I am talking about declining real incomes, labor force participation and M2 Money Velocity. Both labor force participation and M2 Money Velocity peaked in 1997 while real median household income peaked in 1999. And all three have been declining ever since.And to add another slap in the face to consumers, the purchasing power for consumers has been deteriorating ever since the creation of The Federal Reserve System in 1913.Once the 16 year...

<p>The women’s clothing retailer failed to find a buyer or new capital. A liquidation sale is planned.</p> <p>Women’s specialty clothing chain Coldwater Creek filed for bankruptcy on Friday and said it will close all of its stores around the country, including 11 in Minnesota.</p>

With 30 year bond yields set to close their lowest in 10 months, CNBC's Rick Santelli is concerned at the signals that the Treasury yield curve is sending.If yesterday's minutes from the Fed were supposed to walk back their 'hawkish' tone, then Santelli slams they are "gonna need a really big billboard" because the term structure is still flattening. "When 'flattening' is the theme, that is not painting a rosy outlook for the long-term economy," and as Santelli warns, this is when the Fed is pulling out of its extraordinary policies. Santelli screams, "the entire monetary policy side has to...

During his speech at the Civil Rights Summit held at the LBJ Presidential Library, former President Bill Clinton sounded a gloomy note about the current state of the economy under President Obama. Clinton, whom Obama frequently described as the “Secretary of Explaining Stuff,” pointed out that the current state of the economy made it more difficult to unite Americans politically. “It is all the more difficult today because of the economic conditions that we find ourselves, where medium family income today after inflation is still lower than it was the day I left office,” he said, adding, “where all over...

Dollar stores are feeling the pinch from mounting financial pressures on low-income shoppers.Family Dollar said Thursday that will cut jobs and close about 370 underperforming stores as it tries to reverse sagging sales and earnings. The discount store operator will also permanently lower prices on about 1,000 basic items.

The State Of The Big Four Recession Indicators Doug Short, Advisor Perspectives April 4, 2014, 6:25 PM Note from dshort: This commentary has been revised to include today's release of the March Nonfarm Employment data.Official recession calls are the responsibility of the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee, which is understandably vague about the specific indicators on which they base their decisions. This committee statement is about as close as they get to identifying their method. There is, however, a general belief that there are four big indicators that the committee weighs heavily in their cycle identification process. They are: Industrial...

Sometimes success creates a problem. That's what happened in New York City with housing and homelessness. New York's housing market is very strong. The median price for a new condo in Manhattan rose to $1.73 million during the first quarter of 2014, up more than 30.6% from the first quarter of 2013, according to a market report from the real estate firm Douglas Elliman. Across the East River, the median price for a Brooklyn home reached $570,110, up 11 percent from a year earlier. The average monthly rent in Bushwick, a central Brooklyn neighborhood, which as recently as the 1970s...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A growing number of Americans quitting the labor force are likely gone for good, offering a cautionary note to the Federal Reserve as it tries to gauge how tight the jobs market is and how quickly to raise interest rates. For a long time, data suggested a significant portion of the decrease in labor force participation was because many job seekers had grown frustrated with their search and had given up looking. If the job market tightened enough, the thinking went, these Americans would be lured back to hunt for work again.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - The U.S. unemployment rate will fall below 6 percent by the end of this year, a Federal Reserve official said on Wednesday, offering a bullish view on the country's economy after central bank comments sent shock waves through financial markets last week. James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, said that the outlook for the U.S. economy is "quite good," despite data from early in the year. "The biggest thing is that unemployment has come down more quickly than expected," said Bullard, speaking on a panel at the annual Credit Suisse investor...

If the U.S. economy is getting better, then why are major retail chains closing thousands of stores? If we truly are in an "economic recovery", then why do sales figures continue to go down for large retailers all over the country? Without a doubt, the rise of Internet retailing giants such as Amazon.com have had a huge impact. Today, there are millions of Americans that actually prefer to shop online. Personally, when I published my novel I made it solely available on Amazon. But Internet shopping alone does not account for the great retail apocalypse that we are witnessing. In...

McDonald's Corp (MCD) on Monday reported a bigger-than-expected drop in comparable global sales at established restaurants for February, hurt by competition and bad weather that battered U.S. sales.The world's biggest restaurant chain by revenue said worldwide sales at restaurants open at least 13 months fell 0.3 percent last month. That was below analysts' average estimate for a fall of 0.1 percent, according to Consensus Metrix.

(Reuters) - Staples Inc (SPLS), the largest U.S. office supplies retailer, forecast a fall in current-quarter sales as it loses customers to mass market chains and e-retailers, and the company said it would close up to 225 stores in North America by 2015. Staples' shares fell 9 percent before the bell, after the company also posted lower-than-expected fourth-quarter results and forecast current-quarter profit below analysts' estimates. The company operates 1,515 stores in the United States and 331 stores in Canada.

ROSENBERG: 'The Chances Of A Recession In The Next Year Or Two Are Close To Zero' Robert Huebscher, Advisor Perspectives Mar. 4, 2014, 10:50 AM Following a lackluster recovery that began in June 2009, many fear the U.S. is due for another recession, given that the average post-war economic expansion lasted five years. But we’re only in the “fourth or fifth inning of the business cycle,” according to David Rosenberg, who predicts growth in consumer and capital spending – and positive returns for U.S. equities. “It takes a lot to shock the U.S. economy into a recession,” Rosenberg said. None...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve should be willing to let inflation temporarily run above its target level so as to more quickly bring the economy back to health, a top Fed official said on Friday, even as a second policymaker signaled the very idea left him cold. The debate, between Chicago Fed President Charles Evans and Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser, underscored a fundamental disagreement over the central bank's optimal approach to policy under new Fed Chair Janet Yellen. To Evans, one of the Fed's most dovish policymakers, allowing inflation to run above the Fed's 2-percent target would...