Free Republic

A new Business First study shows that the Buffalo area has lost 35,600 manufacturing jobs in the past 10 years. That means, on average, that 300 manufacturing jobs are disappearing from Erie and Niagara County every week -- roughly 10 every day. We’re not alone, of course. Ninety-eight of the nation’s 100 biggest markets have fewer manufacturing jobs now than they did a decade ago. Six have lost more than 100,000 positions. The database below has the complete breakdowns for all 100 of those metros. You can sort the list by any column just by clicking the appropriate header. Additional...

"... to win over Senate Democrats, Mr. Bush both phased in the tax rate reductions and settled for politically popular but economically feckless tax rebate checks." "...Mr. Bush's spending record is less admirable, especially during his first term. He indulged the majority Republicans on Capitol Hill, refusing to veto overspending ..."

Last week, assembled at Miami’s InterContinental Hotel for a meeting of the Republican Governors Association, the governors seemed cheerful. The G.O.P. had lost only one statehouse on Election Day. The prospects for a Republican pickup in Virginia in 2009 were decent, and good candidates were plotting runs in states like California, Pennsylvania and Ohio in 2010. There was even a sense of liberation in the air. For the last 14 years, there has been either a Republican Congress or a Republican White House, or sometimes both. Now the Republican governors are free of those heavy taps on the shoulder from...

DOW currently down 561 points.

U.S. stock futures are pulling off their lows as an employment reading shows that the private sector added jobs last month. The ADP National Employment Report arriving Wednesday shows that the private sector added 40,000 jobs in May, rather than declined by 60,000 as economists had been expecting, according to Dow Jones Newswires. Dow Jones industrial average futures are down 20, or 0.16 percent, at 12,384, off their earlier lows.

WASHINGTON - The economy plodded ahead at a 0.9 percent pace in the first quarter — slightly better than first estimated — but still underscoring caution on the part of consumers and businesses walloped by housing, credit and financial problems. The new reading on gross domestic product, released by the Commerce Department on Thursday, was an improvement from the government’s initial growth estimate for the January-to-March quarter as well as the economy’s performance in the final quarter of last year. Both periods were pegged at a 0.6 percent growth rate. Gross domestic product, or GDP, measures the value of all...

Sales of new homes rose in April for the first time in six months although the unexpected increase still left activity near the lowest level in 17 years. ADVERTISEMENT The Commerce Department reported Tuesday that sales of new homes rose 3.3 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 526,000 units. But the government revised March activity lower to show an even bigger drop of 11 percent to an annual rate of 509,000, which was the weakest pace for sales since April 1991. Economists believe that new home sales will remain weak for some time as the housing...

ASSOCIATED PRESS - Construction of new homes posted the biggest increase in more than two years in April. While it was a rare bit of good news for the housing market, analysts said it's far too soon to declare an end to the extensive slump. The Commerce Department reported yesterday that housing construction rose by 8.2 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.03 million units. Building of single-family homes continued to weaken, however. The growth came from a big jump in apartment construction. Analysts predicted the surprising rebound in April would be temporary given the headwinds...

Initial construction of U.S. homes rose unexpectedly in April, according to a government report released Friday. Privately owned housing starts rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,032,000 in April, according to the Commerce Department. The rate was up 8.2% from March's revised reading of 954,000 but 30.6% lower than April of 2007. Economists were expecting housing starts to decline to 940,000, according to consensus estimates compiled by Briefing.com. Construction of new single-family homes, however, was at a rate of 692,000 in April, or 1.7% below March's number. That is the lowest reading of that measure since January 1991....

Whatever happened to the Great Depression? Not the real one from 70 years ago, the lost decade of unimagined misery and Steinbeckian angst, the worst period in the history of modern capitalism. I mean the replay we were promised this year. The one we were told was the inevitable counterpart to the greatest financial crisis since a couple of medieval Italians first sat down on a Florentine bench and invented the word “bank”. I don’t know about you but I feel a bit cheated. There we all were, led to believe by so many commentators that the sub-prime crisis was...

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...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The economy showed off unexpected signs of resilience Friday as job losses slowed, the dollar gained a bit of muscle for a change and there were even indications that food prices may be easing. The unemployment rate dipped, though that may not last. The latest barometers flashed encouraging signs that the economic slowdown may not be as pronounced as some had feared. Still, there's much caution -- about housing, credit and other problems. "Economic or financial conditions could take an unexpected stumble at any time," warned Stephen Stanley, chief economist at RBS Greenwich Capital. Employers eliminated 20,000...

Employers trimmed a less-than-expected 20,000 jobs in April, marking the 4th straight month of losses; unemployment falls to 5%.

I once heard Rush Limbaugh say the way he deals with a recession is to “not participate in it.” Today we found out that in our current so-called recession, the economy itself is not participating. You’ve heard, of course, about the “recession.” The Associated Press has been referring to it as an established fact for much of the year. Every day, we see interviews with economists who grimly warn that we are surely already in a recession. The only debate is how bad it will get. Oops. Some facts just arrived, and they’re not what the media, the economists and...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Employers made their deepest cut in staffing in almost five years in February, the Labor Department reported Friday. There was a net loss of 63,000 jobs, which is the biggest decline since March 2003 and weaker than the revised 22,000 jobs lost in January. Economists had forecast a gain of 25,000 jobs. The weak report fueled already mounting recession fears and is likely to keep the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates further when it meets later this month. "Based on today's Employment Report, if we are not in a recession, it is a darned good imitation...

Labor Department: Non-Farm Payrolls Drop 17,000 in January; Unemployment at 4.9%

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Amid new worries about a possible recession, the housing slump and rising oil prices, President Bush is exploring an economic stimulus package to reinforce the U.S. economy. White House press secretary Dana Perino said Thursday that Bush is closely monitoring economic trends and is seeking input from his economic advisers on the pros and cons of such a package. "The president has indicated that he will not make up his mind as to whether or not to lay out a package until the State of the Union," Perino said about the president's speech on Jan. 28. "Our...

Orders to U.S. factories jumped in November by the largest amount in four months, but a key gauge of business investment fell for a second straight month, raising new worries about the strength of manufacturing. The Commerce Department reported Thursday that orders for manufactured goods rose by 1.5 percent in November, but the increase was driven by a big jump in demand for oil, reflecting surging prices. Demand for big-ticket durable goods actually fell by 0.1 percent in November

Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. is ending 2007 with a whine rather than a whimper. It is tough to keep track of what's collapsing faster, home prices or the dollar, and the financial market crisis caused by it has many seers talking recession as we enter 2008. As always, that delicious negativity receives the lion's share of media attention. But, in many ways, this past year was a pretty good one, and no, I am not just a talking about Boston's sports fans. Thus, to ring in the New Year, I present the Top 10 pieces of happy economic...

Consumers put aside worries about slumping home sales and soaring gasoline prices and headed to the malls last month, pushing spending up by the largest amount in 3½ years. The better-than-expected surge lessened fears of an imminent recession. The Commerce Department reported yesterday that consumer spending shot up 1.1 percent last month, nearly triple October's gain. It was the biggest one-month jump since a 1.2 percent rise in May 2004 and was significantly higher than the 0.7 percent gain analysts had expected. Incomes were also up last month, but the 0.4 percent increase was far below the rise in spending....