In a prelude to next year's general election, politicians put on a costly show this summer. After a lengthy debate--one that could easily have been mistaken for a farce--Congress raised the federal debt ceiling at the very last minute.
Download the NewsletterVolume: 19 - Number: 3
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Special Topic Title: Washington Aluminum Industry
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Economists expressed disappointment when the government announced that real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) advanced at a tepid 1.8 percent annual rate in the first quarter of 2011. And business pundits ran on about the U.S. economy adding only 54,000 jobs in May. But we should resist making too much of this.
Download the NewsletterVolume: 19 - Number: 2
Leading Index Title:
Special Topic Title: Washington Input-Output Table
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The Great Recession may be over, but it continues to cause suffering. Fifteen million people remain unemployed in the nation...An unfortunate characteristic of economic recoveries is that they occur in stages. Business output typically expands months before employers resume hiring.
Download the NewsletterVolume: 19 - Number: 1
Leading Index Title:
Special Topic Title: Apportionment
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The Long Goodbye, a Robert Altman movie starring Elliot Gould as Detective Philip Marlowe, got mixed reviews. The Great Recession's version of The Long Goodbye deserves to be slammed.
Download the NewsletterVolume: 18 - Number: 4
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Special Topic Title: Washington Agriculture
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Last year, we said that the end of the recession was in sight. Technically, we were right. U.S. real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has advanced without interruption since mid-2009. However, job growth is still sluggish and the unemployment rate remains high.
Download the NewsletterVolume: 18 - Number: 3
Leading Index Title:
Special Topic Title: Tricks of the Trade
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Recessions and recoveries come in all shapes and sizes. The Boeing Bust (1969-71) was a classic V-shaped recession.
Download the NewsletterVolume: 18 - Number: 2
Leading Index Title:
Special Topic Title: Federal Debt
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At the end of a recession, when the economy is in flux, numbers can get squirrely...Keeping in mind the shakiness of preliminary job estimates, there was potentially goods news in ESD's March labor report.
Download the NewsletterVolume: 18 - Number: 1
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Special Topic Title: South Carolina
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Economists have not given up forecasting recessions, but maybe they should...Forecasting recoveries, on the other hand, seems to be a piece of cake.
Download the NewsletterVolume: 17 - Number: 4
Leading Index Title:
Special Topic Title: Regional Forecasting
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This decade has been "just one damn thing after another." Who would have imagined our string of bad luck: the dot-com implosion, 9/11, the housing bubble and credit crunch, and soaring energy prices? Or was it bad luck?
Download the NewsletterVolume: 17 - Number: 3
Leading Index Title:
Special Topic Title: Washington Tax Structure
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We can gauge a recession in several ways--the decline in real Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the number of lost jobs, and the rise in unemployment. An interesting alternative is to express it in terms of time.
Download the NewsletterVolume: 17 - Number: 2
Leading Index Title:
Special Topic Title: Washington Tax Structure
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