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White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Jared Bernstein dismissed concerns that the economy is under-performing, saying "I can't get myself worked up over mere statistics in the GDP or CPI. Folks don't eat the GDP. The CPI includes volatile components like food, energy, and housing. If we exclude the price spikes in these areas inflation doesn't look so bad." "A key strength that our Republican critics overlook is that government spending remains robust," Bernstein added. "Under Bidenomics we're not at the mercy of private sector investments for economic growth. Their anti-social quest for increased profits is supplanted by a...

The U.S. will attend COP28 climate talks this week as it sets new records in the extraction of oil and gas. The federal government is forecasting a surge in the production of the fossil fuels this year, and output is projected to remain high until 2050. The summit opening Thursday in Dubai, meanwhile, is expected to agree on a “phaseout” of the fuels to contain planet-heating emissions. The Biden administration, while passing laws to incentivize clean energy production and curb gases, has also granted drilling leases on public lands.

The price of oil crashed on Wednesday after the UAE reportedly said it would encourage fellow OPEC members to increase oil production levels. “We favor production increases and will be encouraging OPEC to consider higher production levels,” said Yousef al-Otaiba, the UAE’s ambassador to Washington. This statement was first reported by the Financial Times.

Hurricane Ida’s disruption to the U.S. offshore energy production in the Gulf of Mexico is the worst in 16 years. It has already stressed domestic and global supply chains, further testing the Federal Reserve’s “transitory” inflation narrative. Gulf Coast hurricanes usually cause minor disruptions in offshore oil and gas production, but this time around, output from the region has been significantly reduced due to Ida’s 150 mph winds that damaged platforms and onshore support facilities. What this will mean is a long recovery for offshore energy production to return. Reuters notes 79% of the region’s offshore oil production remains offline....

OPEC+, the world's leading oil producers, have agreed on Sunday to extend a slight boost in output. The 23-member group, which also includes Russia, is now set to boost output by 400,000 barrels per day each month, starting with August. It all follows their prior agreement this spring, when they chose to boost oil output bit by bit starting in May, after having slashed it more than a year ago when the pandemic caused demand in crude to plummet. (more at link) Sunday's decision was made in order to help fuel a global economic recovery, the Vienna-based group said in...

A lot of people, including several OPEC members, thought the oil slump would be easing by now. Instead, as oil prices languish near multi-year lows and experience unprecedented volatility, it’s now unclear how long it will take oil prices to recover. Indeed, OPEC now appears poised to wait out the period of low prices even if that takes months or even a couple of years. The fact of the matter is that despite the calls of Venezuela and Algeria, Saudi Arabia and other major OPEC members don’t seem too concerned about the current low prices. Venezuela in particular has been...

I found some statistics for raw steel production in "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" by Paul Kennedy. Page 200, Table 15.

The productivity of U.S. businesses climbed 3.1% in the third quarter...Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had expected productivity to increase by 3.7% in the third quarter... ...real output, grew at an annual rate of 3.8%...Hours worked, however, rose a much smaller 0.6%, according to Labor Department data released Thursday. As a result, unit-labor costs fell 2.4%...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The output of the nation’s factories, mines and utilities surged 0.9% in July as auto assemblies rebounded and consumers turned on their air conditioners, the Federal Reserve said Tuesday. The gain, the biggest since last December, was in line with economists’ expectations. The key question is whether the increase can be sustained in future months. Output in June was revised up to a 0.4% gain from the prior estimate of a 0.2% gain and output in May was also revised higher.

As the high cost of gasoline takes a toll on politics and pocket books, President Barack Obama said Tuesday he is calling on major oil producers such as Saudi Arabia to increase their oil supplies to help stabilize prices, warning starkly that lack of relief would harm the global economy. "We are in a lot of conversations with the major oil producers like Saudi Arabia to let them know that it's not going to be good for them if our economy is hobbled because of high oil prices," Obama told a Detroit TV station. His remarks signaled a broad new...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — U.S. industrial production rose a solid 0.8% in March, with broad-based gains across sectors, the Federal Reserve reported Friday . It was the fifth straight gain in factory output, as manufacturing continues to lead the economy. The increase was a modest upside surprise as economists were expecting a 0.6% gain. In the first quarter, industrial output rose at a 6% annual rate, faster than the 3.2% rate in the final three months of 2010.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Core U.S. producer prices recorded their largest fall in more than four years in October and industrial output was flat, underlining concerns at the Federal Reserve about low inflation amid moderate growth. Economists said the data supported the U.S. central bank's November 3 decision to ease monetary policy further even though the 0.6 percent drop in the core Producer Price Index largely reflected the annual introduction of new motor vehicle models. Stripping out the sharp declines in vehicle prices, core producer prices -- which exclude volatile food and energy costs -- would have risen by 0.2 percent,...

August Industrial Production Misses Expectations Vincent Fernando, CFA Sep. 15, 2010, 9:16 AM U.S. industrial production rose by 0.2% in August vs. 0.3% expected according to Finviz. July's industrial production growth was also revised down to 0.6% from 1%. Federal Reserve: The downward revision in July primarily resulted from newly available data on the output of four industries within manufacturing: iron and steel, construction machinery, paper, and pharmaceuticals. The index for manufacturing output rose 0.2 percent in August after having advanced 0.7 percent in July; the step-down in the rate of increase reflected a fallback in the production of motor...

Japan Factory Output Jumps, Momentum In Doubt Stanley White Mon Dec 28, 2009 2:46am ESTTOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's industrial output rose for the ninth consecutive month in November, driven by strong exports and domestic subsidies, but swelling inventories and falling wages threaten to end the longest climb in more than 12 years. Demand from the United States and Asia contributed much to last month's 2.6 percent rise, government data showed on Monday, supporting the Bank of Japan's view that the world's second-largest economy will continue its moderate recovery next year. Economists say overseas demand should prevent a return to recession...

(IsraelNN.com) Empire Kosher Poultry announced on Sunday that it will increase its output of kosher chicken more than 100,000 birds or 50%, as of November 24, according to Yeshiva World News. The announcement follows recent reports of a widespread shortage of kosher poultry. It's the second increase in production for Empire this year, the previous, smaller one also addressing concerns about reduced supply conditions in the marketplace. Empire also announced that starting November 24, it will reduce the price of fresh chicken cutlets (skinless and boneless chicken breast) by at least 10%.

‘Opec may cut output to defend $80 a barrel’ Posted online: Saturday , February 09, 2008 at 0114 hrs Feb 8The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) may cut crude production when it meets next month to keep the price above $80 a barrel, oil ministry officials from four of the group's nations said. Prices of at least $85 would likely lead to no change in supplies when ministers gather March 5 in Vienna, said two of the four officials, who asked not to be identified because Opec's deliberations are private. A third said $80 a barrel would be a...

SAUDI Arabia, the world’s largest oil producer, is planning to boost future production capacity by 1.5m barrels a day to counter potential supply disruptions expected from Iran, Venezuela and Iraq. The Kingdom, which owns 25% of the world’s proven reserves, has previously said production capacity would be sustained at 12m barrels. But in a private briefing to investment bankers on Thursday, executives at Lehman Brothers in London were told by representatives of the Kingdom that the revised figure for production will be up to 13.5m barrels a day by 2011. They were presented with an “updated assessment” document entitled Saudi...

Changes in the Sun's brightness over the past millennium have had only a small effect on Earth's climate, according to a review of existing results and new calculations performed by researchers in the United States, Switzerland, and Germany. The review, led by Peter Foukal (Heliophysics, Inc.), appears in the September 14 issue of Nature. Among the coauthors is Tom Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. NCAR's primary sponsor is the National Science Foundation. "Our results imply that, over the past century, climate change due to human influences must far outweigh the effects of changes in the Sun's brightness,"...

EARTH'S natural radioactivity has been measured for the first time. The measurement will help geologists find out to what extent nuclear decay is responsible for the immense quantity of heat generated by Earth. Our planet's heat output drives the convection currents that churn liquid iron in the outer core, giving rise to Earth's magnetic field. Just where this heat comes from is a big question. Measurements of the temperature gradients across rocks in mines and boreholes have led geologists to estimate that the planet is internally generating between 30 and 44 terawatts of heat. Some of this heat comes from...

VIENNA, Austria - Homeowners hoping for a break on high winter heating bills got no reassurance Saturday from OPEC (news - web sites), whose members arriving for a key meeting expressed little alarm at prices hovering around the $50 a barrel mark. Most member countries see no need to change oil output and none is arguing for cuts despite concerns about the high prices and an oversupply, said Sheik Ahmad Fahd al-Ahmad al-Sabah, Kuwait's oil minister and the president of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. "Almost all the members support the idea to keep the same ceiling of our...