Free Republic

The Institute for Supply Management said its national factory activity index fell to 52.7 last month from a reading of 53.5 in June. A reading above 50 indicates expansion in the manufacturing sector. A gauge of new orders received by factories rose to a seven-month high, while inventories continued to decline. There was growth in 11 of the 18 manufacturing industries, including furniture, fabricated metal products, electrical equipment, appliances and components, and transportation equipment. Five industries including machinery reported that production had contracted in July. Manufacturing has been hobbled by a strong dollar, which has pressured the profits of multinational...

Canada is in recession. Canadian GDP unexpectedly fell 0.2% in May. This was worse than the 0.0% expected by economists. "The economy has contracted in 6 out of the last 7 months," BNP's Derek Lindsay noted. The resource rich economy has felt the crushing pain of falling commodity prices as global demand for raw materials has decelerated. And relief doesn't seem to be coming any time soon. "We continue to see falling commodities prices weighing heavily on the economy, with mining, utilities, and manufacturing presenting biggest drags on the goods side," Lindsay said. And this probably means more easy monetary...

(Reuters) - Procter & Gamble Co (PG.N) reported its sixth straight quarter of falling sales, hurt mainly by the stronger dollar. Even after stripping out the impact of the dollar and acquisitions, sales rose just 1 percent, raising concerns about the slow pace at which P&G is turning around its business. The company's shares fell as much as 4.3 percent in morning trading on Thursday, after it said sales would fall by a low-to-mid single-digit percentage in the year ending June 2016.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. economy grew more slowly over the past three years than the government had previously estimated, held back by more frugal consumers and steeper spending cuts by state and local governments. Related Stories 1. US economy likely rebounded to solid growth rate in spring Associated Press 2. China’s Stocks Drop for Second Day Before Economic Growth Data Bloomberg 3. Services, Finance and Oil Drive U.K. Growth to 0.7% Bloomberg 4. China June exports up 2.8 percent, imports down 6.1 percent Associated Press 5. Singapore Economy Contracts Most Since 2012 on Manufacturing Bloomberg The economy expanded at...

With the rise of flexible working schedules, the freelance economy, and video conferencing, more Americans are getting their jobs done without ever heading into an office, according to new data from the American Time Use Survey released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Among all workers, 23% report spending all or part of their day working from home. That’s up from less than 19% in 2003, the first year for which there’s comparable data.

China's central bank cut lending rates for the fourth time since November and trimmed the amount of cash that some banks must hold as reserves, stepping up efforts to support an economy that is headed for its poorest performance in a quarter century. Saturday's combined easing highlights Beijing's concerns that money isn't flowing to some of the most-needed sectors in the economy and that stubbornly high borrowing costs that could fuel bankruptcies and job losses. The last time the central bank simultaneously cut interest rates and reserve requirements was at the height of the global financial crisis in late 2008....

In America, when friends learn that a woman is being abused by her husband or boyfriend, what do they do? They stage an intervention, help her find a lawyer, get a restraining order, get her out of there… as fast as possible. When a son or daughter learns that an elderly parent is receiving bad care at a nursing home, what do they do? Pack up Dad’s or Mom’s stuff, help them move to a better, safer place, file a complaint with the state’s attorney or the board of health, press charges, but first and foremost, get them out of...

The U.S. economy contracted at an inflation-adjusted 0.7 percent in the first quarter, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reports in its latest update. The bad news flies in the face of economic projections by the U.S. Federal Reserve, which had been predicting 2.6 to 3 percent growth for 2015 in December. That was downgraded to 2.3 percent to 2.7 percent in March. That had been considered a weak outlook at the time, with the economy not getting above 3 percent any time soon. And now, just to get to that modest 2.3 percent for the year, the economy will need...

James Pethokoukis American Enterprise InstituteJune 5, 2015,a>nonfarm payrolls,American Enterprise Institute  That negative first-quarter GDP report now seems far less worrisome and far more an outlier than it did initially. Recently Goldman Sachs said “that given the uncertainty around GDP it is better to focus on other indicators—especially employment—to gauge the cumulative progress of the recovery and the remaining amount of slack.” By that measure, the U.S. economic recovery continues to plow forward after a slight early-year stumble. Nonfarm payrolls increased 280,000 in May, the largest gain since December, the Labor Department said this morning. Although the unemployment rate rose...

Anxiety over financial stability and shadow banking risks appear to have force Christine Lagarde and her fellow extrapolators to hit the panic button: -IMF CUTS U.S. 2015 GROWTH FORECAST TO 2.5% FROM 3.1% -FED SHOULD WAIT FOR TANGIBLE SIGNS OF WAGE, PRICE GAINS: IMF -DOLLAR `MODERATELY OVERVALUED, CURBING U.S. GROWTH, JOBS: IMF -IMF URGES FED TO DELAY FIRST RATE INCREASE UNTIL 1H 2016 Adding that they viewed the Dollar as "moderately overvalued" and any more appreciation would be "harmful," it seems global disinflationary pressures have left the IMF no choice but to say publicly what everyone has uttered under their...

Unprecedented! The U.S. economy has failed to thrive under Big GuyÂ’s careful care and tending. First Quarter growth, originally reported to have at the robust pace of 0.2% in the first quarter, actually {{{horrors!}}} shrunk by 0.7%. That was far worse than the agencyÂ’s initial estimate that showed 0.2% growth, marking an abrupt reversal from the prior nine months when growth surged and the economy appeared on the verge of a long-delayed breakout.Long-delayed indeed: the recovery we've HOPEd for has been lurking around the corner for 6 years now. Yes, thereÂ’s light at the end of the tunnel, letÂ’s hope...

If there was any time for American consumers to feel good, it would be this moment. Job growth is brisk. Paychecks are finally nudging up. And a surprise drop in gas prices has given the average household an extra $700 a year. But six years after the end of the Great Recession, Americans are startlingly anxious about their economic prospects. They are sitting on their money in a way that suggests that the consumer psychology may have fundamentally changed, with people less willing to spend than they were during other periods of economic prosperity. Government data released Friday showed that...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. economy went into reverse in the first three months of this year as a severe winter and a widening trade deficit took a harsher toll than initially estimated. The Commerce Department says the overall economy as measured by the gross domestic product contracted at an annual rate of 0.7 percent in the January-March period. The revised figure, even weaker than the government's initial estimate of a 0.2 percent growth rate, reflects a bigger trade gap and slower consumer spending. It marked the first decline since a 2.1 percent contraction in the first three months of...

We're about to get some terrible news about the US economy. Sort of. On Friday morning at 8:30 a.m. ET, the Bureau of Economic Analysis will release its second estimate of first quarter GDP, which is expected to show the economy contracted 0.8% in the first quarter. The initial reading on first quarter GDP, released on April 29, showed the economy grew just 0.2%. Ahead of that report, Wall Street expected the economy grew 1% to start 2015. Subsequent data, however, showed that the economy was likely even weaker than first estimated to start the year. Some economists, however, either...

The world economy is disturbingly close to stall speed. The United Nations has cut its global growth forecast for this year to 2.8pc, the latest of the multinational bodies to retreat. It leaves a thin safety buffer against any economic shock - most potently if China abandons its crawling dollar peg and resorts to 'beggar-thy-neighbour' policies, transmitting a further deflationary shock across the global economy. ... Each of the past four US recoveries has been weaker than the last one. The average growth rate has fallen from 4.5pc in the early 1980s to nearer 2pc this time. ... The US...

First-time claims for state unemployment benefits were expected to total 271,000 in the most recent week, up from 264,000 reported a week earlier.

At a time when 8.5 million Americans still don't have jobs, some 40 percent have given up even looking. The revelation, contained in a new survey Wednesday showing how much work needs to be done yet in the U.S. labor market, comes as the labor force participation rate remains mired near 37-year lows. A tight jobs market, the skills gap between what employers want and what prospective employees have to offer, and a benefits program that, while curtailed from its recession level, still remains obliging have combined to keep workers on the sidelines, according to a Harris poll of 1,553...

As the financial crisis of 2008 took shape, the policy recommendations were not slow in coming: why, economic stability and American prosperity demand fiscal and monetary stimulus to jump-start the sick economy back to life. And so we got fiscal stimulus, as well as a program of monetary expansion without precedent in US history. David Stockman recently noted that we have in effect had fifteen solid years of stimulus — not just the high-profile programs like the $700 billion TARP and the $800 billion in fiscal stimulus, but also $4 trillion of money printing and 165 out of 180 months...

Coming on the heels of weak retail sales and producer inflation data, the reports stoked concerns that the U.S. economy is hardly gaining momentum after disappointing 0.2 percent annualized growth in January-March. "U.S. GDP will likely be revised down in the next update to show a contraction. We estimate the U.S. economy shrank 0.9 percent," said Shuji Shirota, head of macro economics strategy group at HSBC in Tokyo.

About 10% of adults of working age have at best marginal ties with the economy ___ Last month, when Baltimore was burning after a young African-American man died in police custody (six officers were subsequently charged), I did a Google search to find what David Simon thought about it. Simon, a former reporter for the Baltimore Sun, was the creator and show runner of “The Wire,” which ran for five seasons on HBO and which Entertainment Weekly called the greatest television show ever. It was a brilliant narrative of the struggle for survival in a violent, drug-riddled Baltimore neighborhood much...