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DETROIT (AP) - Tight credit, economic worries and high gasoline prices combined to cut automakers' U.S. sales once again in September, with beleaguered Ford Motor Co. reporting a 34 percent decline from the same month last year. It was Ford's worst sales month this year, and the results are a strong indication that analysts' forecasts of another dismal month will come true. General Motors Corp.'s sales drop was a less severe 16 percent, mostly thanks to an offer of employee pricing on most of its vehicles. Hyundai Motor Co., whose single-digit sales decline this year has looked like a success...

The Clinton administration helped create the financial crisis we are experiencing today. The Clinton administration with the usual Democrat players botched the economy beginning in the early 1990's.

Recessions don't usually look like this, at least when it comes to productivity. In the six U.S. recessions since 1970, worker productivity, or output per hour, grew a sluggish 0.8%, on average. But since the end of last year, even amid economic weakness, productivity is estimated to have grown an average 2.5% at an annual rate. That defies productivity's usual behavior of going "up in good times and down in bad times," says Georgia State University forecaster Rajeev Dhawan. Productivity's path isn't just an academic debate. That productivity is staying strong even in bad times has big implications for economic...

"It’s the economy stupid". Unfortunately there are additional elements affecting the U.S. and global markets besides the recessionary economic trend. As the U.S. economy goes, so go the economies of it’s trading partners globally. The U.S. is the consumer of the world and if the U.S. consumer does not buy, it’s trading partners do not sell. It is as simple as that. I have been almost annoying in my admonition for the past year that the U.S. economy was headed for recession. It has arrived with a vengeance. I am no longer the "lone voice in the wilderness" as others...

After last Friday's announcement of the third consecutive drop in US employment figures, following hot on the heels of Ben Bernanke's admission that the American economy is already in recession - or more precisely that “a recession is possible ... there's a chance that for the first half as a whole, there might be a slight contraction” - I am probably the only economist left in the world who still believes that a US recession is likely to be avoided. Obviously, I drew some encouragement for this view from the surprisingly decent ISM index, which triggered the huge rally in...

MIAMI (Reuters) - China's growing wealth is good for the world, and there will come a time when the influence of the United States shrinks to the level of its share of the world population, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said on Friday. ADVERTISEMENT Asked at a meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank in Miami whether he regarded China's growing influence in Latin America as a threat, Gates, one of the world's richest people, said not at all. "The fact that China is getting rich is overall a very good thing. The fact that more minds are getting educated is huge....

The president is keeping a very low profile on Tibet as the crackdown on Tibetan demonstrators continues. No wonder. China has allowed George W. Bush to make war in Iraq without new taxes. The U.S. government is hostage to China's central bank. In addition to $388 billion in U.S. Treasury securities, China, according to Congressional Research Service, holds another $310 billion of American public and corporate securities

Ford also wants to close the books this year on 11 former Visteon Corp. plants that it took back from its former parts-making arm, which was spun off as a separate company in 2000. About 5,200 workers at the plants are eligible to take jobs at factories that Ford plans to keep, although Ford is offering incentives for them to stay with the new owners. Ford plans to sell or close the plants -- 10 in the U.S. and one in Mexico -- by the end of the year.

For the last three years, China has been the financier that kept the American government well funded. In 2004, it bought a fifth of the Treasury securities issued, a proportion that rose to 30 percent in 2005 and to 36 percent in 2006. But according to United States government figures, China reversed course in 2007 and has become a net seller of Treasury securities. The Treasury said this week that China had $388 billion in Treasuries at the end of October, slightly less than it had at the end of 2006.

<p>Cheers to Small Business: I Refuse to Be a 'Doomsday Diva'</p> <p>Last week in New York City, I participated in an important summit of business leaders where we explored the “Outlook for 2008.” We identified the key priorities and needs to keep the U.S. entrepreneurial sector strong and competitive.</p>

Today is Thanksgiving, the day when, as the first Congress proclaimed in 1777, Americans "may express the grateful Feelings of their Hearts". But those with an eye on the economy would be forgiven if, this year, they felt a little miffed with their lot. ... When four things come together, [John.Stussman] argues, it suggests that recession is near. They are widening credit spreads, a moderate or flat yield curve, falling stock prices and a contraction in manufacturing activity, as measured by the purchasing managers’ index (PMI). On each criterion, America is in trouble. The first red light is a widening...

And that integration has benefits for the United States. Cheap Chinese exports have helped keep inflation low, and China's purchase of treasury bonds has helped finance American debt.

Norway's oil-fuelled economic growth has outpaced all other western countries durng the past four years, and statistics experts think the good times will keep on rolling.

President Bush yesterday said Americans will soon realize they need the immigrants and foreign temporary workers that would have been allowed by his immigration bill, which was defeated in the Senate last month. Mr. Bush, in a town hall session in Nashville, Tenn., also refused to say whether he will pardon two U.S. Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a fleeing drug-smuggling suspect, saying the prosecutor was a friend of his who made his case to the jury that convicted the agents. If Mr. Bush was hoping the immigration issue would disappear after his bill's failure, those hopes were dashed,...

Yesterday, the pound and the euro hit their highest levels in a generation against the US dollar. The dollar, meanwhile, collapsed to a record low against an average of all the world’s major currencies. It is tempting to interpret the flight from the dollar in financial markets as the clearest, most objective, indicator of America’s relative decline. Europe has long been derided as an ageing, sclerotic continent, doomed to irrelevance in a world dominated by America and Asia. But could it actually be America, not Europe, that is failing to compete in the globalised world economy and is now threatened...

SHANGHAI, China --It may come as a surprise to many Americans, but their retirement security may depend in large measure on China's development of capital markets and the willingness of Chinese savers to buy the stocks and bonds that baby boomers will unload in coming years.

The results of the 2007 edition of IMD’s World Competitiveness Yearbook highlight a big shake-up in economic and business power. Emerging nations are quickly catching up in competitiveness. New companies and new brands are appearing all over the world. They now contest the long-standing competitive supremacy of industrialized nations. “This could lead to an increase in protectionist measures in Europe and the US”, says Professor Stéphane Garelli, Director of IMD’s World Competitiveness Center. Of the 55 economies ranked by IMD, the US still ranks No. 1 in 2007, closely followed by Singapore and Hong Kong. However, 40 economies are now...

The United States remains the world's most competitive economy but China is gaining ground, the Swiss-based International Institute for Management Development (IMD) said on Thursday.

Construction of new homes rebounded in February after a big decline in the previous month, but building permits slid further, indicating more problems down the road for the troubled housing industry. The Commerce Department reported that construction of new homes and apartments rose by 9 percent in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.525 million units. That represented a better-than-expected rebound after construction activity had plunged by 14.3 percent in January to the slowest pace in more than nine years. But builders' applications for new permits, considered a more reliable gauge of future activity, continued falling in February,...

The politics of bulls and bears How does the U.S. Media describe the economy? It depends on who's president David Frum National Post Saturday, February 03, 2007 Want to get rich in the American stock market? Here's some advice: Don't watch the news. I'm not being facetious here. One of the iron laws of U.S. news reporting is that the economy gets positive reviews under Democratic presidents and negative reviews under Republican presidents. In 2004, the Virginia-based Media Research Center (MRC) produced a stark summary of the disparity. In 1996, Bill Clinton ran for reelection as president. The U.S....

Tuesday, December 26, 2006 Everybody knows that the loss of huge portions of their home U.S. market to imports has decimated U.S.-owned automakers Ford and GM (as well as Chrysler, which is no longer U.S.-owned, but shares many of Detroit’s biggest problems). What everybody doesn’t know is that literally dozens of U.S.-based manufacturing industries have suffered the same kinds of losses since the late 1990s. The clear bottom line, as revealed by the U.S. Business & Industry Council’s latest annual survey of domestic manufacturing’s competitiveness: The United States is a military superpower, but is steadily becoming an industrial also-ran. The...

Housing's collapsed, but consumers, businesses keep doing their thing WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- This is what an economic soft landing looks and feels like. This is what the Federal Reserve has been working for. The economy downshifted to its slowest growth in three years during the third quarter, expanding at a tepid 1.6% annual rate, the Commerce Department said. It's about half the growth rate that most economists think is sustainable. See full story. But it's still moving forward. Consumer price inflation has now grown at an uncomfortable 2.4% over the past year, the fastest pace since 1995 -- which, not...

What's Really Propping Up The Economy Since 2001, the health-care industry has added 1.7 million jobs. The rest of the private sector? None ----------------------------------------- If you really want to understand what makes the U.S. economy tick these days, don't go to Silicon Valley, Wall Street, or Washington. Just take a short trip to your local hospital. Park where you don't block the ambulances, and watch the unending flow of doctors, nurses, technicians, and support personnel. You'll have a front-row seat at the health-care economy. For years, everyone from politicians on both sides of the aisle to corporate execs to your...

.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has launched a review of disaster planning for the financial markets, the Financial Times reported on Saturday. The move was prompted by concerns about Wall Street's ability to withstand a terrorist attack, natural disaster or flu pandemic, the newspaper said. In one of his first acts in the post, the FT said Paulson had asked the president's working group on financial markets to assess the improvements made since the September 11 attacks on the United States five years ago. The FT said there was continued Wall Street concern about the resilience of power and telecommunications...

Mr. Bush signed the most recent tax cuts into law in the spring of 2003. In the past 33 months the size of America's entire economy has increased by 20%--or, as National Review Online's Larry Kudlow put it, "In less than three years, the U.S. economic pie has expanded by $2.2 trillion, an output add-on that is roughly the same size as the total Chinese economy." In the 2 1/4 years before the 2003 tax cuts, economic growth averaged 1.1% annually; in the three years since it has averaged 4% per year, and in the first quarter of this year...

Gerard Jackson BrookesNews.Com Monday 24 July 2006 That Wall Street has no understanding of what drives economies was made abundantly clear by its rampant confusion in late 2000 when it became obvious that the US economy was tanking. Whenever the economy slows slowdown or contracts Wall Street immediately targets consumer spending as the culprit. When the US economy booms, consumer spending is applauded as the saviour. The result is that eyeing consumer spending means that other trends are either misunderstood or largely ignored. Economic folklore — and that’s all it is — on Wall Street and in the mainstream media...

High gas prices are annoying, certainly topping many people's collection of the most frustrating aspects of modern life. In this natural frustration, many people are seduced by populist rhetoric about the need for price controls and other such interventionist nonsense. Before you also fall for this unfortunate trap, do yourself (and your country) a favor by recognizing the true effect and significance of high gas prices.

(CBS/AP) The board of Renault SA on Monday approved opening talks with General Motors Corp. over a possible new alliance with the French automaker and Nissan Motor Co. if the U.S. company wants the discussions, Renault said. "The Board of Directors approved the position proposed Carlos Ghosn: Exploratory discussions with General Motors concerning a potential alliance could start if General Motors Corp. makes the proposal," the brief Renault statement said. Ghosn is the CEO of both Renault and Nissan. Ghosn is considered the world's most successful auto executive, reports CBS News correspondent Barry Petersen. He runs Renault in France as...

High gas prices are annoying, certainly topping many people's collection of the most frustrating aspects of modern life. In this natural frustration, many people are seduced by populist rhetoric about the need for price controls and other such interventionist nonsense. Before you also fall for this unfortunate trap, do yourself (and your country) a favor by recognizing the true effect and significance of high gas prices.

Readers often ask if economic history is particularly important. No it is not — it is vitally important. When we examine, for example, the bodies of past recessions (or depressions as they should be called) we are in fact carrying out post-mortems. But if we are to successfully determine the cause of death we need to apply the appropriate analytical tools. America’s last recession caused some observers to note that it bore a striking resemblance to the nineteenth classical boom-and-bust situation. What passed them by is that this has always been the case. Examining the Clinton boom will tell us...

The May payroll jobs report released June 2 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics confirms the jobs pattern for the 21st century U.S. economy: Employment growth is limited to domestic services. In May, the economy created only 67,000 private sector jobs. Job estimates for the previous two months were reduced by 37,000. The new jobs are as follows: Professional and business services, 27,000; education and health services, 41,000; waitresses and bartenders, 10,000. Manufacturing lost 14,000 jobs. Total hours worked in the private sector declined in May. Manufacturing hours worked are 6.6 percent less than when the recovery began four-and-one-half years...

Why do financially pushy parents want their children to marry doctors? Because, as Willie Sutton said of banks, that is where the money is. Top Paying JobsWonder why your parents wanted you to become a doctor? Nine of the top ten highest paying jobs are in the medical field. Surgeon Anesthesiologists Obstetricians & Gynecologists More of the 25 Highest Paying Jobs The medical profession dominates the top end of our list of the 25 best and worst paying jobs in America. Surgeons are No. 1, with the next seven spots taken by various sorts of specialist practitioners. Chief executives, at...

The debate in Washington over reforming America's immigration laws has produced not only heated rhetoric but a few fantastic claims. Few are wilder than a prediction from a well-known think-tank that the reform bill just passed by the Senate will result in 103 million legal immigrants to the United States during the next 20 years. In a "Web Memo" from the Heritage Foundation, author Robert Rector claims that the Hagel-Martinez immigration bill (S. 2611) would unleash a flood of chain migration that would overwhelm America's capacity to absorb so many people. He calculates that the bill would not only allow...

A SURGE in tax revenues have put the Bush administration years ahead of schedule in a bid to halve the nation's budget gap by 2009, US Treasury Secretary John Snow said today. "We've been going the right way since the tax cuts took effect," Mr Snow said, referring to tax reductions passed in 2003. "Prior to the time the tax cuts took effect, growth was much weaker, business investment was declining, job creation was weal and now we've seen ... 12 straight quarters of growth," Mr Snow said at a news conference. He said federal receipts were surging as a...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. economy grew at its strongest rate in 2-1/2 years during the first three months of this year, snapping back from a lackluster fourth quarter on a surge in spending and investment, a Commerce Department report on Friday showed. Gross domestic product grew at a 4.8 percent annual rate in the January-March first quarter, more than twice the 1.7 percent rate in the fourth quarter and the strongest for any three months since 7.2 percent in the third quarter of 2003. The first-quarter figure was only slightly below the 4.9 percent rate that Wall Street economists...

NEW YORK - Americans' optimism in the economy rebounded in March, sending a widely followed barometer of consumer sentiment to a near four-year high, a private research group said Tuesday. The Conference Board said that its consumer index shot up 4.5 points to 107.2, the highest level since May 2002, when the reading was 110.3. Analysts had expected a reading of 102. The latest measure was up from a revised 102.7 in February, which saw confidence fall 4.1 points from the previous month after enjoying a rebound that began in November following the Gulf Coast hurricanes. "The improvement in consumers'...

WASHINGTON - The economy, sagging under the strain of lofty energy prices, grew at an annual rate of 1.6 percent in the final quarter of last year — a mediocre performance that nonetheless turned out to be slightly better than first thought. The new reading on gross domestic product, released by the Commerce Department on Tuesday, did represent an upgrade from the 1.1 percent growth rate initially estimated for the October-to-December quarter. Still, economic growth under the new GDP figure — as well as the old one — was the slowest in three years and clearly showed a loss of...

Wall Street is worried about you. Yes, you. The one they call "The Consumer." From the trophy-arrayed corner office of the richest CEO to the windowless cubicle of the most junior analyst, your immediate future is a pressing concern. What will you get for Christmas? How much will it cost to heat your house this winter? Will you get a raise next year? This isn't personal. What they really care about is the 70 percent of gross domestic product that depends on consumer spending. Put another way, the 70 percent of the total economy that depends on you. Retailers, car...

Today, President Bush Addressed The Economic Club Of Washington D.C. And Discussed His Agenda For A Strong And Vibrant Economy. To ensure continued opportunity for America's workers and entrepreneurs, President Bush outlined a pro-growth agenda based on sound economic policy that promotes prosperity, productivity, and innovation in a global economy. He will keep government on the side of economic growth and job creation so America's businesses and workers can compete and prosper. In The Face Of Challenges, The President Has Acted To Maintain Economic Growth. Over the past five years, the economy has endured the bursting of the stock market...

Cheap money and refinancing have fueled an unparalleled boom/inflation of real estate prices across the nation. Most gains have been cashed out via the equity loans that have provided a supplemental "income" for households to keep this economy spending. It’s the costly S&L tragedy all over again. I’ve been thinking about real estate, equity, liquidity, CMO’s, GSE’s, and bubbles. Home ownership was a central component of the American dream. It was the foundation of community, security, accomplishment, and family. However... all that has been eclipsed because "renting" from lenders is NOT ownership. You see, real estate has evolved from being...

BANGALORE, India — China's Huawei Technologies, which already has a software development center here, said Thursday (March 24) it is planning to set up a telecommunications manufacturing facility in India. According to a Reuters report from New Delhi quoting a Huawei executive, the telecom company plans to invest about a $100 million in the manufacturing facility. Operations are expected to begin within the next two years, and production will focus on the Indian telecom market, the report said. India's fast-growing telecommunications services market has spawned huge demand for infrastructure gear and wireless handsets, which in turn has attracted several global...

BRUSSELS - The US economy is 20-years ahead of that of the EU and it will take decades for Europe to catch up, according to an explosive new study published on Friday (11 March). The survey, unveiled by pan-EU small business organisation Eurochambres....

Remember all that talk during the just concluded presidential campaign about this being the worst economy since the Great Depression? Or that President Bush's jobs performance is the poorest since Herbert Hoover was in office? Well, with the close of the 2004 calendar year comes the end of Mr. Bush's first term. Maybe without all the distractions and distortions that accompany a political campaign we can better determine what the real economic results are since our 43rd president was inaugurated. Let's begin with jobs. This past Friday's December employment report paints quite a different picture of the U.S. economy than...

WASHINGTON -- Call it a river of gold. It's an apt description for the billions of dollars flowing each year to millions of families in Latin America from their relatives working in the United States. Spurred by millions of Latin American immigrants who came to the United States during the 1990s, the amount of money flowing into Latin America from former compatriots is staggering and steadily growing, according to the latest estimates on remittances. Remittances this year could top $30 billion, up from $23 billion in 2001, according to projections from the Inter-American Development Bank, which tracks money moving across...

President Bush attended a technology demonstration, and spoke, at the Commerce Department "to talk about about how to make sure America is the best place to do business in the world. How do we make sure that we're always on the leading edge of change? And how do we utilize technology to improve the lives of our fellow citizens?" In a speech covering numerous aspects of economic growth, the President addressed entrepreneurial innovation and risk-taking, tax relief, frivolous and junk lawsuits (tort reform), broadband use, open international trade policy, good Congressional policy that cooperates with these goals, etc. Text of...

<p>Outsourcing white-collar jobs to low-wage countries such as India and China has thrown some Americans out of work, but a new report predicts that the trend will ultimately lower inflation, create jobs and boost productivity in the United States.</p> <p>The Information Technology Association of America, in a survey out Tuesday, acknowledges that the migration of tech jobs to low-paid foreigners has eliminated 104,000 American jobs so far, nearly 3 percent of the positions in the U.S. tech industry.</p>

 news    home | top | world | intl | natl | op | pol | govt | business | tech | sci | entertain | sports | health | odd | sources  Reuters • AP • New York Times • MSNBC • CBS MarketWatch • USA TODAY • FOX News • The Street • Gen Financial • By Industry • My Portfolio News Healthy GDP Raises Hopes for Job Growth  Feb 27, 9:32 PM (ET) By JEANNINE AVERSA (AP) America's economy, bolstered by brisk business spending, grew at a healthy 4.1 percent annual rate...Full Image   WASHINGTON (AP) - Brisk business spending helped the economy expand at a healthy 4.1 percent pace at the end of 2003, raising hopes that the recovery will be durable and spur more meaningful job growth in the coming months. The Commerce Department's latest reading on gross domestic product, released Friday, showed the economy grew...

Last September in Shanghai I was sipping tea at the Grand Hyatt with Steve Forbes. In walked George Gilder, hyperkinetic from a 12-hour flight and too much coffee. George was waving a newspaper article that predicted an average of 6% U.S. GDP growth over the next two quarters. In September such a prediction was like saying the Detroit Tigers would win the American League pennant and the Cincinnati Bengals were poised to win the Super Bowl. Nevertheless, we were obligated to take the article seriously, because its author was Brian Wesbury, an economist with Chicago's Griffin, Kubik, Stephens & Thompson,...

<p>NEW YORK — Media and entertainment conglomerate Walt Disney Co. (DIS) Tuesday said that a steady advertising market was benefiting its radio and television networks and the company expected strong earnings growth in fiscal 2004.</p> <p>President and Chief Operating Officer Bob Iger told an investment conference hosted by Goldman Sachs that the first week of the fall television season had turned out well for Disney's ABC network, which recovered some ground against its rivals in the ratings race.</p>

Rapid Growth Seen for U.S. Economy By EDMUND L. ANDREWS ASHINGTON, Sept. 12 — The American economy finally seems poised to roar ahead at rates not seen since the late 1990's, but economists and some political analysts say the surge may not help President Bush's re-election campaign next year. A wide range of data suggests that the economy will probably grow at an annual rate of nearly 5 percent in the final months of this year and nearly 4 percent next year — rates that would normally be spectacular news for an incumbent president. But in a disparity with no...