Global Finance Chiefs Cite Signs of Stability

Financial chiefs from the Group of Eight industrialized nations yesterday offered their most optimistic assessment yet of the global crisis, noting encouraging signs of economic stabilization and calling for an "exit strategy" from the policies that have been used to stimulate growth around the world...Financial chiefs expressed cautious optimism on the global economy, pointing to the recent rebound in stock markets and a bout of encouraging economic data. Signs of a bottoming out of the crisis are particularly strong in the United States and China. Officials said, however, that significant risks remain.

Most of the world’s big economies are close to emerging from recession - OECD

...data published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development...pointed to a possible recovery by the end of the year...The composite index for 30 economies rose 0.5 points in April, the second monthly rise in a row, after falling for the previous 21 months. The index seeks to identify turning points in the cycle about six months in advance. The Paris-based organisation reported in its latest monthly analysis of forward-looking indicators that a possible trough had been reached in April in more developed countries that make up almost three quarters of the worlds gross domestic product. (Click to read all).

US productivity remains strong

Say what you will about the the U.S. economy, auto company travails and all, U.S. worker productivity has not weakened one bit. U.S. worker productivity increased at an annualized rate of 1.6 percent in Q1, with unit labor costs rising three percent rate, the U.S. Labor Department announced...as companies continued to find ways to increase per employee output amid difficult business conditions. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News had expected productivity to increase 1.2 percent in Q1 and unit labor costs to rise 2.8 percent. In Q4 2008, productivity increased at an 0.8 percent annual rate and unit labor costs rose 3.5 percent. However, there is a downside to the recent, strong productivity data: hours worked plummeted nine percent in Q1 -- the largest drop in hours worked since 1975, the Labor Department said. The stat means companies are paring back staff roles and cutting hours -- which equates to fewer jobs -- while still maintaining production output.

IS THE RECESSION MAKING US BETTER PEOPLE?

In the past few months, as the economic downturn has left millions out of work and millions more struggling to make ends meet, many have directed their spare time and unused talents toward helping those who are less fortunate. While pundits and analysts attempt to explain the spike in volunteerism, it's worth asking if the recession is making us better people. The idea that privation and suffering are good for the soul underlies numerous religions, and several actually have holidays and activities that are built around withdrawal from pleasure and the mortification of the flesh. While this doesn't necessarily translate into a post-recession wardrobe of sackcloth and ashes, many consumers seem strangely willing, if not eager, to get back to a more modest and values-based way of living.One indication of this is rising enrollment at seminaries and theological schools. Over the last year, the Dallas Theological seminary and the Yale Divinity School have both seen a 10% jump in applicants, and applications to San Antonio's Oblate Seminary have tripled over the past five years. The Union Theological Seminary has enrolled twice as many students and the Jewish Theological Seminary has doubled its Ph.D applicants since last year...(CLICK TO READ ALL)

Survey: Most Economists See Recession Ending This Year

A survey of economists released this morning shows that 74 percent believe that the recession, which began in December 2007, will end in the third quarter of this year...Another 19 percent predicted the recession will end in the last quarter of this year and the remaining 7 percent believe it will linger until 2010...
The recession will end when U.S. GDP returns to positive territory. It dropped 6.1 percent in the first quarter of this year and another 1.8 percent in the second quarter. The economists predict it will turn positive, barely, edging up 1.2 percent in the second half of this year.Because unemployment is a lagging indicator, the economists say that joblessness will continue to rise even as the economy recovers

12 Reasons To Be (Economically) Optimistic

REAL TIME ECONOMICS HOME PAGE »

(1) In the U.S., consumer confidence rebounded during April.

(2) The percentage of consumers who say that jobs are hard to get edged

down in April after rising thirteen of the previous fourteen months. This tends

to confirm the recent downticks in weekly initial unemployment claims.

(3) The home price story isn’t all bad news recently. Indeed, after more than a year

and a half of declines, California’s median home price finally managed a meager

gain, rising 2.2% month over month.

(4) Corning is bringing back some laid off workers on stronger-than-expected demand for glass used in making flat-screen televisions.
(5) Sharp is forecasting a strong recovery in profits and sales in all its business divisions during the second half of the year.
(6) IBM said Tuesday that it will increase its quarterly dividend by 10% and will repurchase an additional $3bn of its stock.
(7) The 4/28 Financial Times reported that the high yield bond market may be starting to open up again. About $7 billion was raised in April, the highest volume since last July.
(8) The stock market held up remarkably well on Monday and Tuesday despite nervousness over bank stress tests, swine flu, and the forced downsizing of the U.S. auto industry.
(9) The first quarter earnings season is off to a good start as 64% of the 235 S&P 500 companies reporting so far have a positive surprise and all 10 sectors are beating their first-quarter forecast too.
(10) Our Fundamental Stock Market Index rose during the week of August 18 as jobless claims edged lower and the Consumer Comfort Index moved higher.
(11) Condé Nast has decided to shutter Portfolio after two years of struggle. The introduction of the glitzy magazine about Wall Street launched in the spring of 2007 marked the end of the bull market. Now its demise may mark the end of the bear market.
(12) Confidence in the Euro Zone rose in April from a record low in March. The European Commission’s economic sentiment indicator jumped up to 67.2, from a revised 64.7 in March, but remains well below its long-term average of 100. Households and firms are less pessimistic about the outlook.

Geithner ve avances en combate contra crisis EEUU

El secretario del Tesoro de Estados Unidos, Timothy Geithner, dijo el miércoles que el Gobierno estaba logrando avances para calmar a los mercados y que hacia julio tendrá en marcha un programa destinado a limpiar los activos tóxicos de los balances de los bancos. En una presentación ante la Comisión de Bancos del Senado, Geithner dijo que el sistema financiero de Estados Unidos "comenzaba a sanarse" tras un periodo de trauma. El responsable dio crédito a una serie de programas del Gobierno para ayudar a aliviar una crisis provocada por el alza de los incumplimientos de pagos hipotecarios. Sin embargo, Geithner dijo que el panorama seguía frágil y que la administración debía ser cautelosa en el uso del menguante dinero restante del fondo de rescate financiero por 700.000 millones de dólares aprobado por el Congreso en octubre pasado.

Fed Says Recession's Grip Is Easing

The Federal Reserve expects the U.S. economy to improve in coming months, even as policymakers downgraded their outlook for all of 2009 and said the unemployment rate could approach 10 percent. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues continue to believe that business sales and factory production will begin to recover gradually during the second half of this year as President Barack Obama's stimulus package and the Fed's aggressive efforts to lift the country out of recession take hold. They also pointed to signs that the recession's grip was easing in the current quarter, according to documents released Wednesday. "Participants noted some improvement in financial conditions in recent months, signs that consumer spending was leveling out and tentative indications that activity in the housing sector might be nearing its bottom," the documents said. That's consistent with observations made earlier this month by Bernanke, who gave his most optimistic prediction about the end of the recession, saying he expected the economy to begin growing again later this year.

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The pace of contraction in world

economic output appears to be easing

and recovery could begin at the end of

this year, World Bank President Robert

Zoellick told Spanish television..."I'm

neither an optimist nor a pessimist, I

am uncertain, a realist. Clearly the fall

has been interrupted. I think there's a

good chance that while we face

declines, they will be smaller in size.

The majority expect a recovery at the

end of this year, at the beginning of

next year."...Reuters, 5/19/09

...deep in the maw of the deepest recession since the Great Depression millions are still being hired.

...while 4.8 million workers were laid off or chose to leave their jobs in February, employers across the country hired 4.3 million workers that month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Entrepreneurship Remains Strong in 2008 with Increasing Business Startups, According to Kauffman Foundation

Activity rate increased among many groups including immigrants, women and older Americans and in all regions except Midwest, which had a slight decline

(KANSAS CITY, Mo.) April 30, 2009 — New business formation increased in 2008 but, in what may be a potential harbinger of the current economic recession, U.S. entrepreneurship rates increased for the lowest-income-potential and middle-income-potential types of businesses from 2007 to 2008; it decreased for the highest-income-potential types of businesses. This is one of the shifts in firm formation trends found in the annual Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity, a leading indicator of new business activity that provides the earliest documentation of new business development across the United States. Analyzing matched monthly data from the Current Population Survey since 1996, the Kauffman Index allows comparisons of new business creation over time.

"The overall pace of entrepreneurial activity did not suffer during the recession in 2008, which is great news. This is consistent with historical patterns, to the extent we understand them, which indicate that entrepreneurial activity is largely insensitive to the economic cycle," said Robert Litan, vice president, Research and Policy at the Kauffman Foundation. "So far, at least through 2008, this pattern is holding up."

Overall, the 2008 entrepreneurial activity rate increased slightly over 2007. An average of 0.32 percent of the adult population (or 320 out of 100,000 adults) created a new business each month—representing approximately 530,000 new businesses per month—as compared to 0.30 percent in 2007. While entrepreneurial activity has remained generally consistent over the past decade, the Kauffman Index points out important shifts in the demographic and geographic composition of new entrepreneurs across the country.

Key findings include:

The oldest age group—ages 55 to 64—experienced a big increase in business-creation rates from 2007 to 2008 and, as a result, has the highest level of business creation (0.36 percent).
The activity rate increased sharply for immigrants in 2008—from 0.46 percent in 2007 to 0.53 percent in 2008—further widening the gap between immigrant and native-born rates. Although the increase in entrepreneurship rates among immigrants was driven entirely by low- and medium-income-potential types of businesses, immigrants also are more likely than U.S. natives to start high-income-potential types of businesses.
Latinos' entrepreneurial activity rate increased from 0.40 percent in 2007 to 0.48 percent in 2008, continuing an upward trend that began in 2005. Over the thirteen years of the study, Latinos have had the highest percentage increase in entrepreneurial activity (from 0.33 percent in 1996 to 0.48 percent in 2008).
Asian-Americans' entrepreneurial activity also increased sharply, from 0.29 percent in 2007 to 0.35 percent in 2008. Non-Latino white business-creation rates increased slightly, while African-American rates slightly declined.
Entrepreneurial activity increased from 2007 rates for both men and women (from 0.41 percent to 0.42 percent for men and from 0.20 percent to 0.24 percent for women).
With the exception of the Midwest, all regions saw increased entrepreneurial activity from 2007 to 2008.
The states with the highest 2008 entrepreneurial activity rates were Georgia, New Mexico, Montana, Arizona, Alaska and California.
The states with the lowest entrepreneurial activity rates were Pennsylvania, Missouri, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Iowa and Ohio.
Among the United States' fifteen largest metropolitan statistical areas, Atlanta had the highest entrepreneurial rate (0.74 percent) in 2008. Philadelphia had the lowest rate (0.16 percent).

"The total business creation rate increased over the past year, but this masks diverging underlying trends. Entrepreneurship rates increased only for low-income types of businesses and not for high-income types, which may be early signs of how the recession is impacting firm formation," said study author Robert Fairlie, professor of economics and the director of the Master's program in Applied Economics and Finance at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "The continuing effects of the recession on business creation are important because entrepreneurs contribute to economic growth, innovation and job creation in the United States."

Unlike other studies that capture young businesses that are more than a year old, the Kauffman Index captures all adults ages 20 to 64 when they first create their businesses, including both incorporated and unincorporated businesses, and those who are employers and non-employers. The Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity, defined as the percent of the adult U.S. population of non-business owners that start a business as their main job each month, is conducted annually.

Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect --- Mark Twain

Kella

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