Economic Commentary The Transitory Word. It seems every year, market analysts come up with a new term to describe the economic scenario. In the 1970’s it was “stagflation” – a mixture of a stagnant economy and elevated inflation. In the 2000’s we had the economic “conundrum” — a diversion in the relationship between lower interest rates and economic growth. Today,...” Read More
Posted by starwest
Economic Commentary Nothing to Sneeze At. No, we are not talking about the pandemic here. We are actually referring to the May jobs report, which shows almost 560,000 jobs created. This number was seen as disappointing. If you look at it from a year-to-date standpoint, we have added close to 2.5 million jobs this year—or an average of just under...” Read More
Posted by starwest
Economic Commentary We have had quite a wild ride across our planet during the last 15 months. A word-wide pandemic was followed by a sharp recession. As the pandemic wore on and wore many of us down, certain segments of the economy prospered and others remained stuck in recession. At one of our darkest hours, vaccines were approved and there...” Read More
Posted by starwest
Economic Commentary Did We See It? We were looking for some “bounce-back” numbers in the employment report last Friday. We believed that the stage was set with the progress of our vaccination program having a real effect on the number of COVID cases in our country. As of the middle of May, cases had dropped approximately 90% from the peak...” Read More
Posted by starwest
Economic Commentary Bounce Back Month? Last month we saw a pretty disappointing jobs report. The quarter of a million jobs added was actually quite strong for a normal month. However, for the era of economy recovery from the pandemic-induced recession, it fell short. Which brings us to an important point to consider. In economics, nothing happens in a straight line....” Read More
Posted by starwest