Friday, January 27, 2012

What's going on out there?

Weekly unemployment claims (Credit: Calculated Risk)
It's really difficult to reduce something as big as the US and/or global economy into a few numbers, but let's try to see what's going on:
In related news, the Federal Open Market Committee intends to keep interest rates low:
In particular, the Committee decided today to keep the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and currently anticipates that economic conditions--including low rates of resource utilization and a subdued outlook for inflation over the medium run--are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate at least through late 2014.
Yay for borrowers, boo for savers.

Overall, the US economy appears to be muddling through. Trouble spots include oil prices, the European economy (and the continuing (resolving?) debt crisis) and the slowing Chinese economy. Let's hope employment for chemists starts on a positive trend, eh?

1 comment:

looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20