Podcasts

A look at the job market, housing prices and Hurricane Irene damage.

Is another recession a ‘coin toss’? Dees Stribling offers a look at economic news from the week ending 8/26, including: news about the Jackson Hole Symposium, the non-partisan congressional budget office, Fannie Mae and mortgage delinquencies.

What a long, strange week it’s been. For the week ending August 12, the Dow had four consecutive 400-point swings; the national median (existing) single-family home price was down 2.8 percent from the second quarter of 2010; and the government has proposed to sell thousands of foreclosed properties that Fannie, Freddie and the FHA now own, for conversion into rental properties.

For the week ending August 5, Congress managed to raise the debt ceiling at the last minute, while handing off tough budget decisions to a congressional bipartisan Super Committee; Wall Street goes into a free-falling panic, presumably over euro debt; and the jobs report isn’t as bad as expected.

For the week ending July 29, while Congress continued to dither over the debt crisis, equity markets acted nervous and bond markets showed a steady hand; U.S. GDP projections have been revised downward; and the housing market at least isn’t sinking.

The week ending July 22 saw more fruitless wrangling between lawmakers in Washington, signs that the Eurozone will be able to work out its problem with Greece, and CRE prices and construction increases.

Economic news for the week of July 15 was dominated by the oncoming potential disaster of U.S. default on its debt, which could happen very soon if Congress remains at an impasse.

Economic news was mostly bad for the week ending July 8, with employment numbers looking ugly, construction spending down and the debt ceiling deadline closing in.

For the week ending June 24, uncertainty colors the Fed’s diagnosis of the U.S. economy; Greece gets set to vote on austerity measures that could earn it more money from the E.U. and IMF; and governments release small amounts of crude oil reserves to the open market.