While certain aspects of the economy appear to be "normal", some are clearly lagging the pack. In one case, the long-term sector growth has been pitiful at best.   Durable goods, goods that are defined as those that don't wear

Watching yields on sovereign debt these days is like a fantasy world, reality no longer exists.  While the debt is real, the yields are totally unrealistic.  This is particularly the case for the former Eurozone debt transgressors, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and

While you have to swallow long-term projections with a few pounds of salt, an interesting study from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, better known as the OECD, looks at the challenges facing the world's economy over the next fifty years.  The "Shifting Gear:

Let's open this posting with a graph showing the U.S. federal on-budget surpluses and deficits since 1915:  
Here's a graph showing us the on-budget surpluses and deficits as a percentage of GDP:     
  That certainly is a

Nigeria

As much as 400,000 barrels of oil a day are stolen in Nigeria. This equates to losses of $1.7 billion a month for Africa's new largest economy. This represents 7.7 percent of its GDP vanishing, or more than the country spends on education and healthcare. These numbers paint a harsh picture

When the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) releases the minutes of its closed door meetings to the "sweaty masses", the world's investing community sits on the edge of its collective seat.  In this posting, I will summarize a study by Dr. Carlo Rosa at the New York

One of my main sources of data for my postings is the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis better known as FRED.  Using their data, we can compare many facets of the American economy and even compare American data to data from other OECD nations.  In this posting, I want to compare the number