Articles About Great Recession

As George Harrison said in his 1989 song, “Cheer down.”  In a move that surprised many economists, GDP growth for the 1st quarter of 2010 has been revised slightly downward – from 3.2 percent to three percent – according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.  Even with the downward revision, the 1st quarter was the […]

The economic upheavals of recent years have changed Americans in ways that we are still coming to terms with because it marks the end of an era.  The Great Recession was anything but an ordinary downturn and the way we live and work has been transformed.  Construction and auto jobs have declined by one-third; retail […]

The Great Recession has taken a toll on the famous American optimism and belief in social mobility as defined by the stories of such luminaries as Alexis de Tocqueville, Horatio Alger and Barack Obama.  According to a poll by YouGov for The Economist, 39 percent responded that the opportunities available to them were not as […]

The latest numbers on housing starts, new home sales and rising prices indicate that the residential recovery is for real.  Because the housing crash was a primary cause of the Great Recession, word that the sector is rebounding is good news.  Housing permits and starts have increased in the last several months, and new house […]

A 2010 survey conducted by the National Association of Business Economists (NABE) released in April confirms that the economy is in recovery, with industry demand showing expansion for a third consecutive quarter.  There’s good news in the fact that expectations for economic growth have spiked significantly.  Approximately 25 percent of survey respondents believe the real […]

The Congressional Budget Office has determined that the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) will cost the government $109 billion – just 16 percent of the $700 billion set aside to rescue the nation from the great recession.  Insurance giant AIG and the auto industry are TARP’s largest beneficiaries. The federal government bought $40 billion in […]

A combination of limited supply growth and anticipated stabilization of the jobs market could mean that office rents may return to positive growth sooner rather than later.  That’s the opinion of Victor Calanog, a researcher at Reis, Inc., one of the nation’s leading providers of commercial real estate performance information and analysis. According to Calanog, […]

Economic indicators show that the recession is over.  This is the opinion of Rick Mattoon, a senior economist and advisor in the economic research department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and a lecturer at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.  Rick’s primary research focuses on issues facing the Midwest regional economy. […]

President Barack Obama is angry with the big Wall Street banks that took TARP dollars and plans to do something about it.  “We want our money back and we’re going to get it,” Obama said in a White House speech when he proposed the Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee.  “If these companies are in good enough […]

With the national unemployment rate at 10.2 percent, President Barack Obama is focusing on job creation – the American public’s number one concern.  The administration’s “White House to Main Street” summit and tour is gathering advice from a variety of stakeholders, including business executives, small-business owners, economists, union officials and Ed Pawlowski, the mayor of […]