Articles About Recession

CMBS was a $230 billion industry prior to the recession. Today, we live in an era of lowered expectations where every victory needs celebrating as we get back into gear. Take Chicago, where lenders originated and sold off $2.48 billion in loans on Chicago-area properties last year, more than double the $1.20 billion in 2012, according […]

The 17-nation Eurozone is at risk of falling into a “severe recession,” the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) warned, as it called on governments and the European Central Bank to act quickly to keep the slowdown from becoming a drag on the global economy.  OECD Chief Economist Pier Carlo Padoan warned the euro-zone […]

Despite Germany’s strong manufacturing output in March, it was not enough to compensate for a slump across the rest of the Eurozone with declining production, a signal that an expected recession may not be as mild as policymakers hope.  Industrial production in the 17 Eurozone countries declined 0.3 percent in March when compared with February, […]

Europe’s financial woes have spread across the English Channel as the United Kingdom slid into its first double-dip recession since the 1970s. Britain’s GDP fell 0.2 percent from the 4th quarter of 2011, when it declined 0.3 percent, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). As anti-austerity backlash grows on the Continent, Prime Minister […]

American homebuilders started construction on new houses in March at a slower pace, but in an ironic twist, the number of construction permits jumped to their highest level in 3 ½ years.  This is a positive signal for the slumping residential industry.  According to the Department of Commerce, housing starts fell 5.8 percent to an […]

Europe’s unemployment has soared to 10.8 percent, the highest rate in more than 14 years as companies from Spain to Italy eliminated jobs to weather the region’s crisis, according to the European Union’s (EU) statistics office.  That’s the highest since June 1997, before the Euro was introduced.  European companies are cutting costs and eliminating jobs […]

American public transportation ridership rose 2.3 percent last year as gas prices rose to their highest-ever annual average, according to the American Public Transportation Association (APTA).  The 10.4 billion trips recorded last year was the highest since 2008, when gas prices hit more than $4 a gallon nationwide for seven weeks in the summer. APTA […]

Although the economy has improved in the past year, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers that they still must cut the growing budget deficit.  “We still have a long way to go before the labor market can be said to be operating normally,” Bernanke said in testimony to the Senate Budget Committee.  “Particularly troubling […]

Ireland was one of the nations that was hardest hit by the Eurozone crisis, but now it’s being seen as leading stricken nations in their efforts to turn their economies around.  International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Union (EU) officials are impressed by its austerity measures, imposed after the massive 2010 bailout.  For the average […]

The United States added more than 200,000 jobs in December of 2011, building on a strengthening employment market that dominated the second half of the year.  This brought the unemployment rate down to 8.5 percent from the revised 8.7 percent, which had been predicted in November.  The primary growth was in transportation — primarily courier […]