slowdown ahead

[jk]

from yesterday's ecri report: "With WLI growth falling to a 30-week low, U.S.
growth prospects have dulled a bit further."

their future inflation guage is also beginning to drop a bit, and their leading home price index has been dropping for several months.

[Jim Nickerson]

from yesterday's ecri report: "With WLI growth falling to a 30-week low, U.S.
growth prospects have dulled a bit further."

their future inflation guage is also beginning to drop a bit, and their leading home price index has been dropping for several months.

For those of us who do not have a clue, what exactly is "ECRI" and "WLI growth."

Are what you referenced available for public viewing?

[zmas28]

GDP growth negative without home equity extraction

According to this article (you'll have to scroll down), we might already have been in GDP contraction mode, were it not for consumer spending driven by home equity credit.

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/commen...of_the_we.html

Unless consumer income increases (and its been decreasing in real terms), its difficult to see where further domestic consumption would come from, even were the Fed to lower interest rates again. I've read that fiscal stimulus is not a big enough hammer any more to stimulate the economy, and it pretty much has to be through monetary (interest rate) policy. Unless the Fed were willing to really debase the currency & then we're into the Poom phase of high inflation.
Another unpleasant possibility is war, which would also be stimulative of the economy. But this would be difficult to sell in today's political climate, in a democratic setting.

[jk]

For those of us who do not have a clue, what exactly is "ECRI" and "WLI growth."

Are what you referenced available for public viewing?

sorry, ecri is the economic cycle research institute [subscription required], which i believe has the best forecasting record around. "wli" is their weekly leading indicator.

these data are focused around the official [revised, hedonized, annualized, geometric meaned, substitution embracing] numbers of course. if you believe john williams' analysis [shadowstats.com], as i do, then we've already been in an inflationary recession for some time.