Citizen Journalists Tom Mannis, John Ruberry (The Marathon Pundit) and John Powers were the guests on the Jerry Agar Show on WLS-AM yesterday.
Archives are linked below, via Tom Mannis’ Rogers Park Bench Blog.
Read More...Initial estimates of second quarter real GDP put growth at 1.9% annualized, less than consensus expectations, and weaker than the First Trust forecast. At the same time, the Commerce Department revised its estimates to show a very small 0.2% decline in Q4–2007 real GDP.
However, government estimates of inventories – the part we have the least information about – fell by the second largest amount in history. We believe this decline was overstated and Q2 real GDP growth will be revised up in the months ahead. Real final sales (which exclude inventories) grew at a robust 3.9% rate.
In response to the data Dr. Victor Zarnowitz, who serves on the recession dating committee of the NBER, told the Wall Street Journal that “There is no cyclical decline, yet.”
Despite this, some analysts argue that Q2 data overestimated the true pace of real growth because the government ... Read More...
Wal-Mart, after reporting its biggest sales gain in several years in June, had projected July same-store-sales growth between 2% to 4% and boosted its fiscal second-quarter earnings target. Wal Mart Sales actually came in at a 3% gain over July 2007 sales.
Read More...RALSTON: This energy story seems to be changing every day, I want to make sure I have it straight. It has been played up a lot in stories that you were against drilling, and tapping the petroleum reserve but you have reversed on that and now you are for both. You want to compromise on energy, so you don’t really favor drilling but for political reasons you are going to change your position. This is change we can believe in Senator?
Read More...Why do Illinois Democrats keep voting for those clowns of theirs?
They’d probably reply that their clowns are a cut above the Republican clowns, and they may be right. But that still leaves the question: How can Democratic voters keep electing the very people who keep assaulting health care, child welfare and other social programs so dear to the Democratic heart?
Even the most reactionary, right-wing troglodytes have not been as successfully obstructionist as Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Senate President Emil Jones and House Speaker Michael Madigan—Democrats all—whose budget stalemate is giving social service providers fits.
Read More...Violent crime continued to rise in Chicago after a deadly July in which 62 people were killed, according to unofficial numbers provided by a police source.
For the first seven months of 2008, murders rose by 18 percent over the same period in 2007 and by 9 percent for the same period in 2006. According to internal police data, 291 people were killed from January through July, up from 246 in 2007 and 266 in 2006.
In May and June, the murder rate hovered at a 13 percent increase for the year after a spike in homicides in the spring. July furthered the uptick with 19 more murders than a year earlier. Still, that July tally fell three below 2006 levels when there were 65 murders.
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