Web Wealth: Tracking the economy
The recession is over. Or maybe not. Tracking the economy, and the course of the Great Recession, is more art than science. Look to these sites to sort things out, then decide for yourself.
The recession is over. Or maybe not. Tracking the economy, and the course of the Great Recession, is more art than science. Look to these sites to sort things out, then decide for yourself.
The global economy. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis organizes snapshots of the economy in charts that look by country, by indicators (employment, production, and the like), and by gross domestic product. Of the eight major economies it lists by country, the St. Louis Fed says only Australia is in recession, based on the latest numbers.
http://go.philly.com/econtrack1
It's (semi)official. A private research group is generally relied upon to declare - usually long after the fact - that a recession has begun or ended. The National Bureau of Economic Research pronounced Monday that the recession ended more than a year ago, but it added: "In determining that a trough occurred in June 2009, the committee did not conclude that economic conditions since that month have been favorable or that the economy has returned to operating at normal capacity."
Buffett's call. Warren Buffett, the "Oracle of Omaha," made his own pronouncement later in the week, telling CNBC that "on any commonsense definition, the average American is below where he was before, or his family, in terms of real income, GDP. We're still in a recession."
Ten sites. Cnet lists 10 sites to track the economy. They include the data fire hoses at the Bureau of Economic Analysis and Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Moody's Analytics Inc., a West Chester firm overseen by widely quoted economist Mark Zandi. Zandi turned up last week on a list of possible replacements for Obama economic adviser Lawrence Summers, who announced he was heading back to academia.
http://go.philly.com/econtrack2
Recession, the music. There are 18 tracks, including "Crazy World," on The Recession, a 2008 album by rapper Young Jeezy. This YouTube trailer promotes it.