What Is This World Coming To?

Consumer prices in November plunged by the largest amount on records going back 61 years as energy costs posted nearly double the decline of the previous month.

The Labor Department reported Tuesday that consumer prices fell 1.7 percent in November, surpassing the previous record decline of 1 percent set in October. The drop was the largest one-month decline dating to February 1947.

The huge decreases reflect the severe recession gripping the country and raise the pressure for the Federal Reserve to act decisively to guard against a debilitating bout of deflation.

In other economic news, the Commerce Department reported that construction of new homes fell in November by 18.9 percent, the biggest drop in a quarter-century. The steep decline pushed construction down to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 625,000 homes, the slowest pace on records that go back to 1959.

by Adam Lerrick

What happens when the voter in the exact middle of the earnings spectrum receives more in benefits from Washington than he pays in taxes? Economists Allan Meltzer and Scott Richard posed this question 27 years ago. We may soon enough know the answer. Read the rest of this entry »

The Democrats, having failed to convince America that the best course of action in Iraq is surrendering to the terrorists, got even more bad news when April’s employment figures shows the jobless rate dropped 0.1% instead of increasing 0.2% as forecast. Read the rest of this entry »