Economy in Brief: 2008

Italy is the most troubled of the large EMU economies. It’s Industrial Output is declining on a clear downward trend. For its three major sectors, Consumer goods, Intermediate goods and Capital goods output trends are declining over [...]

France's IP was kicked down in November as a transit strike slowed the France economy. A December rebound was expected. But the rebound is less that the November drop, stirring suspicions that growth may be more fundamentally impaired [...]

France's IP was kicked down in November as a transit strike slowed the France economy. A December rebound was expected. But the rebound is less that the November drop, stirring suspicions that growth may be more fundamentally impaired [...]

Japan’s Economy watchers Index and the Teikoku Indices show the weakest economic readings in five years. The economy watchers indices are down to values of around 30 to 36. And while they are the weakest we have seen in 5 years they [...]

The OECD indices sure do look like ‘slowdown’ but with the exception of Japan, the indicated weakness is not yet that severe. In the case of Japan, while the OECD reading had been severe, its low point has passed as Japan’s signal now [...]

German output shows signs of slowing. The sequential growth rates in the table demonstrate that growth has slowed steadily from 12-mos to 6-mos to 3-mos. Output of consumer goods, weak over the entire period has weakened further in [...]

At an annual rate consumer credit grew 2.2% during December, down sharply from the revised 8.5% jump in November. For all of last year, however, credit growth picked up slightly to 5.5% from 4.5% in 2006. In fact growth last year was [...]

At an annual rate consumer credit grew 2.2% during December, down sharply from the revised 8.5% jump in November. For all of last year, however, credit growth picked up slightly to 5.5% from 4.5% in 2006. In fact growth last year was [...]