Viewpoints: February 2020

A large number of US companies are relying on accounting gimmicks to strip out various costs in order to make reported profits appear to be better (or losses less small) than actually is the case. Once again the biggest adjustment [...]

Price targeting has failed as a monetary policy experiment, forcing policymakers to now consider a new process to achieve its price stability mandate. Policymakers are considering shifting to an "average" inflation rate over a span of [...]

Analysts and investors have been betting on a rebound in operating profits for 2020, even though profits are running up against a powerful (negative) trend in the annals of business cycles. New events on the international side of [...]

The charts below show the behavior of some important measures of economic performance. Generally, the time period shown in the charts starts in the early 1950s and runs through the end of 2019. In some cases, the data are not [...]