Frank Ahrens
Washington Post
2/28/2010
…In economics, however, three data points can tell you something. Consider three events last week:
— On Wednesday, the Commerce Department reported that January new-home sales dropped 11.2 percent from December, plunging to their lowest level in nearly 50 years.
— On Tuesday, the Conference Board reported that February consumer confidence fell sharply from January, driven down by the survey’s “present situation index” — how confident consumers feel right now — which hit its lowest mark since the 1983 recession. On Friday, the Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey also showed a falloff from January to February.
— On Thursday, the government’s report on new jobless claims filed during the previous week shot up 22,000, which was exactly opposite of what economists predicted. Forecasters expected new jobless claims to drop by about 20,000.
Taken together, what do these reports tell us?
We’ve got a long way to go to get out of this economic mess, and we may be actually losing a little ground…
The complete article is at the Washington Post.
