Interesting stats from Gallup to Mankiw to EPJ:
Gallup reports:
President Obama's job approval is now 63 percent, which is almost exactly the average over the past 40 years for Presidents at this point in their first terms (62 percent). His disapproval rating is a bit higher than average (24 versus 16 percent).
The least popular president one month in: Ronald Reagan (55 percent).
The most popular president one month in: Jimmy Carter (71 percent).
From Paul Kedrosky:
ReplyDelete"Here is John Kemp of Reuters on sources of the revisions to Q4 GDP:
What happened with the Q4 GDP estimates, is that the FINAL SALES figure did not change much (revised down from -5.9% to -6.4%) but the government made a massive change to the INVENTORIES figure (revising inventories from a rise of $6.2 billion to a fall of $19.9 billion)."
If the recovery is lead by consumer goods consumption driven, then isn't the fall in inventories bullish for the economy?