October 2008

The crisis of confidence in the American financial system has catalyzed a chain reaction of financial and political events, stunning global investors and creating a magnitude of uncertainty surrounding the near-term global outlook, according to a new report.

In the MAPI Quarterly Forecast of U.S. Exports, Global Growth, and the Dollar:  Fourth Quarter 2008 Through Fourth Quarter 2009, economist Cliff Waldman writes that some elements of the mid-September drama were simply steps toward the full and inevitable restructuring of a financial industry that had failed to appreciate and adjust for the systemic risks posed by the securitization mania of the last 20 years or more.  But the dramatic elevation of risk aversion has become economically threatening.

The U.S. Census Bureau announced that August 2008 sales of merchant wholesalers, except manufacturers’sales branches and offices, after adjustment for seasonal variations and trading-day differences but not for price changes, were $404.9 billion, down 1.0 percent from the revised July level, but up 13.4 percent from the August 2007 level.
 
The July preliminary estimate was revised downward $1.7 billion or 0.4 percent. August sales of durable goods were down 1.5 percent from last month, but were up 5.5 percent from a year ago. Compared to last month, sales of hardware, and plumbing and heating equipment and supplies were down 6.5 percent and sales of lumber and other construction materials were down 5.2 percent.
 
Sales of nondurable goods were down 0.6 percent …