CBO Looks Over the Cliff May 22, 2012 That fiscal cliff—you know…the one everyone’s all wound up about? Well, CBO just released their analysis of its potential impact on the economy and it ain’t pretty. Add up all the stuff that’s scheduled to turn into fiscal pumpkins at midnight on Dec 31, and you get about 5% of GDP (all the Bush tax cuts, automatic spending cuts, AMT fix, payroll tax cut, UI extension, and more!). What impact might that have on the economy? Their best guess is that it means declining real GDP in the first half of next year to the tune of 1.3% (annualized; or around $100 billion through the first half), followed by growth of 2.3% in the second half of ... Continue reading →

Hearing about an... | Facebook Sign UpFacebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life. Hearing about an amazing new Silicon Valley innovation: Phone Stacking. Here's how it works. Everyone going out to dinner stacks his or her cell phone in the middle of the table. First person to reach for a phone has to pay the bill. The goal is to encourage actual conversation and avoid long bathroom breaks where people leave the table and hit the restroom to answer emails or tweet or facebook or . . . I don't want to know. Let me know if you have ever experienced or heard of "phone stacking." Continue reading →

Darren Gersh Washington Bureau Chief for Nightly Business Report. I make complicated economic stuff slightly understandable. Tweets are random electrons, not endorsements. Continue reading →

I am working on a... | Facebook Sign UpConnect and share with the people in your life. I am working on a story about the budget. What ideas are most important in the budget/deficit debate and who do you think are the most important players? Continue reading →

Results are in.... | Facebook Sign UpMake the world more open and connected. Results are in. U.S. Commerce Department finds Chinese Solar panel and cell makers were dumping product and should be slapped with 31% duty -- retroactive for 90 days! Chinese are not going to like this. China is more and more comfortable using its market power to punish/react to U.S. and other country trade decisions. Continue reading →

U.S. Commerce... | Facebook Sign UpFacebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life. U.S. Commerce Department is due to issue decision in Solar Trade case charging Chinese companies dumped panels at below market costs. This is a classic test of not only our trade policy but also of our economic policy. Do we want to save production of solar panels in the US or are we willing to import them from China? Is it better to create jobs making solar panels or create jobs installing them? Or can we do both. Really important issue. Continue reading →

Get an under the hood look at the next frontier in Search, from the team at Google behind the technology. The Knowledge Graph is a huge collection of the people, places and things in the world and how they're connected to one another. With this technology, Google can get you the best possible answers and help jump start your discovery.Learn more at http://www.google.com/insidesearch/features/search/knowledge.html Continue reading →

During college graduation season, attention often turns toward the labor market prospects of the young men and women preparing to enter the workforce. We can get a sense of the earnings this new crop of graduates might expect by looking at the wages of young (age 21-24) college graduates. In 2011, young college graduates had an average hourly wage of $16.81 per hour, which translates into an annual income of roughly $35,000 for a full-time, full-year worker. Average hourly wages for young female graduates remain substantially less (13.9 percent) than those of young male graduates. The wages of young college graduates have fared poorly during the Great Recession and its aftermath. Between 2007 and 2011, the wages of young college graduates dropped 4.6 percent (5.1 ... Continue reading →