Monday, January 24, 2011

The percentage of U.S. firms expecting hirings in the next six months exceeded those projecting
firings by 35 points, according to a survey by the National Association for Business Economics this
quarter – Bloomberg/NABE

U6 includes part time workers who would like to work full time and those neither working nor looking for
work but indicate that they would like to work.

Fed – serious push at Fed to adopt an explicit inflation target – there was a serious effort last
year at the Fed to adopt a serious inflation target although no consensus could be reached. The issue
will come up again in ’11. – WSJ
Fed preview in the NYT – said an “increasingly confident” Fed will sound more optimistic when it
releases its communiqué on Wed. “The statement it will issue on Wednesday, according to people
familiar with the private deliberations of Fed officials, is likely to reflect a guarded optimism about the
economy, while also maintaining the Fed strategy announced last November to accelerate the recovery
by pumping $600 billion into the banking system”. The times says internal criticism to QE2 has quieted.
– NYT
Egypt – will revolution come to Egypt? Newsweek notes that an upcoming protest on Jan 25
could turn into the start of a broader upheaval in Egypt. – Newsweek