December 2010 Macro Pulse – Eye of the Storm?

Before the days of Doppler radar and other tools of the meteorological trade, residents of the Atlantic seaboard and Gulf coast sometimes confused the eye of a hurricane with the storm’s end. Lulled into a false sense of security by the improved conditions, they mistakenly resumed their normal activities only to find themselves exposed when the backside of the storm arrived. We view the current economic situation as the eye of the recessionary “hurricane” that began in December 2007. Improvement among some indicators (e.g., the uptick in 3Q2010 GDP to 2.5 percent, and October’s increase in orders for non-durable goods) have convinced many investors that nothing but sunshine and seashells lies in their future. Worse, many economic “meteorologists” -- who should know better because of the (even if crude) forecasting tools at their disposal -- are sounding the “all clear” and encouraging their audiences to ignore the cloudbanks gathering on the horizon.


To what “cloudbanks” do we refer? Click here to find out by reading the entire December 2010 Macro Pulse.

The Macro Pulse blog is a commentary about recent economic developments that affect the forest products industry. That commentary provides context for our 24-month forecast, which is contained in the monthly Economic Outlook newsletter available through Forest2Market. The monthly Macro Pulse newsletter summarizes the previous 30 days of commentary available on this website.