June 2011 Macro Pulse -- Soft Patch or Mount Everest of Weakening Conditions?

In April, the word du jour for describing unwelcome economic developments was “transitory.” Rising prices, slow employment growth, essentially anything other than the housing slowdown  – all were deemed transitory. In May, the preferred descriptor changed to “soft patch.” Much like the “green shoots” of 2009, “soft patch” seemed to pop up virtually everywhere. Even the Financial Times couldn’t resist and wrote “Mr. Bernanke’s comments suggest he expects a ‘soft patch’ rather than a more serious slowdown in the recovery.” Michael Pento, senior economist at Euro Pacific Capital, did a brilliant send-up of the term when titling his May 31 blog post “Soft Patch or Quicksand?” Actually, Pento was clever a couple of times in May, as he also turned the phrase “Mount Everest of weakening economic data” to describe the current situation.

One of the most obvious pieces of data contributing to that Mount Everest of data was…. Click here to read the entire June 2011 Macro Pulse recap.


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.