August 2011 Macro Pulse -- Danger Close

You are in combat, pinned down by an adversary almost within arm’s reach. In desperation you call for fire from artillery or close air support. To make sure headquarters understands the enemy is practically in your foxhole, you scream “Danger close!” into the radio when relaying your coordinates. Then you hunker down and wait for the thunder of the incoming rounds, making deals with God in exchange for your life. Although much less dire than the imaginary combat scene, the U.S. economy is in a somewhat similar predicament: Beset on every side by conditions that threaten to knock it back into recession, many market participants are calling on the Federal Reserve and/or Congress to “blow away” those threats while hoping and praying they do not become collateral damage. Some of those threats include….

Click here to read the entire August 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.