U.S. small-business owners’ optimism about their businesses continues to grow, with the Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index rising slightly to +47 in the second quarter of 2014, up from +45 in the first quarter. The index is now at its highest level since 2008, although it is still significantly lower […] Read more »
Economic Confidence Steady at -14
Gallup’s U.S. Economic Confidence Index held steady at -14 last week after inching up three points the week before. This index is toward the upper end of the narrow range measured this year — from -20 to -13 — and remains significantly higher than it has been at most points […] Read more »
Our Fragile Economy Still Needs Time to Gather Its Strength
… One of my favorite lines about politics is from Yale political scientist and statistician Edward Tufte in his book Political Control of the Economy: “When you think economics, think elections; when you think elections, think economics.” Americans remain pretty pessimistic about the economy. The National Bureau of Economic Research […] Read more »
Europe Deflation Risk Seen by 74% in Global Investor Poll
Financial professionals are optimistic about the global economy, just not as fervent about it as they were at the start of the year. That’s the message from the latest Bloomberg Markets Global Investor Poll, which shows concern about risks ranging from the turmoil in Ukraine to the threat of deflation […] Read more »
It’s a hard-knock life . . . for Harry Reid
… While Republicans should not be measuring their drapes for the Senate majority offices just yet, key data in those lean/toss-up Senate seats from the early 2014 merge of the NBC/WSJ polling done by my business partner Bill McInturff and his Democratic counterpart Fred Yang at Hart Research serves as […] Read more »
What will become of America’s kids?
By nature, Americans are an optimistic lot. Despite their resolutely negative opinion of economic conditions, majorities have consistently said that next year things will get better. … Yet, the public has somewhat conflicted views about the economic prospects for the next generation. When asked about the future prospects of “children […] Read more »