Current State of the Economy Questions?

Question

I am going to begin a paper soon on the current state of the US Economy. I have answered several questions for my outline and would like to get some members perspectives on these topics. I dont expect someone to answer all these questions but if you feel knowledgable on any of these topics please describe. Thank you

1. The current Economic Perspective

2. Current Supply and Demand of good and services

3. Real and Nominal GDP

4. Personal Consumption

5. Business Investment

6. Government Spending

7. International Trade

8. Unemployment

9. Economic Growth

10. The business cycle

11. Changes in Aggregate Demand and Supply caused by non-price determinants

12. Fiscal Policy ( Expansionary vs. Contractionary policy)

13. Federal Budget Deficit

14. Public Debt

15. Monetary Policy ( Easy Vs. Tight Policy)

16. Federal Reserve Directives

17. Changes in the money supply

18. Interest Rate Trends

Any insight to any of these topics is really appreciated.

Answer 1

2. The United States (quantity) demand for goods- especially food, I'm sure has fallen.  Prices are high, so I'm sure the quantity demanded for goods has fallen.  Gas prices are rising too.  So I think quantity demanded for gas is falling.  Over time, this will increase the demand of alternate energy.  It already has in some ways.  The demand for better mileage (improved MPG) cars has gone up, I remember sales for that has gone up.

Buying homes has also fallen.  Thanks to foreclosures (and bad mortgage market thanks to mortgage fraud and mortgages not being paid back leading to some companies to go out of business) (many houses are being foreclosed), I think that the demand for houses has fallen.  Supply is higher than demand- many more houses have been built than demand (more supply than consumer demand).  Also banks, etc have tightened up the ability for people to get loans, mortgages, and all so that makes demand fall too.

6. Government Spending is high.  With two wars, our spending is pretty high.  Plus, we are still spending a lot on social security and education along with defense.  Somewhere along the line, I think reform needs to be made.  The GAO- (US) General Accounting Office- if they haven't already- needs to examine where we are spending money.  they also need to make reports on what we're spending well on and what we're wasting money in.  We also need to have economists and experts get together to do the same, and to help reduce pressure on GAO.

8. Unemployment has grown over the last year or so.  I can't say much on it.  It has grown nonetheless.

13. Oh man.  The budget deficit- http://www.boot.com/deficit.gif - it has only gone up in recent years not down.  Thanks to irresponsible policy by Bush our deficit has gone up.  Clinton didn't have deficits but had good surpluses.  Why?  He raised taxes on the rich and cut spending.  Bush has increased spending and furthered tax cuts.  However, his tax cuts haven't went.  Many of them went to the rich.  The rich don't spend much of their money so that doesn't help.  So, thanks to the spending (mostly b/c of wars but also due to other places like defense and social security), we have a higher deficit (its bad) (tax cuts have made deficit go north too).

18. Hmmm

I don't know that much.  But its a difficult situation.  The FED cut interest rates to help grow the economy and address the slow economy.  However, they haven't worked and there's been a side effect.  Because interest rates went down, inflation has gone up.

Yet the FED can't raise rates because that would kill some growth and slow the economy (more).  So, the FED is stuck..

I'm a little busy but I did the ones I know most about or heard some about.  Sorry.  I hope I helped. :) Good luck :D