Reply #30: This looks like the spot for the inaugural posting of the SMW Economic Index.

[Hugin]

The value of this week's SMWEI is....

(Drum roll please.)

---------------> (-5.6)(minus five-point-six) <-------------

A couple of comments... The Index seems to be currently trending neutral. It may be due to the stimulus or possibly we've entered the lower bar of this 'L' shaped recovery which has been discussed along the way... or maybe everyone has been laid off.

Some groups of North-American Natives believe that in order to fight something, it must first be defined and named. The SMWEI is an attempt at accomplishing this.

Thank you... And a special thank you to all of the Critical Thinkers on the Economy for providing me with your individual economic assessments.

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Some additional new thinking...

From an item posted by DemReadingDU in WEE:

BNN interviews Meredith Whitney, founder, Meredith Whitney Advisory Group LLC; and Ian Gordon, author, "The Long Wave Group".

http://watch.bnn.ca/the-close/april-2009/the-close-april-7-2009/#clip158804

"She is very technical but gives a very cogent analysis of the unwinding of the economy vis-a-vis the credit collapse. The other main point I took away was the Canadian (Pratt?) who was arguing that unemployment should now be considered a leading, not lagging, indicator of the economy because more foreclosures and loan defaults are the inevitable result of losing your job (which feeds right back into the banks tightening credit and shoring up cash reserves)." (Thanks to DUer Hawkowl for the interpretation.)