The U.S. economy barely moved as the year started. The first estimate of GDP growth was 0.1 percent during the January-March period, according to government reports. That's down from 2.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013 and 4.1 percent in last year's third quarter.
Worldwide, things don't look much better. While the global economy "is turning the corner," overall growth remains "too slow and weak," said the chief of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde.
Asia may be "well positioned to meet the challenges ahead," according to an IMF analysis, "provided it stays the course on reforms." Activity in Latin America and the Caribbean is likely to "stay in low gear" this year, the IMF said, and a faster recovery in the U.S. will depend on international conditions.
Other signs in the U.S.: The homeownership rate in the first quarter was essentially flat -- at 64.8 percent, it was down 0.2 percentage points from a year ago, the Census Bureau said. And the rental vacancy rate was also down, indicating that folks are renting rather than buying homes. Sales of new homes dropped 14.5 percent in March from the month before, the government said. And last week, the Census Bureau noted that more people are setting up their own businesses, rather than taking jobs as employees.
So is it still a good idea for the Federal Reserve to trim down its intervention to keep interest rates low? Low rates don't seem to be having the needed effect, and neither does any stimulus from the government.
Update: The Fed announced Wednesday that it would continue its pullback, even as it acknowledged that recovery is slow. In addition, the White House criticized Republicans in the Senate for blocking a measure that would raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, noting that the "average worker who would benefit is 35 years old, and more than half are women," many of whom are single mothers trying to support a family or college students working to pay their way through school.
"Who ya gonna believe, me or your own lying eyes?" -- Chico Marx
"Economic activity increased in most regions of the country since the previous report," said the Federal Reserve -- again -- in its latest Beige Book summary. When was the last time the guardians of America's money supply labeled the economy dour?
To their credit, the Fed did characterize the expansion as "modest or moderate" in eight Federal Reserve districts, one reported a pickup, two said business activity had rebounded from weather-related slowdowns earlier in the year, and two districts -- Cleveland and St. Louis -- both reported an economic decline.
Meanwhile, the pace of housing construction was flat in March, said the Census Bureau, and the number of building permits issued was down, according to the Economics and Statistics Administration. In another report. the Fed reported a decline in the pace of industrial production, to a boost of 0.7 percent in March, down from a 1.2 percent advance in February.
Earlier reports put the Gross Domestic Product pace in America at a 2.6 percent growth rate in the fourth quarter, down from 4.1 percent in the third quarter of 2013. Initial estimates for the first three month period will be available soon. But harbingers of a spring slowdown are cropping up even as a flowery picture begins to fade. In China, for example, the economy grew at its slowest pace in 18 months, according to a Reuters report. That phrasing could be misleading, however, since the pace of GDP growth in the first quarter was 7.4 percent. That was down from 7.7 percent in the earlier quarter.
In any case, the Asian Tiger is still roaring and it's questionable whether that's a sustainable pace.
And in Europe, there are mixed signals, as government agencies try to put some polish on the roses. Worldwide, global activity "has broadly strengthened and is expected to improve further" over the next two years, according to the International Monetary Fund, but the IMF warned that policymakers in advance economies "need to avoid a premature withdrawal of monetary accommodation." Translation: Don't turn off the stimulus tap yet.
In the euro zone, inflation continued to drop, down to its lowest level in more than four years, and remained in the "danger zone" of less than 1 percent. Eurostat, the European Union's statistical agency, reported an inflation rate of 0.5 percent in March, down from a yearly rate of 0.7 percent in February for the 18 countries using the euro. Economists say a rate of 2 percent is healthy for an economy.
What does it all mean? Pronouncements from governmental economic agencies are muffled when detailing bad news, and they try to make the signals softer than they really are. Conclusion: We're not out of the woods yet.
Meanwhile, the super-rich members of the Fabled One Percent may be immune from major fluctuations in an economy, but to hear them complain, it would seem that a fiscal sniffle portends a plague. But an economic virus always hits harder at the non-wealthy.
