U.S. Industrial Production Continues To Expand

By James Picerno: Industrial production increased 0.3% in December, which is a slightly faster pace than expected. Nonetheless, the general forecast of a slowdown in growth for last month proved to be accurate.

By John M. Mason: The economic recovery began in July 2009. Since then we have been plagued by a plethora of good economic news and not-so-good economic news. David Wessel, in the Wall Street Journal, captures this continuing saga in “An Economy Poised Between Flight and Fright.”

Individual Global Investor submits:Debates abound regarding the shape of the global economic recovery. Economists are quickly coming up with new symbols to describe the path they believe recovery will take; V, U, √, L, and W are all being tossed about. The conclusion from last week’s article on trade was that German exports are making the strongest showing of industrialized countries.

By John M. Mason: Are commercial banks helping the recovery yet? The commercial banks in the United States have seemingly been absent through most of the four years of the current economic recovery.

Many have compared today’s economic recovery to the slow, stagnant growth Americans lived through in the 1970s. I argue there’s at least one significant difference: Four decades ago, the world couldn’t depend on emerging market growth like it can today.