Economic Factors Over the Past Year
From March 2008 to March 2009, the figures related to the real GDP show a slight increase from 5.4 to 5.6. This would indicate a minor amount of growth in the overall economic output of the nation. Such numbers are not exactly indicative of a nation with a booming economy. However, the slight increase is a far preferable outcome than a decrease at it indicates consumer spending is increasing even in an overall weak economy.
In a rather surprisingly high adjustment, the inflation rate rose from 1.00 in Feb 08-09 to 2.21 in Feb. 09 -10. This can be considered a negative indicator since it reveals consumer prices are increases. That means you can purchase less with a dollar amount than previously which can lead to a major devaluing of the dollar. The CPI has increase from 212.703 in Feb 2008 to 217.591 in Feb 2010. This means consumers are spending more on their consumer purchases but with the increase of inflation, they may be getting less for their monetary expenditure.
The unemployment rate over from Feb 2009 to 2010 increased from 8.2 to 9.7. This is an outright disaster as it is one of the highest unemployment rates on record. With fewer people working, the economy cannot be considered healthy at all.
The value of the dollar further appears weakened in the Euros per Dollar exchange rate as it dropped from .7541 in March 2009 to .7399 in March 2010. That means the dollar is being devalued on the foreign exchange market. A dollar weakened globally can have very negative repercussions on an economy that is trying to bounce back from a recession.
The three month Treasury Bill rate dropped from .21 - .16 during this same period and that is extremely poor news since it discourages investments in treasury bonds. After all, who would want to get a weak return on their investment
From February 2009 to February 2010, the budget deficit grew from 193.8 billion to 220.9 billion. This means the government is going deeper in debt which discourages investments since hyperinflation and increased taxes are a likely outcome of such figures.
M2 (money supply) growth rate has been quite dramatically in decline over the years as Feb 08-09 was at 9.29 and Feb 09 -10 is at 2.13. A declined money supply means printing more money may be necessary and that is yet another stepping stone to inflation.
The nations trade deficit figures are also dim. January 2009 saw a 36.9 billion trade deficit and January 2010 reveals a 37.288 billion deficit. This means the nation simply is not getting the same benefits or profits that foreign markets are receiving and this certainly does little to boost GDP or reduce the deficit. Money is simply not flowing into the nation as much as it is going out of it.
While these figures are certainly not positive ones in terms of their presentation of current economic trends, they are not so dire that the course cannot reverse itself. Clearly, there will be a need to determine why trends are weak and then address them. If this occurs, a positive economic upswing may prove possible.