The Financial Stability Plan – Progress So Far: Over the past six weeks, the Treasury Department has implemented a series of initiatives as part of its Financial Stability Plan that – alongside the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act – lay the foundations for economic recovery. Click here for fact sheet.
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Consumer prices rose in February by the largest amount in seven months as gasoline prices surged again and clothing costs jumped the most in nearly two decades, as the Labor Department reported that consumer inflation rose 0.4 percent in February, the biggest one-month jump since a 0.7 percent rise in July.
Two-thirds of last month’s increase reflected a big jump in gasoline pump prices.
Core inflation, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.2 percent in February, also slightly higher than the 0.1 percent rise economists expected.
Over the past 12 months, consumer prices have risen just 0.2 percent. That was up slightly from a reading of zero for the 12 months ending in January, which had been the smallest annual change in more than a half-century. Read the rest of this entry »
Wholesale prices edged up 0.1 percent in February as a big decline in food prices offset a second monthly increase in energy costs, the Labor Department reported today.
The increase was much lower than the 0.8 percent surge in January and smaller than the 0.4 percent increase economists had expected. Compared with a year ago, wholesale prices are actually down 1.3 percent.
Core inflation, which excludes energy and food, edged up 0.2 percent in February, only slightly higher than the 0.1 percent gain economists had expected. Core prices had risen 0.4 percent in January.
Only last summer, officials at the Federal Reserve had started to worry that a surge in energy costs could spread to other areas of the economy and boost inflation to unacceptable levels. But after the financial crisis struck in the fall, the Fed switched signals and is now aggressively fighting a deepening recession with no real threat of inflation.
The 0.1 percent rise in wholesale inflation in February reflected a 1.3 percent increase in energy prices, which have been rising for two months after having retreated for five straight months.
Gasoline prices jumped 8.7 percent in February after a 15 percent surge in January.
Food costs fell for a third straight month, dropping 1.6 percent in February, the biggest one-month decline in three years. The costs of eggs, fruits, vegetables and dairy products were all down.
Outside of food and energy, prices for cigarettes rose 2.7 percent, the biggest increase in two years, while the price of light trucks rose 1.3 percent, a gain that is not expected to last given the weakness in auto sales.
Prices for computers dropped 4.5 percent, the biggest one-month fall since January 2005.
Industrial Production fell 1.4 percent in February; the overall index has now declined for 4 consecutive months and for 10 of the past 12 months. At 99.7 percent of its 2002 average, output in February was 11.2 percent below its year-earlier level and was the lowest level since April 2002. Production in the manufacturing sector moved down 0.7 percent, with broad-based declines among its components.
An increase in the production of motor vehicles and parts after the extended plant shutdowns in January, however, added nearly 1/2 percentage point to the change in manufacturing production. Outside of manufacturing, the output of mines moved down 0.4 percent, while a swing to above-average temperatures contributed to a 7.7 percent drop in the output of utilities. The capacity utilization rate for total industry fell to 70.9 percent, a rate 10 percentage points below its average from 1972 to 2008. This rate matches the historical low for this series, which was recorded in December 1982; the data for total industrial utilization begin in 1967.
“Experience is the child of Thought, and Thought is the child of Action. We cannot learn men from books,” wrote Benjamin Disraeli in the 19th century. That’s an important consideration in the selection of public relations firm: Experience.
The larger, national or international firms are filled with experience; much of it derived from professionals who’ve spent their entire careers working for public relations agencies. One must wonder, then, how well is a client served in corporate relations when an account manager has never actually worked for a corporation. And how well is a client served in media relations with account executives without journalism experience?
This is not to say that the larger firms don’t offer this experience. They do, but it is not often manifest as most of a large firm’s professional population simply doesn’t possess that kind of background.
Who’s getting the publicity? We find it remarkably annoying to have an automobile dealership’s logo pasted on our car. We also find it at least interesting that many firms proudly announce their new clients. Our view is that such an announcement, albeit generally with the imprimatur of the client, does absolutely nothing to further the client’s agenda or assist it in reaching its objectives. In fact, in some cases the announcement of a new client by a public relations firm can have an adverse impact on the client and its goals:
- For a company in crisis, with layoffs or salary reductions in the wind, what’s the impact on employees of such a proud announcement; on shareholders or investors if a company’s stock is on the decline.
- Beyond this, clients compensate public relations firms for services; and ostensibly to effect their campaigns transparently. Our advice, if your new agency wants to issue a news release on its conquest, ask for a fee accommodation for the privilege. Read the rest of this entry »