New Normal - Low Growth, Few Jobs, El-Erian Says

'New Normal': Low Growth, Few Jobs, El-Erian Says: " . . . But the inability of Washington to address the burgeoning debt and deficit problems without stunting growth has prolonged the weakness and kept growth prospects dim. "The new normal is sluggish growth and persistently high unemployment and concerns about debt and deficits," El-Erian said. "Now we have that as the baseline with fatter tails. We can either slip into recession, or if our politicians get their act together we can come out much quicker. But the fatter tail now is the possibility of slipping into recession." The "tails" of which El-Erian spoke refer to either end of the traditional bell curve of possiblities. A fatter tail indicates a higher probability of an extreme outcome outside of expected possibilities. Only an activist Federal Reserve has kept the markets from reacting more severely to the Washington dysfunction . . . "

Fiscal-Cliff Fiasco: Where Did Obama's Leverage Go? : The New Yorker: ". . . . One thing the leverage story didn’t fully account for was the willingness—make that eagerness—on the part of many conservative G.O.P.ers to send the economy over the cliff and be damned. Faced with a choice of breaking their commitment not to vote for higher tax rates, even for a tiny proportion of the population, or let the lower Bush rates expire and then vote to bring them back down soon after the new year, the House G.O.P. rank and file didn’t think twice about choosing the option that allowed them to preserve the party’s record of not having approved a tax hike since 1990. If such a strategy further undermined the credibility of the U.S. government and risked causing bedlam in the markets, it was a risk that the G.O.P. ultras were all too ready to embrace. . . ."

GUEST COLUMN: Returning to the new normal in Sandy Hook
Delaware County Daily Times
MONROE, Conn. --- As I pulled into the driveway of the new Sandy Hook Elementary School at the former Chalk Hill middle school Wednesday, a Monroe policeman flagged me to stop and asked to see my license. A few yards ahead, I had to show it again.

The 11 Most Damaging US Weather Disasters of 2012
Bloomberg
The 11 Most Damaging U.S. Weather Disasters of 2012. By Amelia Hennighausen - 2013-01-03T19:15:32Z. The New Normal. Previous Next. Photograph by Scott Eells/Bloomberg. Previous. The New Normal · Violent Tornadoes Hit Ohio Valley · In Texas, ...

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