Voters and Consumers Guidance on the 2015 U.S. Economy

We published an economic forecast for 2015 for the United States economy in November of 2014. You can access that forecast by clicking here.  The U.S. Federal Reserve and the International Monetary Fund are projecting that our economy will grow by 3% or better this year.  However, when you take a look at what the American Public are saying and what the Voting Public said the last election, you get a different projection.

In the graph below, you see that of those who voted on November 4, 2014, 78% are worried about the direction of the 2015 economy.  They predict that the economy will be the same as 2014 or perform worse.  This flies in the face of the official projections that have been provided us.

When you look at the Consumer Confidence graph below, you also see that the American Public was very bullish on the economy for the month of December 2014, with the PS (Present Situation) index taking off.  However, when you look at the FS (Future Situation or Expectation Index), you see it further declining.  The Expectation Index reflects how the public feels the economy will do over the next six months or more.

Private Sector Non-Farm Employment Continued to Grow in December 2014

2015 gas prices could avg. $2.64, lowest since 2009

By Gary Strauss, USA TODAY

Crude oil prices plunged again Monday, exacerbating Wall Street's New Year's hangover. But crude's sell-off is expected to extend a record-breaking decline in daily gasoline prices and push 2015 pump prices to their lowest yearly average since 2009.

In its annual outlook due out Tuesday , price tracker GasBuddy.com. forecasts 2015 gas prices to average $2.64 a gallon. That's 70 cents below 2014's $3.34 average and nearly $1 a gallon below 2012's all-time record of $3.60. Plummeting prices will save U.S. motorists about $97 billion overall this year, or about $750 per household, says GasBuddy.com senior analyst Patrick DeHaan.

GasBuddy.com's forecast comes a day after benchmark West Texas Intermediate plunged 5.3% to $49.88 a barrel in intraday trading — the first drop below $50 since April 2009, before settling at $50.04. The declines pummeled already hard-hit energy stocks, propelling the Dow Jones industrial average down more than 331 points to 17,502.

Crude oil has now sunk 53% from a $107.26 peak last June, while gas prices have tumbled 102 straight days to $2.20 a gallon.

"As much we were thrilled by $2.99 gas at Thanksgiving, we now enjoy $1.99 gas in many places,'' DeHaan says. "I fully expect we'll soon become complacent with those $2.99 prices once these sub-$2 prices stick around a bit longer."

Oil prices have been pummeled due to a global supply glut, exacerbated by surging North American output, a failure by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to reduce output and slowing growth in demand. Behind Monday's cratering — which also pushed Brent crude oil down 6% to $52.97 — Russian oil production rose to two-decade highs last month, while Iraq announced plans to boost January exports 12% to 3.3 million barrels.

GasBuddy.com expects retail prices to gradually rise through the peak driving season, topping at $3 a gallon by May. In 2014, gas prices peaked April 28 at about $3.70.

GasBuddy.com's forecast is based on West Texas crude trading in the mid-$50s.

"Three or four dollars lower won't affect the forecast,'' he says. "The fundamentals still support crude oil in the $55 to $60 range."

Investment bank forecasts vary widely. Morgan Stanley recently forecast prices could fall as low as $43 a barrel. Monday, Sanford Bernstein estimated Brent crude would average $80 a barrel — about 50% higher than current levels, but down from an early forecast of $104 a barrel.

"With OPEC's recent shift in attitude in the last few months — cutting oil prices and seeking to regain market share — there remains a question of how long OPEC will stay this course. Should attitude and policy reverse towards a desire of higher oil prices, this may dramatically alter this forecast,'' DeHaan says.

Vietnam suggests where Cuba is heading

By Thuan Le Elston, USA TODAY

Even before President Obama announced the normalization of relations with Cuba on Dec. 17, our friend Loan Tran was texting my husband, Bob, and me: "Just like when Vietnam opened the door!"

To which Bob answered, "We should all move to Havana and party like the old days in SG."

SG is Saigon, the former name of Ho Chi Minh City before it fell to communists on April 30, 1975. A week before that, my family escaped and moved to Arizona. I was 9. Growing up, I'd hear my parents resignedly say that they'd never see their homeland again, that the old, hard-line communists in Hanoi had to die first before a new generation could change Vietnam. Looking at us kids, Dad would say, "Maybe while you're still alive." My father passed away in 1991.

USA TODAY

Obama opens doors to Cuba after 56 years

In February 1994, citing Hanoi's cooperation on such issues as finding the remains of American MIAs, President Clinton lifted the 19-year-old trade embargo, and the U.S. normalized diplomatic relations that July. By then, Bob and I had left our reporting jobs at the Los Angeles Times and were living in Saigon. It will be interesting to compare Cuba's transformation with how Vietnam changed in the years I worked there right after it reopened.

On Feb. 5, 1994, I shared a byline on an L.A. Times article about how support by some Vietnamese Americans for ending the embargo muffled the protests of anti-communist extremists. The article noted: "It was not too long ago … that the announcement of renewed trade with Vietnam would have sparked acts of violence against anyone in the Vietnamese community who supported Clinton's policy. Yet there have been no acts of violence against the many Vietnamese businessmen who publicly endorsed the move."

That spring, my editor sent several of us to Vietnam for more stories. It was on this trip that I decided to move back to Saigon.

We found an apartment over a bakery for $300 a month, which included meals and housekeeping. Bob taught English and studied Vietnamese. I scoured an English-language newspaper and found a marketing job for a joint American-Vietnamese company developing golf club resorts. Vietnam was rushing to make up for the two prior "lost" decades. From north to south, abandoned buildings and rice paddies turned into a modern money crop: development, construction sites that transformed the drab landscape into glass high-rises, spa hotels and garden villas. As the number of jobs increased, lives improved. On the streets, motorcycles gradually outnumbered bicycles. My relatives renovated their homes, improved their diets, sent the kids to better schools.

Saigon was the new Wild West. Restaurants and bars couldn't open fast enough to accommodate not only the budding middle class but also all the tourists and expats working there. There was even a term for returning Vietnamese like me, Viet Kieu. Scattered by war all over the globe, thousands of us were now drawn back to our native land. At a Viet Kieu party, Bob and I met Loan, a New Jersey transplant working as a project manager for a food company. Unlike me, Loan was actually living with her parents, who had never left Vietnam. They had sent her away for a better life, but their motorbike business had grown so fast, they no longer wanted to move to America.

USATODAY

First Take: U.S.-Cuba relations move into 21st century

To continue reading click here