If you’ve known someone who came of age during the 1930s — a grandparent perhaps — you know that the Depression had a lifelong effect on people’s attitudes toward debt, the stock market and government social programs. As a father…

Joel Prakken, chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers, said this morning that he expects the nation’s economy to grow about 4 percent next year and almost that fast in 2011. That means the recession is definitely over, and Prakken admits that he’s…

The economy is already recovering from recession and will get stronger in 2010, Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Donald Kohn said today in St. Louis. The recovery is being driven by a slowing of inventory liquidation and an improvement in home building, he said.

However, like…

Members of the National Association for Business Economics think that the recession is over, but that the unemployment rate will remain almost as high a year ago from now as it is now today. Those are the highlights of a…

In London, “mind the gap” announcements remind subway travelers to be careful of the space between the train door and the platform. James Bullard, president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, reminded economists Sunday to be careful about how they…

Here’s a depressing post-Labor-Day footnote to my downbeat Labor Day column: BusinessWeek’s Michael Mandel calculates that the U.S. private sector now employs fewer people than it did 10 years ago. It’s the first time this has happened, he says, since the Great…

The recession has made retirement a fading dream for many older workers, a new Pew Research Center study finds:

According to the Pew Research survey, nearly four-in-ten adults who are working past the median retirement age of 62 say they have…

Missouri still stands to lose more than 20,000 jobs before its economy turns around, and Illinois will still shed more than 40,000 jobs, according to a new forecast from IHS Global Insight. The firm also predicts that Missouri won’t regain…

It’s too early to talk about the need for additional fiscal stimulus, University of Illinois economist J. Fred Giertz says. He believes the recession will end this year, and notes that most of this year’s $787 billion stimulus package hasn’t…

Paul Christopher is among a large number of economists who think we’re close to the end of this recession. He’s also starting to worry about the next one.

Christopher, the global macro strategist for Eclipse Capital Management in Clayton, spoke this…