Professional Documents
Culture Documents
• Coast Guard says the successful plugging of one of the leaks is not expected to reduce the overall
flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. – Washington Post
• Gulf/BP – a huge amount of chemicals has been dumped on the crude slick, helping to break up the
oil and resulting in less of it reaching shore than feared.
• Mortgage Applications up 4%
Mortgage Bankers Association Purchase Index (Seasonally Adjusted)
This index includes all mortgage applications for the purchase of a single‐family home. It tends to be a
reliable leading indicator of impending home sales.
• Economic commentary out of Europe relatively positive with the European Commission revising
higher its 2010 eurozone growth forecast and the Eurozone composite PMI for Apr. slightly stronger
than expected
• Greek Strikes – Strikes continued Wednesday to protest the latest round of wage and pension cuts,
effectively closing down Greek airports (air‐traffic controllers walked off their jobs causing Athens Int’l
Airport to cancel all flights into and out of the airfield for the day)
• Los Angeles on the brink of bankruptcy according to a WSJ oped
• States will see massive cuts as federal stimulus money runs out ‐ stimulus funds helped plug
between 30% and 40% of the $291 billion in budget gaps that states have faced over the past two years.
But Recovery Act money will only be sufficient to plug 20% or less of the coming fiscal year's shortfalls,
according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. By fiscal 2012, most of the money will be gone.
CNN – In the most recent GDP figures, headline grew 3.2% while private sector GDP was a healthy 4.5%;
headline was held back primarily by state and local government spending cuts. This trend should
continue.