Survey of Current Business

Recommended supplement

The Survey of Current Business is a monthly journal containing estimates and analyses of U.S. economic activity. Most of BEA's work is presented in the Survey, either in full or summary form. It includes the "Business Situation," a review of current economic developments, and regular and special articles pertaining to the national, regional, and international economic accounts and related topics. Among the special articles that appeared in 1995, for example, were "Mid-Decade Strategic Review of BEA's Economic Accounts: Maintaining and Improving Their Performance," and "Regional and State Projections of Economic Activity and Population to the Year 2005." Current estimates of the national income and product accounts appear every month.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis provides basic information on such key issues as economic growth, regional development, and the nation's role in the world economy. The "User's Guide to BEA Information" lists the most recent and most frequently requested BEA products and helps users locate and obtain that information.

BEA's current national, regional, and international estimates usually appear first in news releases, which are available to the general public in a variety of forms: on recorded telephone messages, on-line through the Economic Bulletin Board (EBB), by fax through STAT-USA/FAX, on the Internet through STAT-USA Internet, and in printed BEA Reports. The BEA news releases contain reports on gross domestic product, personal income and outlays, regional reports, and international reports.

<>One other document worth looking into is The Economic Report of the President (U.S. Council of Economic Advisors), which is published each February and transmitted to Congress by the president and his advisors. This is unquestionably a partisan publication, so take the message with a rather large grain of salt. (It is worth mentioning that our country is over $5 trillion in debt.) The narrative of economic issues is reader-friendly and contains a five-year outlook for the U.S. economy, including projections for the GDP.

During the Reagan administration, so the story goes, President Reagan once asked an aide how much the federal debt amounted to and when told that it approximated $5 trillion said, "Well, Jim, what exactly does that look like?" Jim confessed he didn't know but would return shortly with an example of what it looked like. After a few hours he returned and said, "Mr. President, a stack of $1 million in thousand-dollar bills, would reach four inches high. A stack of $1 trillion in thousand-dollar bills would reach 67 miles high. And since by the year 2000 we will be somewhere over $5 trillion in debt, then I guess the stack will reach 335 miles high and growing." Maybe, the president was heard to have said, we should measure it in ten-thousand-dollar bills.

Something to Think About

Which section, in the Statistical Abstract of the United States, presents data on the construction industry and on various indicators of its activity and costs; on housing units and their characteristics and occupants; and on the characteristics and vacancy rates for commercial buildings?

www.stat-usa.gov
stat-usa@oloc.gov
CD available
Database: Stat-USA , call [202]482-1986

Survey of Current Business

ISSN 0039-6222
For more information, call
Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), Department of Commerce
Phone: (202) 606-9900