How to understand mixed economic signals

Wall Street
Wall Street in front of the New York Stock Exchange building in Manhattan on Aug. 8, 2011.
STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images

New economic numbers and reports are easy to come by, but they don't seem to help us understand what's going on in the U.S. economy. One day things look positive, then there's reason to worry. Why are we getting mixed economic signals, and how can we make sense of them?

From The Washington Post:

"Just as economists began hoping that the recovery was reaching takeoff speed, Britain has slipped into a double-dip recession.

'Now you have boomlets... but you don't have a sort of consistent pattern,' said Dennis Jacobe, chief economist at Gallup. 'It's trying to run with weights on your legs.'"

Jacome will join The Daily Circuit Tuesday to help us make sense of the latest economic reports. Russell Roberts, research fellow at the Hoover Institution, will also join the discussion.

We've also received a lot of general questions from listeners about the economy. We'll take some time to answer questions about some of the basic economic ideas that are shaping our world today.

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