by Calculated Risk on 8/19/2012 09:30:00 PM

My baseline scenario is for economic growth to remain sluggish but to start to increase as housing improves and the impact of state and local austerity subsides. I think QE3 remains likely, although the timing is still uncertain. My baseline also assumes that some sort of reasonable resolution to the "fiscal cliff" is found, that the European crisis doesn't take down the world economy and that President Obama is reelected.

The Asian markets are mostly green tonight, with the Nikkei up 0.5% and the Shanghai Composite up slightly.

From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures: the S&P future are down slightly, and the DOW futures down about 4 points.

Oil prices are moving up again with WTI futures are at $96.21 and Brent is at $114.10 per barrel. Using the calculator at Econbrowser suggests national gasoline prices at about $3.69 per gallon.

Yesterday:
• Summary for Week Ending Aug 17th
• Schedule for Week of Aug 19th

Two more questions for the August economic prediction contest (Note: You can now use Facebook, Twitter, or OpenID to log in).