[Infowarrior] - USG shuts down "best-of-web" economicindicators.gov

[Richard Forno]

.....not seen any MSM news stories mentioning this, but given the current US
economic climate, you have to wonder the rationale behind this decision.
Budget considerations?  They're still collecting the data.....and besides,
it's not *that* expensive to maintain a website in 2008.  --rf


Administration shuts down "best-of-web" economicindicators.gov
Wed, 2008-02-13 21:29 ‹ jrjacobs

http://freegovinfo.info/node/1627

Forbes has awarded EconomicIndicators.gov one of its ³Best of the Web²
awards. As Forbes explains, the government site provides an invaluable
service to the public for accessing U.S. economic data:

    This site is maintained by the Economics and Statistics Administration
and combines data collected by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, like GDP and
net imports and exports, and the Census Bureau, like retail sales and
durable goods shipments. The site simply links to the relevant department¹s
Web site. This might not seem like a big deal, but doing it yourself -- say,
trying to find retail sales data on the Census Bureau¹s site -- is such an
exercise in futility that it will convince you why this portal is necessary.

Yet the Bush administration has decided to shut down this site because of
³budgetary constraints,² effective March 1.

Here's a cross-section of the data available:

Advance Monthly Sales for Retail and Food Services | Advance Report on
Durable Goods | Construction Put in Place | Corporate Profits | Current
Account Balance (International Transactions) | Gross Domestic Product |
Housing Vacancies and Homeownership | Manufacturer's Shipments, Inventories,
and Orders | Manufacturing and Trade: Inventories and Orders | Manufacturing
and Trade: Inventories and Sales | Monthly Wholesale Trade | New Residential
Construction | New Residential Sales | Personal Income and Outlays |
Quarterly Financial Report | Quarterly Services | Retail E-Commerce Sales |
U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services | U.S. International
Transactions |