Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
U.S. Economic Snapshot - Strong Dollar Eating into corporate Profits / Economics / US Economy
By: Gary_Tanashian
Our view has been that a stronger US dollar would eventually start to eat away at corporate results, especially in the manufacturing sector and at US based companies with a global customer base. The decline in revenues thus far is something to be watched because where revenues go, earnings eventually follow.
[edit: the segment previous to this one reviewed a contrast between strong earnings and sagging revenues with companies that have reported earnings thus far]
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Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Functional Economics - Getting Your House in Order / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis
Old Habits Reappear
Fighting the Fear of Fear
Growing Conspiracy
Myself Is after Me
Frayed Ends of Sanity
Hear Them Calling
Frayed Ends of Sanity
Hear Them Calling
Hear Them Calling Me
- Frayed Ends of Sanity, Metallica
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Why Money Doesn’t Measure Value / Economics / Fiat Currency
By: Robert_Murphy
Anyone who knows him personally would attest that David Gordon is a troublemaker. He lived up to this label with a recent review of the new book by Steve Forbes and Elizabeth Ames. Gordon took them to task for referring to money as a measure of value, analogous to a ruler or clock; Gordon cited the authority of Ludwig von Mises while rejecting such a view. In a previous post here at Mises Canada, I then defended Gordon from the reply of John Tamny. Yet now I see that economist Marc Miles has jumped in the fray, also thinking that Gordon is ignorant of basic economics.
Saturday, October 25, 2014
Japanese Style Deflation Coming? Where? Fed Falling Behind the Curve? Which Way? / Economics / Deflation
By: Mike_Shedlock
There's some interesting discussion points in the UK-based Absolute Return Partners October 2014 Letter, by Niels C. Jensen, most of which I agree with, others not.
Japan-Style Deflation in Our Backyard?Read full article... Read full article...It is no secret that we have been long-standing believers in deflation being a more probable outcome of the 2008-09 crisis than high inflation. What has changed over the past six months is that the world has begun to move in different directions. Whereas rising unit labour costs in the U.S. make outright deflation in that country quite unlikely, the same cannot be said of the Eurozone.
Thursday, October 23, 2014
U.S. Economy Faltering Momentum, Debt and Asset Bubbles / Economics / US Economy
By: John_Mauldin
I featured the thinking of Dr. Lacy Hunt on the velocity of money and its relationship to developed-world overindebtedness and the potential for deflation in this week’s Thoughts from the Frontline, and I thought you’d like to peruse Lacy’s entire recent piece on the subject.
Lacy takes the US, Europe, and Japan one by one, examining the velocity of money (V) in each economy and bolstering the principle, first proposed by Irving Fisher in 1933, that V is critically influenced by the productivity of debt. Then, turning to the equation of exchange (M*V=Nominal GDP, where M is money supply), he demonstrates that we shouldn’t be the least bit surprised by sluggish global growth and had better be on the lookout for global deflation.
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Wednesday, October 22, 2014
The Last Days Of The Economic Growth Story / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Raul_I_Meijer
I am thinking about the similarities between a financial crisis and for instance a family crisis, the death of a loved one or close friend, a divorce, or a personal bankruptcy.
And I wonder why in the case of our recent (aka current) financial crisis, we allow nothing to enter our communications, and our train of thought, but the idea of recovery and a return to growth. Has everyone always reacted that way after earlier financial crises – history is full of them -, or is something else going on?
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Tuesday, October 21, 2014
The Fed’s New Labor-Market Measure / Economics / Employment
By: Frank_Shostak
Economists at the Federal Reserve have devised a new indicator, which they hold will enable US central bank policymakers to get better information regarding the state of the labor market. The metric is labeled as the Labor Market Conditions Index (LMCI).
Note that one of the key data points Fed policymakers are paying attention to is the labor market. The state of this market dictates the type of monetary policy that is going to be implemented.
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Tuesday, October 21, 2014
The Similarities Between Germany and China / Economics / GeoPolitics
By: STRATFOR
I returned last weekend from a monthlong trip to both East Asia and Europe. I discovered three things: First, the Europeans were obsessed with Germany and concerned about Russia. Second, the Asians were obsessed with China and concerned about Japan. Third, visiting seven countries from the Pacific to the Atlantic in 29 days brings you to a unique state of consciousness, in which the only color is gray and knowing the number of your hotel room in your current city, as opposed to the one two cities ago, is an achievement.
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
The Death Rattle of Europe’s Statist Dream / Economics / Euro-Zone
By: Rick_Ackerman
Europe’s all-too-predictable relapse into recession is gathering force, threatening not only the pipe dream of economic and political unity, but eroding grandiose illusions that have helped prop up the world’s financial house of cards. The unwillingness of France in particular to play by the EU’s — i.e., Germany’s — rules appears to have doomed the EU dream. The idea of a borderless Europe bound by a common currency and a shared desire to forever banish war from the Continent was a lofty one, but it was mired from the start in deeply rooted political animosities, grass-roots skepticism and bureaucratic overreach. Now these problems, along with a great many others, have turned the EU project into a Tower of Babel. A million pages of meticulously codified EU rules might as well have been written in cuneiform, so inscrutable and arcane have they become.
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Monday, October 20, 2014
Challenge to Keynesians 'Prove Rising Prices Provide an Overall Economic Benefit' / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Mike_Shedlock
The ECB has been concerned about falling consumer prices. I propose that's 100% stupid, yet that's the concern.
When the euro declined vs. the US dollar, the ECB was happy that inflation would inch back up. The fear now is that falling oil prices will take away the alleged gain of a falling euro.
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Sunday, October 19, 2014
'Confidence' Is a Corollary of a Fiat Culture / Economics / Fiat Currency
By: Jesse
Economists are fretting about the current notion that the US is caught in a secular stagnation. They are concerned because they believe that this is what is driving stock prices lower. And lower stock market prices are upsetting to their masters.
They are concerned that people are believing in stagnation as a sort of urban myth, and that makes it real. Seriously. Belief is not an effect, but a primary cause in their minds.
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Sunday, October 19, 2014
Reasons the Bernanke-Yellen Asset-Price Inflation May Be Nearing Its End / Economics / Inflation
By: Joseph_T_Salerno
There are strong indications that the remarkable run up of asset prices in the last few years is beginning to run out of steam and may be on the verge of collapse. We will leave aside the question of whether the asset inflation is symptomatic of a garden-variety inflationary boom or is a more virulent bubble phenomenon in which prices are rising today simply because buyers anticipate that they will rise tomorrow.
Friday, October 17, 2014
Why The Business Cycle is Failing / Economics / Business Cycles
By: Alasdair_Macleod
Since WW2 economic theorists have posited that demand in the economy could be stimulated by a combination of deficit spending by the government and by suppressing interest rates. The separation of demand from production was promoted by Keynes and interest rate management of the economy by monetarists, though there is considerable overlap between the two. Yet no progress in economic management has been achieved: instead we appear to be on the brink of a major economic dislocation.
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Friday, October 17, 2014
America Flirts With Deflation / Economics / Deflation
By: Raul_I_Meijer
“When it becomes serious, you have to lie,” said brand-new EC head Jean-Claude Juncker back in May 2011. I’m thinking the last few days have been serious enough to warrant some real whoppers from Brussels. And beyond.
Yesterday, one hour after the S&P reached its low point, not only was it deemed necessary to bring out the Plunge Protection Team, Fed grey head Janet Yellen was trotted out as well to soothe the dark mood with rosy tales about the US economy.
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Thursday, October 16, 2014
The Inflation Imputation, Dear Saver, May You RIP / Economics / Inflation
By: John_Mauldin
A note has been circulating among economists, calling into question the wisdom of another group of economists who wrote an open letter to the Federal Reserve a few years ago suggesting that one of the risks of their quantitative easing program was increased inflation. Since we have not seen CPI inflation, this latter group is calling upon the former to admit they were wrong, that quantitative easing does not in fact cause inflation. To no one’s surprise, Paul Krugman has written rather nastily and arrogantly about the lack of CPI inflation.
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Governments Need Inflation, Economies Don't / Economics / Inflation
By: Peter_Schiff
In an article in the UK's Telegraph on October 10, veteran economic correspondent Ambrose Evans-Pritchard laid bare the essential truth of the nearly universal current embrace of inflation as an economic panacea. While politicians, CEOs and economists talk about demand stimulus and the avoidance of a deflationary trap, Evans-Pritchard reminds us that inflation is all, and always, about debt management.
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Is the Surge in Capital Goods Orders Due to Malinvestment? / Economics / US Economy
By: Frank_Shostak
Orders for US non-military capital goods excluding aircraft rose by 0.6 percent in August after a 0.2 percent decline in July to stand at $73.2 billion. Observe that after closing at $48 billion in May 2009, capital goods orders have been trending up.
Most commentators regard this strengthening as evidence that companies are investing both in the replacement of existing capital goods and in new capital goods in order to expand their growth.
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Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Price Deflation and Price Inflation Are Always “Optimal” / Economics / Economic Theory
By: MISES
Mateusz Machaj writes: Recently, the Polish economy experienced its first price deflation since the 1980s, which sparked in the country deflationphobia (or, as Mark Thornton calls it, apoplithorismosphobia).
Media sources and many economists focus on price inflation and price deflation as the source of various economic ills, but, contrary to much of the rhetoric, price inflation and price deflation are always “optimal” in the economic sense. At first, such a claim may seem controversial, since virtually all economists have something negative to say about either inflation or deflation. This concerns almost all schools of economic thought, mainstream and heterodox, including the Austrians.
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Monday, October 13, 2014
When The Economy Went Ponzi / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Andrew_McKillop
Adam Smith and the Ponzi Economy
Like the archetypal images of love that were handed down by early Greek philosophers, of Erotic love, Parental love, and what later became Christian or Dutiful love towards fellow persons and living things of all kinds, the supposed “classic image” of the economy is the “Wealth of Nations”. Taken by the “Neolibs” of the 1980s and their surviving throw-offs as a timeless ode to invisible but all-powerful “market forces”, this classic model was handed down by their guru – Adam Smith.
Saturday, October 11, 2014
U.S. 5.5% Unemployment Rate Represents Full Employment / Economics / Unemployment
By: EconMatters
3-5 Months Ahead of Fed Forecasts for Employment Levels
What has sort of gone under the radar recently with Ebola fear mongering, Europe throwing a tizzy fit until they get their ‘stimulus fix’ and everything is miraculously all well again, profit taking in front of earning`s season here in the US, and oil on one of its customary $20 trading range moves to the downside is that last Friday the unemployment rate dropped to 5.9% due to another robust employment report and several upward revisions to prior month`s reports. Yes we are in the 5`s for unemployment, well ahead of everyone`s forecasts including the Federal Reserve.
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