Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
65,000 U.S. Marines Hold up a Mirror to the Economy / Economics / US Economy
By: Don_Miller
I was 18 years old when I left boot camp for Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, where the Marine Corps stationed 65,000 troops. When my unit got our first weekend pass and could actually leave the base in civilian clothes, something I hadn’t worn in several months, I put on a brand new pair of Levis, no belt, penny loafers, white socks, and a collared, buttoned shirt. I had no hair to comb—the Marine Corps saw to that.
Monday, August 25, 2014
Go Forth Multiply And Replenish The Earth / Economics / Demographics
By: Andrew_McKillop
And Inherit The Debt of your Parents
A supposedly alarming national population simulation commissioned by South Korea's National Assembly and published this week says that by 2750 (perhaps that was a typo for 2075) the country's population would be extinct. The report said that South Korea's extreme low fertility rate (about 1.25 children per female in her reproductive life) is outpacing the decline of neighboring Japan's population but the report admitted that Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau and Singapore have even lower fertility rates. Several EU28 countries, including former “big family” Italy and Spain have fertility rates close to Japan's 1.40 children per female, far below the 2.2 to 2.3 needed to simply maintain the present population.
Monday, August 25, 2014
Why Isn’t Fed Monetary Pumping Helping the U.S. Economy? / Economics / US Economy
By: Frank_Shostak
Despite all the massive monetary pumping over the past six years and the lowering of interest rates to almost zero most commentators have expressed disappointment with the pace of economic growth. For instance, the yearly rate of growth of the European Monetary Unit (EMU) real GDP fell to 0.7 percent in Q2 from 0.9 percent in the previous quarter. In Q1 2007 the yearly rate of growth stood at 3.7 percent. In Japan the yearly rate of growth of real GDP fell to 0 percent in Q2 from 2.7 percent in Q1 and 5.8 percent in Q3 2010.
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Inflation vs the Deflationary Straw Man / Economics / Inflation
By: Gary_Tanashian
No matter the debates over inflation vs. deflation, increasing employment vs. sound monetary policy or systemic health vs. fragility (and whatever else is flying around in Jackson Hole this week), the CPI marches onward and upward. That is the system and it is predicated on creating enough money out of thin air while inflation signals are (somehow) held at bay.
The Straw Man* in this argument lives in the idea that inflation is not always destructive, that inflation can be used for good and honed, massaged and targeted just right to achieve positive ends to defeat the curse of deflation that is surely just around the next corner. Currently, the Straw Man is supported by the reality of the moment, which includes long-term Treasury yields remaining in their long-term secular down trend.
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Friday, August 22, 2014
The Mega Debt and Sustainable Capitalism / Economics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: Submissions
Tom Naysburn writes: Accepted thought acknowledges the financial crisis of 2008 was a near apocalyptic event which needed the citizens of the Anglo American dominated financial world to bailout the banking system to the conservative tune of $10 trillion in the US, and at least £1 trillion by UK taxpayers. For perspective, the entire cumulative national government debt in the UK stood at £350bn at the turn of the century.
Friday, August 22, 2014
Deflation's Final Curtain Call - Part II / Economics / Deflation
By: Clif_Droke
As the 60-year cycle enters its final few weeks of descent, a few conclusions can be made. We can also make some projections as to what the foreseeable future might hold based on the upcoming bottom of this important economic cycle.
Since the 60-year cycle is the primary cycle governing inflation and deflation, it makes sense that its impact will be most strongly felt in the prices of inflation-sensitive commodities. Its force is also evident in wages, interest rates, and other factors which influence the general course of the economy. One of the biggest areas affected by the cycle is in earnings and income growth.
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Friday, August 22, 2014
A World Economy Made of BRICS? / Economics / Emerging Markets
By: Submissions
Rodney Johnson writes: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) recently announced the formation of a Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA), which will provide loans to member countries if their foreign exchange reserves run dangerously low.
This fund is supposed to show the world that the BRICS can survive without the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and its main patron, the U.S., and that countries are taking concrete steps to shake their reliance on the U.S. dollar.
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Wednesday, August 20, 2014
AI, Robotics, and the Future of Jobs / Economics / Employment
By: John_Mauldin
This past week several reports came across my desk highlighting both the good news and the bad news about the future of automation and robotics. There are those who think that automation and robotics are going to be a massive destroyer of jobs and others who think that in general humans respond to shifts in employment opportunities by creating new opportunities.
As I’ve noted more than once, in the 1970s (as it seemed that our jobs were disappearing, never to return), the correct answer to the question, “Where will the jobs come from?” was “I don’t know, but they will.” That was more a faith-based statement than a fact-based one, but whole new categories of jobs did in fact get created in the ’80s and ’90s.
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Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Austrian Capital Theory / Economics / Economic Theory
By: MISES
Mark Tovey writes: During an early scene of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, in which the hyper-intelligent apes were depicted hunting for deer in the forestsurrounding their settlement, someone behind me interjected “if those apes are so smart, how come they’re hunter-gatherers?” While a decent question, he received nothing but a shush from his more etiquette-conscious companion for raising it. While there are many factors other than intelligence that are relevant to a society’s choice of an agricultural or hunter-gather economy, Austrian capital theory can go a long way in helping to explain why the apes featured in the film can be both highly-intelligent and hunter-gatherers.
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Inflation Watch: $245,000 to Raise a Child in United States / Economics / Inflation
By: EconMatters
Welcome to Middle-Income Family American Style
Yesterday the USDA`s annual report laid out another 2% increase in the cost to raise a child in the United States, and this only includes the costs associated with the age of 18, which any modern family realizes doesn`t include college, and the fact that many kids either live at home, or require financial help long after the age of 18.
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Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Europe's Economic Malaise: The New Normal? / Economics / Euro-Zone
By: STRATFOR
George Friedman writes: Russia and Ukraine continue to confront each other along their border. Iraq has splintered, leading to unabated internal warfare. And the situation in Gaza remains dire. These events should be enough to constitute the sum total of our global crises, but they're not. On top of everything, the German economy contracted by 0.2 percent last quarter. Though many will dismiss this contraction outright, the fact that the world's fourth-largest economy (and Europe's largest) has shrunk, even by this small amount, is a matter of global significance.
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
The Coming U.S. Economic Collapse Will Trigger a Revolution / Economics / US Economy
By: Harry_Dent
When the next economic collapse comes, and it’s inevitable, the revolution against the upper class will kick into higher gear!
Let me explain using my long-term economic cycle — the new 80-year, four season, Generation Wave — and an important 250-year cycle…
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Tuesday, August 19, 2014
This is Your Economic Recovery With and Without Drugs / Economics / Economic Recovery
By: James_Quinn
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks…will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered…. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.” – Thomas Jefferson
Monday, August 18, 2014
The Keynesian Counterfactual is Japan / Economics / Japan Economy
By: Michael_Pento
We heard the "surprising" news last week that the Japanese economy shrank at an alarming 6.8 percent annualized rate in the three months through June, its biggest quarterly contraction since the 2011 earth quake and tsunami. Proving Japan's greatest national disaster, Abenomics, has failed and the Japanese economy has fallen victim to the scam called Keynesian economics. Defined as the belief that a country can tax, spend, devalue and inflate its way to prosperity.
Sunday, August 17, 2014
Time Decay And No Escape For Abenomics / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Andrew_McKillop
Abenomics Does Not Work
So-called Abenomics is also (so) called Pure Keynesian. Two physics-related analogies help explain why neither Abenomics nor Keynesian economics will work. There is the concept of escape velocity – that is escape from recession - and the time rate of decay of plenty of things, for example of prices if deflation sets in. As we know, economists like to dress up their works on what is a subject that can never be scientific – economics – using mathematical formulae purporting to show neat functional relationships between “key aggregates”, but in several science domains, from astrophysics to subatomic physics firstly these terms have a real meaning. Secondly, ambiguity has to be allowed into the party. Multiple outcomes are perfectly possible.
Saturday, August 16, 2014
Africa: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly / Economics / Africa
By: Steve_H_Hanke
Last week, President Obama hosted the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, D.C. He welcomed over 40 African heads of state and their outsized entourages to what was a festive affair. Indeed, even the Ebola virus in West Africa failed to dampen spirits in the Nation's capital. Perhaps it was the billions of dollars in African investment, announced by America's great private companies, that was so uplifting.
Friday, August 15, 2014
Don’t Assume What Is “Unseen” Doesn’t Exist / Economics / Economic Theory
By: MISES
Gary M. Galles writes: The use of the ceteris paribus, or “other things equal” assumption is an essential aspect of economic education. It is an important caveat that helps make sense of a complicated world by clarifying the incentive stories that comprise the core of economics.
Unfortunately, the often unthinking acceptance of that phrase has also provided an opening for misrepresenting economic reality in analyzing government interventions. That is because governments cannot change just one incentive. As a result, assuming certain “other things equal,” when those other things inherently cannot remain equal, provides cover for omitting adverse effects.
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Thursday, August 14, 2014
China's Credit Slowdown Raises Concerns About Overall Economic Health / Economics / China Economy
By: STRATFOR
New economic data released by China's National Bureau of Statistics on Aug. 13 shows the supply of credit to the Chinese economy expanded by only $44.3 billion in July, the slowest pace in almost six years. To be precise, credit expanded at the slowest pace since October 2008, the month after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and the month before the Chinese government launched an economic stimulus program that sheltered China's economy from the worst effects of the global financial crisis. That program also locked China into a growth model grounded in the intimate bond between government-led credit expansion and housing and infrastructure construction -- one that the Chinese government is now struggling, against time and at the risk of crisis, to escape.
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
High Frequency Failure Economics / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Andrew_McKillop
High Frequency Failure
Japan's most recent GDP data showing a 6.8% annual rate of contraction was quickly shrugged off by the markets as only a signal for more handouts from the Japanese government and the BOJ. But Shinzo Abe's government has to admit the failures are coming faster all the time. In the global finance industry we can move on from the easy explanation why we have HFT, Dark Pools, Libor rigging, FX rigging, oil and gold market rigging and the rest – that they deliver large easy profits to insiders, fixers and riggers. These fail-sure (rather than fail-safe) processes are also essential to maintaining an appearance of real economies with real markets. They serve this additional basic function.
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
China Economy Transformation or Bust, Part 2 / Economics / China Economy
By: John_Mauldin
In last week’s Thoughts from the Frontline (“Transformation or Bust”), my young colleague Worth Wray and I continued our groundbreaking series exploring the risks posed by China’s rapid private sector debt growth and its consumption-repressing, investment-heavy growth model that is quickly running out of steam. China is the true conundrum in the global economy. It is an outlier in the history of development, with no true analogues. And while there is much to be appreciative of and admired about China, there are clear danger signals.