My big takeaway from Money (McGraw Hill, 2014) is that Steve Forbes is no James Dean. Forbes is a rebel with a cause. Free-markets and sound money, please. In what follows, I will briefly mention 11 other takeaways from my reading of Money by Steve Forbes and Elizabeth Ames.
Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Monday, July 21, 2014
Inflation's Real Cause / Economics / Inflation
By: Michael_Pento
According to Pimco's new Chief Economist, Paul McCulley, the Fed's war against inflation has been won! But, before we get out our party hats and plan the tickertape parade, we have to ask ourselves - for the past 27 years have we really been at war with inflation? Yes, during the late 1970's and early 80's a different Paul (Paul Volcker, Chairman of the Federal Reserve) waged a real battle against inflation. Mr. Volcker painfully took the Fed Funds rate to near 20 percent in June of 1981. The economy suffered a deep recession, it was a treacherous battle plan, but the Fed stayed the course because Volcker was correctly convinced that limiting the growth rate of the money supply was the key to popping asset bubbles, vanquishing inflation and establishing a sound economy.
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
What the Facts Say About Inflation / Economics / Inflation
By: DailyWealth
Dr. David Eifrig writes: Investors are terrified of inflation right now...
But is it really a worry? Is it poised to eat away at your savings and wreck your income investments?
Many newsletter writers and talking heads say yes... According to them, inflation is already a big problem.
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Wednesday, July 16, 2014
U.S. Economy Quarterly Review and Implications for 2014-2015 / Economics / US Economy
By: John_Mauldin
This week’s Outside the Box is from an old friend to regular readers. It’s time for our Quarterly Review & Outlook from Lacy Hunt of Hoisington Investment Management, who leads off this month with a helpful explanation of the relationship between the US GDP growth rate and 30-year treasury yields. That’s an important relationship, because long-term interest rates above nominal GDP growth (as they are now) tend to retard economic activity and vice versa.
The author adds that the average four-quarter growth rate of real GDP during the present recovery is 1.8%, well below the 4.2% average in all of the previous post-war expansions; and despite six years of federal deficits totaling $6.27 trillion and another $3.63 trillion in quantitative easing by the Fed, the growth rate of the economy continues to erode.
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Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Never Mind Their Distrust of Economic Data and Forecasts; Austrians Can Help You Predict the Economy / Economics / Austrian Economics
By: F_F_Wiley
[O]f all the economic bubbles that have been pricked, few have burst more spectacularly than the reputation of economics itself. – From The Economist, July 16, 2009.
It’s been five years since the The Economist magazine published the critical commentary excerpted above. In hindsight, the noted reputational damage was neither lasting nor spectacular. As of today, we’d say it’s almost non-existent.
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Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Knock, Knock. It's Deflation. Deflation Who? Video / Economics / Deflation
By: EWI
The Elliott Wave Financial Forecast warns that the contracting U.S. economy signals deflation ahead
In June, the U.S. government, revising its previous number, reported that the economy shrank by 2.9% in the first quarter of 2014.
The steep plunge caught the bulls by surprise.
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Monday, July 14, 2014
Global Economy Is Deteriorating Fast / Economics / Global Debt Crisis 2014
By: Raul_I_Meijer
The insanity doesn’t just continue, it intensifies. The overriding idea is still that the more companies and individuals borrow, the better the economy goes. But that is nowhere near true. It may have been at some point in the past, but not now, not with debt levels at historic highs. Today’s problem is not that there is not enough credit or money available, as central banks try to make you believe, but that people are not spending what they have. Individuals are either maxed out or scared to be left with nothing, and companies see no opportunities for investing in productive projects (besides, they may well be maxed out too).
Monday, July 14, 2014
Why Is Zero Economic Growth 'Unexpected' ? / Economics / Global Economy
By: Andrew_McKillop
Always Unexpected
Each monthly decline in leading economic indicators, when it happens in the Eurozone, as in the US or Japan, China, Brazil, India or elsewhere, is always “unexpected”. Why is this?
For example the March, April, May and June declines for the Eurozone were each time titled “unexpected” by newswires and mainstream media the month following each “surprise”. Taking the case of Reuters, it reported April 14 that Eurozone industrial output had fallen in March “for the first time since August” so this was able to be called unexpected. Then the decline continued in April.
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Sunday, July 13, 2014
Marc Faber: Africa is Not Going to Be Another Southeast Asia / Economics / Africa
By: Submissions
Georgi Ivanov writes: In the last Squawkonomics interview with Marc Faber, we addressed an entire range of questions impacting regions of the global economy, including one of the most tantalizing topics: will Africa become another Southeast Asia and become the new hotspot growth region of the global economy? After decades and centuries of predictions of an African rise, will it finally be Africa's turn for robust economic development?
Wednesday, July 09, 2014
This Is Disgusting — And the Food Sounds Gross Too / Economics / Inflation
By: John_Rubino
It is by now generally understood, at least in the sound money community, that inflation is much higher than the government admits and that the true extent of the problem is being hidden in various ways. But the specifics keep getting more and more disturbing. Here’s a recent Phoenix Capital note (via Zero Hedge) on the adulteration of our “food.”
Wednesday, July 09, 2014
Why Seattle’s Minimum Wage Hike Matters to Seniors / Economics / Wages
By: Don_Miller
The US is gearing up for mid-term elections this November 4—so much so that Rolling Stone announced the relaunch of the “Rock the Vote” campaign last month (according to one of the younger members of my team). And just like clockwork, minimum wage is making headlines again too. It’s déjà vu all over again.
At a breakfast some 20 years ago, I sat next to a prominent, high-ranking US senator now long retired. He showed us data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicating that every time the minimum wage went up, more unemployment followed. Businesses were forced to ship jobs offshore—whether they wanted to or not—and started looking for ways to automate low- or unskilled jobs.
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Tuesday, July 08, 2014
Real Earnings of Private Employees Declined Again in May / Economics / Wages
By: PhilStockWorld
Courtesy of Doug Short. Here is a look at two key numbers in last week’s monthly employment report for June:
- Average Hourly Earnings
- Average Weekly Hours
The government has been tracking the data for Production and Nonsupervisory Employees for decades. But coverage of Total Private Employees only dates from March 2006.
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Tuesday, July 08, 2014
Inflation: Higher And Higher We Go / Economics / Inflation
By: Darryl_R_Schoon
In the end game, truth is found only at the margins
In Time of the Vulture: How to Survive the Crisis and Prosper in the Process(2007, 2012 3rd edition), I wrote about inflation and its root cause:
In a credit-money system, over time the constant infusion of increasing amounts of credit will inevitably lead to higher and higher rates of inflation. Because common knowledge of this fact is not in the best interests of those benefiting from the system, it is hidden away. And in the US, hiding the real rate of inflation is done the old-fashioned way, by lying about it.
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Monday, July 07, 2014
What Is the Rate of Return on the Louisiana Purchase? / Economics / US Economy
By: David_Howden
David Howden and Daniel Fernández-Renau Atienza write: Everyone loves making a buck, including governments. Unfortunately, the reality of many “great deals,” especially in the history books, has today been inflated to mythical proportions.
While most countries throughout history expanded their frontiers through peaceful trade or the spoils of war, the United States purchased much of its land, mostly from foreign governments. Today several of these land purchases are immortalized as great financial coups for the country.
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Friday, July 04, 2014
Investors and Austrian Economics / Economics / Global Economy
By: Robert_Blumen
Robert Blumen, a software engineer with a background in financial applications, recently spoke with the Mises Institute about the Austrian School’s growing influence among investors.
Mises Institute: In recent years, we’ve seen more and more Austrian-tinged economic analysis coming from investors like Mark Spitznagel and Jim Rogers, to just name two. As someone personally involved in the investment world, have you yourself seen growth in Austrian ideas among investors and similar professionals?
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Friday, July 04, 2014
Why Abenomics Flopped - Class Warfare Saps the Economy / Economics / Japan Economy
By: Mike_Whitney
By every objective standard, Abenomics has been a complete flop. Household spending has plunged, wages have dropped for 23 months in a row, inflation is on the rise, the number of workers who can only find part-time jobs has ballooned to 38 percent, and most economists now expect 2nd quarter GDP to shrink to minus 4 percent or worse. So where’s the silver lining?
Friday, July 04, 2014
Christine Lagarde's Birkin Bag Of IMF Tricks / Economics / Global Economy
By: Andrew_McKillop
While Nobody's Watching
Christine Lagarde and the IMF chose the midst of the world football cup and the Iraq and Ukrainian crises as just the right moment to announce new “draconian plans” to solve the debt crisis of the developed countries. Dressed in her Hermes scarf and clutching her uber-expensive Jane Birkin-bag, she laid out the IMF Bagmen's plan, this week.
Friday, July 04, 2014
John Williams Warns of Massive Inflation and Then Hyperiflation / Economics / Inflation
By: Videos
Jeff Weatherford of Sprott Money News, Interviews John Williams. (39.37)
He says; “The government has to address its long-term solvency issues if it’s going to survive, if it’s going to have any credibility in the rest of the world…We have ahead of us here probably the worst fundamentals ever facing the dollar…I don’t think things have ever been more negative.
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Thursday, July 03, 2014
Jobs Report Not as Positive for the Economy as Some Think / Economics / Employment
By: Sy_Harding
The jobs report for June was super good news. There were 288,000 new jobs created, and the unemployment rate dropped from 6.3% to 6.1%. The consensus forecast was for only 215,000 new jobs.
On the negative side, analysts are warning that with the economy accelerating so strongly, the Federal Reserve will have to begin raising interest rates sooner than expected to prevent the economy from over-heating and creating excessive inflation.
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Thursday, July 03, 2014
Remarks on Money: How the Destruction of the Dollar Threatens the Global Economy / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Steve_H_Hanke
— and What We Can Do about It by Steve Forbes and Elizabeth Ames
These remarks were delivered at a Cato Book Forum, June 19, 2014, Washington, D.C.
Thursday, July 03, 2014
Why the Mainstream Fails to Understand Recessions / Economics / Economic Theory
By: MISES
Hal W. Snarr writes: In a 2010 Bloomberg Television interview, Alan Greenspan said, “The general notion the Fed was propagator of the bubble by monetary policy does not hold up to the evidence. ... Everybody missed it — academia, the Federal Reserve, all regulators.”