Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Saturday, December 07, 2013
Will The Real U.S. Economy Please Stand Up? / Economics / US Economy
By: Sy_Harding
Are economic reports finally indicating an acceleration in the economic recovery - or not?
Markets need to know. Investors need to know. Most importantly, the Fed needs to know.
The prognosis changes from month to month, even week to week, and this week even day to day, as expectations for Fed action move from taper on, to taper off, to taper on and back again.
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Friday, December 06, 2013
QE Euthanasia of the Economy? / Economics / Quantitative Easing
By: John_Mauldin
Today's Outside the Box comes to us from my good friend and business partner Niels Jensen of Absolute Return Partners in London. Niels gives us an excellent summary of how QE has affected the global economy (and how it hasn't). I have found myself paraphrasing Niels all week.
I also want to call to your attention an interview first posted at ZeroHedge between my friends Chris Whalen and David Kotok. This is an inside-baseball view of a not-so-minor issue involving central banks and ZIRP. The FDIC charges 7-10 basis points on deposits for the national deposit insurance scheme. At close to the zero bound, the fee means that banks can lose money on deposits. As Chris and David point out, this is just another distortion being fed into the system. David was the first to introduce me to this concept (and rather passionately). I have not written about it because it gets complicated quickly, but it highlights a very serious problem and one that is not dissimilar to the deflationary aspects of the Basel III requirements, working at odds with what central bankers are trying to do. This goes with my long-held contention that the models the Fed and all central banks are working with are simply inadequate to describe the complexity of the global economy, and we have no true idea what we are doing, just a guess and a hope.
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Friday, December 06, 2013
U.S. Fed QE Money Printing Volume to Triple Not Taper / Economics / Quantitative Easing
By: Jim_Willie_CB
The US Federal Reserve bond monetization support for government finance support, financial markets, banker welfare, economic props, redemption coverage, and liquidity fire hose functions will continue to expand and definitely not diminish. Only the brain-dead, the system wonks, and the deeply deluded believe the QE volume will taper down. They are paid to think that way in the public forum, their minds compromised, their hearts darkened, their paychecks dependent. As preface in order to properly comprehend the national situation, keep in mind that the USEconomy is stuck in a nightmarish quagmire, with growth steadily in decline at between minus 3% and minus 5% annually, when reality is required. The propaganda must be pushed off the road, the price inflation not labeled as growth, and the system perceived for what it is. The USEconomy is in grotesque deterioration with absent critical mass of industry, widespread debt defaults, retail liquidations, idle plant and equipment (including malls), and systemic capital destruction from the monetary hyper inflation and the imminent specter of ObamaCare tax. In queer fashion, the modern day US factories have become shopping malls. They suffer from at least a 25% vacancy rate nationally.
Friday, December 06, 2013
My Big Fat Chinese Plenum, Taking China's Economy to the Next Level / Economics / China Economy
By: HRA_Advisory
No, it's not a glandular condition. China's leaders concluded the third Plenum of the 18th Party Congress a couple of weeks ago. Party Congresses last for five years and Plenums (full meetings) are annual except for the first year of each Congress where there might be two or three full meetings.
Thursday, December 05, 2013
Three U.S. Economic Charts Obama Hopes You'll Never See / Economics / US Economy
By: Money_Morning
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes: Today I'm going to show you three charts Obama hoped you'd never see.
Brace yourself.
You're about to get a very different view of the "recovery" picture that the administration keeps painting for us.
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Monday, December 02, 2013
Revolutionary France’s Road to Hyperinflation / Economics / HyperInflation
By: MISES
Today, anyone who talks about hyperinflation is treated like the shepherd boy who cried wolf. When the wolf actually does show up, though, belated warnings will do little to keep the flock safe.
The current Federal Reserve strategy is apparently to wait for significant price inflation to show up in the consumer price index before tapering. Yet history tells us that you treat inflation like a sunburn. You don’t wait for your skin to turn red to take action. You protect yourself before leaving home. Once inflation really picks up steam, it becomes almost impossible to control as the politics and economics of the situation combine to make the urge to print irresistible.
Friday, November 29, 2013
Unemployed and Deployed in America / Economics / Unemployment
By: Jeff_Berwick
Wendy McElroy writes: Unemployment will be a global tipping point in 2014, and America will tip as well. Europe is already panicking about the likelihood of young people rioting in the streets next summer. The 17-nation Eurozone is predicting severe riots due to soaring unemployment, especially among the young. In September, the Eurozone's general unemployment rate was 12.2%; the rate for young workers was 24.1%. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, youth unemployment is nearly 60% in Greece, 55% in Spain and 40 percent in Italy and Portugal.
Friday, November 29, 2013
Inflation, Shortages, and Social Democracy in Venezuela / Economics / Inflation
By: Matt_McCaffrey
The economic turmoil in Venezuela has received increasing international media attention over the past few months. In September, the toilet paper shortage (which followed food shortages and electricity blackouts) resulted in the “temporary occupation” of the Paper Manufacturing Company, as armed troops were sent to ensure the “fair distribution” of available stocks. Similar action occurred a few days ago against electronics stores: President Nicolás Maduro accused electronics vendors of price-gouging, and jailed them with the warning that “this is just the start of what I’m going to do to protect the Venezuelan people.”
Friday, November 29, 2013
Ron Paul vs Paul Krugman: True Prophet vs False Prophet / Economics / Economic Theory
By: GoldSilverWorlds
Isn’t it strange? We are living in the 21st century, a period of time in which people buy land on the moon, humanity has dozens of satellites providing GPS services and real time traffic information, internet brings people and information as close as one click, science and technology are making historic break throughs … but economists cannot agree on the real cause of the latest financial crash (2008).
Thursday, November 28, 2013
The Fed Must Inflate or Die / Economics / Inflation
By: MISES
Chris Martenson writes: The Fed is busy doing everything in its considerable power to get credit (that is, debt) growing again so that we can get back to what it considers to be “normal.”
But the problem is that the recent past was not normal. You may have already seen this next chart. It shows total debt in the U.S. as a percent of GDP:
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Avenomics - The Clock Runs Out for the Japanese Economy / Economics / Japan Economy
By: John_Mauldin
By Grant Williams: In 1853 the French romantic composer Charles Gounod wrote a melody that was especially designed to sit over the Prelude No. 1 in C Major written by Johann Sebastian Bach over a century earlier. He titled it (somewhat unimaginatively, perhaps) "Meditation sur le Premier Prelude de Piano de S. Bach."
Interestingly enough, Gounod's father-in-law, the magnificently named Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmerman, transcribed the improvised melody and arranged it for violin, piano, and harmonium; and thus a piece that Gonoud himself never actually wrote down went on to become one of the most-recorded and most-played pieces of music in the history of mankind.
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Sunday, November 24, 2013
Navigating the Tidal Shifts in Myanmar / Economics / Asian Economies
By: Submissions
Keith Hilden, Georgi Ivanov, and Dylan Waller write: Developments of tidal proportions have occurred in Myanmar in recent years, as the country adopted a pivot in its domestic and foreign policy to re-engage with the world. This polar shift occurred after 50 years of isolation under the rule of a military junta that seized power in 1962. Navigating in Myanmar's quickly evolving position is a challenge, because of the dynamically developing environment in which the country finds itself. Myanmar is emerging from a situation similar to the newly independent post-colonial states in the mid-1900s, as well as the flux in which the post-Soviet space found itself after the collapse of the socialist bloc system and the USSR in 1989-91. Myanmar is developing while straddling two parallel realities.
Friday, November 22, 2013
Fed-induced Inflation - Pushing on a Rope or Lighting a Short Fuse / Economics / Inflation
By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis
Many regard the risk of inflation as low, since the Fed's money distribution or credit mechanism is limited by how the banks decide to lend. While credit worthy businesses and consumers are still de-leveraging, the transmission mechanism will eventually come. This will occur, for the most part, thanks to the Treasury.
So then how can the Fed push money into the economy?
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Friday, November 22, 2013
Economic Recovery Doubtful as New Survey Shows Manufacturing Downturn / Economics / US Economy
By: InvestmentContrarian
Sasha Cekerevac writes: After so many years following the Great Recession, it’s still quite astounding that job creation remains so slow. This obviously indicates the lack of economic growth, even after trillions of dollars have been pumped into the U.S. economy.
While there has been a lot of optimistic talk in the mainstream media, there have been an increasing number of data points indicating America’s economic growth is still very fragile.
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Friday, November 22, 2013
Today’s Wealth Destruction Is Hidden by Government Debt / Economics / Global Debt Crisis 2013
By: Philipp_Bagus
Still unnoticed by a large part of the population is that we have been living through a period of relative impoverishment. Money has been squandered in welfare spending, bailing out banks or even — as in Europe — of fellow governments. But many people still do not feel the pain.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Trickle Down Economic Recovery: Monetary Expansion, Excess Bank Reserves, and Leftovers For Main Street / Economics / Economic Recovery
By: Jesse
“Trickle-down theory - the less than elegant metaphor that if one feeds the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.” - John Kenneth Galbraith
"There are those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, that their prosperity will leak through on those below." - William Jennings Bryant
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Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Germany’s Dangerous Current Account Surplus / Economics / Euro-Zone
By: MISES
Frank Hollenbeck writes: The US government and the European Commission (EC) recently slammed Germany for running large current account surpluses. Paul Krugman jumped in with this beauty of a quote:
Read full article... Read full article...The problem is that Germany has continued to maintain highly competitive labor costs and run huge surpluses since the bubble burst — and that in a depressed world economy, this makes Germany a significant part of the problem.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
China's Next Baby Boom Will be a Boon for U.S. Business / Economics / Demographics
By: Profit_Confidential
George Leong writes:
There you have it; the latest great news out of China, I think, will help drive sales of some U.S. companies going forward.
The news? There are going to be more babies born in China over the foreseeable future. In a surprise and strategic move, the Communist Party of China decided it was time to increase its baby population and look towards the future of the country.
Monday, November 18, 2013
Perfect Storm Brewing for Ireland’s Economy / Economics / Euro-Zone
By: Global_Research
Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin writes: “We are now mainly borrowing to pay interest on the burgeoning national debt”[1]
While much has been made recently of Ireland’s exit from the punishing EU/IMF bailout programme, Michael Noonan, the Finance Minister, has welcomed post-bailout ‘surveillance’. Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, said Ireland would be subjected to ‘intensive surveillance’ “twice a year, but this would involve monitoring as supposed to new measures being imposed” because “under new European budgetary rules, countries leaving a bailout will be subject to extra attention until at least 75pc of the money owed is repaid.”[2]
Monday, November 18, 2013
Europe’s Bank Money Blues, Academics Declare War on Germany / Economics / Euro-Zone
By: Steve_H_Hanke
Well, it’s official, the economic talking head establishment has declared war on Germany. The opening shots in this battle were fired by none other than the United States Treasury Department, which had the audacity to blame Germany for a weak Eurozone recovery in its semi-annual foreign exchange report. The Treasury’s criticisms were echoed by IMF First Deputy Managing Director David Lipton, in a recent speech in Berlin — a speech so incendiary that the IMF opted to post the “original draft,” rather than his actual comments, on its website. Things were kicked into a full blitzkrieg when Paul Krugman penned his latest German-bashing New York Times column.