Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Ugly Secular Employment Trend of Part-Time Work, Emergening Underclass, the Lost Generation / Economics / Employment
By: John_Mauldin
It is pretty well established that a tax increase, especially an income tax increase, will have an immediate negative effect on the economy, with a multiplier of between 1 and 3 depending upon whose research you accept. As far as I am aware, no peer-reviewed study exists that concludes there will be no negative effects. The US economy is soft; employment growth is weak – and yet we are about to see a significant middle-class tax increase, albeit a stealth one, passed by the current administration. I will acknowledge that dealing a blow to the economy was not the actual plan, but that is what is happening in the real world where you and I live. This week we will briefly look at why weak consumer spending is going to become an even greater problem in the coming years, and we will continue to look at some disturbing trends in employment.
Friday, July 26, 2013
Forecasting China - Rebalancing - Change And Discontinuity / Economics / China Economy
By: Andrew_McKillop
Forecasting China trends is now a hard ride. The days of rock solid 10%-a-year growth are going, going, gone. Like the celestial Dragon which Chinese astrologers place at the center of their Magic Square – able to appear or disappear without warning to the 11 other real Animals such as the Monkey, Snake, Cat or Horse. China has woken up to what is a new problem for Chinese, but not for others. Its slowdown of economic growth, but possible slump into very low growth was a process that took about 40 years for the USA and 20 years for Japan - but may may only take 10 years for China.
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Free Spending Japan Now Headed for Economic Recovery? / Economics / Japan Economy
By: InvestmentContrarian
George Leong writes: It’s official: free-spending Prime Minister Shinzo Abe along with his Liberal Democratic Party and its alliance with the New Komeito Party will control the fate of Japan for the next few years. This will be enough power and support to push forward Abe’s massive and ambitious $1.2 trillion 10-year spending plan to drive the country’s economic recovery and battle deflation.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
U.S. Economic Review - Inflation, GDP and Long-term Interest Rates / Economics / US Economy
By: John_Mauldin
Lacy Hunt and Van Hoisington kick off their second-quarter Review and Outlook with a contrarian view: "The secular low in bond yields has yet to be recorded." And as usual, they have their reasons; but unlike most of the blabbermouth economic talking heads out there, they aren't interested in endlessly parsing the fitful utterances of Ben Bernanke and friends. Rather, they zero in on the fundamental reasons why long-term Treasury yields have probably not hit their low. Those reasons fall, they say, into four categories: (a) diminished inflation pressures, (b) slowing GDP growth, (c) weakening consumer fundamentals, and (d) anti-growth monetary and fiscal policies.
Then Lacy and Van take us deep into the whys and wherefores of their thesis. Their reasoning and the evidence behind it make for compelling reading – but you may want to read twice.
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Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Recognizing the End of the Chinese Economic Miracle / Economics / China Economy
By: STRATFOR
Recognizing the End of the Chinese Economic Miracle
Major shifts underway in the Chinese economy that Stratfor has forecast and discussed for years have now drawn the attention of the mainstream media. Many have asked when China would find itself in an economic crisis, to which we have answered that China has been there for awhile -- something not widely recognized outside China, and particularly not in the United States. A crisis can exist before it is recognized. The admission that a crisis exists is a critical moment, because this is when most others start to change their behavior in reaction to the crisis. The question we had been asking was when the Chinese economic crisis would finally become an accepted fact, thus changing the global dynamic.
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Euro-zone Deflation Warning for U.S. / Economics / Deflation
By: EWI
History shows that the U.S. should pay attention to economies in Europe
The economy has been sluggish for five years. There's no shortage of chatter about "why," yet few observers mention deflation.
One exception is a hedge fund manager who spoke up at the recent Milken Institute Global Conference.
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Sunday, July 21, 2013
Inflation or Deflation? / Economics / Economic Theory
By: John_Mauldin
By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method, they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth. Those to whom the system brings windfalls . . . become 'profiteers', who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished not less than the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds . . . all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless…. – John Maynard Keynes
Saturday, July 20, 2013
IMF Economists Say The Economic Recovery Is A Fake / Economics / Economic Recovery
By: Andrew_McKillop
WE ALWAYS BELIEVE THE IMF
Yet another 'leaked report' this time tells us something we have suspected for a long time – not only concerning the IMF's underhand “plausible denial” way of communicating bad news. The story starts with an internal IMF report called 'confidential' which was 'leaked to a Wall St Journal contributor'. This is now standard practice for the IMF, growing rapidly, and easy to trace back to its handling, or mishandling of European bailouts starting with Greece. One example is this report http://online.wsj.com...? where the IMF 'concedes it made mistakes'. Original leakage of this report generated a mini-crisis among EU27 finance ministers, including harsh words from Economics Commissioner Olli Rehn.
Friday, July 19, 2013
Central Banksters Make the Best Economic Terrorists / Economics / US Economy
By: Richard_Mills
From the minutes of theFederal Reserve meeting April 30th - May 1st 2013.
"Many participants indicated that continued (job market) progress, more confidence in the outlook, or diminished downside risks would be required before slowing the pace of purchases."
On May 22nd Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress that a decision could be made, at any of the next few Fed meetings, to scale back the $85 billion in bonds the Fed is buying each month if the economy looked set to maintain momentum. The S&P 500 closed 0.8% lower, the dollar hit a three year high and the bond market sold off with yields on the 10 year Treasury notes jumping above 2%.
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Friday, July 19, 2013
Are Higher Oil Prices About to Set Off an Inflationary Spiral? / Economics / Inflation
By: Money_Morning
Dr. Kent Moors writes: There is a long-held belief that significant increases in oil prices are harbingers of building inflationary pressures.
It follows from the observation that a market able to absorb more expensive oil is also one where prices are rising elsewhere.
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Thursday, July 18, 2013
Deflation Warning: Money Manager Startles Global Conference / Economics / Deflation
By: EWI
History shows that the U.S. should pay attention to economies in Europe
The economy has been sluggish for five years. There's no shortage of chatter about "why," yet few observers mention deflation.
One exception is a hedge fund manager who spoke up at the recent Milken Institute Global Conference.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
1% U.S. Economic Growth: QE Policy a Failure, Time for A Change / Economics / US Economy
By: EconMatters
Fed Policy – Pushing on a string: Is far too Kind
Economists are now ratcheting down their forecasts for final 2nd quarter GDP to 1% which just further illustrates the ineffectiveness of fed policy measures. Ben Bernanke blames fiscal policies out of Washington, saying he can only do so much to counteract their lack of a healthy tax code, job creation plans, and inefficiencies.
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Monday, July 15, 2013
Why a U.S. Recession Within the Next 12 Months Is Inevitable / Economics / Recession 2013
By: Profit_Confidential
Michael Lombardi writes:
One fact has become quite clear: if we want to see robust growth in our gross domestic product (GDP), then there needs to be a significant change in consumer spending.
But current consumer spending in the U.S. economy is looking bleak, and it makes me skeptical about the GDP growth ahead. We’ve already seen GDP in the first quarter revised lower due to consumer spending; and it won’t be a surprise to me if something similar happens in the second quarter.
Friday, July 12, 2013
Inflation - The Real Thing / Economics / Inflation
By: Fred_Sheehan
"[T]he concept of the general price level is extremely vague and we cannot even speak of a very approximate determination of the average price level. Every index number is to a certain extent arbitrary: the selection of the commodities that are to be included, the choice of the weighting, the base from which the index starts, and, lastly, the mathematical processes applied, are all arbitrary..."
Read full article... Read full article...-Wilhelm Röpke, Crises and Cycles, 1936
Friday, July 12, 2013
U.S. Economic Tide Has Turned, Market Implications / Economics / US Economy
By: Puru_Saxena
The world’s economic landscape is changing and after a disastrous decade, America is once again in the driver’s seat. Contrary to the 2000-2011 time frame (when the developing nations fared a lot better than America), the tide seems to have turned in favour of the world’s largest economy.
As you will recall, at the turn of the millennium, American business was booming and Wall Street was caught up in an epic technology bubble! Back then, American assets were highly sought after and even its currency was extremely strong. Unfortunately, that period of prosperity did not last forever and the bursting of the technology bubble in March 2000 ushered in an era of painful adjustment. Thereafter, in the aftermath of the NASDAQ bust, Mr. Greenspan helped ignite America’s housing boom and we all know how that story ended. To make matters worse, the US Dollar also topped out in 2001 and for almost 10 years, holders of American assets also suffered due to currency devaluation.
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Friday, July 12, 2013
China GDP Growth Rate Falls to 6.7% / Economics / China Economy
By: EconMatters
China releases 2nd quarter GDP data Sunday night in US time zones and it is going to be ugly based upon all the second quarter econ data we have received throughout these three months. The trend is going south fast, and as bad as the second quarter GDP figures are the third quarter GDP will be even worse because of the effects of tightening measures to try to get a handle on the shadow banking sector.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Global Shipping Contends with Oversupply Problems / Economics / Global Economy
By: STRATFOR
The global shipping industry is oversupplied. Because supply far exceeds demand, shipping rates have plummeted, as have the prices of ships. Some shipping companies have sought to capitalize on this trend by purchasing newer, larger ships at lower prices so that they can remain price competitive. But unless demand rebounds by the time these ships become operational, the industry's oversupply problem will only worsen.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
No U.S. Inflationary Risk, Banks May Shrink Balance Sheets / Economics / Inflation
By: Bloomberg
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink joined Bloomberg Television's Erik Schatzker and Sara Eisen on "Market Makers" today and said he does not see any inflationary risk in the United States. Fink went on to say that banks may shrink balance sheets on rules requiring financial companies to have higher capital ratios: "If they shrink their balance sheet, we're going to have a more aggravated problem in the future because banks are the largest owner of U.S. Treasuries."
During the hour-long interview, Fink gave insights on China, emerging markets, the bond market, the role the wants BlackRock to play in the market, and his thoughts on Ben Bernanke, Hillary Clinton and President Obama.
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Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Why QE3 Hasn’t Triggered Inflation – So Far / Economics / Quantitative Easing
By: Money_Morning
David Zeiler writes: When you pump massive amounts of money into an economy, as the U.S. Federal Reserve has done with QE1 through QE3, you're supposed to get some measure of inflation.
And yet despite some $2.3 trillion of quantitative easing since 2008, the core inflation rate has actually fallen over the past year from about 2.25% to 1.7% as of May.
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Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Part-Time Employment is the New Normal / Economics / Employment
By: BATR
Intuitively, most observers sense that employment practices have changed dramatically from days gone by. Terence P. Jeffrey in CNS News provides the stats on the disappointing jobs record performance. "Since January 2009, when Barack Obama was inaugurated as president, the United States has seen 54 straight months with the unemployment rate at 7.5 percent or higher, which is the longest stretch of unemployment at or above that rate since 1948, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics started calculating the national unemployment rate." So what will employment prospects become as the economy struggles to regain some modest semblance of prosperity?