Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Euro-zone Debt Crisis Bang! Moment, Economic Austerity Consequences / Economics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: John_Mauldin
Two seemingly different questions and comments from readers and friends crossed my path the last few days, but I saw a definite connection between them. The first question was, Why do we pursue austerity when it seems not to work? And then many readers wrote to ask this week, What do I think about the real problems that are surfacing in the Rogoff and Reinhart assertion that debt above a ratio of 90% debt to GDP seems to slow economic growth by 1% (especially since I have quoted that data more than a few times)? We’ll deal with each question separately and then see if we can connect the dots.
The first question comes from correspondence I have had with Ms. Aga Barberini, who works in the investment world in Milan, Italy. She came there from Poland some 20 years ago. The first part of her note contains the question on austerity, but I’ll pass along more of her letter, as I think it will give us all some insight into the seeming chaos that voters are facing in choosing a path for Italy. (And I hope my editors leave some of the charming grammar in her letter. You can almost hear the musical tones of her Italian English.)
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Friday, April 19, 2013
Japan Steps into the Void, Trying to Reflate Busted Bubbles / Economics / Japan Economy
By: Peter_Schiff
In the years following the global financial crisis, economists and investors have gotten very comfortable with very high, and seemingly persistent, government debt. The nonchalance may be underpinned by the assumption that globally significant countries that can print their own currencies can't get trapped in a sovereign debt crisis. However, it now appears that Japan is preparing to put this confidence to the ultimate stress test.
Friday, April 19, 2013
Gold Sell off Reveals Global Economy Skating on Thin Ice / Economics / Global Economy
By: Michael_Pento
Explanations for this gold selloff abound everywhere and nearly all of them are inane and incorrect. The silliest among all the reasons offered for the current bear market in gold is that Bernanke has recently morphed into a form of Paul Volker; even though he has maintained the Fed’s zero percent interest rate policy and massive money printing continues unabated. His policies have, and will continue to significantly weaken the intrinsic value of the dollar—so you can just summarily dismiss that reason.
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Thursday, April 18, 2013
Discerning the Value of Economic Information / Economics / Economic Statistics
By: David_Galland
It has become tradition at La Estancia de Cafayate for Casey Research to host an intimate conference in conjunction with the Harvest Celebration. In the most recent of the series, Bill Bonner, editor of the Diary of a Rogue Economist and a friend of long standing, kicked the program off with a thought-provoking discussion about the nature of information.
With a nod to Nietzsche, Bill dissected the nature of information into two categories.
The first sort is that which is derived from direct observation. For an example, Bill pointed to the tangible information that comes from living in a tribal village. As a member of the tribe, you knew your neighbors, you knew what sort of crops would grow in the different seasons, where and when to hunt, etc.
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Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Is Bernanke’s Worst Nightmare Just Around the Corner? / Economics / Deflation
By: Graham_Summers
First off I want to say that all of us here at Phoenix Capital Research are sending our prayers to the victims of the Boston Terror Attacks. We sincerely hope none of you, our readers, or your loved ones were injured or harmed by these events.
The markets today are snapping back from yesterday’s sharp drop. However, in the bigger picture we believe that Ben Bernanke must be terrified.
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Tuesday, April 16, 2013
U.S. Economy to Get Jolt from 1.2 Million Homebuilding Jobs / Economics / US Economy
By: Money_Morning
David Zeiler writes: An accelerating rebound in new home construction over the next two years should finally give the U.S. economy the jump-start it needs to progress toward a truly robust recovery.
New home construction continues to bounce back from the lows of 2009, after the housing bubble burst, but still has a long way to go.
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Saturday, April 13, 2013
An Imaginary U.S. Recession? / Economics / US Economy
By: John_Mauldin
An engineer, a chemist, and an economist are stranded on a deserted island. They are starving, when miraculously they find a box filled with canned food. What to do? They consider the problem, bringing their collective lifetimes of study and discipline to the task.
Being the practical, straightforward sort, the engineer suggests that they simply find a rock and hit the cans until they break open. “No, no!” cry the chemist and economist, “we would spill too much food and the birds would get it!”
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Saturday, April 13, 2013
Ponzinomics - The Entire Global Economy Is an Insolvent Ponzi Scheme / Economics / Global Economy
By: Washingtons_Blog
Bill Gross, Nouriel Roubini, Laurence Kotlikoff, Steve Keen, Michel Chossudovsky, the Wall Street Journal and many others say that our entire economy is a Ponzi scheme.
Former Reagan budget director David Stockton just agreed:
So did a top Russian con artist and mathematician.
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Saturday, April 13, 2013
What Was Wrong with Thatcher's Poll Tax / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Murray_N_Rothbard
Riots in the streets; protest against a hated government; cops arresting protesters. A familiar story these days. But suddenly we find that the protests are directed, not against a hated Communist tyranny in Eastern Europe, but against Mrs. Thatcher's regime in Britain, a supposed paragon of liberty and the free market. What's going on here? Are anti-government demonstrators heroic freedom-fighters in Eastern Europe, but only crazed anarchists and alienated punks in the West?
Friday, April 12, 2013
Seoul the New Capital of Capitalism / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Christopher_Westley
Picture a mono-racial New York metropolitan area with a fraction of the murders, if you can. Add in unreadable signs and buildings and infrastructure completed in 1960 or later. Then you might have a picture of Seoul, the capital of the Republic of Korea and, quite possibly, the new center of global capitalism. At least, that is my conclusion after spending several days there on academic and professional pursuits.
Friday, April 12, 2013
The Keynesian Endgame / Economics / Economic Theory
By: MISES
David Stockman writes: Even the tepid post-2008 recovery has not been what it was cracked up to be, especially with respect to the Wall Street presumption that the American consumer would once again function as the engine of GDP growth. It goes without saying, in fact, that the precarious plight of the Main Street consumer has been obfuscated by the manner in which the state’s unprecedented fiscal and monetary medications have distorted the incoming data and economic narrative.
Friday, April 12, 2013
Is Austrian Economics a Cult? / Economics / Economic Theory
By: MISES
I have experienced not one but two cases where eminent mainstream economists characterized Austrian economics as a cult. I told a friend and colleague of mine who is also an Austrian economist that I would be writing about this. He was worried that to mention the fact that two leading economists held the opinion that Austrian economics is cultish would place the praxeological school in a bad light. Well, maybe it will. However, I strongly believe that "sunlight is the best disinfectant." If these two dismal scientists strongly believe this, they can hardly be the only ones. My goal in writing this present essay is to attack this view as the pernicious and false doctrine that it is. I want to confront it, not run and hide from it.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Why Governments Lie About Inflation? Because It Covers Up Bigger Lies / Economics / Inflation
By: Graham_Summers
More and more analysts are catching on to the fact that Government measures of inflation are phony. The US Government tells us that inflation, as measured by the CPI, is 0.8%. This is largely a work of fiction however as the actual cost of goods purchased by consumers has increased.
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Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Yenfamy, Propelling Japan's Economy Toward Certain Reckoning / Economics / Quantitative Easing
By: John_Mauldin
By Grant Williams writes: April 4 is a day when things tend to happen. Big things.
April 4, 1841 saw President William Henry Harrison, the ninth President of the United States, die of pneumonia after only 31 days in office. Twenty-four years later to the day, President Abraham Lincoln would be haunted by a disturbing dream. As Lincoln's close friend Ward Hill Lamon recollected:
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Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Why Bernanke Can’t Stop Deflation / Economics / Deflation
By: Clif_Droke
While there are many risks to the current ultra loose money policy, consumer price inflation isn't one of them. Inflation remains persistently low despite the best efforts of central banks to increase it.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) among the G7 economies was only 1.6%, year over year, during February. It was even lower at 1.4% excluding food and energy, according to economist Ed Yardeni. Meanwhile Producer Price Index (PPI) inflation rates are close to zero, Yardeni points out. In the euro zone, the CPI inflation rate is just 1.7%, and 1.4% excluding food and energy. Japan continues to experience deflation despite continuous efforts at reversing it through monetary easing.
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Wednesday, April 10, 2013
How Central Banks’ Easy Solution Could Devastate the Global Economy / Economics / Quantitative Easing
By: InvestmentContrarian
Sasha Cekerevac writes: Central banks around the world have opened the floodgates with massive levels of quantitative easing in an effort to try to stimulate their respective economies. Turning on the quantitative easing tap is easy; putting the genie back in the bottle will be extremely difficult for central banks globally.
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Monday, April 08, 2013
The Real U.S. Unemployment Rate is 13.9% / Economics / Employment
By: Money_Morning
Employers added just 88,000 jobs in March, according to the U.S. jobs report released Friday, hiring at the slowest pace since June 2012.
The number was a huge miss. Analysts expected a gain of 200,000.
"We all over shot it," Austan Goolsbee, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors in U.S. President Barack Obama's first administration, said on CNBC. "This is a punch to the gut. I mean, this is not a good number."
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Monday, April 08, 2013
The Economic World According To Stockman / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Andrew_McKillop
RIPELY CONSIDERED
In a review of main points from David Stockman's troublesome new book for peddlers of the mantra "We are all Keynesians now", in an economic world that Keynes wouldn't even be able to recognize, William Anderson listed the ways that "Neo Keynesians" not only hobble the fragile booms their basically schizophrenic policies produce, but also the fake recoveries that follow in their wake. In particular Anderson looks at Stockman's argument that when an economic boom crashes, the proper response of governments and monetary authorities should be to restore sound money and not try to prop up enterprises that failed in the crash. http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article39835.html
Sunday, April 07, 2013
The Real Reason There Will Be No Economic Recovery in America / Economics / US Economy
By: Bill_Bonner
Nothing much happened on Wall Street yesterday. The Dow rose 56 points. Gold was flat.
From the Daily Mail in London:
Read full article... Read full article...US sees highest poverty spike since the 1960s, leaving 50 million Americans poor...
Sunday, April 07, 2013
U.S. Non Farm Payrolls Report - Interesting Seasonality Factors / Economics / Employment
By: Jesse
As you may recall, the raw input into the Non Farm Payrolls report is the actual count of jobs which the BLS compiles.
To this number the BLS adds the output of the Birth-Death Model, which is their estimate of Jobs lost and created by new businesses not included in the report.
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