Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Inflation is Part of the Plan / Economics / Inflation
By: Money_Morning
Martin Hutchinson writes:
Forget about lost decades. Forecasts that we'll be turning Japanese couldn't be further from the truth.
Here's why.
It's simple, really. Deflation is not in the interest of anybody in power, so it's very unlikely to happen.
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Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Solution to America's Economic Gridlock Crisis / Economics / Economic Theory
By: John_Mauldin
How do we resolve the current political gridlock over healthcare, the economy, and a myriad of other problems? It is clear that there are no easy solutions, and putting off making choices will just make the ultimate cost we pay that much more expensive.
This week for our Outside the Box we deal with just this question, in a piece from a master of logic and reasoning and one of my favorite writers. I absorb everything I can get my hands on from Dr. Woody Brock. He has written a new book, called American Gridlock: Why the Left and Right are Both Wrong" ( www.amazon.com/gridlock). I am doing something very unusual and giving him two back-to-back editions of Outside the Box, this week and next, to outline his own book in his own words. He generously agreed to do so, as he (and I) are passionate about the topic of getting to a solution. If we do not solve this crisis in the making, it will impair our future generations for a long time, not to mention its effects on our own lives.
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Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Heart of China Economic Bull Beats Strong, Stock Market Buying Opportunity / Economics / China Economy
By: Frank_Holmes
My debate last week with Gordon Chang on China's future at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference was a stimulating, intellectual exercise. A healthy market needs a compromise between the bid and ask, and a discussion between people who strongly disagree is a great way to promote critical thinking.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
U.S. Real Consumer Spending Falls in December / Economics / US Economy
By: Asha_Bangalore
Real consumer spending slipped 0.1% in December after postings in October and November. All major components – durable goods (-0.1%), nondurables (-0.1%) and services (-0.1%) – fell in December and trimmed the pace of consumer spending in the fourth quarter.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Is World Trade Falling Like A Lead Balloon Minus Terminal Velocity? Alarming Collapse of Baltic Dry Index / Economics / Recession 2012
By: BATR
Significance of BDI
Is the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) one of the most significant leading economic indicators to follow when the media is telling us the global economy is looking great one week and then predicting a double dip recession the next? We are increasingly concerned about the substantial decline in global shipping’s Baltic Dry Index. Is this a significant canary in the mine shaft in regard to what lies ahead for world trade dynamics, global aggregate demand and trans-national economic and financial activity?
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Sunday, January 29, 2012
U.S. Economy Q4 2011 GDP Trouble Below The Surface / Economics / US Dollar
By: Tony_Pallotta
The release of Q4 2011 GDP highlighted just how close the US economy is to actual contraction as well as how vulnerable it is to the events in Europe. On the surface the 2.8% growth was a nice rebound from the 1.8% growth in Q3 2011.
But like anything if you dig beneath the headline you will see three areas of concern. Interesting that just two days before this release when asked about the recent uptick in economic activity Chairman Bernanke was less optimistic than the reporter asking the question. Apparently he was privy to the soon to be released data.
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Saturday, January 28, 2012
U.S. Economy Waist Deep in the Big Muddy / Economics / US Economy
By: Peter_Schiff
With its announcement this week that it will keep interest rates near zero until at least late 2014, the Federal Reserve has put another large crack into the foundations underlying the US dollar. In a misguided attempt to provide clarity and transparency, Ben Bernanke has instead laid out a simple road map for economists and investors to follow. The signposts are easily understood: the Fed will stop at nothing in pursuing its goals of creating phantom GDP growth, holding down unemployment, propping up stock and housing prices, and monetizing government debt. To do so, it will continue to pursue a policy of negative interest rates, while ignoring the collateral damage of unsustainable debt, virulent inflation, misallocated resources and credit, suffering yield-dependent retirees, and a devalued U.S. currency.
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Friday, January 27, 2012
U.S. Economy GDP on Recession Track / Economics / Recession 2012
By: Mike_Shedlock
The headline real GDP number of 2.8% does not sound too bad until you dig beneath the surface. A full 1.9 percentages points of that 2.8% was inventory replenishment. Real GDP vs. a year ago is +1.6% and that is on a recession track as well.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Is the United States in a Liquidity Trap? / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Frank_Shostak
If nothing else, we've learned that the liquidity trap is neither a figment of our imaginations nor something that only happens in Japan; it's a very real threat, and if and when it ends we should nonetheless be guarding against its return — which means that there's a very strong case both for a higher inflation target, and for aggressive policy when unemployment is high at low inflation.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Slow Boat To China, Oil and Global Trade / Economics / Global Economy
By: Andrew_McKillop
An article of 26 January published by Bloomberg put it this way:
Container ships can’t go any slower. Shipping lines are running out of options to stop losses as sailing speeds reach their lower limit, exhausting a solution that helped restore profitability in 2010.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
UK Recession 2012 Certain as Bank of England Prepares to Ramp Up Money Printing Presses / Economics / Recession 2012
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The UK Economy was thrown into reverse gear in the final quarter of 2011 by contracting by GDP 0.2%, which may not sound like much but this does send a shock wave warning through the economy that a second recession is now near certain to be declared in April 2012 as measured by 2 consecutive quarters of GDP contraction.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Premature U.S. Dollar Obituaries, Mainstream Economist Lessons from Great Depression Not Learned / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Mike_Shedlock
A pair of articles by Austrian economist professor Antal E. Fekete just might have one wondering who is more in the loony bin, mainstream economists like Krugman or those consistently chanting about the death of the dollar coupled with hyperinflation.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Chinese Whispers about China's Economy / Economics / China Economy
By: Submissions
Jan Skoyles writes: Back in the 1980s any activity in the Chinese economy would have failed to interest anyone in the Western world. Back then they were only a seventh of the size of the US and their economic policies would have barely registered.
Since the 1980s China has seen an impressive transition from an emerging to an almost fully emerged economy. In just one generation’s time the Chinese economy will grow to $123 trillion – three times more than the entire world output of the year 2000. Robert Fogel predicts that by 2040 the Chinese economy will dwarf that of the US by growing to 3 times its size.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
The GDP Growth Deception, Central Bank Manipulated Fake Economic Statistics / Economics / Economic Statistics
By: Barry_M_Ferguson
As 2012 begins, investors need to know the true health of the US economy. A major barometer is the Gross Domestic Product figure. The US economy generates nearly $14.5 trillion dollars annually in Gross Domestic Product or GDP. This is a measure of economic output. When GDP is expanding, we feel good about the economy, our jobs, and our investments. When GDP is contracting, we feel bad about the economy, our jobs, and our investments. Therefore, it is imperative for central bankers and political regimes to foster ever expanding GDP numbers. A happy populace is less likely to revolt and demand new leadership. In our modern information age, everyone knows about the current GDP number. Expansion is good and the economy is growing. Contraction is bad and the economy is in a recession. Thank goodness the GDP number can be rather malleable. And, like everything else in the new era, it can be faked.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Debt End Game, Europe Staring into the Abyss, and Very Negative Unintended Consequences / Economics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: John_Mauldin
Europe's leaders are committed to keeping both the euro and the eurozone as it is. But for it to do so, everything must change, as the wonderful quote from the 1958 Italian novel suggests. This is no easy task, as no one wants a change that will impact them negatively; and there is no change that will allow things to stay the same that does not impact all severely, as we will see. In the third part of a continuing series, we look at the actual options that are available on the menu of choices, or as one group called it, the menu of pain. I offer some guideposts that we should watch for along the way, and end by offering a suggestion as to what Europe should do. As has been the case in this series, I do my best to offend everyone at some point. If by some small, unintended oversight I do not, then wait another week, I will get to you. What else are friends for?
Friday, January 20, 2012
Southern Europe Permanently Crippled, The Only Tool Left is Hyper Inflation / Economics / HyperInflation
By: Jim_Willie_CB
Any perusal around the world these days features Southern Europe crippled, preparing for the inevitable Greek Govt Bond default. It features a crippled US housing market, a mockery of statistical accounting in the US Gross Domestic Product, the plight of the COMEX with established veterans clearing out desks (not trading), the extreme physical demand reported by the London Trader, and the indictment of the SLV iTrust Silver Fund tool used by the cartel. The survey does not look favorable toward stability. The banking, economic, and political leaders have not pursued reform and remedy in any remote sense.
Friday, January 20, 2012
The U.S. Economic Recovery Is Producing Surprises / Economics / Economic Recovery
By: Sy_Harding
In 2008 it was a sure thing the bursting of the real estate bubble, the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market, the freeze-up of the banking system, the ravages of the ‘Great Recession’, collapse of the auto industry, bailout of mortgage- insurance giant AIG, bankruptcy of General Motors and Chrysler, etc., would wind up with the economy in the next Great Depression.It was then a sure thing that the massive stimulus and bailout efforts would not work, and the costs would bankrupt the country and drop it into third-world economy status.
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Friday, January 20, 2012
The World Economy Stalls; Meanwhile Dubai Bounces Back: So what’s The Secret? / Economics / Economic Recovery
By: Andrew_Butter
One of the few interesting things about Dubai is that it serves as a barometer for economic activity that happens largely outside of government and outside of OEDC.
I’m not talking blood diamonds or drug money, Dubai services a region that extends thousands of miles in all directions and the only thing that happens there that doesn’t happen elsewhere and is “illegal” in many of the places it services, is economic freedom. What’s interesting is that you can measure the pulse the global free-market by measuring the pulse of Dubai.
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Friday, January 20, 2012
Consumer Price Index, Jobless Claims and Housing Starts All Favourable Aspects / Economics / US Economy
By: Asha_Bangalore
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) held steady in December, after posting a similar reading in November. The energy price index inched down 1.3% in December, marking the third consecutive decline. The recent increase in oil prices should be reflected in the January CPI report. The food price index increased 0.2% in December putting the year-to-year gain at 4.7% vs. 1.5% in all of 2010. The energy price index moved up 6.6% in 2011 compared with a 7.7% jump in 2010. The 3.0% increase in the overall CPI in 2011 reflects these gains as well as an acceleration of the core CPI, which excludes food and energy.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Fed’s Beige Book Paints a Rosier U.S. Economic Picture as Employment Improves / Economics / US Economy
By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis
The U.S. Federal Reserve Bank released its latest Beige Book on Wednesday, January 11th. In it, U.S. central bank officials included in the survey indicated that U.S. economic conditions in their respective regions seemed to have improved somewhat in December of 2011 compared with conditions observed the previous month.
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