Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
U.S. Economic Growth Recession Continues, QE2's Problems / Economics / US Economy
By: John_Mauldin
Long-time readers of Outside the Box are familiar with the names Dr. Lacy Hunt and Van Hoisington. They are a regular feature here, as quite frankly, anything that Lacy writes or says I pay serious attention to. This is their regular quarterly report, where they outline seven things that are likely to retard US growth. An easy read, but take the time to think this through.
Hoisington Investment Management Company (www.hoisingtonmgt.com) is a registered investment advisor specializing in fixed-income portfolios for large institutional clients. Located in Austin, Texas, the firm has over $4 billion under management, composed of corporate and public funds, foundations, endowments, Taft-Hartley funds, and insurance companies.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, January 17, 2011
Is There a Conservative Case for QE? / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Robert_Murphy
I recently discussed David Frum's lament that conservative Republicans are defecting from "respectable" economists and joining the ranks of the Austrians. One of the reasons for this is that many conservative pundits — Frum included — are Keynesians, plain and simple. Many rank-and-file conservatives are recognizing that it makes no sense to lambast Obama's fiscal-stimulus package in one breath and praise Bernanke's monetary stimulus in the next.
Monday, January 17, 2011
UK Inflation Forecast 2011, Imminent Spike to Above CPI 4%, RPI 6% / Economics / Inflation
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The last UK inflation data came in at CPI 3.3% and RPI 4.7% for November 2010, with real inflation at just above 6%, this is set against a continuous mantra in the mainstream press by pseudo economists / journalists that high inflation of above 3% was always just temporary and that it would resolve in a sub 2% rate by the end of the year (2010). Now a year on the same people that had misguided their readerships for virtually the whole of 2010 into avoiding inflation protection strategies that the coalition government has proceeded to strip away during 2010 such as scrapping of the RPI linked Index Linked National Savings certificates in June 2010, and are only now warning their readership's of the consequences of persistently high inflation that looks set to continue during 2011.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
America Replicating Japan's Depression / Economics / Great Depression II
By: Stephen_Lendman
An except from Franck Biancheri's new book titled, "World Crisis: The Path to the World Afterwards" states:"The (current) financial and economic crisis....marks the end of the world order established after 1945." In 1991, the Soviet Union dissolved, and since fall 2007, we've "witness(ed) the accelerated decomposition of the 'Western pillar' with" America advancing disintegration.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Be Wary of Rosy Economic Outlooks for 2011 … and Profit Along the Way! / Economics / Global Economy
By: Bryan_Rich
Last year Byron Wien, the former Morgan Stanley strategist, former billion-dollar hedge fund strategist, current Vice-Chairman of Blackstone and highly touted market prognosticator predicted 2010 would be a V-shaped recovery for the U.S. economy.
He was wrong …
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, January 15, 2011
The Global Economic Slump: Dramatic Job Losses in all Major Regions of the World / Economics / Unemployment
By: Global_Research
Prof David McNally writes: I have never accepted the postmodernist contention that contemporary capitalism is all about smoke and mirrors. The notion that ideology and illusion make the system go round strikes me as another mode of reductionism – this one based on culture rather than, say, economics. But it must be said that, at first blush, the mainstream business media certainly offers some sustenance for the smoke and mirrors thesis.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Retail Sales Suggest Strong Q4 Consumer Spending / Economics / Economic Recovery
By: Asha_Bangalore
Retail sales increased 0.6% in December after a 0.8% gain in the prior month. Building materials (+2.0%), autos (+1.0%), gasoline (+1.6%), and furniture (+1.0%) accounted for the relatively large gains among the components, while purchases of food (-0.6%), electronics (-0.6%) and clothing (-0.2%) dropped. Unit auto sales count in the computation of consumer spending in the GDP report, which advanced to annual rate of 12.5 million units in December. Autos sales rose 29% in the final three months of the year compared with a 0.3% gain in the third quarter.
Friday, January 14, 2011
We Could be in Great Depression II – But We’re Not! / Economics / US Economy
By: Sy_Harding
Global financial authorities proved to be quite adept at reacting quickly, step-by-panicked step, to the financial crisis as it unfolded, making hasty dramatic moves dreamed up on the fly in panicked weekend meetings.
That the efforts worked is obvious. We are not in Great Depression II.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Wholesale Price Index Lifted by Higher Energy, Food and Cigarette Prices / Economics / Inflation
By: Asha_Bangalore
The Producer Price Index (PPI) for Finished Goods rose 1.1% in December after a 0.8% increase in the prior month. According to the Labor Department, about 75% of the increase in finished goods price index was from the 3.7% jump of the energy price index. Of the energy items in this index, gasoline prices posted the largest increase. Higher food prices (+0.8%) also made a contribution to the overall wholesale price index, a large part of this increase (75%) is traced to the 22.8% jump in prices of fresh and dry vegetables. In 2010, the wholesale price index has risen 4.0% after a 4.3% jump in 2009 and a nearly 1.0% drop in 2008.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Economic Ruination from Money Creation to Price Inflation / Economics / Inflation
By: Richard_Daughty
John Rubino at Dollar Collapse.com obviously thinks, like I do, that inflation is a Terrible, Terrible Thing (TTT).
To prove it, and to simultaneously prove to my wife, kids, relatives, co-workers and neighbors that I am not the "weirdest man who ever lived" as concerns inflation, I call him up on the phone!
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, January 14, 2011
No Such Thing as Cost-Push Inflation; Demographics and the "Demand for Money" / Economics / Deflation
By: Mike_Shedlock
In China's Foreign Exchange Reserves Jump by Record $199 Billion; Cost Push Inflation from China? Don't Count On It! I stated ....
Strangely, nearly everyone insists inflation is roaring in the US instead of where it is roaring, China and India. The alleged proof of US inflation is a series of widely circulated charts of various commodity prices even though there has been little-to-no passthrough on any consumer prices except gasoline, and home prices are once again falling like a rock.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, January 13, 2011
America's Economic and Social Crisis, No Fed Bailout for Main Street / Economics / Credit Crisis 2011
By: Ellen_Brown
The Federal Reserve was set up by bankers for bankers, and it has served them well. Out of the blue, it came up with $12.3 trillion in nearly interest-free credit to bail the banks out of a credit crunch they created. That same credit crisis has plunged state and local governments into insolvency, but the Fed has now delivered its ultimatum: there will be no “quantitative easing” for municipal governments.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Where Profit Comes From / Economics / Economic Theory
By: George_Reisman
Labor unions like to argue that the payment of higher wages is to the self-interest of employers because the wage earners will use their higher wages to make additional purchases from business firms, thereby increasing the sales revenues and profits of business firms. However, wrong and foolish it may be, this is an argument worth analyzing in some detail, because it can provide a gateway to a discussion of the actual sources of profit in the economic system.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
U.S. Inflation Set to Soar as the Country's Chief Export Boomerangs Back Home / Economics / Inflation
By: Money_Morning
Martin Hutchinson writes:
While prices for food and energy have been rising, inflation in the United States has remained relatively subdued.
One common explanation for that phenomenon is that U.S. inflation has been "exported" to China and elsewhere through the U.S. Federal Reserve's monetary policy. And given the perennial U.S. balance of payments deficit, it's good to know the country has found something it can successfully export!
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Rising Consumer Inflation: The New World Order By Commodity / Economics / Inflation
By: Dian_L_Chu
Ever since the Great Recession, inflation has been put on the back burner, and deflation is seen as the greatest risk to the U.S. economy. Even as recent as Friday, Jan 7, Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke told the Senate Budget Committee that low inflation/deflation was a concern, as well as unemployment (more on the jobs situation here.)
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Global Aging and the Crisis of the 2020s, Demographic Storms Ahead / Economics / Demographics
By: John_Mauldin
From the fall of the Roman and the Mayan empires to the Black Death to the colonization of the New World and the youth-driven revolutions of the twentieth century, demographic trends have played a decisive role in many of the great invasions, political upheavals, migrations, and environmental catastrophes of history. By the 2020s, an ominous new conjuncture of demographic trends may once again threaten widespread disruption. I am, of course, talking about global aging, which is likely to have a profound effect on economic growth, living standards, and the shape of the world order.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Long Shadows Cast Over US Economy 2011 / Economics / US Economy
By: Jim_Willie_CB
Numerous are the threats to the USEconomy and US financial structures. Many are hidden threats, subtle challenges to undermine increasingly fragile support systems, planks, and cables that hold the system together. The year 2011 will be when the system breaks in open visible fashion, when the explanations that justify it sound silly and baseless, when the entire bond world endures major crashes. All thing financial are inter-related. Recall that in summer 2007, the professor occupying the US Federal Reserve claimed the subprime mortgage crisis was isolated.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Krugman's Straw-Man Market System / Economics / Economic Theory
By: William_Anderson
A friend of mine a decade ago was looking to do doctoral work in economics, and one of the places where he inquired was his state's flagship university. But he decided not to seek his doctorate at that particular place after he spoke to someone who was just about to defend his economics dissertation there.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
The Ruling Clan of India Has Lost the Plot on Inflation / Economics / India
By: Justin_John
THE PERILOUS COURSE
THE 2008 credit crisis exposed the financial
whizkids on the Wall Street who hardly had an idea on where their acts were taking the financial markets
. Years of booming markets made them complacent to risks that were building up in the system. Few saw the apocalypse that collapsed many venerable institutions.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Hoover and Bush, Interventionism Turns Crisis into Great Depression / Economics / Great Depression II
By: Mark_Thornton
The most basic rule of economic policy is to allow prices to adjust to market conditions. This maintains Say's Law and produces what Frédéric Bastiat called economic harmony.
Furthermore, unhampered markets minimize distortions and disruptions introduced by external forces. Most importantly, the unhampered price system minimizes the impact of the business cycle on the economy. This paper examines two historical episodes where interventionist policies turned business cycle corrections into depressions.[1]
Read full article... Read full article...