Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Is Big Government a Myth? / Economics / Government Spending
By: Robert_Murphy
Lately the supporters of big government have deployed an interesting twist to their arguments, claiming that it is a dirty right-wing lie that government has grown under the Obama administration. Unlike arguments over economic theory, surely this should be an objective exercise in looking up the facts.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Is Inflation Directly Tied to the Money Supply? / Economics / Inflation
By: Justice_Litle
Some argue that increased money supply (freshly printed dollars) automatically translates to inflation. This is not exactly true, and it’s important to understand why.
How do you define inflation? In some ways it's a slippery thing, like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree. One common definition amounts to "a general and sustained rise in the price of goods and services." Another is "a persistent decline in the purchasing power of money."
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Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Monetary Tightening Threatens China’s Economic Prospects / Economics / China Economy
By: Claus_Vogt
China’s role on the global stage has grown tremendously during the past several years. And there are valid reasons to believe this trend will continue. But it will not go as smoothly as many pundits assume …
On Christmas Day, Beijing raised the benchmark deposit and lending rates by 25 basis points (bps) to 2.75 percent and 5.81 percent respectively. This is the second step in the current tightening cycle, following the first surprise 25 bps hike on October 19.
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Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Bogus Economic Statistics Used as a Coverup Adding Fuel to the Financial Fire / Economics / Economic Statistics
By: Bob_Chapman
Mr. Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, a private corporation, would have us believe that, quantitative easing is the only way to save the US economy and to reverse the unemployment problem. He conveniently forgets to tell you that he authored a paper in 1988 with Mr. Michael Baskin that concluded that what Mr. Bernanke is doing with QE does not work. He told watchers of “60 Minutes” that the jobless rate would have been far higher; something like it was in the “Great Depression” at 25%. If Mr. Bernanke had taken time to have his minions do the research, he would have found that U3 at the peak of the “Great Depression” was 25.2% and U6 was 37.6%. As we write U3 is 9.8% and U6 is 17%.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
The Emperor Keynes Still Has No Clothes / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Gary_North
It is time to consider the recommendation and economic analysis of Yale University economist Robert Shiller. He is widely respected, the co-designer of the Case-Shiller index, which traces housing prices in 20 American cities. He coined the phrase "irrational exuberance," which was made famous by Alan Greenspan in the mid-1990s.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Hyperinflation, Never Say Never / Economics / HyperInflation
By: Captain_Hook
In reviewing the charts from the Chart Room over the weekend I came to the conclusion that in terms of timing the markets you don’t want to think in terms of price right now, but in terms of time, where again, we are not looking for a blow-off top in the present intermediate move until sometime in the first quarter next year, with early February the favored target from both historical and cyclical perspectives. How did I come to this conclusion? Answer: As you will see in the charts below, several breakouts and trend blow-offs are in the process of tracing out, meaning more time is needed for this to occur no matter how overbought technical conditions in the market are at this time. And while it’s true that everything from stocks to commodities are intermediate degree overbought, what this means is conditions will become even more overbought, and as a result, it’s possible hyperinflationary conditions in the US could at a minimum be tested.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Theft by Mercantilism, China and the Keynesian Trap / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Gary_North
"Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote." ~ The Gospel According to Keynes, Chapter 1, verse 1.
Keynesianism is an economic philosophy based on the idea that the free market required intervention from the civil government in order to maintain justice and efficiency. The free market is both inefficient and unfair to the common man, Keynesianism teaches.
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Tuesday, December 28, 2010
America’s Second Great Depression 2010 Year-end Update (Part 2) / Economics / Great Depression II
By: Mike_Stathis
I continue where I left off from Part one of this report. [1]
Ever since the summer of 2009, economists from both Washington and Wall Street have told us that an economic recovery was in progress, but the data reveals a strikingly different picture. Some even insisted that a recovery began in late spring. You should note the source of these claims, as well as their agendas, so as to determine the underlying motives for disseminating this propaganda.
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Monday, December 27, 2010
Job Creation and Other Economic Myths / Economics / Economic Theory
By: MISES
Fred Buzzeo writes: Job creation has become the central theme of the current recession. The focus on job growth is widespread among both conservative (if I may use this term liberally) and left-leaning economists. Furthermore, if you ask the man on the street what the pressing economic problem of the time is, he will certainly respond, "Jobs."
Monday, December 27, 2010
Have Events During 2010 Vindicated Keynesian Economic Models? / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Robert_Murphy
In last Monday's article I discussed Jim Manzi's debate with economist Karl Smith. I pointed out that Smith's evidence in favor of mainstream macroeconomic models was actually consistent with the view that fiscal and monetary "stimulus" policies only stoke economic crises.
In the present article, I'll show a different example of this same pattern. Specifically, Paul Krugman took a macro forecast from Mark Zandi, and then after the fact compared it to the actual trajectory of GDP. Krugman concluded that Keynesian theory was vindicated, when in fact the results are more in line with what the critics predicted would happen.
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Monday, December 27, 2010
China Hikes Interest Rates on High Inflation, Risks Hard Economic Landing in 2011 / Economics / China Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
Inflation is running at a reported 5.1% in China, a figure most believe is on the low side. Nonetheless, China has been loath to hike rates out of fear of more "hot money" flowing in. Something had to give, and it did. The markets forced China's hand.
Monday, December 27, 2010
The Ghost of Economic Future / Economics / US Economy
By: Bill_Bonner
What does the ghost of Christmas Future have to show us? What grave? What empty chair? What jokers at the funeral?
The end of the year approacheth. What do we know? What have we learned? Where have we come to?
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Sunday, December 26, 2010
China Outlook 2011 and the Next Decade, Is the Smart Money Right? / Economics / China Economy
By: Dian_L_Chu
China has been ranked as the top growing country among the G20 since 2001 and is expected to retain that title for at least another five years (See Growth Chart). However, the news coming out of China for the past three months has not been good. It is looking more and more that it is not a question of if China is a bubble and going to burst, but when.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Rise of the Free Market Zombies / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Robert_Murphy
For his Sunday column, Paul Krugman wrote a piece titled "When Zombies Win." Krugman claims that "free-market fundamentalists" — including Ron Paul — have been successful politically, despite being thoroughly discredited by recent events. As we'll see, it's a good thing that these ideas of shrinking government refuse to die, no matter how often Krugman attacks them.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
No, Mr. Krugman, You're Eating America Alive / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Neeraj_Chaudhary
Here we go again. This week, Paul Krugman, the 2008 Nobel Prize winner in economics and the go-to guy for progressives who need a morale boost, launched another misguided attack on Austrian School economists. From his New York Times soapbox, he referred to the free-market Austrian "hard money" philosophy as a "zombie idea" that is inexplicably eating the brains of the voting public.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Economic Austerity Fails in Euroland: Time for Some Deficit Easing? / Economics / Economic Austerity
By: Ellen_Brown
“Doubtful it stood, as two spent swimmers that do cling together, and choke their art.” --Shakespeare, “Macbeth”
The Greek bailout was supposed to be an isolated case, a test of the EU’s ability to quarantine an infected member, preventing it from spreading “debt contagion.”
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Thursday, December 23, 2010
The Inflation Waves of 2011 / Economics / Inflation
By: John_Browne
One of the founding myths of the modern global financial system was that governments, especially of the developed democracies, could borrow endlessly without consequence. But, with sovereign debt crises erupting across the globe, it appears that the umbrella of perceived safety has gotten smaller, exposing some benighted countries, like Greece and Ireland, to severely rough weather.
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Wednesday, December 22, 2010
What Is the Current State of Economic Science? / Economics / Economic Theory
By: MISES
Erwin Rosen writes: What is the current state of economic science? In two words, "not good."
This is evident in the poor performance of the economics profession during the current financial crisis. Few economists saw it coming; once it started, its severity caught them by surprise; and now it is apparent that there is no agreement among them on how to end it.
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Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Commodity Super Cycle Ripples into China / Economics / China Economy
By: Gary_Dorsch
Exactly two-years ago, - the world’s commodity and stock markets were caught in the grips of a death spiral. As revelations of the extreme magnitude of the sub-prime mortgage debt crisis began to surface, banks began cutting off funding to companies and other borrowers, despite efforts by governments and central banks to unlock jammed credit markets. Global cross-border lending by banks shrank $5-trillion in the last nine months of 2008, the sharpest fall ever recorded.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
How Much Faith Should We Put in Keynesian Economic Models? / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Robert_Murphy
Jim Manzi is a private-sector expert in statistical analysis. He is my favorite commentator on the economics of climate change, because he dove into the IPCC reports and found that the proposed legislative "cures" (cap-and-trade or carbon-tax laws) are arguably worse than the disease, even according to the "consensus" numbers.