Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Quantittaive Easing Ignites Real Price Inflation / Economics / Inflation
The Federal Reserve’s moves are backfiring.
The Fed’s recent announcement that it’s going to keep the free money spigot flowing for at least another six months was the last straw.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Bernanke and Greenspans Pretense of Economic Knowledge Continues / Economics / Economic Theory
Two years after the Wall Street '08 come-apart, with the economy still lingering in a funk, the Federal Reserve announced, a day after the elections, what the Associated Press called "a bold effort to invigorate the economy": the purchase of $600 billion of government bonds from now through the middle of next year, at a pace of $75 billion a month. This $600 billion is on top of the $250–$300 billion the Fed will be buying to reinvest proceeds from its mortgage portfolio.
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Monday, November 15, 2010
The Great “Depression” / Economics / Economic Depression
Today I would like to continue my discussion of the (so-called) Great Depression as this is the giant lie which is behind most of the other economic lies which have deceived so many people and cost them so much money.
What is a depression? It is a period in a country’s economic history where the large majority of the people become poorer. It is alleged that such a period occurred in the early 1930s. I have pointed out previously that Economic Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, reports that during this period Americans shifted from margarine to butter. They increased their per capita meat consumption (from 129 lb to 144 lb.). And they gave (substantially) more to charity. Further, real wages rose during this period, and the savings of the average American increased in value (buying power) by 30%. This does not sound like a getting poorer to me.
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Monday, November 15, 2010
Bank of England Inflation Propaganda Suggests Invisible Depression, Bankrupting Ireland Seeks Bailout / Economics / Inflation
The Bank of England released its latest quarterly inflation report that shows that after a near year of temporary CPI Inflation mantra at above 3%, Mervyn King, the Bank Governor now expects CPI to spike to 3.5% during 2011 before falling back to below its 2% target and therefore implying that the real threat that the press and population should concern themselves with is DEFLATION.
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Sunday, November 14, 2010
The Keynesian Vacuum Universe / Economics / Economic Theory
"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity" - Martin Luther King, Jr.
If only we existed in a Keynesian vacuum universe, then the current Administration's economic policies may have actually succeeded in fixing the ailing, debt-ridden economy! Here are some of the reasons why:
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Saturday, November 13, 2010
Global Monetary Stalemate, Quantitative Easing Won't Work / Economics / Quantitative Easing
Mr. Bernanke is trying to avoid the Japanese experience of the past 20 years. Underlying deflation is being offset again, as it has been for the past eight years, by creating more money and credit. The only one lose to our prediction of mid-May of $5 trillion over two years is Keynesian economist Paul Krugman. He said the Fed would need $6 trillion. The Republicans seized the House and all that has really been accomplished is gridlock, the end of stimulus and a cut of perhaps $100 billion in debt.
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Friday, November 12, 2010
Modern Economists Failed at Disaster Recovery / Economics / Economic Theory
When a recent Nobel Laureate in Economics, a current Federal Reserve Board president, and MIT economist with the National Bureau of Economics (NBER) agree — take serious note: It is quite rare.
"I believe that during the last financial crisis, macroeconomists (and I include myself among them) failed the country, and indeed the world,” Dr. Narayana Kocherlakota, President of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, wrote this past May.
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Friday, November 12, 2010
U.S. Federal Budget Deficit Reduction Plan Analysis / Economics / Economic Austerity
Martin Hutchinson writes: The two leaders of U.S. President Barack Obama's Deficit Commission Wednesday produced a proposal for deficit cuts that slaughtered a lot of budgetary "sacred cows" and cut $3.8 trillion off the deficit over the next 10 years.
And the cuts were even made in just the right ratio – with $3 of spending cuts for every $1 of tax increases.
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Friday, November 12, 2010
Ireland Goes Bust, Irish Bank Run / Economics / Credit Crisis 2010
There was a bank run in Ireland on Wednesday. LCH Clearnet, a London based clearinghouse, surprised the markets by announcing it would increase margin requirements on Irish debt by 15 percent. That's all it took to send investors fleeing for the exits. Yields on Irish bonds spiked sharply as banks tried to close positions or raise the capital needed to meet the new requirements. The Irish 10-year bond soared to 8.9 percent by day's end, more than 6 percentage points higher than "risk free" German sovereign debt. The ECB will have to intervene. Ireland is on its way to default.
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Thursday, November 11, 2010
China's Trade Imbalance Threatens Global Economic Stability / Economics / Global Economy
Kerri Shannon writes: China announced yesterday (Wednesday) that its trade surplus grew 60.7% in October from the month before as efforts to rebalance its economic growth this year have failed. Furthermore, recent policy tightening measures mean domestic demand is unlikely to pick up in the near future.
"The rebalancing of China's economy has an awfully long way to go – in fact it's hardly even got started," Mark Williams, an economist at Capital Economics Ltd. who previously worked at the U.K. Treasury as an adviser to China, told Bloomberg. "In normal circumstances, the world might be willing to wait, but not when the likes of the U.S. are struggling with very high unemployment."
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Thursday, November 11, 2010
U.S. Jobless Claims Decline and Trade Gap Narrows, Exports Continue Boost Economy / Economics / Economic Recovery
Initial jobless claims fell 24,000 to 435,000 during the week ended November 6. Initial jobless claims have dropped in three out of the last four weeks. The 4-week moving average at 446,500 is the lowest since September 13, 2008 (see chart 1). Each of these developments is noteworthy and encouraging. In addition, the date is haunting because this is the last weekly reading before the Lehman Brothers debacle in September 2008.
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Thursday, November 11, 2010
Marc Faber on U.S. Trade Deficit Doom as a Cause of the Financial Crisis / Economics / US Economy
Marc Faber Discussing the U.S. trade deficit as the real cause of the financial crisis that boosted emerging markets and commodities which should be thanking Ben Bernanke. U.S. could benefit form exporting agricultural commodities.
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Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Quantitative Easing During Mid 1930s Appears to Have Been Successful / Economics / Quantitative Easing
There is much skepticism as to whether the Fed's second round of quantitative easing, QE2, will be effective in stimulating the nominal demand for goods and services in the U.S. economy. It was explained in our November 4, 2010 US Economic and Interest Rate Outlook why the Fed's first round of quantitative easing, which ran from the end of November 2008 through the end of March 2010, was rather unsuccessful in stimulating nominal aggregate demand and why we believe that the Fed's just-announced second round will be more successful. Keying off Mark Twain's aphorism that although history may not repeat, it often rhymes, perhaps we can get some guidance as to whether QE2 will be successful from the results of the quantitative easing that was initiated in the second half of 1933.
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Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Why QE2 INCREASES the Risk of Deflation / Economics / Deflation
Tim Waring writes: Markets lapped it up!
QE2 was met with rapture by commodity and stock markets as traders and investors continue the easy money ride of a sinking dollar. The effect on the real economy is unknown but common sense rather than models suggests this extra $600billion is a mistake.
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Tuesday, November 09, 2010
How to Profit from China's Consumer Boom Throttling Up GDP Growth / Economics / China Economy
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes: BEIJING, People's Republic of China – There's something inherently satisfying about waking up on a clear, crisp fall day in this bustling capital city, and seeing this headline atop the lead story in this morning's China Daily newspaper:
"World Bank Sees Change in Growth Pattern"
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Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Deflation is Still a Problem Despite Fed Money Printing QE2 / Economics / Deflation
Deflation is not a problem because the Fed can always create inflation by printing more money.
Wrong.
While it's true that the Fed can print as much money as it chooses, adding to the money stock does not decrease deflation or increase inflation. It merely adds to the reserves the banks have at their disposal to lend out to businesses and consumers. Here's how British economist John Maynard Keynes summed it up:
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Common Sense vs. Academic Economist Formulas; Fed Concludes Structurally High Unemployment is a Myth / Economics / Economic Theory
Ben Bernanke and the Fed have great belief in academic models whether they make any real world practical sense or not.
Indeed, Bernanke's reliance on formulas instead of common sense is what told him there was no housing bubble, that unemployment would not get above 8.5%, and that Quantitative Easing in massive force would cause the unemployment rate to drop. He was wrong on all counts.
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Fed Pushes U.S. Economy into an Inflationary Death Spiral / Economics / Inflation
It seems the Fed has given up on the idea that the country can build a viable and stable economy through the conventional means. Instead, our central bank has resorted to once again growing GDP and increasing employment by the creation of asset bubbles. This is a dangerous game that no one, least of all the Fed, knows how to play.
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Tuesday, November 09, 2010
U.S. Commercial and Industrial Demand for Loans Remains Weak / Economics / US Economy
The Fed's Senior Loan Officer Survey results of October indicate that demand for commercial and industrial loans from large and medium sized firms was weaker compared with the third quarter survey (see chart 1). A larger percentage of bankers indicated weaker demand from small firms. This information is discouraging because stronger economic growth in the months ahead is tied to a likely pickup in loan demand.
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Monday, November 08, 2010
Thinking Clearly about Capital, Interest, and Income / Economics / Economic Theory
Nowadays, Austrian economists are most famous for their theory of the business cycle, as developed by Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. However, they also made many contributions to the pure theory of capital and interest, most notably in the seminal work of Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk and later in that of Hayek. In the present article we'll see that these insights are relevant today, as mainstream economist Scott Sumner lashes out justifiably against absurd tax policies but, in the process, throws economic theory out the window too.
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