Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Monday, November 01, 2010
Slow U.S. GDP Growth Sets Stage for Fed’s Next Round of Quantitative Easing / Economics / Quantitative Easing
By: Money_Morning
Don Miller writes :
The U.S. economy continued to struggle to grow in the third quarter, most likely giving government officials enough cover to pump more liquidity into the financial system to stimulate hiring.
Gross domestic product (GDP), the value of all goods and services produced, increased by 2% in the third quarter, the Commerce Department reported Friday. Economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires were expecting GDP to rise by 2.1% in the July to September period, The Wall Street Journal reported.
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Monday, November 01, 2010
Bernanke Torching the U.S. Economic Recovery with Quantitative Easing / Economics / Quantitative Easing
By: Paul_Lamont
Investors Burned by Bernanke’s QE Demonstrations
While Chairman Bernanke has his theory on quantitative easing, we suspect QE will turn out more like this Turkish firefighter demonstrating fire safety (no one was hurt in this video). Instead of limiting losses to those that took risks, Bernanke’s first round of bailouts in 2008-9 spread the fire to all American taxpayers. Ben’s next demonstration of quantitative easing is likely to create uncertainty and chaos by torching the credit markets.
Monday, November 01, 2010
Deflation Is Not the Enemy, Bad Economics Is / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Gerard_Jackson
According to Alan Blinder "the present danger is not inflation but deflation". His pal Bernanke has driven the Fed's funds rate down to zero while giving the US economy an unprecedented increase in its monetary base. Not satisfied with that he is now apparently preparing an astonishing $2 trillion monetary expansion -- and Blinder worries about deflation!
Sunday, October 31, 2010
U.S. GDP Report Heralds Still Higher US Unemployment / Economics / US Economy
By: Barry_Grey
The Commerce Department on Friday estimated that the US economy grew at an anemic annual rate of 2.0 percent in the third quarter, a pace that all but ensures a further rise in unemployment.
The government claims that the recession ended in June of 2009, but the quarterly increases in the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) this year have been far below those recorded following previous major recessions. US GDP rose 3.7 percent in the first quarter of 2010 and then slowed to 1.7 percent in the second.
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Sunday, October 31, 2010
Bernanke gets his "pink slip" / Economics / US Economy
By: Mike_Whitney
Question: What is the difference between a full-blown Depression and an excruciatingly "slow recovery"?
Answer--Inventories and a bit of fiscal stimulus.
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Sunday, October 31, 2010
U.S. GDP Growth is Softer than it Looks, Republican Majority Could Trigger Double Dip Recession / Economics / Double Dip Recession
By: John_Mauldin
It's Softer Than It Looks
Not Finer for the "99er"
Be Careful What You Wish For
"People only accept change when they are faced with necessity, and only recognize necessity when a crisis is upon them." - Jean Monnet, father of the European Union
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Saturday, October 30, 2010
China's Creative Accounting, Using Debt as an Instrument of Economic Growth / Economics / China Economy
By: Ellen_Brown
China may be as heavily in debt as we are. It just has a different way of keeping its books -- which makes a high-profile political ad sponsored by Citizens Against Government Waste, a fiscally conservative think tank, particularly ironic. Set in a lecture hall in China in 2030, the controversial ad shows a Chinese professor lecturing on the fall of empires: Greece, Rome, Great Britain, the United States . . . .
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Signs Hyperinflation Is Arriving / Economics / HyperInflation
By: Gonzalo_Lira
Back in late August, I argued that hyperinflation would be triggered by a run on Treasury bonds. I described how such a run might happen, and argued that if Treasuries were no longer considered safe, then commodities would become the store of value.
Such a run on commodities, I further argued, would inevitably lead to price increases and a rise in the Consumer Price Index, which would initially be interpreted by the Federal Reserve, the Federal government, as well as the commentariat, as a good thing: A sign that “the economy is recovering”, a sign that “normalcy” was returning.
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Saturday, October 30, 2010
U.S. Economy Continues to Grow, But Momentum Not Enough to Lower Jobless Rate / Economics / Economic Recovery
By: Asha_Bangalore
Real gross domestic product (GDP) of the U.S. economy grew at annual rate of 2.0% in the third quarter, after a 1.7% increase in the second quarter. However, final sales advanced only 0.6% in the third quarter, following a mild 0.9% increase in the second quarter. As shown in chart 1, final sales show a decelerating trend after an increase of 1.2% in the fourth quarter of 2009.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Double Dip Recession Delayed, Not Derailed / Economics / Double Dip Recession
By: Mike_Shedlock
The BEA Advance GDP for Third Quarter 2010 came in at +2.0%. However, Table 2. Contributions to Percent Change in Real Gross Domestic Product shows that Change in private inventories contributed +1.44 while real final sales contributed a mere .6.
How sustainable is that?
Friday, October 29, 2010
A Complexity Manifesto, Capitalists Continue to Increase Complexity Within Their Spheres of Production / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Ashvin_Pandurangi
"Every limit appears as a barrier to be overcome" - Karl Marx (describing the world through a capitalist’s eyes)
There has been much debate since the global financial crisis of 2008 about what exactly happened and why. Some analysts believe that a period of deregulation in the financial sector, including the infamous repeal of Glass-Steagall (separating commercial and investment banking activities) [1], combined with reckless managerial decisions was the primary driver of a housing bubble, which led to a credit crunch and economic recession. Conservatives and libertarians tend to place the blame on government intervention in the housing and financial markets through Congressional legislation, such as the Community Reinvestment Act (putting pressure on banks to issue credit in low-income neighborhoods) [2], and the Federal Reserve's loose monetary policy (targeting low interest rates during the tech and housing bubbles) [3].
Friday, October 29, 2010
China's Massive Monetary Expansion and Crackup Boom / Economics / China Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
China is pointing the finger at the US, complaining about "Out of Control" US dollar Printing by the Fed.
Read full article... Read full article...Dollar issuance by the United States is "out of control", leading to an inflation assault on China, the Chinese commerce minister said in comments reported on Tuesday.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Loss of Dollar Purchasing Power, The True Fed Inflation Targeting Bullseye / Economics / Inflation
By: Richard_Daughty
When it comes time to put the current crop of economic blowhards and lunatics on trial for the disaster their insanely-bad advice caused, this quote from Frederic Mishkin, former Fed governor and who is directly responsible for the mess we are in, may come in handy.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
U.S. Employment is Main Focus of Fed QE Policy / Economics / Employment
By: Asha_Bangalore
The Fed is widely expected to announce the details of the second round of QE (quantitative easing) following its 2-day meeting ending on November 3. There are more questions than answers about the nature of QE2 at the present time. Let's start with QE1 to put things in perspective; QE1 was in place from December 2008 to March 2010. The Fed purchased a sum of $1.725 trillion worth of agency bonds ($175 billion), mortgage-backed securities ($1.25 trillion) and Treasury securities ($300 billion). The outcome was a larger Fed balance sheet reaching $2.3 trillion as of March 2010 (see chart 1).
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Paul Krugman Challenged to Debate on Keynesian vs Austrian Business Cycle Theory / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Robert_Murphy
As many readers already know, last week I launched a campaign to pressure Paul Krugman into debating me. In just the first week, this sophomoric 7-minute YouTube video has generated $35,000 in pledges. At this point, I don't see how Krugman will ever live this down until he debates me on Austrian versus Keynesian business-cycle theory.
In the present article, I'll give a little background of how I came up with the idea. Then I'll point out the broader implications of this episode, which go well beyond my jousting with Krugman.
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Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Economies Pummeled by the Strong Arm of the Financial Ruin / Economics / Great Depression II
By: Richard_Daughty
Casey's Gold & Resource Summit reports that "Casey Research's own resident economic genius Bud Conrad" is the "nonpareil whirling dervish of data points," which is an odd descriptor, and I interpret it as meaning a guy who knows how to send you into cardiac arrest with "a mind-boggling sequence of charts and graphs covering virtually every aspect of the economy."
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Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Global Banking System, Is There Life After Sudden Death? / Economics / Global Financial System
By: Professor_Emeritus
The debate on the Real Bills Doctrine (RBD) within the sound money movement is important because the international banking system, financing world trade as well as domestic trade, is facing its greatest challenge in all history. Indeed, it may succumb to the sudden death syndrome, and all efforts to resuscitate it may fail. Worse still, banks have by now acquired such a bad name, and they have earned such a universal hatred for their role in the global destruction of capital and of individual savings, that any new financial institution in whose name the word "bank" figures may be rejected out of hand by the people, should anyone try to make a fresh start in the banking business after the collapse.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Poststeroid Economics / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Vitaliy_Katsenelson
During the ’80s and ’90s, ignorance was bliss. The global economy was growing nicely, and analyzing it (or even paying attention to market cycles) seemed like a waste of time, as the economy came in only three flavors: good, great and awesome. Even if you misread the flavor, the downside was that you’d just make a little less money. Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Inflation in the Real World / Economics / Inflation
By: Casey_Research
Jake Weber, Editor, The Casey Report writes: As is often the case, there is a big difference between what the government statistics are reporting and what’s going on in the real world. According to the most recent inflation reading published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), consumer prices grew at an annual rate of just 1.1% in August.
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Tuesday, October 26, 2010
UK Economic Boom Continues, GDP Q3 2010 +0.8%, Academic Economists Remain Clueless / Economics / UK Economy
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The UK economic boom continued into the third quarter of 2010 with GDP jumping by 0.8% (+3.2% annualised), that itself followed on from an eye wateringly high growth rate of 1.2% for Q2, both of which were missed by the academic economists that populate the financial institutions and journalists / pseudo economists in the mainstream press that only hours before were expecting growth of 0.4% (1.6% annualised), which despite the economy booming still continue with mantra's based on theoretical models for a none existant double dip recession whilst the real economy literally booms.