Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Saturday, March 06, 2010
The Bubble That Broke the World / Economics / Economic Theory
Jonathan M. Finegold Catalan writes: With the United States and much of Europe buried in public debt, many wonder how world governments will solve their impending budgetary crises. The economics profession has split into two camps: those who promote more spending; and their opponents, the "deficit hawks." The spenders have been the more vocal, largely due to their dominance in mainstream academia.
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Saturday, March 06, 2010
Krugman Fails to "Get It" on Japan / Economics / Economic Theory
One of my pet peeves with Paul Krugman is his constant rewriting of history, a rewriting that just happens to coincide with left-wing political talking points. For example, we hear that the Great Depression occurred because Herbert Hoover was a staunch believer in laissez-faire and took the advice of Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, who called for liquidation of bad assets to "purge" the economy of whatever was "rotten" in the system.
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Saturday, March 06, 2010
The Inflationist View of History / Economics / Inflation
A very popular doctrine maintains that progressive lowering of the monetary unit's purchasing power played a decisive role in historical evolution. It is asserted that mankind would not have reached its present state of well-being if the supply of money had not increased to a greater extent than the demand for money. The resulting fall in purchasing power, it is said, was a necessary condition of economic progress. The intensification of the division of labor and the continuous growth of capital accumulation, which have centupled the productivity of labor, could ensue only in a world of progressive price rises.
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Friday, March 05, 2010
U.S. Jobs Contract by 36,000; Unemployment Rate Steady at 9.7% / Economics / Employment
Today the BLS reported 36,000 job losses with the unemployment rate holding at 9.7%. Before diving into the numbers let's analyze the snow job ahead of the report.
Speaking before Congress, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke harped about snow, warning policymakers will "to be careful about not overinterpreting" the upcoming data." In the wake of that warning, economists busily upped their projections for job losses in February, some by as much as 220,000 jobs.
Friday, March 05, 2010
We Need Bigger Budget Deficits Or We're Toast / Economics / Government Spending
Barack Obama must choose between high unemployment or large fiscal deficits. It's one or the other. If he chooses to increase government spending and provide a second round of stimulus; unemployment will fall, the output gap will narrow, business confidence will strengthen, and the economy will continue on the path of recovery. If he refuses to provide more stimulus; unemployment will hover around 10 percent, credit will continue to contract, confidence will flag, and the economy will underperform for years to come.
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Friday, March 05, 2010
An Economic Storm is Brewing / Economics / Inflation
When the tech bubble burst in 2000, Greenspan tried to “fix” the problem by cutting rates and printing money. Fix the problem he did … well sort of! What Greenspan did was create two new bubbles in the credit and real estate markets to replace the tech bubble that had burst. Millions of jobs were created in these two industries. Much needed jobs to replace the ones lost as the tech boom came to an end.
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Thursday, March 04, 2010
Economic Recession, Depression, or Systematic Breakdown / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
As crooked politicians, Federal Reserve hacks, and cheerleading media pundits inform you the recession is over, you probably have a sneaking suspicion they are lying.
The National Bureau of Economic Research is the arbiter of business cycle recessions. They define a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production.”
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Thursday, March 04, 2010
The Debt Default Dominos / Economics / Global Debt Crisis
The bad news for Greece is that despite some help from abroad, and some attempts at internal reform, investors are still leery of the troubled state. The good news, if you can call it that, is that they will soon have company in the penalty box.
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Thursday, March 04, 2010
Sovereign Debt Crisis, Transferring Risk From Private Banks to Governments / Economics / Global Debt Crisis
No Wonder the Economy Is not Improving
I've read countless news headlines recently about how economists are "surprised" over an "unexpectedly bad" economic indicator.
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Thursday, March 04, 2010
Is Anyone Else Sick of this Nascent Economic Recovery Talk? / Economics / Economic Recovery
The buzzword of the day is "nascent". It means "beginning to exist or develop". The word is everywhere you look.
Moreover, talk of "nascency" seems like it has been going on forever. Perhaps because it has. Here are some prime examples.
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Wednesday, March 03, 2010
IMF Recommends Doubling Inflation Targets! / Economics / Inflation
I grew up in Germany, a country that went through hyperinflation twice during the 20th Century. Maybe that’s the reason I learned inflation is bad and inflationary policies are diabolic.
Inflationary periods are highly unjust. They undermine the ethics of hard work and thrift. They destroy solidarity, lead to widespread hardship and often to social unrest.
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Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Is The Recovery Real? The US Economy is Set for a “Double-Dip” Recession / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Happy news! The government has come up with a 5.9 percent GDP growth rate in the fourth quarter of 2009. The recession is over.Or is it? Statistician John Williams has informed us that 69 percent of this growth, or 4.1 percentage points, is the result of inventory accumulation. That leaves a 1.8 percent growth rate, and the 1.8 percent is likely due to the underestimate of inflation and other statistical problems.
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Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Evolving Economic Catastrophe, Greek Debt Tragedy Comes to America / Economics / Global Debt Crisis
We are not going to go into the lured details regarding residential and commercial real estate, but we are going to give you some highlights. We began telling subscribers to sell real estate in June of 2005, long before anyone else. We picked the top just as we did in September 1988 at the top.
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Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Greece Debt Crisis, From Hard Money to Fool's Gold / Economics / Global Debt Crisis
When Greece invented the Olympic Games in 776 BC, the top prize was an olive wreath, not gold. And in those days, Greece sought out the top runners, rather than compete for a discipline not approved by the International Olympic Committee (IOC): governmental financial engineering.
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Monday, March 01, 2010
Dont Bet on a Economic Recovery / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
It is astounding how many economists, government officials, and Wall Street strategists construe the current economic conditions as evidence of a bona fide recovery. It is a testament to the power of the rose colored glasses handed out by our nation's leading universities that such a feeling could be widely held despite the clear and present danger that compounds daily. The myopia leads us to enact policies that actually exacerbate our problems. The "remedies" are postponing, perhaps indefinitely, a true recovery.
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Monday, March 01, 2010
I'm Sure Glad The Recession Ended / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
It's a good thing the recession ended. Otherwise, key economic charts might look something like this.
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Sunday, February 28, 2010
Printing Money to Pay Debts, Fast Track Way to End Our World / Economics / Quantitative Easing
Richard Daughty writes: The proverbial boogeyman, the phrase “end of the world as we know it,” is not particularly significant to me because it is, literally, always true, because any progress at all, anywhere, means that tomorrow will never be like today, and so “the end of the world as we know it” can be extended to mean “and it will be better and better!”
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Sunday, February 28, 2010
Economic Recovery Illusion, Debt Crisis Coming to U.S. / Economics / Global Debt Crisis
While United States President Barack obama and member of his cabinet are talking about the first signs of economic recovery. Not all economists are sure that the world economy is on the way back up...
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Sunday, February 28, 2010
The Calm Before the Coming Sovereign Debt Storm / Economics / Global Debt Crisis
If I’ve learned anything in the 39 years since I founded Weiss Research, it’s this: I can only help those who are ready to help themselves.
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Sunday, February 28, 2010
E.U. Shocked at Greek Greeks Used Financial Technology For Debt Deceit / Economics / Global Debt Crisis
The European Union (EU) is shocked--shocked I tell you!--that Greece used financial engineering to qualify for admission. Exactly how did they think that weaker countries managed to meet the requirements? Now the EU is concerned that geeks used their knowledge of Greece's hidden debt (and bailout negotiations) to manipulate financial markets for their own profit.
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