Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Friday, January 15, 2010
US Debt: Look At It This Way / Economics / US Debt
Seven ways to put the United States' national debt into perspective...
The SHEER SIZE of the US government's debt hasn't put off new bond buyers so far in 2010.
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Friday, January 15, 2010
Economists ‘Puzzled’ by December Retail Sales Decline / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
While most Americans understand that falling wages, job losses and contracting consumer credit leads to less spending, it seems that many economists just can’t figure out what happened to retail sales in December.
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Friday, January 15, 2010
China and India Push Hard Down On the Petro Keynesian Gas Pedal / Economics / Economic Recovery
WARNINGS - Warnings of fast and massive overheating of the Chinese economic miracle, with similar warnings starting to be heard for the Indian economy, underline the basic common driver: Petro Keynesian growth in 2010. Unlike the more massive and more ineffective 'tax-and-spend' programs employed in the US, in Europe and Japan since late 2008, the classic Keynesian solution of spend now but tax later, or inflate and devalue later, the Chinese and Indian anti-recession programs have spent strategic.
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Friday, January 15, 2010
Inflation 101 / Economics / Inflation
We want all our readers to understand that inflation is a disaster for society and it only benefits the elite. In fact, we will go even further by stating that inflation is a hidden tax, an insidious crime against the public. It is the easiest way for any government to confiscate the savings of the public and for generations, wealth has been transferred in this manner.
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Friday, January 15, 2010
Financial Markets and Economic Crisis Outlook 2010, When Hope Turns to Fear! / Economics / Financial Markets 2010
I wish to send you my very best wishes for a Happy New Year.
WE WILL BEGIN THIS MULTI-PART OUTLOOK WITH A GENERAL OVERVIEW, THEN OVER THE FOLLOWING WEEKS TOUCH ON A VARIETY OF CONVENTIONAL AND UNCONVENTIONAL ANALYSES, SPANNING THE MARKETS IN GENERAL, SUCH AS STOCKS, COMMODITIES, CURRENCIES, INTEREST RATES, BOMB....ER, BOND MARKETS AND TAKE FUNDAMENTAL LOOKS AT THE DIFFERENT REGIONS, BANKING SYSTEMS ETC.
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Friday, January 15, 2010
Ballooning U.S. Treasury Deficits, It Takes both Outlays and Receipts to Tango / Economics / US Debt
On Wednesday, the U.S. Treasury reported a record cumulative deficit over the 12 months ended December 2009 of $1.472 trillion (see Chart 1). Although the editorial board of the WSJ surely will rail against exploding federal spending, it will probably fail to mention another key driver of ballooning federal deficits - collapsing federal receipts.
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Thursday, January 14, 2010
ECB Says Greece Debt Crisis is Tiny Compared to California for the U.S. / Economics / Global Debt Crisis
At its monthly press conference, European Central Bank (ECB) President Trichet was assertive in calling for fiscal discipline in its 16 member states that comprise 330 million people using the euro. Asked about bailing out Greece or other member states with severe fiscal challenges, Trichet called the ECB collateral framework crystal clear, applying erga omnes (equally) to every member state; no special treatment will be provided to any one member. In the euro zone, member states may receive funding from the ECB by posting collateral, but only if their debt is appropriately rated by the major credit rating agencies.
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Thursday, January 14, 2010
Small Business Trends Suggest No Economic Recovery On Horizon / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) Small Business Economic Trends for January 2010 is filled with 23 pages of graphs and text that suggest there is no recovery on the horizon.
Let's take a look at a summary and some of the graphs. Charts and text with permission of and copyright of the NFIB Research Foundation. Highlights in red are mine.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
The Tepee Shaped Economic Recovery / Economics / Economic Recovery
The shape of this economic recovery will not be in a “V”, as many pundits have promulgated, but instead may be the inversion of that letter…which will unfortunately look much more like a tepee. The upcoming downfall will surprise most investors who have been tricked into believing that a government can print and spend their way into prosperity.
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Thursday, January 14, 2010
Deflationists Predicting Price Deflation Are Not Economists, They Are Journalists / Economics / Deflation
In Part 1, I replied to the issues raised by John Exter a generation ago:
Read full article... Read full article...1. The coming rush for liquidity
2. Gold as the most liquid asset
3. Currency and T-bills will do almost as well as gold
4. Gold as money, despite a commission
5. Asset prices influence consumer prices
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Europe in Economic Crisis / Economics / Euro-Zone
Peter Schwarz writes: At the start of the last decade, in March 2000, the European Union heads of state announced the Lisbon Strategy. Its aim, by 2010, was to make Europe “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion.” This would create “the conditions for full employment and the strengthening of regional cohesion in the European Union.”
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Wednesday, January 13, 2010
What the Deflationists Are Missing / Economics / Inflation
An interesting article by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard came my way the other day. It’s worth a read, if for no other reason than that he paints an appropriately dark picture of the current state of the U.S. economy. You can read it here.
While I very much share Mr. Evans-Pritchard’s view that the global economy is far from out of the woods, our views diverge in that he sees devastating deflation speeding our way down the tunnel. Casey Research readers of any duration know that we see devastating inflation.
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Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Unemployment The Most Important Challenge Facing the U.S. Economy / Economics / US Economy
From the start of the economic and financial crisis that began in 2007, I made it clear that this was not a garden variety recession. Instead, I said, it was the aftermath of the bursting of the largest real estate bubble the world had ever seen.
Many developments of the past three years support my thesis. Now I predict that this will not be a garden variety recovery either. We should expect some false starts in the economy and a bear market rally for stocks.
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Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Global Debt Deleveraging of Housing Market Bubbles, Why Reflation Will Fail / Economics / Global Debt Crisis
Inquiring minds are reading an interesting document by the San Francisco Fed called Global Household Leverage, House Prices, and Consumption.
"[O]ver-investment and over-speculation are often important; but they would have far less serious results were they not conducted with borrowed money." —Irving Fisher (1933)Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
The Recession Is Over, the Economic Depression Just Beginning / Economics / Great Depression II
In late 2009, former Merrill Lynch economist, now with the Canadian firm, Gluskin Sheff, said the following:
"The credit collapse and the accompanying deflation and overcapacity are going to drive the economy and financial markets in 2010. We have said this repeatedly that this recession is really a depression because the (post-WW II) recessions were merely small backward steps in an inventory cycle but in the context of expanding credit. Whereas now, we are in a prolonged period of credit contraction, especially as it relates to households and small businesses."
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Free Banking versus Large-scale Credit Expansion / Economics / Economic Theory
Observations on the Discussions Concerning Free Banking - The Banking School taught that an overissuance of banknotes is impossible if the bank limits its business to the granting of short-term loans. When the loan is paid back at maturity, the banknotes return to the bank and thus disappear from the market. However, this happens only if the bank restricts the amount of credits granted. (But even then it would not undo the effects of its previous credit expansion. It would merely add to it the effects of a later credit contraction.)
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Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Eurozone Faces Meltdown Under Sovereign Debt Crisis 2010 / Economics / Euro-Zone
As fears of a dollar meltdown have loomed ever larger in recent years, major investors, including central banks, have moved significant portions of their cash reserves into the euro, the currency of the European Union (EU). And while it is true that the euro offers some shelter from the American economic catastrophe, the currency does come with baggage that investors should not ignore.
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Monday, January 11, 2010
Economic Steroids Are Toxic Too / Economics / Economic Stimulus
AS THE NEW YEAR OPENS, THE stock market is behaving as if the past 20 years were about to repeat themselves: Another recession will turn into a robust expansion. Stock prices already are discounting an earnings recovery to something only slightly below the level before the financial crisis. Risk-taking is in vogue again.
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Monday, January 11, 2010
Does the Government Own the Whole Economy? / Economics / Economic Theory
In a recent New York Times op-ed, economist Robert Shiller (coproducer of the famous housing-price index) recommended that the US government begin to sell claims on fractions of Gross Domestic Product. Besides the practical problems with his proposal, it rests on the premise that the US government owns the entire economy. It will be instructive to parse Shiller's column to see just how badly his collectivist thinking misleads him.
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Monday, January 11, 2010
The Deflationists Myth of Japan / Economics / Deflation
In my previous report in this series, I contrasted the monetary views of the Austrian School of economics with the standard views of Keynesian and Chicago School economists. Despite their deep-seated differences, all of them oppose the views of the handful of forecasters who predict inevitable price deflation. I wrote:
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