Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Retail Sales "Green Shoots" of Economic Recovery Wither On The Vine / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Whatever momentum consumers had (real or imaginary) is already in question as Retail Sales Unexpectedly Fall for Second Month.Retail sales in the U.S. unexpectedly dropped in April for a second month, indicating that rising unemployment is prompting consumers to conserve cash.
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Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Fed Actions Will Delay Real Economic Recovery From Recession / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Claus Vogt writes: More than six years ago, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke — then still Fed Governor — gave a laudation for Milton Friedman, one of America’s leading economists.
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Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Bank of England Quarterly Inflation Report, UK GDP Revised Lower / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
The Bank of England in its quarterly inflation report to be published later today is expected to revise its UK GDP forecast lower following the first quarter crash of -1.9%. The Banks forecast of barely 3 months ago is for UK GDP to fall by -3.4% for 2009, this is expected to be revised to -4.1% which would bring the Bank of England inline with the IMF's forecast for GDP contraction which itself is a revision of just a few weeks ago from -3%, against my own forecast for UK GDP contraction for 2009 of -4.75% (see below). The BoE will also revise growth lower for next year which will probably be in the region of +1.5%.
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Monday, May 11, 2009
Labor Department Manipulation Minimized April Unemployment Data / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Don Miller writes: Employers cut 539,000 jobs in April, the lowest total in six months, but the Labor Department said the unemployment rate still soared to 8.9%, from 8.5% in March. While some analysts viewed the latest report as a sign of a nascent economic recovery, the unemployment numbers are almost certain to head higher before the recession is declared over.
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Monday, May 11, 2009
Obama Following UK Disastrous Economic Inflationary Policies of Printing Money / Economics / Quantitative Easing
If there is one institution that is in desperate need of a stress test it's the US government. On 7 May the government auctioned $14 billion of 30-year bonds. The yield was 4.28 per cent, much higher than predicted by analysts. When the result became known Treasuries immediately dropped. For those readers who are unaware of the link between bond prices and yields, when the latter rises bond prices fall. This event followed closely behind the UK's failed bond issue. It sure as hell seems that the markets are worried by these governments' financial incompetence. And so they should be.
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Monday, May 11, 2009
NO Economic Recovery, Multiple Raging Economic Storms / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Martin Weiss writes: Any economist fixated on so-called “signs of a recovery” needs to have his head examined.
As I’ll prove to you in a moment, the hard-nosed reality is that five major economic cyclones are in progress at this very moment.
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Monday, May 11, 2009
Fed Economic Roller Coaster, What's Ahead? / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Gerald Celente writes: Green Shoots or Greatest Depression? - The financial fields replete with sprouting "green shoots" should be viewed with suspicion, if not alarm. They are not a mirage, but they are ephemeral.
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Monday, May 11, 2009
Chinese Economic Recovery a Mirage as Deflation Accelerates / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Consumer prices are falling year over year in China. Bear in mind that falling prices do not constitute deflation which is a monetary phenomenon (a reduction in money supply and credit) not a price phenomenon. In this case we see both.
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Sunday, May 10, 2009
Did Bernanke Pull the U.S. Economy Back From the Brink of Depression? / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Fed chief Ben Bernanke's understanding of financial crises may have kept the country from sliding into another Great Depression. That doesn't mean that he's fixed the credit system, removed the non-performing loans from the banks, or stopped housing prices from crashing. It simply means that pumping liquidity into the system--via huge increases in the money supply, zero-percent interest rates, and multi-trillion dollar lending facilities--has either slowed or reversed the rate of decline in many sectors of the economy.
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Saturday, May 09, 2009
Recession Ending?, Green Shoots of Economic Recovery? / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
A Few Thoughts on Recessions
Are the Green Shoots Really Dandelion Weeds?
Is That a Leaky Bucket?
Frugality Is Back in Vogue
Where Will the Jobs Come From?
Go to Google. Type in "green shoots." In about a 10th of a second you will find 28,900,000 references. Scrolling through a few pages, you find a lot of references to the beginning of the end of the recession. Today we look at some data to see if we can indeed see the end. Most readers will be surprised to know that the number of people employed in the US went up (!) in April. Yet so did the unemployment rate. Is that green shoot just another dandelion weed in our economic garden?
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Friday, May 08, 2009
U.S. Unemployment Rate Soars to 8.9%, Jobs Contract for 16th Straight Month / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the April Employment Report. Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in April (-539,000), and the unemployment rate rose from 8.5 to 8.9 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Since the recession began in December 2007, 5.7 million jobs have been lost. In April, job losses were large and widespread across nearly all major private-sector industries. Overall, private sector employment fell by 611,000.
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Thursday, May 07, 2009
Did the Bilderberg Group Plan the Economic Depression II? / Economics / Great Depression II
Paul Watson writes: Elitists divided on whether to quickly sink economy and replace it with new world order, or set in motion long, agonizing depression. On the eve of the 2009 Bilderberg Group conference, which is due to be held May 14-17 at the 5 star Nafsika Astir Palace Hotel in Vouliagmeni, Greece, investigative reporter Daniel Estulin has uncovered shocking details of what the elitists plan to do with the economy over the course of the next year.
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Thursday, May 07, 2009
This is Not the 1930’s Depression, Which Means High Inflation to Come / Economics / Inflation
Many comparisons have been made between today’s financial and economic crisis and the Great Depression, none more than the specter of deflation. Well, contrary to what happened during the Great Depression and contrary to the deflationary forecasts of government leaders, central bankers and economists, deflation, while always possible, is, in this man’s opinion, highly unlikely. Why’s that? Because the monetary and political framework of today is nothing like that of the early 1930’s. In fact, it’s nothing like anything seen, ever. Quite simply, today’s monetary and political framework is built for inflation, as much inflation as the government, the Federal Reserve and their banking partners want. And inflation, and a whole lot of it, is exactly what we are about to get.
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Thursday, May 07, 2009
China Succeeds in Fighitng Recession, Driving Gold, Stock and Commodities Higher / Economics / China Economy
This week, based on indicators of improving Chinese manufacturing activity, commodity and stock markets surged in the Pacific Rim. It appears that China's recession-fighting policies are being judged successful. The 41 percent rally in Chinese stocks in 2009 from the 2008 lows dwarfs the single digit rallies in the U.S. and Europe. With Western economies still sluggish, eyes are turning eastward for solutions to the global economic riddle. As such, recent hints at the direction of Chinese monetary policy should be closely regarded.
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Thursday, May 07, 2009
Looking Back at the Greatest Economic Depression 2009 / Economics / Great Depression II
Gerald Celente writes: On average, world trade fell 31 percent in January 2009. To varying degrees, recession and depression gripped globally. “The outlook for global consumption remains bleak. Exports are likely to remain lackluster until global consumers regain their appetite for consumption,” wrote Jing Ulrich, managing director at JPMorgan in Hong Kong, in response to the dire data.
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Thursday, May 07, 2009
United States to Recovery from Recession by the End of 2009 / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
The head of the United States Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke addressing the Joint Economic Committee of the Congress said that the American economy may recover from the nosedive and start to grow again as early as this year. Even in this case the business activity will remain restrained: companies will be careful with creating new working places. The level of unemployment will be high still and may get even higher in the next months.
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Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Debt Fuelled Tax Payer Bailouts and Economic Stimulus: If You Believe Borrowing Leads to Prosperity / Economics / US Debt
The 1970’s were a simpler time. As kids, we listened to All The Young Dudes by Mott the Hoople on our portable record players. We would cut Monkees’ .98s from the back of our Raisin Bran cereal boxes. There were maybe ten TV stations we could watch. For entertainment we would play board games like The Game of Life, Monopoly, and Risk. I remember having a two day Risk match with friends from our neighborhood. Our parents didn’t smother us with attention. We created our own fun. We organized our own roller hockey league with games played in our back alley and on the side streets of our neighborhood. We played half-ball against the back of our row homes.
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Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Misleading Jobless Claims Economic Data and Recessions / Economics / Market Manipulation
One of the many "green shoots" that has popped up recently for the U.S. economy is the possible peaking of weekly jobless claims, what has been increasingly referred to as a "reliable" indicator for the end of recessions since 1967 when this data was first collected. The chart below, similar to the one published by CR in this item from a couple weeks ago shows the correlation.
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Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Emerging Markets Recovering First From the Economic Crisis / Economics / Articles
The world community has been eagerly devouring the good news for the past few days. The news comes from the East. First of all, China gives us hope that the crisis is going to end. Analysts speak about the inspiring perspectives of all BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China). Experts say that the countries have no debt burden, which is obviously their main advantage. Nevertheless, despite the market growth, the real conditions of the Russian economy are far from being favorable.
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Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Stock Markets See Patches of Blue Sky in Economic Recovery / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
So much for the great recession. The improvement in risk appetite has continued unabated into this week. Firmer US housing data, construction spend and Chinese PMI numbers (which rose for the first time in 9 months), combined with declining bank worries and easing swine flu concerns boosted risk appetite. To top that off, Research In Motion and Intel were upgraded and Sprint Nextel earnings beat estimates. But it appears to this writer that euphoria has got the better of common sense.
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