Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Friday, January 30, 2009
California Economy Near Collapse / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
MSNBC: California 's fiscal future lurched yet another step toward oblivion on Friday as state Controller John Chiang announced he could no longer make payments for services to disabled and blind people who need the money to pay for rent and food .Chiang said payments would most likely have to be stopped by Feb. 1.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, January 29, 2009
U.S. Economy in Deepening Recession / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Does any Know Where the Economy is Going? - The U.S. economy has been in a recession for more than a year now. The current administration is now debating an additional stimulus package to help turn the economy around. Lead by followers of John Maynard Keynes, the father of deficit spending, the U.S. government is bent on spending its way out of the recession. Do these programs have a chance to help the economy recover and start a new long-term economic expansion?Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Fiat Currency Seigniorage ("The Inflation Tax") / Economics / Money Supply
Before becoming Governor of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke co-authored several text books familiar to college students studying economics. In one of these text books, Macroeconomics , the question of whether government budget deficits can lead to ongoing increases in the money supply is both asked and answered.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
U.S. Heading for Japan Style Two Decade Economic Depression / Economics / Economic Depression
Every day seems worse than the previous day. Five hundred thousand people are getting laid off every month. Our banking system is on life support. Retailers are going bankrupt in record numbers. The stock market keeps descending. Home prices continue to plummet. Home foreclosures keep mounting. Consumer confidence is at record lows. You would like to close your eyes and make it go away. Not only is the news not going away, it is going to get worse and last longer than most people can comprehend. The Great Depression lasted 11 years, but the more pertinent comparison is Japan from 1990 until today. A two decade long downturn has a high likelihood of occurring in the United States. There are many similarities between the U.S. and Japan, but in many areas the U.S. has a much dire situation. If the next decade resembles the Japanese experience, there will be significant angst and social unrest.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Gold and Silver Lifeboats for Sinking Titanic U.S. Economy / Economics / Gold & Silver 2009
A lifetime is not long. It is long enough, however, to lead one to believe that life is far different than it really is.
My uncle, Bobby Schoon, grew up during the Great Depression. Born in the 1920s, the 1930s were to be far different than the previous decade. My uncle came of age when the US led the world into an economic abyss where human desperation and misery were to become commonplace, an abyss that is now about to be revisited.
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Wednesday, January 28, 2009
U.S. Recession Hits Asian Economies Hard / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Tony Sagami writes: President Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress are on a multi-trillion dollar spending spree to keep our economy from slowing even further.
Whether all that spending will revive our economy is yet to be seen. However, one thing is very clear —
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Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Euro-zone Recession: Light at the End of the Tunnel? / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Today's Ifo and last week's Belgian leading indicator offer the tantalizing hope that the economic downturn across the Euro-zone is starting to bottom out - but one month is not enough to call a trend, and the ‘zone in general, and Germany in particular, are still likely in for a rough first quarter of 2009.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Deteriorating World Economy Leading to Currency Instability and Strong Gold / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
The fast deteriorating world economy is putting pressure on currencies. Fast rising unemployment is going to cause social strife, and gold is reacting accordingly.
World unemployment rising fast
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Tuesday, January 27, 2009
UK Banking Sector and Housing Market Reverting to Below the Mean / Economics / Credit Crisis 2009
Banks have money - they just don't want to give it to most people - The job losses are stacking up across the world. According to The Times , about 70,000 jobs went globally yesterday. Most of the cuts were in the US - construction equipment maker Caterpillar is cutting 20,000 jobs, while mobile phone operator Sprint Nextel is cutting 8,000 posts.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Protectionism and the Global Banking System Technical Insolvency / Economics / Credit Crisis 2009
This week I bring you two different articles as an offering for Outside the Box. As a way to introduce the first, let me give you the quote from Merrill Lynch economist David Rosenberg about the rising threat of global trade protectionism:
"The Financial Times weighs in on the rising threat of global trade protectionism in today's Lex Column on page 14 ("Economic Patriotism"). The FT points out that the stimulus packages of many countries include "buy local" provisions. At home, there is a proposed inclusion of a 'Buy American' provision in the economic recovery package and this could set off trade retaliation from importers of US goods. Here is what the FT had to say, 'It was trade protectionism that made the 1930s Depression "Great". Congress would do well to understand that it is in everyone's interest to keep trade open today.'"
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Monday, January 26, 2009
Some Good Amid the Gloom for Investors and the Economy / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
When it comes to the global economy, there's a huge surplus of bad news and there's a good chance that more is coming. Positive indicators are in short supply, but there's a good chance that more of these are coming, too. I would like to share some of the more optimistic signs and trends that we are seeing to offset a little of the negativity, just as people look for that first robin or tulip bud as proof that the gloom of winter will not last forever.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, January 26, 2009
Massive Inflation is Coming / Economics / HyperInflation
“The Long Dark Night” - As we enter the New Year 2009 we will continue to discover a great deal of changes.
Those bright sunny days of yesterday with portfolios climbing to the sky and house prices reaching for the moon are behind us. For the investment world there is no more bright sun. For the interim period we shall experience a long dark night.
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Monday, January 26, 2009
The Economic Perversity of our Banking System / Economics / Credit Crisis 2009
I recently wrote about the cause of this recession/depression being a collapse of the money supply. The money supply is collapsing because money is literally evaporating with each loan default and bankruptcy and is accelerated by the reverse multiplier effect of fractional reserve banking. Furthermore, given that the collapsing money supply is causing recession, banks are making things worse by doing exactly what banks are supposed to do to preserve their rapidly eroding capital. They stop their lending in a risky economy and buy risk free T-bills or earn interest in their excess reserve account at the Fed. This is the correct thing to do for bank stockholders, but incredibly and perversely is exactly the wrong thing to do for the economy.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, January 26, 2009
President Obama Gets Economic Broadside as Financial Markets Plunge / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
As Obama assumed the presidency an economic broadside was fired across his bow when the financial markets plunged to new lows. The banks remain in a parlous state and unemployment is still rising. Economist Nouriel Roubini said that if the banking system's losses hit $3.6 trillion -- as expected by quite a few financial observers -- then the "the US banking system is effectively insolvent because it starts with a capital of $1.4 trillion."Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Real Deflation Spells Economic Doom / Economics / Deflation
Asha Bangalore (Northern Trust): Home building activity posts new low“Starts of new homes fell 15.5% in December to an annual rate of 550,000. The annual average of new homes started in 2008 is 902,000, the lowest on record. Starts of new single-family homes dropped 13.5% to an annual rate of 398,000, the lowest on record.
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Sunday, January 25, 2009
Is Big Inflation Coming? / Economics / Inflation
Adam Hamilton at Zeal is predicting Big Inflation Coming .
The growing legions of deflationists see an unstoppable depression-like deflationary spiral approaching like a freight train. They cite some convincing data. The stock markets have been cut in half in just a year. In the past 6 months, some key commodities prices fell farther and faster than they did in the entire Great Depression. House prices are down by double digits across the nation, with no bottom in sight. And credit is a lot harder to come by today than in any other time in modern memory.
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Sunday, January 25, 2009
Engines of Economic Growth Beyond the Depression / Economics / Economic Depression
The purpose of this high level analysis goes beyond an attempt to explain why an economic depression is virtually inevitable. It seeks also to identify a possible pathway out of the economic quagmire.
It is the view of this analyst that many of our political decision makers and/or their advisers do not clearly understand the overarching macro problem. The relevance of this observation is best illustrated by the following quote from an article entitled “Downturn Accelerates As It Circles The Globe”, which appeared in the Washington Post on January 24th 2009:
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Sunday, January 25, 2009
Obituary of the Too Much Economy / Economics / US Economy
Our economy is in the process of burying the corpse of Too Much at the corner of Wall Street and Broad. Pall bearers will carry this leveraged ponzi scheme past the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank seeking alms from the poor. Our elected Representatives have decided the corpse will lie in state at the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol until these United States are bled to third world status.Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Forecasting the Four Year Double Dip U.S. Recession / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
DUBYA - No, our title does not refer to our 43rd president. Rather, it refers to the shape of an economic scenario that is beginning to look to us as the most probable going forward. The current economic environment is indeed bleak and there are precious few signs of a recovery. But we believe that if the massive fiscal stimulus package being worked up in Congress is financed largely by the banking system and the Federal Reserve, there is a good chance the economy will begin to grow by the fourth quarter of this year and continue to do so throughout 2010. And if we are correct on this, we also believe there is a good chance that the consumer price index will be advancing at a fast enough pace by the second half of 2010 to induce the Federal Reserve to become more aggressive in draining credit from the financial system.Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Financial Apocalypse and Economic Armageddon 2009 / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
The FOUR HORSEMEN of 2009 - Herald the Death Knell of “Free Market” Capitalism
The global money matrix, worldwide financial architecture and planetary economic landscape most closely resemble the proverbial House of Cards in the form of a Pyramid-Ponzi scheme superstructure built on quicksand. Therefore, any sober and sane inhabitant of planet Earth would only want to be rid of it all. And that's exactly what the FOUR HORSEMEN of 2009, 2010, and beyond, aim to do. Trample it all under, so that we may finally be rid of it all.
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