Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Will the Fed be Blind Sided by Stagflation? / Economics / Stagflation
Most Central Bank watchers know that our Federal Reserve has a dual mandate of stable prices in the context of maximum employment. But its use of the words "stable and maximum" is somewhat misleading. For instance, one would assume that "stable" inflation would lead the Fed to pursue no change in prices and "maximum" employment would be a rate targeted at 0 percent unemployment; but this is not the case.
For some antithetical economic reason central bankers have unanimously redefined stable prices as adopting a 2 percent inflation target. The Fed has also morphed the term maximum employment rate to mean a 5-6 percent unemployment rate, clinging to the misguided belief that full employment is the progenitor of inflation, despite no supporting economic or historical evidence.
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Saturday, May 28, 2016
Deflation Is A Direct Result Of Our Attempts To Create Inflation Through Easy Money! / Economics / Deflation
John Rubino of DollarCollapse.com and FRA Co-founder, Gordon T. Long discuss the effects of the rise in eCommerce along with the rise of technology and the consequences we are facing from flawed perceptions of financial authorities.
John Rubino is author of Clean Money: Picking Winners in the Green Tech Boom (Wiley, December 2008), co-author, with GoldMoney’s James Turk, of The Collapse of the Dollar and How to Profit From It (Doubleday, January 2008), and author of How to Profit from the Coming Real Estate Bust (Rodale, 2003). After earning a Finance MBA from New York University, he spent the 1980s on Wall Street, as a currency trader, equity analyst and junk bond analyst. During the 1990s he was a featured columnist with TheStreet.com and a frequent contributor to Individual Investor, Online Investor, and Consumers Digest, among many other publications. He now writes for CFA Magazine and edits DollarCollapse.com and GreenStockInvesting.com.
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Friday, May 27, 2016
The Next Big Crash Of The U.S. Economy Is Coming, Here’s Why / Economics / Economic Collapse
Investors better be prepared as the next crash of the U.S. economy is coming. This is not based on hype or speculation, rather due to the disintegration of the underlying fundamentals. Matter-a-fact, the fundamentals are so completely AWFUL, that the next market crash will make 2008 look quite tame indeed.
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Thursday, May 19, 2016
Unintended Consequences, Part 1: Easy Money = Overcapacity = Deflation / Economics / Deflation
Somewhere back in the depths of time the world got the idea that easy money — that is, low interest rates and high levels of government spending — would produce sustainable growth with modest but positive inflation. And for a while it seemed to work.
But that was an illusion. What actually happened was textbook, long-term, surreally-vast misallocation of capital in which individuals, companies and governments were fooled into thinking that adding new factories, stores and infrastructure at a rate several times that of population growth would somehow work out for the best.
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Saturday, May 14, 2016
Transportation Recession Signals Retail Problems Ahead! / Economics / Recession 2016
Financial Repression and the Structural Concerns for the Retail Market
FRA co-founder Gordon T. Long is joined by Wolf Richter to discuss the struggling retail market and its subsequent impact on the U.S economy as a whole which are a result of the recent financial crisis.
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Friday, May 13, 2016
Atlanta Fed GDPNow +2.8% vs. New York Fed Nowcast +1.2% / Economics / US Economy
Following today's retail sales alleged blowout, to which treasury yields actually declined, comes a big GDP upgrade by the Atlanta Fed GDPNow Model vs. a smaller jump by the New York Fed Nowcast Model.
The difference between the forecasts is now a whopping 1.6 percentage points.
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Wednesday, May 11, 2016
Can You Actually Live Too Long? / Economics / Demographics
The mainstream media has your number. You make too much money, you don’t pay enough in taxes, and you get too many tax deductions.Now there’s a new charge to add to the list – you live too long.
We all know that Social Security favors low-income workers. As the graph illustrates, for those at the low end of the average wage scale, Social Security replaces a little more than 50% of their income.
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Wednesday, May 11, 2016
How Strong is The U.S. Economy Really? / Economics / US Economy
In the six years since the recovery began, there has been endless debate over the strength of the U.S. economy. There are basically two sides of the debate. Those taking the positive side maintain the economy has almost returned to its pre-crisis levels and is on a firm footing. The opposing camp maintains that while the upper classes are in fine shape, the middle class is still hurting from the residual damage inflicted by the housing bubble implosion and credit crash. Is one side entirely mistaken or is there truth to both assertions?
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Monday, May 09, 2016
Japan: An Economy of Zeros / Economics / Japan Economy
The red sun on the flag of Japan symbolizes its position as the land of the rising sun. However, during WWII that round shape was pejoratively referred to as a zero. And now, since Japans economy is emitting so many zeros it can, unfortunately, once again be referred to as the land of zeros.
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Sunday, May 08, 2016
Demographics and the Protein Ladder / Economics / Demographics
In 1800, three percent of the world's population lived in urban areas. By 1900, roughly 14 percent of the world's population were urbanites and 12 cities had 1 million or more inhabitants.
In 1950, 30 percent - 746 million people - resided in urban centers and the number of cities with over 1 million people had grown to 83.
In 1975 three cities had populations of 10 million or more. In 1990, there were ten “mega-cities” with 10 million inhabitants or more, which were home to 153 million people or slightly less than seven per cent of the global urban population at that time. Megacities (minimum population of 10 mil to qualify) numbered 16 in 2000.
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Tuesday, May 03, 2016
Just Look to the Middle-Class for Proof of Trickle-Down Economics / Economics / Economic Theory
Politicians and economists get many things wrong, but right now, the one thing that really gets up my… let’s keep this clean and just say, nose… is how clueless they are about “trickle-down economics.”
Republicans believe it. (They just don’t realize how long it takes and that it isn’t happening yet from the information revolution.)
Saturday, April 30, 2016
US Economic Statistics LIES, LIES AND OMG, MORE LIES / Economics / Economic Statistics
It’s that time of year again. It’s open enrollment for health plans at my employer. They are biggest employer in Philly and have the most leverage possible with the insurance companies. They have such good leverage that my premiums are going up “only” 9.8% this year for a basic HMO plan. Based on what I hear from others, I should be thankful for just a 9.8% increase.
This isn’t a new development. Since I’ve been tracking all my expenditures using Quicken since 1991, I know exactly what my annual health insurance costs have been every year. Obamacare was passed in 2009 and began to be implemented in 2010. Obama declared that families could expect $2,500 of savings per year. I know for a fact my annual medical expenses were $2,000 higher in 2015 than they were in 2010.
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Friday, April 29, 2016
Sri Lanka is Intriguing: Areas to Consider for Value Investing / Economics / Asian Economies
The stock market discount and comparatively stronger trends of growth present in frontier Asia is intriguing, and a buy frontier, sell emerging approach is one of the most clear cut ways to prosper when investing in Asia. These trends, coupled with noteworthy political improvements, can be combined to create a strong value investing case. Sri Lanka is a strong frontier market in Asia that meets all of these requirements, yet is being relegated by many foreign investors. Sri Lanka has been benefiting from the end of the country’s 26 year civil war that ended in 2009, which has resulted in an improved political landscape. This improvement has been coupled with Sri Lanka’s new government, which was elected in January 2015.
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Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Global Recession in 2016 and Beyond - The Obvious Evidence / Economics / Recession 2016
Definition of a Recession:
The textbook definition of a recession is two quarters of negative GDP growth. Some examples of recessions include the great depression of the 1930's, the dotcom crash of 2000 and the great recession of 2008.
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Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Saudi Arabia Releases Ambitious Plan To Diversify Economy / Economics / Saudi Arabia
On Monday, Saudi Arabia released a blueprint for the future, a plan for the Kingdom that could alter the course of its history. The "Vision for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia" could radically transform Saudi Aramco, the Saudi economy, and the country's social structure.The plan has been pioneered by the 30-year-old Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the second in line to the King, who has emerged as one of the most powerful figures in the Saudi government. Just a week ago his influence was on display; while it is difficult to know exactly what went on behind the scenes, all signs point to the Deputy Crown Prince overruling the long-standing and respected oil minister Ali al-Naimi to kill off the OPEC deal in Doha.
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Sunday, April 24, 2016
Why Leftist Greeks have more reasons than Liberals to favour Entrepreneurship and Support Entrepreneurs / Economics / SME
Petros Diplas writes: Recently I read it and said “There goes another myth."
"It is an indisputable fact that Leftism and Entrepreneurship in Greece are incompatible concepts."
Everybody blames the Greek Left - and I insist on Greek – to be against entrepreneurship.
Saturday, April 23, 2016
Mish's Sure Fire Proposal to End Japanese Deflation / Economics / Deflation
It's rather amusing that Japan cannot destroy its currency even though it has tried, and tried and tried.
Abenomics has been a huge failure. Keynesian "solutions" of all sorts have failed to rid Japan of the alleged scourge of deflation.
Some think handing out free money is the obvious solution, but what if people don't spend it?
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Thursday, April 14, 2016
The Winter of Discontent / Economics / US Economy
The Winter of 2015-2016, which came to an end a few weeks ago, has been officially designated as the mildest in the U.S. in 121 years according to NOAA. While this fact will certainly add a major talking point in the global warming debate, it should also be front and center in the current economic discussion. The fact that it isn't is testament to the blatantly self-serving manner in which economic cheerleaders blame the weather when it's convenient, but ignore it when it's not. If economists were consistent (and that's a colossal "if"), the good weather would be taken as a reason to believe the economy is weaker than is being reported.
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Thursday, April 14, 2016
Why is The MSM Covering Up Recessionary Data? / Economics / Recession 2016
The Census Bureau put out their monthly retail sales report this morning. During good times, the MSM would be hailing the tremendous increases as proof the consumer was flush with cash and all was well with the economy. Considering 70% of our GDP is dependent upon consumer spending, you would think this data point would be pretty important in judging how well Americans are really doing.
It's not perfect, because the issuance of debt to consumers to purchase autos, furniture, appliances and electronics can juice the retail sales numbers and create the false impression of strength. That's what has been going on with auto sales for the last two years.
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Wednesday, April 13, 2016
The Millennial Moment and the Global Crisis / Economics / Demographics
It's a trite saying but a profound one all the same: "History always repeats." We've all heard this bromide countless times, yet how many of us have truly pondered its significance?
The truism that history tends to repeat itself over time is the basis of the cyclical view of human affairs as applied to the financial market. Cycle investors believe that by studying past episodes of a similar character they can divine the outcome of currents events. It's not surprising then that the cyclists among us have turned their attention toward the global financial market slowdown and tepid pace of the U.S. economy recovery.
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