Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Outlook of Small Businesses Improves, But Still Short of Levels Seen in Good Economic Times / Economics / US Economy
By: Asha_Bangalore
The Small Business Optimism Index moved up to 93.8 during December from 92 in the prior month. The improvement is noteworthy and it is the highest since February 2011. However, the level of the index is within the range seen during the recession (see Chart 1).
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Tuesday, January 10, 2012
2012 Stoking Another Deadly Recession / Economics / Recession 2012
By: FNN24
Our weekly update, published here takes a look at economic fundamentals across EU, US and UK while also looking at charts from FX markets and bond markets. Data has been mixed over the last few months with a case being made for US and UK to outperform all other markets while EU economies present a mixed picture with Germany standing out. But even then, we believe there are kinks in the growth picture across US, UK and EU as EURO crisis is expected to take an iron grip of the flow of credit over the next few months. Over EUR 1 trillion are set to be rolled over.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
The Making of China's Epic Economic Hard landing / Economics / China Economy
By: Dee_Woo
1. The unsavory episodes of China's economy
For the better part of the past year, my concern about Chinese economy was constantly aggravated by the depressing stories of entrepreneurs who committed suicide, fleeted the country or emigrate to the western world in droves. Most media have blamed the credit crunch and monetary tightening for all these unsavory episodes. The public outcry for the deteriorating conditions of Chinese entrepreneurship climaxed with the seemly positive step PBOC(the People's Bank of China) took on Dec 5 2011 to alleviate the liquidity crisis: cut the RRR (reserve requirement ratio) to 21 percent from a record high of 21.5 percent.
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Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Headwinds That Could Rock the U.S. Economy / Economics / US Economy
By: Asha_Bangalore
The key question about the growth trajectory of the U.S. economy for 2012 is if domestic economic momentum that is visible in bullish economic reports of past – ISM factory survey data, Q4 auto sales, and December employment report – will prevail in the rest of 2012 and offset headwinds from Europe (and its associated ramifications) and the setback from a decelerating trend of business activity in China. In the context, we will be providing periodic updates as economic reports are published.
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Monday, January 09, 2012
Understanding Deflation, How DEEP Will Cuts in Government Services Go? / Economics / Deflation
By: EWI
"Localities have chopped 535,000 positions since September 2008..." USA Today (10/18)
Cuts in government services became conspicuous after the 2007-2009 financial crisis.
The first edition of Robert Prechter's Conquer the Crash saw this coming, even though the book published nearly a decade ago:
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Monday, January 09, 2012
China 2012: The Year of the Bull (Rogers) or the Bear (Chanos)? / Economics / China Economy
By: Janet_Tavakoli
When I think of a China bull and a China bear, I think of the legendary dueling Jims: Jim Rogers and Jim Chanos. In response to investors bearish on China, Jim Rogers famously said: “I find it interesting that people who couldn’t spell China 10 years ago are now experts.” Jim Chanos famously said that China’s real estate market is “Dubai times 1,000 — or worse.” He’s been saying that for over two years. Chanos points to a credit bubble, and says he’s early and sticking with his short positions. Rogers insists “China is not in a [credit] bubble,” rather it’s been in a price bubble in urban, coastal real estate, and to compare China to Dubai is a false analogy. Jim Rogers is bullish on China’s long term prospects: “China is going to have many serious problems along the way as it rises, but ‘Dubai 1000 times over’?!”
Saturday, January 07, 2012
Can The U.S. Economic Recovery Overcome Europe’s Drag? / Economics / Economic Recovery
By: Sy_Harding
In an October column I wrote, “For the first time this year the trend of U.S. economic reports is potentially bottoming and turning positive. And after being bearish in the spring and summer, I like what I see in the technical charts of many markets. If only we could ignore Europe.”That pretty much still defines the situation as we enter the new year.
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Saturday, January 07, 2012
U.S. Unemployment Drops as Employment Reports Widespread Gains, Allows Fed Breathing Space / Economics / Employment
By: Asha_Bangalore
Civilian Unemployment Rate: 8.5% in December, down from 8.7% in November. Cycle high jobless rate for the recent recession is 10.0% in October 2009.
Payroll Employment: +200,000 jobs in December vs. +100,000 in November. Private sector jobs increased 212,000 after a gain of 120,000 in November. A net loss of 8,000 jobs followed after revisions to payroll estimates of October and November.
Private Sector Hourly Earnings: $23.24 in December vs. $23.20 in November; 2.1% y-o-y increase in December vs. 1.9% gain in November.
Friday, January 06, 2012
U.S. Labor Market Encouraging Signs, December Employment Report Awaited / Economics / Unemployment
By: Asha_Bangalore
Initial jobless claims fell 15,000 to 372,000 during the week ended December 31. The four-week moving average at 373,250 is the lowest since June 2008. Continuing claims, which lag initial jobless claims by one week, dropped 22,000 to 3.595 million.
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
US Economic Forecast for 2012 and the Presidential Election Year Cycle / Economics / US Economy
By: BATR
When it comes to business cycles, the former rules no longer seem to apply. The seminal events that changed the economic landscape after the 2008 financial crash still points to an uncertain future and marginal recovery. If you watch CNBC or Bloomberg business news, you hear that a modest recovery is in place. Accepting this kind of reporting may temporarily make you feel better, but in the real economy, the prospects for a rebound are mere fiction. Prosperity only exists for the chums of the insider financial system, who are immune from actual market conditions. Under the privileged and favoritism model, political subsidies and bailouts are more important than creative industry or innovative execution.
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
China Economy, Gold 2012 And Von Mises’ Crack-Up Boom / Economics / China Economy
By: Darryl_R_Schoon
The credit boom is built on the sands of banknotes and deposits. It must collapse… If the credit expansion is not stopped in time, the boom turns into the crack-up boom; the flight into real values begins, and the whole monetary system founders.
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, 1949
I first attended the Canton Trade Fair in October 1976. All Chinese men and women were dressed in blue shirts and blue pants, bicycles were China’s main mode of transportation, Chairman Mao had just died and China’s mantra, “We will continue to support the policies of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung and criticize the policies of Deng Xiao-Ping”, was heard everywhere.
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Monday, January 02, 2012
Economic Collapse is the Number One Catastrophic Event That Americans Worry About / Economics / Great Depression II
By: LewRockwell
Economic Collapse writes: Can you guess what the number one catastrophic event that Americans worry about is? There are certainly many to choose from. Many Americans are deathly afraid of a major terrorist attack. Others live in constant fear of natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes and hurricanes. Still others are incredibly concerned that a massive pandemic will break out at any time or that World War III will erupt in the Middle East. Yes, there are certainly a lot of potential catastrophic events that one can worry about in the times in which we live, but the number one catastrophic event that Americans worry about is actually "economic collapse". At least that is what a recent survey conducted by Leiflin Inc. for the EcoHealth Alliance found. But this goes along with what so many other polls have found over the past few years. Over and over again, opinion polls have found that the number one issue that American voters are concerned about is the economy. The truth is that average Americans are deeply, deeply concerned about unemployment, debt, the housing crash and the steady decline in the standard of living. It has been years since the U.S. economy has operated at a "normal" level, and many Americans are afraid that things could soon get a whole lot worse.
Sunday, January 01, 2012
Grim Economic Prospects for 2012, U.S. Fed to Overshadow the European Banking System / Economics / Global Debt Crisis 2012
By: Bob_Chapman
Public institutions worldwide are fighting ratings downgrades foremost of which is France, the US and, of course, sovereigns and banks worldwide. Miracles of miracles finally the rating agencies are doing their jobs. The caper they pulled in collusion with Wall Street in rating mortgage securities should have put them all in jail for life. We’ll call these efforts makeup time for their previous sins, which they never were prosecuted for. The complaint is their methodology is unreliable. We can assure you they know exactly what they are doing. The French want them to cease and desist. That is not going to work, because the French government and banks have very serious solvency problems. Central bankers and sovereigns always believe they are above the law. Eventually they all pay the price of greed and corruption.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
China's Economic Future Deconstructed: Holmes vs. Chang / Economics / China Economy
By: The_Gold_Report
China has become the $5.88 trillion question in the world financial equation for 2012. In an attempt to gauge the direction of this economic elephant, Cambridge House International is asking two China experts to debate the health of the second-largest economy at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference January 22. We called the two speakers for a preview of the tactics they will take in this epic debate.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Five U.S. Economy Economic Blunders of 2011 and Five Fixes for 2012 / Economics / US Economy
By: Money_Morning
David Zeiler writes : Government's ability to fix the economy's problems may be limited, but it at least should try not to make matters worse. Unfortunately - but not surprisingly - many of the things that happened in Washington this year did the U.S. economy more harm than good. More than two years after the official end to the recession, the U.S. economy is still suffering through sluggish growth and an 8.6% unemployment rate. "They've been wrong from the beginning, and they're still wrong," said Money Morning Chief Investment Strategist Keith Fitz-Gerald of U.S. government policymakers. "It makes you wonder if any of these people passed Economics 101." That said, here are five of the government's worst economic blunders of 2011:
Friday, December 30, 2011
Global Economic Collapse In 2012? / Economics / Global Economy
By: Andrew_McKillop
MORAL AND ECONOMIC DECLINE
This longstanding European genre-material for books, films, plays - and politics - dates from the end of the first world war, with a massive fillip in the 1930s long depression and rise of Stalin and Hitler, and this theme is surely back with a vengeance today. One reason is the decline isn't only economic, it is also moral, social and psychological and the track record for doing anything about it is bad, both in Europe, USA and Asia. The conventional solution, the historical precedent of the 1930s decline was Muddle Through ending with a world war, but thinking that today is unthinkable.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Rising Systemic Risk and Multiple Black Swans, Gaping Chasm between Economics and Physics / Economics / Economic Theory
By: DK_Matai
Violation of the Laws of Physics?
Does today's dominant economic and financial thinking violate the laws of physics? Mainstream finance and economics have long been inconsistent with the underlying laws of thermodynamics, which are fast catching up as a result of globalisation. At present, economics is the study of how people transform nature to meet their needs and it treats the exploitation of finite natural resources including energy, water, air, arable land and oceans as externalities, which they are not. For example, we cannot pollute and damage natural ecosystems and their local communities ad infinitum without severe repercussions to their underlying sustainability. It is widely recognised both within the distinguished ATCA 5000 community across 120 countries and beyond that exchange rates instability, equity and commodity market speculation -- particularly fuel, food and finance -- and resultant volatilities as well as unsustainable levels of external debt are the main causes of asymmetric threats and disruption at the international level manifest as known unknowns, ie, low probability high impact risks and unknown unknowns or black swans.
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Thursday, December 29, 2011
Bring on US Debt Default, Otherwise, it's Permanent Deficits and Unemployment / Economics / US Debt
By: Gary_North
Throughout the West, unemployment remains stubbornly high. Unemployment in these European nations ranges from 8.5% in Italy to over 20% in Spain.
For Europe as a whole, the figure is 10.3%. What is revealing is this: ever since 1995, it has been above 9% most of the time. Only in February 2008 did it fall to 7.3%. For workers under age 25, the figures are much worse. A generation of educated college graduates has become a lost generation.
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Wednesday, December 28, 2011
2012 Offers Few Economic Reasons for Optimism / Economics / Recession 2012
By: John_Browne
As the year draws to a close, understandable confusion reigns in the minds of many investors. While short-term indicators, such as consumer confidence, appear to beckon recovery, the longer-term strategic issues remain shrouded in the smoke and mirrors of central bank monetary manipulation. From the perspective of someone who has keenly observed global economics for more than a half century, I see little reason to believe that our economic morass will soon improve. Indeed, I do not believe we will see meaningful change until the Bretton Woods era of U.S. dollar dominated paper money finally comes to an end. In other words, our current experiment in unlimited monetary expansion will continue until it explodes.
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Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Japanese Economy Slumps, Industrial Production Falls 2.6% / Economics / Japan Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
A torrent of bad news hit Japan in November. Please consider some details from the Bloomberg article Japan Factory Output Falls on Global Slump
- Factory output fell 2.6 percent from October
- Exports fell for the second straight month
- Capital spending in the third quarter dropped 9.8 percent
- The Bank of Japan Tankan quarterly index of corporate sentiment fell to minus 4 this month. A negative figure indicates that pessimists outnumber optimists