Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
The Deflationary Effect of Migrant Workers / Economics / Immigration
By: Nadeem_Walayat
This week the UK government came clean and stated that it has got its facts wrong on both the number of migrant workers and the number of jobs created. More than half of the jobs created by New Labour have gone to migrant workers, with the number of migrant workers now estimated at 1.5 million. In my previous article, I highlighted the key negatives of migration into the UK, in that the public sector is inefficient to such an extent that it cancels out the estimated extra tax revenue of £6 billions.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
The Growth Recession and Early Stages of a Housing Depression / Economics / US Economy
By: John_Mauldin
This week in Outside the Box, Van Hoisington and Dr. Lacy Hunt of Hoisington Management undertake an assiduous analysis of the economy, specifically quantifying the underlying impact of the real estate market on GDP growth through the follow-on adverse effects on consumer spending.
As outlined in previous publications, the housing debacle has not by any stretch of the imagination reached bottom, having an estimated $800 billion of adjustable rate mortgages reset between October 2007, and December 2008. These resets Hoisington indicates are the home buyers who bought at the top of the 2006 housing market, many of whom paid zero down and received mortgage rates of 0%.
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Monday, October 29, 2007
The Economy and The Worker Value-added Fallacy / Economics / Corporate Earnings
By: Gerard_Jackson
Now that the Labor Party has the sniff of victory in its lungs, some of its most ‘brilliant economic thinkers' are already dreaming up schemes that will impose heavy costs on the Australian economy. One of these dirigiste schemes is based on the value-added fallacy. There are two assumptions behind their thinking: One is the belief that the state (politicians and union hacks) can impose high-value-added structures on the economy that will provide a buffer against commodity-driven booms. This policy will lead — so they think — to more value-added export-orientated production. The second assumption is the unfounded belief that value added always equals high-tech.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, October 29, 2007
US Economy: The Subprime Market, Depreciation and the Exchange Rate / Economics / US Economy
By: Gerard_Jackson
Current economic commentary is misleading a great number of people. The problem is — as always — bad economics. We can all recall that it was not long ago when we were told by a horde of financial and economic advisers that the subprime market would sink the American economy. What this lot overlooked was the important fact that only about 14 per cent of mortgages are subprime. Moreover, less than 2 per cent of these are in trouble.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, October 26, 2007
US Administrations Economic Gang - Send in the Clowns / Economics / US Economy
By: Peter_Schiff
Four leading members of the Bush administration's economic team, including Ed Lazear, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, Al Hubbard, director of the National Economic Council, and Jim Nussle, director of the Office of Management and Budget, convened on a CNBC panel earlier this week and confidently forecast that the economy would avoid a recession. As they uttered their platitudes, we learned that housing sales plunged again, with national inventories of unsold homes hitting a new record high, and that Merrill Lynch disclosed nearly $8 billion in losses. Set against this backdrop of deteriorating economic news, it would have been more honest, and perhaps more effective, if the Administration team came on stage in clown makeup and oversize shoes.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, October 26, 2007
A Different Kind of US Recession - Nominal Vs Real Decline in GDP / Economics / US Economy
By: Andy_Sutton
In a recent interview with Britain's Telegraph newspaper, Jim Rogers, the world-renowned investor declared the United States to be in recession. He didn't stop there. He has taken the next step and rid himself of the downtrodden US Dollar in favor of Chinese Yuan, Japanese Yen and the Swiss Franc. A bold move? A lone voice in a sea of complacency? Not so; Rogers is just the latest in a growing line of credible voices to abandon the US and its struggling currency. Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, October 26, 2007
Market Barotrauma - Disconnect From the Reality of the Business Cycle / Economics / Inflation
By: Brian_Bloom
There has been a disconnect in logic which has been seriously bothering me in recent weeks. Everything in my training has taught me that ‘the market' ultimately exerts a discipline on speculative excess, and ‘the market', being the sum of all players, is more powerful than any one player or set of players. Conceptually, therefore, whilst the Central Banks might ‘manage' the markets, the very idea of their being able to eliminate the business cycle has always struck me as being a nonsense. The longer the contraction phase of a business cycle is postponed, the worse will be the excesses that build up, and the more painful will be the rectifying contraction phase. Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
US Economy Gradually Sliding Into Recession / Economics / US Economy
By: Ned_W_Schmidt
This week's chart shows U.S. economy gradually sliding into recession. This indicator is the average year-to-year change of about twenty measures. Many are real measures, like tons or units, so some of false impressions created by incorrect price calculations are avoided. Only recently has the collapse of the housing sector been acknowledged as a serious negative on U.S. economy. Many have mistakenly believed Wall Street could “feed” the nation.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Economy Swamped by Confusion as Money Supply Goes Wild / Economics / Money Supply
By: Gerard_Jackson
What passes for economic commentary these days is enough to drive one to drink. Let's start with Mike Steketee, another of Rupert Murdoch's resident lefties. He tells us that Nicholas Gruen — an economist — “found that cutting taxes for low and middle-income earners generated the largest response in increased employment”. This is just another version of the consumption-drives-the-economy fallacy. Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
US Economy in Meltdown? / Economics / US Economy
By: Gerard_Jackson
On Friday the 19 October the Dow Jones industrial average plummeted by over 360 points. This immediately sent alarm bells ringing throughout the financial community ? along with nightmares of October 1929 when the Dow Jones dropped from 400 to 145 in November. This dramatic fall in share prices was not confined to America. From March 1929 to June 1931 the prices of Dutch shares dived by 60 per cent; for Germany it was 61.7 per cent from April 1927 to June 1931, and French share prices dropped by 55.7 per cent from February to June 1931. (Wilhem Röpke, Crises & Cycles , William Hodge and Company Limited, 1936, p. 57 )Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Historic and Current Hyperinflation From Across the Globe / Economics / Inflation
By: Mike_Hewitt
Angola (1991-1999) Angola went through the worst inflation from 1991 to 1995. In early 1991, the highest denomination was 50,000 kwanzas . By 1994, it was 500,000 kwanzas . In the 1995 currency reform, 1 kwanza reajustado was exchanged for 1,000 kwanzas . The highest denomination in 1995 was 5,000,000 kwanzas reajustados . In the 1999 currency reform, 1 new kwanza was exchanged for 1,000,000 kwanzas reajustados . The overall impact of hyperinflation: 1 new kwanza = 1,000,000,000 pre-1991 kwanzas .
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Friday, October 19, 2007
US Inflation Understated in Official Statistics - Prices are the Cart, Money Supply is the Horse / Economics / Inflation
By: Peter_Schiff
The sad truth is that despite the best efforts of monetary economists everywhere, fundamental misconceptions about inflation remain entrenched in government, business, and the media.
In an exchange earlier this week on CNBC, a guest explained that rising oil prices can not cause inflation because prices for other goods must fall as spending is diverted to pay for more expensive oil. That explanation prompted host Becky Quick to ask: “If rising oil prices do not cause inflation, then what does?” Since that question was left unanswered on the air, I thought I would take the time to answer it here.
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Friday, October 19, 2007
Consumer Inflation – Likely to Trend Higher in the Months Ahead and Multi-Family Housing Starts Plunge / Economics / US Economy
By: Paul_L_Kasriel
After being relatively benign in the previous four months, the increase in the CPI flared up in September, increasing 0.3% month-to-month and 2.8% year-over-year. In August, the year-over-year increase was only 2.0%. After having fallen for three consecutive months, the energy component of the CPI increased 0.3% in September. Food prices continued their steady monthly increases, rising 0.5% in September. Unless there is a sharp drop in energy prices, year-over-year increases in the CPI are likely to climb even higher as energy prices now are considerably higher than they were in the fourth quarter of last year.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Strong UK Consumer Spending Suggests No Cut in UK Interest Rates This Year / Economics / UK Economy
By: Nadeem_Walayat
UK Retail sales figures for September rose more strongly than market expectations, rising by 0.6% against forecasts of just a 0.1% rise which takes the annual rate to 6.3%, the highest in 3 years.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Housing Market Down, Inflation Up / Economics / US Economy
By: Tim_Iacono
Two important economic reports were released just a short time ago. Housing starts and permits for new constuction are way down and inflation is on the rise. Surprise!Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
U.S. Economy Ends Third Quarter with a Whimper As Housing Slump Continues / Economics / US Economy
By: Paul_L_Kasriel
The Federal Reserve reported today that industrial production (IP) in September increased by only 0.1% after being flat in August. The 3.9% annualized growth in Q3 IP (versus 3.6% in Q2) was "front-loaded" with the 0.6% month-to-month increase in July. Capacity utilization (CAPU) was unchanged in September from August at 82.1%. In this cycle, the peak CAPU occurred in July and August 2006 at 82.1%.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
UK Inflation CPI Remains Steady at 1.8% / Economics / Inflation
By: Nadeem_Walayat
UK inflation for September as measured by the governments preferred measure the Consumer Price Index remained steady at 1.8%. The more widely recognised measure of inflation RPI, fell to 3.9%.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Consumer Spending Spree Creates Bad Vibes for the Economy / Economics / Money Supply
By: Gerard_Jackson
We can divide economic commentators in to two basic groups: The first one consists of what we can loosely term free market commentators while the second one consists of interventionists. Alan Wood and Terry McCrann are representative of group one. The sad thing is that neither group offers any serious economic commentary. Right now Australia is undergoing a boom, consumer spending is rocketing — as is the trade deficit — inflation is about 3 per cent and the unemployment figures have been slashed.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, October 15, 2007
The State of US economy: Greenspan and Bernanke Have A Lot To Answer For / Economics / US Economy
By: Gerard_Jackson
Because I haven't read Greenspan's book The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World I'll have to confine myself to those parts that some commentators have fastened on to and hope they are accurate. It has been reported that Greenspan believes that the collapse of the Soviet Union made the job of fighting inflation much easier because the output of millions of workers who had been freed from communism exerted a downward pressure on the prices.Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, October 14, 2007
US in a Slow Motion Recession But May Avoid a Technical Recession / Economics / US Economy
By: John_Mauldin
In this issue:
The GDP Equation
How Low Can You Go?
The Key Variable Problem
The Importance of Fiscal Policy
The Slow Motion Recession
New Orleans and More Birthdays
A recession is technically defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This week we look at how the GDP is actually calculated to give us an idea as to the potential for a recession. We re-visit my concepts of a Slow Motion Recession and a Muddle Through Economy. We briefly look at the sliding dollar and housing, and see how it all adds up. You'll need to put your thinking caps on, but it should be interesting.
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