Category: Economic Recovery
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Monday, May 10, 2010
Is the US Economy Recovering or Isn't It? / Economics / Economic Recovery
The Democrats' media pals are breathless with reports of a growing recovery. Only political bigots could possibly dispute the trend. As readers know, I tend to take a very strong historical perspective. Unlike physics or chemistry economics cannot perform laboratory-like experiments. However, the discipline does have a tremendous amount of historical evidence on which to draw. We should consider these events as economic case studies.
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Saturday, May 08, 2010
Economic Green Shoots Taking Root in Labor Market for Sustained Recovery / Economics / Economic Recovery
Civilian Unemployment Rate: 9.9% in April vs. 9.7% in each of the first three months of the first quarter. The unemployment rate was 5.0% in December 2007 when the recession commenced. Cycle high for recession is 10.1% in October 2009 and the cycle low for the expansion that ended in December 2007 is 4.4% in March 2007. Payroll Employment: +290,000 in April vs. +230,000 in March, net gain of 121,000 jobs after revisions of payroll estimates for February and March. Private sector hourly earnings: $22.47 in April vs. $22.46 in March, 1.6% yoy increase, slightly lower than 1.7% gain of March.
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Friday, April 23, 2010
Reports of Our Economic Recovery Are Greatly Exaggerated / Economics / Economic Recovery
From all outward appearances, it seems that a grim chapter in U.S. economic history has come to an end. Newsweek magazine declares that "America is Back," government statistics indicate revival, and our stock market has put in a rally for the record books (by rate of ascent, not highs - we are still more than 25% below the 2007 peak).Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Global Economic Recovery Fuelled by World’s Factories Manufacturing at Record Rates / Economics / Economic Recovery
Don Miller writes: The world's factories are churning out products at record rates, fueling the global economic recovery at a faster pace than thought possible just a few months ago.
The latest figures show factory output is growing at a record rate from the United States to China to Europe and beyond. And as manufacturing expands, economists expect the world's economies to continue to expand, creating jobs and putting money in consumer pocketbooks.
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Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Decline in Bank Lending: Business Investment in America is almost at a Standstill / Economics / Economic Recovery
One of the reasons for less bank lending is the almost non-existent market for securitized bonds. Investors have so many bad loans on their books that they refuse to commit to further risky investments. This means banks are forced to hold this toxic paper on their books and that inhibits them from lending at higher levels. If the Fed had not purchased $1.7 trillion of this toxic junk many banks would currently be in bankruptcy. Thus, there still are trillions in these bad loans on the books of many financial institutions and they cannot be sold and they are clogging up the system, and there is no end in sight for the problem.
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Tuesday, April 20, 2010
America’s Economic Recovery Is a Rotten Sham / Economics / Economic Recovery
More evidence has arisen that the "strategic default" consumer spending thesis is correct - and that the economic recovery on the whole is based on a rotten sham.
The economic "recovery" we are now witnessing is based on theft, greed and deceit. It's a giant rip-off, a rotten sham. In this sleazy imitation of a free market economy, liars, cheats and deadbeats are the ones getting rewarded.
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Wednesday, April 14, 2010
U.S. Economy Escape Velocity, But Small Business Optimism Very Low and Headed in the Wrong Direction / Economics / Economic Recovery
If the US economy was about to reach "escape velocity" as Larry Summers says, small business optimism would not be in the gutter and sinking.
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Monday, April 12, 2010
Is the U.S. Economy Really Recovering from Recession? / Economics / Economic Recovery
Some Obama supporters are already bragging about how the 'recovery' will ensure him a second term and therefore save his statist counter-revolution. Not so fast. These people are making the same mistake that many conservative commentators have made in that they are assuming recessions to be indeed cyclical. This means any downturn is eventually reversed and that this is now the case. It also means that these people have learnt nothing from economic history, particularly the policy disasters that the Hoover/Roosevelt administrations inflicted on the country.
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Friday, April 09, 2010
U.S. Economy Shifting into Higher Gear / Economics / Economic Recovery
- Why Oil and the Dollar Are Going Up at the Same Time
- 4 Indicators Indicating the Economy Is Revving Up
- 3 Forces That Will Kick Energy Stocks into Overdrive
- How YOU Can Profit from This Trend
Sunday, April 04, 2010
Is This a Economic Recovery? / Economics / Economic Recovery
Is This a Recovery?
This Time is Different
The End Game
Some Good News on Unemployment
The Effects of a Tax Increase
Last week I wrote a letter to my kids trying to explain what Greece meant to them. Reader Ken V wrote: "Great letter, John. Now you should write one for the adults who are retired and don't have the long future your kids do. If the US becomes Greece, things won't recover in time for much of the rest of my life to be more than one grim, dreary period. What is your investment advice for those with roughly a 10-year horizon, not 30-40-50 years?"
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Friday, April 02, 2010
US Labor Market adds 163k Jobs? Is it for Real or another Sham? / Economics / Economic Recovery
Blog writers have been overwhelmingly negative on the increasingly deteriorating unemployment situation in the US. No matter what data is released, they are discarded as unreal or so full of holes that an elephant could walk through them.
Even the current BLS report seems to have been bashed pretty badly by most blogs.
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Tuesday, March 30, 2010
U.S. Economic Stimulus Works, Economy Recovers Under Obama / Economics / Economic Recovery
Economists at Deutsche Bank are calling for a big surge in employment numbers as retail sales recover in the United States. The chart below, from www.fxboss.info shows the relationship between retail sales and non-farm payrolls. In America’s consumer driven economy, retail sales lead the way out of business recession and consequent double-digit unemployment. “Retail sales have turned up as recession fatigue has worn off sharply,” said Joseph LaVorgna, chief economist at Deutsche Bank in New York. “There should soon be a pretty big pickup in job growth. If history repeats, we’ll be blindsided by job gains.”
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Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Stabilizing Tax Revenues Is this Economic Recovery Secretly Strong? / Economics / Economic Recovery
Long time readers of Thoughts from the Frontline will be familiar with the name The Liscio Report. It is one of my "secret" sources of high quality analysis on a wide range of topics including taxes, employment and the underpinnings of the economic headlines that we read which can be so distorted. I say secret because they get nowhere near the attention their work deserves. Philippa Dunne & Doug Henwood, authors of The Liscio Report, do actual on the phone conversations with each of the various states on their tax collections, employment and so on. I find their primary research to be invaluable. Their real time proprietary research based on state withholding and sales tax receipts gives their clients a unique insight into the state of the US economy.
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Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Beige Colored Slow U.S. Economic Recovery / Economics / Economic Recovery
The US economy continues to make a slow recovery. The blizzards and unusually low temperatures that hit several regions in February hurt several areas, the Federal Reserve said in a Beige Book report last week.
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Monday, March 08, 2010
1.7 Million Reasons Why the Economic Recovery is a Joke / Economics / Economic Recovery
My apologies for dropping off the map last week. I had quite a bit going with the back-end of my business. On that note, I’m going to making a few major announcements in the next week, so stay tuned.
Now, let’s move onto the economy, then the markets.
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Thursday, March 04, 2010
Is Anyone Else Sick of this Nascent Economic Recovery Talk? / Economics / Economic Recovery
The buzzword of the day is "nascent". It means "beginning to exist or develop". The word is everywhere you look.
Moreover, talk of "nascency" seems like it has been going on forever. Perhaps because it has. Here are some prime examples.
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Friday, February 26, 2010
The Recession Is Most Certainly Over / Economics / Economic Recovery
Dr. Steve Sjuggerud writes: "There are still no jobs here," my friend Lee tells me.
Lee used to work for a beachfront resort on Florida's east coast. Our town was built on tourism and real estate. Both are dead. The resort is on the brink of bankruptcy.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Leading Economic Indicators Keep Rising, but … / Economics / Economic Recovery
Last Thursday the Conference Board published its Leading Economic Index (LEI) for the U.S. In January this historically-reliable indicator increased 0.3 percent after shooting up 1.2 percent in December and 1.1 percent in November. This was the tenth consecutive rise!
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Monday, February 22, 2010
Not So Fast for U.S. Economy, Inflation and therefore Fed Tightening / Economics / Economic Recovery
Not so fast for the economy, for inflation and, therefore, for Fed tightening. The Commerce Department's first guess at Q4:2009 real GDP growth of 5.7% is likely to be the fastest quarterly annualized growth we see for some time. Rather, sequential annualized growth rates over the first three quarters of this year are going to be on the order of less than one-half that of the last year's fourth quarter. Although one month does not a trend make, consumer inflation in January already shows signs of abating a bit.
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Wednesday, February 17, 2010
How the Bailed out Banks Are Crushing U.S. Economic Recovery / Economics / Economic Recovery
Martin Hutchinson writes: When U.S. President Barack Obama unveiled the $787 billion "stimulus" bill of extra spending and modest tax cuts last year, it became clear that the U.S. budget deficit was going to eclipse the 10% of gross domestic product (GDP) level for at least one year (and, as we now know, probably three years).
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