Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Saturday, August 16, 2014
Africa: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly / Economics / Africa
By: Steve_H_Hanke
Last week, President Obama hosted the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, D.C. He welcomed over 40 African heads of state and their outsized entourages to what was a festive affair. Indeed, even the Ebola virus in West Africa failed to dampen spirits in the Nation's capital. Perhaps it was the billions of dollars in African investment, announced by America's great private companies, that was so uplifting.
Friday, August 15, 2014
Don’t Assume What Is “Unseen” Doesn’t Exist / Economics / Economic Theory
By: MISES
Gary M. Galles writes: The use of the ceteris paribus, or “other things equal” assumption is an essential aspect of economic education. It is an important caveat that helps make sense of a complicated world by clarifying the incentive stories that comprise the core of economics.
Unfortunately, the often unthinking acceptance of that phrase has also provided an opening for misrepresenting economic reality in analyzing government interventions. That is because governments cannot change just one incentive. As a result, assuming certain “other things equal,” when those other things inherently cannot remain equal, provides cover for omitting adverse effects.
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Thursday, August 14, 2014
China's Credit Slowdown Raises Concerns About Overall Economic Health / Economics / China Economy
By: STRATFOR
New economic data released by China's National Bureau of Statistics on Aug. 13 shows the supply of credit to the Chinese economy expanded by only $44.3 billion in July, the slowest pace in almost six years. To be precise, credit expanded at the slowest pace since October 2008, the month after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and the month before the Chinese government launched an economic stimulus program that sheltered China's economy from the worst effects of the global financial crisis. That program also locked China into a growth model grounded in the intimate bond between government-led credit expansion and housing and infrastructure construction -- one that the Chinese government is now struggling, against time and at the risk of crisis, to escape.
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
High Frequency Failure Economics / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Andrew_McKillop
High Frequency Failure
Japan's most recent GDP data showing a 6.8% annual rate of contraction was quickly shrugged off by the markets as only a signal for more handouts from the Japanese government and the BOJ. But Shinzo Abe's government has to admit the failures are coming faster all the time. In the global finance industry we can move on from the easy explanation why we have HFT, Dark Pools, Libor rigging, FX rigging, oil and gold market rigging and the rest – that they deliver large easy profits to insiders, fixers and riggers. These fail-sure (rather than fail-safe) processes are also essential to maintaining an appearance of real economies with real markets. They serve this additional basic function.
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
China Economy Transformation or Bust, Part 2 / Economics / China Economy
By: John_Mauldin
In last week’s Thoughts from the Frontline (“Transformation or Bust”), my young colleague Worth Wray and I continued our groundbreaking series exploring the risks posed by China’s rapid private sector debt growth and its consumption-repressing, investment-heavy growth model that is quickly running out of steam. China is the true conundrum in the global economy. It is an outlier in the history of development, with no true analogues. And while there is much to be appreciative of and admired about China, there are clear danger signals.
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Not As Much Labor Force Slack as Yellen Believes / Economics / Employment
By: EconMatters
Fed Moving Targets
The Fed keeps moving their targets when they originally thought it was a good idea to provide forward guidance for markets, then when that guidance was met, they started moving the targets in order to justify pumpingmore liquidity and stimulus into the financial system for the benefit of the Big Banks.
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Tuesday, August 12, 2014
The De-industrialization of America: “True U.S. Unemployment Rate is 23.2%” / Economics / Unemployment
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
On January 6, 2004, Paul Craig Roberts and US Senator Charles Schumer published a jointly written article on the op-ed page of the New York Times titled “Second Thoughts on Free Trade.” The article pointed out that the US had entered a new economic era in which American workers face “direct global competition at almost every job level–from the machinist to the software engineer to the Wall Street analyst. Any worker whose job does not require daily face-to-face interaction is now in jeopardy of being replaced by a lower-paid equally skilled worker thousands of miles away. American jobs are being lost not to competition from foreign companies, but to multinational corporations that are cutting costs by shifting operations to low-wage countries.” Roberts and Schumer challenged the correctness of economists’ views that jobs off-shoring was merely the operation of mutually beneficial free trade, about which no concerns were warranted.
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Hopelessly Devoted to Inflation / Economics / Inflation
By: Michael_Pento
In the middle of July the stock market finally awoke from its QE-induced coma and realized the Federal Reserve’s tapering, which has been going on for the last six months, was for real. Like a child, who becomes accustomed to a parent that threatens punishment but never follows through, the market had been in denial to the Feds withdrawal of monetary stimulus. But now, thankfully, the ending of Fed asset purchases will be the pin that pops this QE-inflated market and economy. But please do not confuse the end of QE with the Fed actually fighting inflation and selling trillions of dollars’ worth in Treasuries and mortgage backed securities (MBS)…because that will never happen.
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
U.S. Economy Nothing New Under the Sun / Economics / US Economy
By: Andy_Sutton
Probably the biggest reason this column has been silent for the past few months is that there has been so much to say; yet there is nothing really new to say. Sometimes I wonder how reporters do it. They write essentially the same story every week or month, but have to come up with different words and flavors. This is likely why the ratings for ‘news’ are so low these days. It isn’t because people have suddenly become adept at sorting the wheat from the chaff; it is just that the news, like most of our world, has become like a soap opera. You can take a few months off, come back, watch an episode or two, and be right back up to speed. Someone will be fighting someone over some doctrine that may or may not have changed.
Monday, August 11, 2014
Growth and Inflation In America: Why Deflation Is Going to Burst Through / Economics / Deflation
By: Jas_Jain
Inflation is a lagging indicator even over a short-term, lagging by 6-12 months with respect to the GDP growth rate when the cyclical turns take place. Long-term inflation pressure has a very long lag time of 6-10 years. In the advanced economies of Western Europe, Japan and the US, where consumption is a big part of the GDP, the biggest contributor to the long-term inflationary pressures is the long-term GDP growth, driven primarily by the end demand, with inflation lagging by several years as businesses adjust to the rapidly accelerating demand, or the rapidly decelerating demand. This is particularly the case with the consumption oriented US economy.
Sunday, August 10, 2014
The Picture of America's Old and Sick Economy / Economics / US Economy
By: Jas_Jain
As I reported in January 2005 ("Debt") the secular growth in the US GDP ended in late 1990s and all the growth since then has been a result of accumulation of the consumption debt (fiscal deficits plus household debt), as opposed to growth based on incomes, savings and investment, and I predicted that this build up in consumption debt would act as a big drag on the future economic growth. Now, the results (based on the latest GDP data with revisions) are in. Figure below shows the annual growth rate for the preceding 7 years (to smooth out the variations due to the business cycles).
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Thursday, August 07, 2014
How U.S. Dollar Destruction Threatens the Global Economy / Economics / Global Economy
By: John_Mauldin
Forbes Editor-in-Chief and longtime friend Steve Forbes leads off this week’s Outside the Box with a sweeping historical summary – and damning indictment – of the “cheap money” policies of the US executive branch and Federal Reserve. Four decades of fiat money (since Richard Nixon and his Treasury Secretary, John Connally, axed the gold standard in 1971) and six years of Fed funny business have led us, in Steve’s words, to an era of “declining mobility, great inequality, and the destruction of personal wealth.”
Monday, August 04, 2014
China Transformation or Bust / Economics / China Economy
By: John_Mauldin
China continues to be front and center on my list of concerns, even moreso than the latest Federal Reserve press release or fluctuation in the Dow (although you should pay attention). I believe China is the single biggest risk to world economic equilibrium, even larger than Japan or Europe. This week my young associate Worth Wray provides us with a keenly insightful essay on what is currently happening in China. I will admit to not having written about China very much in the past five years, primarily because, prior to Worth’s coming to work with me I really had no secure understanding of what was happening there. I know some readers may be surprised, but I really don’t like to write about things I have no understanding of. Worth has helped me focus. (It helps that he studied Mandarin and lived in China for a while, and is obsessed with China.)
Monday, August 04, 2014
Inflation Trumps U.S. Economic Growth / Economics / Inflation
By: Peter_Schiff
With the first half of 2014 now in the books, many investors are happy with the performance thus far, especially given the economic headwinds that few saw coming. The 26% rally in U.S. stocks in 2013 gave way to a more modest 7% gain in the first half of 2014. Most see this as a positive development in a maturing market. But beneath the surface, important trends are emerging that should give investors reasons to re-evaluate their assumptions.
Monday, August 04, 2014
How to Play the Strong GDP Economic Growth / Economics / US Economy
By: DailyGainsLetter
On one hand, it’s great the economic growth is showing renewed progress as the advance reading of the second-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) growth came in at an annualized four percent, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. (Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis web site, July 30, 2014.)
Now I realize this is only the advance reading and things can change over the next few weeks as more credible estimates come into play, but I’m sure the Federal Reserve is keeping close tabs on the numbers. Investors are also likely quite nervous.
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Sunday, August 03, 2014
Understanding Argentina’s Coming Debt Default / Economics / Global Debt Crisis 2014
By: MISES
Nicolás Cachanosky writes:
At the time of this writing, Argentina is a few days away from formally defaulting on its debts.How could this happen three times in just twenty-eight years?
Following the 2001 default, Argentina offered a debt swap (a restructuring of debt) to its creditors in 2005. Many bondholders accepted the Argentine offer, but some of them did not. Those who did not accept the debt swap are called the “holdouts.” When Argentina started to pay the new bonds to those who entered the debt swap (the “holdins”), the holdouts took Argentina to court under New York law, the jurisdiction under which the Argentine debt has been issued. After the US Supreme Court refused to hear the Argentine case a few weeks ago, Judge Griesa’s ruling became final.
Friday, August 01, 2014
The EU's Anti Economic Austerity Hypocrites / Economics / Euro-Zone
By: Steve_H_Hanke
The European Union (EU) is still in the midst of an economic slump. Many members of the political class in Brussels claim that fiscal austerity is to blame. But, this diagnosis is wrong. The EU's problem is one of monetary, not fiscal, austerity. Money matters. Just look at the accompanying chart. Private credit in the Eurozone has been shrinking since March 2012.
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Anne Elk’s Theory On Brontosauruses / Economics / Economic Theory
By: John_Mauldin
By Grant Williams
Though they reunited this past month for a series of concerts at London’s O2 Arena, the cast of Monty Python last assembled onstage together at London’s Drury Lane Theatre a staggering 40 years ago.
As they took to the stage at the O2 in early July, the surviving members of perhaps the most famous comedy troupe in history (sadly, Graham Chapman died in 1989) boasted a combined age of 357.
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Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Their Economy Will Collapse, Including Ours / Economics / Global Economy
By: Submissions
Harry Dent writes: Central bankers think they can keep their economy going by artificial stimulus until they hit escape velocity and grow at normal rates again — but they’re wrong.
Here at Dent Research we hold a different view to what drives the economy.
And central bankers are in for three big surprises ahead.
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Monday, July 28, 2014
Second Quarter Corporate Earnings: Marching Toward a Strong Economic Recovery / Economics / US Economy
By: Frank_Holmes
It's earnings season once again, and though only a quarter of the Russell 1000 has reported so far, the news is just north of positive. All signs indicate that the market has dusted itself off and is back to its cheerful self after a ho-hum first quarter, which was negatively affected by harsh winter weather.