Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis

The analysis published under this topic are as follows.

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

U.S. Economy Is Not Japan Or Europe / Economics / US Economy

By: EconMatters

There has been a trend of late to compare European and Japanese Bond yields to that of the United States and England so I think it necessary to define some large flaws in these comparisons.

Japan Comparison

Let us start with Japan, Japan has an aging demographic, little immigration, very limited natural resources, and have not been a major player in anything other than heavy industry specific nuclear applications and autos since the mid-1980s.

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

The Successor to Keynes - Capital in the Twenty-First Century / Economics / Economic Theory

By: Casey_Research

By Jeff Thomas, International Man

Europe is abuzz with Capital in the Twenty-First Century by French economist Thomas Piketty, released in Europe in March of this year and now a best-seller. It has since crossed the Atlantic and is already the number-one best-seller for booksmith Amazon. It has been called a “blockbuster” of a book, and many reviewers believe that it has the ability to revolutionise the study of economics.

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Echoes of 1937 in the Current U.S. Economic Cycle / Economics / US Economy

By: MISES

Brendan Brown writes: It is not too early to ask how the present US business cycle expansion, already more than five years old, will end. The history of the last great US monetary experiment in “quantitative easing” (QE) from 1934-7 suggests that the end could be violent. Autumn 1937 featured one of the largest New York stock market crashes ever accompanied by the descent of the US economy into the notorious Roosevelt Recession. Should we take comfort from the fact that Friedman and Schwartz, in their epic monetary history, claim to have discovered the policy error by the Federal Reserve which was responsible for the 1937 denouement. And that today’s Fed officials are adamant about having learned their lesson? The short answer is no.

Monday, May 19, 2014

How Fractional Reserves and Inflation Cause Economic Inequality / Economics / Economic Theory

By: MISES

Andreas Marquart writes: Mises Institute:How would you translate your new book’s title into English?

Andreas Marquant: I would like to say The State Causes the Poverty It Later Claims to Solve. This is the title of my article on mises.org last December. An even better title could be The Austrian Answer to Thomas Piketty.

MI: Your book addresses the issue of income inequality. Is income inequality a bad thing?

Monday, May 19, 2014

Another Phantom Economic Recovery Fails / Economics / US Economy

By: Michael_Pento

Each year since the recession officially ended in the summer of 2009, Wall Street and Washington have tried to dupe investors into believing a second half recovery was in store for the stock market and economy. However, this promise has failed to come into fruition each year, as annual GDP growth has not reached north of trend growth (3%) since 2005. But, with the hope that investors have a perennial case of amnesia, these cheerleaders are yet again trumpeting the illusion that economic growth is about to surge.

Saturday, May 17, 2014

China Economy Countdown to Crisis? / Economics / China Economy

By: Ty_Andros

Yes or no?

Every major corner of the world's economies is sitting on a knife's edge of one type or another; the question becomes who falls first triggering the next leg down in the Global Economies and ongoing depression. All are in debt spirals as deficits and debt compound at a high rate, while the growth to service them is but an illusion of official account measures, public sector growth and understated inflation.

Waves of insolvency are just waiting to strike as elites, academics, government servants and banksters worldwide cling to the dying Consumption, asset-backed economic model created at Bretton Woods II. Before that time, the developed world created wealth the old fashioned way: they produced more than they consumed creating savings for allocation to productive enterprises, also known as capitalism. Now growth is measured in how much you can consume creating a top line while ignoring the amount you borrowed from future income to do so.

Friday, May 16, 2014

May`s U.S. Employment Report to Top 300K, Rising Inflation / Economics / US Economy

By: EconMatters

Thursday, May 15, 2014

How Inflation Picks Your Pocket / Economics / Inflation

By: MISES

Daniel James Sanchez writes: In the denouement of the film There Will Be Blood, the antihero Daniel Planview dramatically reveals to his nemesis that he has secretly siphoned away all of the latter's underground oil.

"Drainage!" he bellows, as only Daniel Day-Lewis can, "Drained dry. I'm so sorry. Here, if you have a milkshake, and I have a milkshake, and I have a straw. There it is, that's a straw, you see? You watching? And my straw reaches across the room, and starts to drink your milkshake. I... drink... your... milkshake! [sucking sound]"

Thursday, May 15, 2014

U.S. Economic Confusion / Economics / US Economy

By: Fred_Sheehan

The Producer Price Index for April was released May 14, 2014. The one-month change was +0.6%, after it rose 0.5% in March (revised to that figure in the April report). Foods rose 2.7% (+1.1% in March). In "All the Junk Food You Love is Pricier This Year," Max Nisen writes on Quartz: "Chipotle's [Grill - CMG: NYSE] food prices were up 34.5% last quarter in total, with big increases in [beef, cheese, avocado, and pork]." Chipotle's CFO John Hurtung laments: "While we want to remain accessible to our customers, we're at a point where we need to pass along these rapidly rising costs." Chipotle's stock price was $505 at the close on May 14, 2014, up from $49 at the great liftoff on March 9, 2009.

Thursday, May 15, 2014

What Bugs University Academic Economists / Economics / Economic Theory

By: Gary_North

For over 40 years, I have watched university economists attack Murray Rothbard in print. They never laid a glove on him.

They had certain things in common. They never published anything comparable to his book, Man, Economy, and State (1962). They never published anything comparable to America’s Great Depression (1963). They did not publish widely in any mainstream scholarly journals. Their existence was not acknowledged by Keynesians. But they knew Rothbard was a second rater, and some of them even said so.

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Feudalism and Cronyism in Machiavelli’s Italy / Economics / Economic Theory

By: MISES

Jo Ann Cavallo writes: Although liberty is a recurring concern in Machiavelli’s writings, there is no consensus regarding either the definition of the concept or its relevance for his overall political thought. One direction of Machiavellian interpretation that has gained prominence in recent decades has focused on the concept of “libertas” in relation to a republican mode of government, even though Machiavelli’s use of liberty cannot be simply equated with republicanism. In tracing the various occurrences of the term in Machiavelli’s political works, Marcia Colish has pointed out that in the context of internal affairs “Machiavelli often connects libertà with certain personal rights and community benefits that characterize free states regardless of their constitutions.” She specifies, in fact, that “he clearly identifies freedom with the protection of private rights.”[1]

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

China Economy Will Drag Us All Down With It / Economics / China Economy

By: Raul_I_Meijer

Yeah, no kidding, as if reports from the US weren’t bad enough, with soaring student debt – that drivers debtors out of the housing market-, collapsing mortgage originations, increasing household debt and slumping retail sales. But still, today, the major news comes from China once again. The government issued a batch of data overnight that shine yet another and clearer light on what is going wrong in the Chinese economy. The numbers are so ugly you wouldn’t want to feed them to your dog. Many sources picked up on this, and not everyone comes up with the exact same numbers – is it 24 or 27 months of inventory? – but we’ll put that down to journalists having to speed read. Let’s do a series, shall we? First up, Bloomberg:

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

The Japanese Debt Economy / Economics / Japan Economy

By: BATR

What does the United States have in common with Japan’s economy? Demographics of an aging population have consequences for both countries. As Japan News reports, National debt hits record high.

"Japan’s national debt totaled a record-high ¥1.02 quadrillion as of the end of March, up ¥33.36 trillion from a year earlier, the Finance Ministry said.

The central government debt, which increased ¥7.01 trillion from the end of December last year, kept rising mainly due to ballooning social security costs in line with the aging of the population."

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

The Fed's Economic 'Growth Buying' Scheme Is Failing / Economics / Quantitative Easing

By: Money_Morning

Shah Gilani writes: The numbers are in. And they are ugly...

Based on preliminary first-quarter data, U.S. GDP (gross domestic product) growth is 0.1%.

That's not much.

But then again what do you expect for $3.4 trillion dollars of Federal Reserve spending to boost the economy?

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Yellen’s Wand Is Running Low on Magic / Economics / US Federal Reserve Bank

By: Casey_Research

By Doug French, Contributing Editor

How important is housing to the American economy?

If a 2011 SMU paper entitled "Housing's Contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) quot; is right, nothing moves the economic needle like housing. It accounts for 17% to 18% of GDP.

Monday, May 12, 2014

How Consumers Rule In a Free Economy / Economics / Economic Theory

By: Christopher_Westley

One of my favorite economists in the history of economic thought is the great Austrian, Carl Menger (1840-1921). While the mainstream of the economics profession acknowledges Menger’s place due to his contribution to the Marginalist Revolution in the 1870s, it otherwise ignores him because his theoretical framework does not lend itself to policy prescriptions. In an era in which the economics profession largely views itself as a shadow branch of government which is itself charged with managing the economy, thinkers like Menger (and those who work in his tradition) are not going to be extolled or studied in the same way that thinkers like Irving Fisher, John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman, or Paul Krugman have been.

Monday, May 12, 2014

European Financial Market Forecasts - Sentiment Gauge in Reaches Epic Proportion / Economics / European Stock Markets

By: EWI

A visual history of complacency and fear as seen by the 10-year spread over German Bunds

The one-two punch 2014 winter storms that battered the southeastern United States left $13.5 million in damages in Georgia alone and thousands of residents displaced due to burst pipes and power outages. I am one of the displaced. Three months after the flood, I'm still living out of suitcases in a hotel while my apartment gets rebuilt.

Monday, May 12, 2014

U.S. Employment - The Bed-Pan Economy / Economics / Employment

By: Fred_Sheehan

Data portrayed in the "Employment in Total Non-Farm" payroll (NFP) chart is used by central bankers and Wall Street strategists to assert economic strength. They either think the trend demonstrates morning in America, or, they know otherwise, but cannot fashion anything better.

Saturday, May 10, 2014

Just How Distorted are Those GDP Economic Numbers? / Economics / Economic Statistics

By: Raul_I_Meijer

I want to share two graphs that Tyler Durden posted yesterday and let you make up your own mind as to what they mean. We’ve all been able to see how US Q1′s official GDP growth was revised to 0.1%, after which Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan said they put the number at -0.6% and -0.8%, respectively. But Goldman, not to be outdone by itself, or that’s the impression, then comes out with a new prediction for Q2, for a rise of no less than 3.9%, or 4.5 % above their own Q1 number. Durden caught that one too:

Saturday, May 10, 2014

China Economy Needs Serious Reform; Russia's Heading in a Bad Direction / Economics / Emerging Markets

By: Bloomberg

On this week's "Political Capital with Al Hunt," airing tonight at 9:00PM/ET, Bloomberg Television anchor and Bloomberg View columnist Al Hunt, interviews United States Department of Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. Sec. Lew said to Hunt, China must avoid postponing long-term economic measures, "they obviously have to worry about their short-term economic situation. What they can't do is treat the long-term reforms as something they can just put off. They need to be serious about it."