Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Monday, May 12, 2014
U.S. Employment - The Bed-Pan Economy / Economics / Employment
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.
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Saturday, May 10, 2014
Just How Distorted are Those GDP Economic Numbers? / Economics / Economic Statistics
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:
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Saturday, May 10, 2014
China Economy Needs Serious Reform; Russia's Heading in a Bad Direction / Economics / Emerging Markets
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."
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Wednesday, May 07, 2014
U.S. Jobs Report and the Band Played On / Economics / US Economy
After three months of consistently disappointing jobs numbers, the markets were as keyed up for a good jobs report as a long suffering sailor awaiting shore leave in a tropical port. The just released April jobs report, which claimed that 288,000 jobs were created in the U.S. during the month, provided the apparent good news. But you don't have to go too far beneath the surface to find some troubling trends within the data. Even this minor excavation was too much for the media cheerleaders and Wall Street pitchmen to handle.
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Tuesday, May 06, 2014
Americans Find A New Source Of Spending Money / Economics / US Economy
Hurray! Americans have found a new source of spending money; after ATM-draining their home equity till even the roofs were underwater, and maxing out every single little shred of plastic they could lay their hands on, “families looked around for what was left”, and now it’s time to empty out 401(k)’s until there’s really nothing left at all anymore. Then it’ll be recovery or die, presumably. But a recovery is not going to happen, and certainly not for society’s bottom rung. Oh well, maybe there’s some form of slavery they can enter into. Not surprisingly, the US government is quite content with this new development:
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Tuesday, May 06, 2014
Demographic Trends in the 50-and-Older Work Force / Economics / Demographics
Courtesy of Doug Short: In my earlier update on demographic trends in employment, I included a chart illustrating the growth (or shrinkage) in six age cohorts since the turn of the century. In this commentary we’ll zoom in on the age 50 and older Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR).
But first, let’s review the big picture. The overall LFPR is a simple computation: You take the Civilian Labor Force (people age 16 and over employed or seeking employment) and divide it by the Civilian Noninstitutional Population (those 16 and over not in the military and or committed to an institution). The result is the participation rate expressed as a percent.
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Tuesday, May 06, 2014
Who’s Going To Help The Economic Recovery Recover? / Economics / Economic Recovery
Hey, say what you will, but I’m not one to dodge the more difficult questions. And in the case of this one, I have no idea what the answer would be either. I think calling what we’ve seen to date a recovery is far too much of a semantic stretch in the first place, but even then, even if we assume a hypothetical economic recovery has occurred in America, it’s just about literally in a world of trouble.
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Monday, May 05, 2014
Underappreciated Indicators to Guide You through a Debt-Saturated Economy / Economics / US Debt
If you’re my generation or older, you may remember taking the original Pepsi Challenge – the Coke versus Pepsi taste testing booths that you would find at sporting events, fairs and similar venues. I took the Challenge and stuck with Coke. The majority of people went the other way, as confirmed by even Coke’s private tests. Nowadays, though, I’m guessing the public version of a Challenge booth would bring heckling from the nutrition-conscious folks at the Just Juice stand. The bigger challenges for Coke and Pepsi are health risks linked to their flagship products. Researchers are zeroing in on a handful of ingredients that may be harmful, such as sodium benzoate and phosphoric acid.
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Monday, May 05, 2014
The Emerging Market Game Changer Is Here / Economics / Emerging Markets
Peter Krauth writes: The group of five nations - Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, otherwise known as the BRICS - is making some intriguing financial, economic, and political moves.
They're committing tens of billions of dollars each to organize their own versions of an IMF and World Bank.
Many observers thought the BRICS nations would encounter too many obstacles to collaborate effectively.
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Monday, May 05, 2014
How Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) affects America and its Partners / Economics / Global Economy
TPPA or Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement is a trade agreement between 11 countries namely Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei Darussalam, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, America, Peru, Mexico, Chile. Details are vague due to the secretive nature of the whole process and not much is being reported in the media. The first round of talks was held in Melbourne Australia in March 2010. Since then there are already 19 rounds of talks with the last one in Brunei Darussalam. It is believed that TPPA operates within the same scope of other Free Trade Agreements. It involves free trade policies such as opening up of the domestic market, subsidies, tariffs, copyright rule, intellectual property rights and enhancing legal protection for foreign investors.
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Sunday, May 04, 2014
A Stampede Of Elephants In The China Shop - The Chinese Shadow Banking System / Economics / China Credit Crisis
I’m going to take a number of different sources to paint a portrait of China. I’ll take a great series of numbers from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, whose analysis we can all do without, and leave the analysis up to David Stockman, who goes a long way but, in my proverbial humble view, seems to be stumbling a bit towards the end. That is to say, as I’ve written before, when I look at China these days, I see a bare and basic battle for raw power, economic as well as political power, between the Chinese government and the shadow banking system it has allowed, if not encouraged, to establish and flourish, and which now has grown into a threat to the central state control that is the only model Beijing has ever either understood or been willing to apply.
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Sunday, May 04, 2014
Inside the Latest U.S. Jobs Report - Nonfarm Payrolls +288,000, Unemployment Rate Drops to 6.3%... / Economics / Employment
Initial Reaction
This month sported another amazing difference between the household survey and the payroll survey. The difference is so vast that looking at the numbers in isolation, one might think the results were from two different countries.
The headline number from the payroll survey beat expectations by a mile with 288,000 jobs, but beneath the surface, the household survey shows employment declined by 73,000.
Saturday, May 03, 2014
Gerald Celente Finally Gives a Date for U.S. Economic Collapse / Economics / US Economy
Gerald Celente, a popular gloom and doom blogger and publisher of the TR Journal finally gives a date for the always coming economic collapse that I must have been hearing about for 5 years now.
WLW Radio - 30th April 2014
"Your predicting an economic collapse, when do you think that is going to happen Gerald?"
"I am going to say by the end of the second quarter." - Gerald Celente
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Friday, May 02, 2014
The Upcoming Dawn of the 60-Year Inflation Cycle / Economics / Inflation
The latest action by the Federal Reserve is part of a policy shift, the most important one in fact of the last five years. The Fed's plan for unwinding its quantitative easing (QE) stimulus coincides with the bottom of the 60-year cycle of inflation/deflation. It couldn't be happening at a better time and the results will be either very positive or extremely negative, depending on where you stand when the smoke clears.
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Friday, May 02, 2014
Non-Farm Friday – U.S. Economy Is Not Working / Economics / Employment
When is a job not a job?
When the job sucks! We've all had crappy jobs in our lives – something we stay in to pay the bills but has no chance of being a career. As you can see from the chart on the right, a lot of career Government jobs have disappeared over the past 4 years – the kind of jobs that held advancement and retirement and health benefits.
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Friday, May 02, 2014
Stagflation and the Credit Cycle / Economics / Stagflation
Stagflation: When the general level of prices rises due to the purchasing power of currency-money falling, instead of price inflation due to a general increase in demand.
The credit cycle that normally drives advanced economies through boom and bust is turning out to be different this time round. The boom between the Lehman bust and the one yet to come never got going, because of very high levels of existing debt. This condition will almost certainly lead to stagflation.
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Friday, May 02, 2014
Is China Economy Cracking? / Economics / China Economy
Sean Brodrick writes: Signs of a near-term slowdown in the Chinese economy are apparent. And China's economy is so large and intricate that any slowdown there could have a big impact on investors here in the U.S.
In particular, I'm concerned about:
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Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Europe and Deflation Paranoia / Economics / Deflation
There is a current incessant flow of articles warning us of the certain economic calamity if deflation is allowed to show its nose for even the briefest period of time. This ogre of deflation, we are told, must be defeated with the printing presses at all costs. Of course, the real objective of this fear mongering is to enable continued government theft through debasement. Every dollar printed is a government tax on cash balances.
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Wednesday, April 30, 2014
The Death of Deflation / Economics / Deflation
If investors have learned nothing else from the events of the last five years, they’ve at least learned that fighting the Fed doesn’t pay.Indeed, the biggest lesson of all since 2009 is that monetary liquidity is the single biggest determinant of future stock prices. Given a loose enough monetary policy, stock prices will always respond by going higher.
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Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Economists Are Stupid, Useless And Dangerous / Economics / Economists
Economists are stupid because they have studied economics. Which doesn’t mean they weren’t born stupid, but that’s hardly relevant. Economists are useless because, well, they have studied economics. And economists are dangerous because they have studied economics, and people still listen to them; entire government policies are built around what they say. Now, you may think: isn’t that a bit harsh?, but don’t worry, I have proof.
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