Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Saturday, February 08, 2014
U.S. Economic Outlook Is About More Than Just Jobs / Economics / US Economy
By: Sy_Harding
The Labor Department’s employment report for January was the second straight monthly negative surprise in that area of the economy. It showed only 113,000 new jobs were created in January, well short of the consensus forecast for 190,000.
As they did in reaction to December’s dismal jobs report, Wall Street analysts are blaming it on the weather.
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Saturday, February 08, 2014
Ominous Looking Picture in U.S. Healthcare and Education Jobs / Economics / Employment
By: Mike_Shedlock
Month in, month out, recession or not, there has been a strong uptick in the number of healthcare and education jobs. Until now. A few charts will show what I mean.
Saturday, February 08, 2014
U.S. Employment Report - Real Earnings of Private Employees Down Slightly / Economics / Earnings
By: PhilStockWorld
Courtesy of Doug Short: Here is a look at two key numbers in Friday’s monthly employment report for January:
- Average Hourly Earnings
- Average Weekly Hours
The government has been tracking the data for Production and Nonsupervisory Employees for decades. But coverage of Total Private Employees only dates from March 2006.
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Saturday, February 08, 2014
Chronic U.S. Employment Data Conflict: Establishment versus Household Surveys / Economics / Employment
By: PhilStockWorld
Courtesy of Doug Short: Yesterday’s employment report again highlights an ongoing conflict between the jobs number in the Establishment Survey versus the roughly comparable data in the Household Survey. The Nonfarm Payrolls of the former came it at a disappointing 113K new jobs — well off the consensus forecasts for 185K or more. In contrast, the Household Survey reported a 638K increase in civilian employment age 16 and over, a number that gets trimmed to 616K after the BLS applies its “annual adjustment to the population controls.” Business Insider, not surprisingly, picked up on this oddity with the headline “By One Measure, This Was A Stupendous Jobs Report“.
Monday, February 03, 2014
The Keynesian Multiplier – Does it Exist? / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Submissions
Dan Lieberman writes: Can someone clarify a significant economic and well accepted proposition that bothers me?
The notion that the Keynesian multiplier means that “an exogenous increase in spending, such as an increase in government outlays, increases total spending by a multiple of that increase,” is troublesome. Is it possible to add one dollar to the money supply and magically turn it into more dollars? I don’t think this is possible. I believe economists have misinterpreted the multiplier. To me, it is not a multiplier. It is a divider.
Monday, February 03, 2014
New U.S. Recession 2014-2015 90% Chance / Economics / Recession 2014
By: Jas_Jain
Q: Have Bernanke, Krugman and Yellen predicted any recession, in their career, before it happened?
A. N-O-NO.
Q: Have Bernanke, Krugman and Yellen predicted recoveries before they happened?
A: YES, always.
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Sunday, February 02, 2014
A Tale of Two Europes Deflation Video / Economics / Deflation
By: EWI
Today's post is a 7-minute video from European Financial Forecast Editor Brian Whitmer. Brian gave this presentation in London to The Society of Technical Analysts. This portion of "A Tale of Two Europes" is packed with myth-busting charts about government's inability to stop deflation, cheap credit's role in an economic recovery and more.
Friday, January 31, 2014
For Europe’s Youth, Minimum Wages Means Minimal Employment / Economics / Employment
By: Steve_H_Hanke
Yesterday, in the wake of Tuesday’s State of the Union address, I poured cold water on President Obama’s claim that a hike in the minimum wage for federal contract workers would benefit the United States’ economy, pointing specifically to unemployment rates in the European Union. The data never lie: EU countries with minimum wage laws suffer higher rates of unemployment than those that do not mandate minimum wages. This point is even more pronounced when we look at rates of unemployment among the EU’s youth – defined as those younger than 25 years of age.
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Friday, January 31, 2014
Canada Debt Crisis, Economic Meltdown, Why the ECB Cares / Economics / Canada
By: David_Hague
Dear Reader, you probably said to yourself that the premise of this article is absurd and preposterous. Canada is a paragon of fiscal responsibility. It is a bastion of good governance in a confused world of financial instability. It is a shining beacon of democracy, the envy of the world. I would have agreed with you until I received a very disturbing early morning phone call from Gustavo Laframboise-Pierre, the Director of Statistical Creation, at the European Central Bank [ECB]. My relationship with Gustavo LaFramboise-Pierre went back many years. He had been my bookie since 1980 when I began my career in the investment industry. His life took a significant turn for the better when a senior member of the European Central Bank [ECB] bet large and incorrectly on the outcome of the 2010 World Cup. The only way the senior member of the ECB could settle the debt was to offer Gustavo a high paying sinecure at the ECB. Overnight, Gustavo found himself living in Paris, with the responsibility of fabricating fictional statistics to support whatever policies were being propagated by the world's central banks.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Minimum Wage Laws Kill Jobs / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Steve_H_Hanke
President Obama set the chattering classes abuzz after his unilateral announcement to raise the minimum wage. During his State of the Union address, he sang the praises for his action, saying that “It’s good for the economy; it’s good for America.”[1] Yet this conclusion doesn’t pass the economic smell test; just look at the data from Europe.
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Wednesday, January 29, 2014
UK Accelerating Economic Boom, GDP 1.9% 2013, 4% 2014? Conservative Election Win? / Economics / UK Economy
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The latest ONS UK GDP data showed strong growth for Q4 that lifted annual GDP for 2013 to 1.9%, the fastest growth rate since 2007, and up from the 0.3% of 2012 and that many economists had convinced themselves that the UK was heading for a triple dip recession during 2013.
The UK economy risks suffering from a triple-dip recession amid a period of persistently low growth that will last until the next election, the governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King warned - Nov 2012.
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Monday, January 27, 2014
Economic Growths False Paradigm / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Submissions
Raymond Matison writes: With pressing economic, banking, and systemic financial problems the world over, leaders of advanced nations both in Europe and in America are calling for programs to resume growth. President Obama in a recent State of the Union message proposed to reinvigorate growth in the US by doubling exports over the next several years. Prime minister Abe of Japan was a keynote speaker at the World Economic Forum in Davos his January outlining the need to rejuvenate growth. Japan has been vigorously increasing its money supply and depressing interest rates in order to promote the growth of its exports and GDP. Government leaders seek growth as the universal answer for maintaining government solvency as well as citizen prosperity, and it seems that no government leader anywhere in the world seeks less growth. Yet few have really considered recently whether growth is the promised panacea of nations and its citizens. This article raises reasonable questions regarding such policy and its desirability.
Friday, January 24, 2014
Argentina in Bad Economic Shape Again - Debt Rattle 2014 / Economics / Global Debt Crisis 2014
By: Raul_I_Meijer
Argentina is once again in very bad shape. It rose out of the ashes of its 2002 crisis, when it went through presidents like they were popsicles, and large swaths of the middle class ended up living in Villa Miseria shanty towns around Buenos Aires, but it did so through issuing debt. So there we go again.
The no. 1 problem, again, is the lack of foreign reserves. How the country can escape its fate this time is hard to see. People have kept storing their wealth abroad, afraid as they were for the very thing that now happens; a little self fulfilling, one might say. The cost of borrowing shot up, prices for its export products, meat, soy, wheat, plunged, et voila, the squid’s your uncle!
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Thursday, January 23, 2014
More of the Same From the Keynesians in 2014 / Economics / Economic Theory
By: MISES
Harry Goslin writes: The first rule I teach my economics students is that when the economy fails, it’s usually safe to blame the government. To paraphrase Winston Smith in 1984: If we accept that the state is the source of economic misery, “all else follows.”
As a science, economics is really not that difficult because it encompasses decisions we make every day that impact our well-being and the well-being of those around us.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Russia's Growing Regional Debts Threaten Economic Stability / Economics / Russia
By: STRATFOR
Editor's Note: The following is the first installment of a three-part series on growing debt for Russia's regional governments.
Since the 2009 financial crisis, the Kremlin has allowed Russia's regions to take the brunt of the country's economic decline in order to keep the federal government seemingly healthy, with a nominally small budget deficit and large currency reserves. But now most of Russia's regional governments' debt is so high, it is becoming dangerous for the federal government and big banks and could soon become unmanageable.
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Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Welfare, Minimum Wages, and Unemployment / Economics / Unemployment
By: LewRockwell
Gregory Morin writes: Of the various flavors of government interventionism in our lives, the minimum wage is perhaps the most welcomed. It appeals not only to our innate sense of “fairness” but also to our self-interest. Its allure may erroneously lead us to the conclusion that because “it is popular,” ergo “it is right.”
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Ben Bernanke’s Monetary Mess / Economics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Steve_H_Hanke
Most who have graded Prof. Ben Bernanke’s twelve years at the Federal Reserve have issued marks which range from A to a gentleman’s C. I think those marks are much too generous. Indeed, I think a failing mark would be more appropriate.
In the ramp up to Britain’s Northern Rock bank run in 2007 and the Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy in September 2008, Bernanke and the Fed created a classic aggregate demand bubble: when final sales to domestic purchasers – a good proxy for aggregate demand – surge well above the trend rate of growth consistent with modest inflation. The Fed also facilitated the spawning of many market-specific bubbles in the housing, equity, and commodity markets. True to form, Fed officials have steadfastly denied any culpability for creating the bubbles that so spectacularly burst during the Panic of 2008-09.
Monday, January 20, 2014
The Retail Economic Death Rattle / Economics / US Economy
By: James_Quinn
“I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending their lives doing things they detest, to make money they don’t want, to buy things they don’t need, to impress people they don’t like.” ― Emile Gauvreau
If ever a chart provided unequivocal proof the economic recovery storyline is a fraud, the one below is the smoking gun. November and December retail sales account for 20% to 40% of annual retail sales for most retailers. The number of visits to retail stores has plummeted by 50% since 2010. Please note this was during a supposed economic recovery. Also note consumer spending accounts for 70% of GDP. Also note credit card debt outstanding is 7% lower than its level in 2010 and 16% below its peak in 2008. Retailers like J.C. Penney, Best Buy, Sears, Radio Shack and Barnes & Noble continue to report appalling sales and profit results, along with listings of store closings. Even the heavyweights like Wal-Mart and Target continue to report negative comp store sales. How can the government and mainstream media be reporting an economic recovery when the industry that accounts for 70% of GDP is in free fall? The answer is that 99% of America has not had an economic recovery. Only Bernanke’s 1% owner class have benefited from his QE/ZIRP induced stock market levitation.
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Saturday, January 18, 2014
Why Central Bankers Should Not Tinker with Aggregate Prices / Economics / Inflation
By: MISES
Frank Hollenbeck writes: In November, the ECB (European Central Bank) surprised the markets by dropping its refinancing rate to 0.25 percent to avoid dreaded deflation, and announced it seeks to keep “price growth steady at about 2 percent” which is obviously a target and not a ceiling. Recently-tame inflation data is “worrisome” for many economists and has increased calls for the ECB to be even more aggressive. Central bankers and economists remain committed to the idea that the economy can be managed by manipulating prices in the aggregate.
Saturday, January 18, 2014
Demographic Cliff Great Deflation - Harry Dent on How to Prosper in the Coming Downturn / Economics / Deflation
By: The_Gold_Report
There's little happy talk in Harry Dent's new book, "The Demographic Cliff: How to Survive and Prosper During the Great Deflation of 2014–2019," yet the author sees incredible opportunities for the investors and businesses that see this crisis coming. The founder of Dent Research relies strongly on demographic statistics and trends to predict a crash starting in early 2014 and lasting into 2015 or 2016, which will make 2008 look like a mere tumble. In this interview with The Gold Report, he delves into the economic implications of Baby Boomers aging around the world, and discusses strategies for investors to protect themselves.