Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Where Is the Inflation? / Economics / Inflation
By: Mark_Thornton
Critics of the Austrian School of economics have been throwing barbs at Austrians like Robert Murphy because there is very little inflation in the economy. Of course, these critics are speaking about the mainstream concept of the price level as measured by the Consumer Price Index (i.e., CPI).
Let us ignore the problems with the concept of the price level and all the technical problems with CPI. Let us further ignore the fact that this has little to do with the Austrian business cycle theory (ABCT), as the critics would like to suggest. The basic notion that more money, i.e., inflation, causes higher prices, i.e., price inflation, is not a uniquely Austrian view. It is a very old and commonly held view by professional economists and is presented in nearly every textbook that I have examined.
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Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Why You Shouldn’t Believe Japan’s New Economic Stimulus Will Work / Economics / Japan Economy
By: InvestmentContrarian
George Leong writes: Japan, under newly elected Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, will aggressively try to get the country’s economy back on track after more than two decades of economic stalling, but it will not be easy. Armed with a new stimulus spending of $116 billion, the hope is that the stimulus spending will drive consumer spending and help revitalize an economy that has been in a comatose state. (Source: “Japanese government approves $116bn stimulus package,” BBC News, January 11, 2013.)
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Monday, January 14, 2013
Austrian Economics in 2013 / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Alasdair_Macleod
Regular readers of my articles either have some knowledge of Austrian economic theory or at least suspect that Keynesian and monetarist alternatives are flawed. Their failures are becoming more evident, which suggests we will hear more of Austrian theory in 2013. So how is Austrian theory different? Consider the following simple propositions in accordance with Austrian theory, which we can confirm from personal experience:
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Friday, January 11, 2013
Outlook for the US Economy in 2013 / Economics / US Economy
By: Brian_Bloom
POTUS may have made a serious tactical error, in "engineering" the House fiscal cliff vote. US Public Debt limit negotiations loom. The error can be retrieved if he backs down and shows humility in negotiations. If he continues with his arrogant approach, the economy (and the gold price) might head south.
The chart below - courtesy Stockcharts.com – shows very clearly that the gold price has arrived at yet another decision point.
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Friday, January 11, 2013
Iran’s Lying Inflation Statistics / Economics / Inflation
By: Steve_H_Hanke
Today, the Central Bank of Iran released its inflation statistics for 2012. Remarkably, despite all of the international notoriety surrounding Iran’s outbreak of hyperinflation in October, the Central Bank claims that Iran experienced an annual inflation rate of only 27.4%.
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Thursday, January 10, 2013
Economic Collapse!A Leading Indicator Of Better Times To Come / Economics / Global Economy
By: Darryl_R_Schoon
It’s going to get better; but, first, it’s going to get worse
Time of the Vulture, 3rd ed. 2012
When I presented Time of The Vulture: How to Survive the Crisis and Prosper in the Process to the Positive Deviant Network in March 2007, the economic collapse hadn’t yet happened. The next year, it did.
At the time, I suggested those in attendance shed debt, sell their homes and buy gold. Then, the US real estate market was functioning without direct government aid, gold was $650 per ounce and the financial system was stable.
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Monday, January 07, 2013
How the U.S. Economy Will Impact Corporate America / Economics / Corporate Earnings
By: InvestmentContrarian
George Leong writes: There has been so much focus on the fiscal cliff that I feel traders are ignoring the problems of slowing growth in corporate America.
The fourth-quarter earnings season begins tomorrow with Alcoa Inc. (NYSE/AA), the first DOW stock to report in this earnings season. Alcoa is one of the world’s top aluminum makers; the stock is also a good indicator for the global economy, as aluminum is used in many industrial applications, including aircraft, automobile, commercial transportation, packaging, building and construction, oil and gas, defense, consumer electronics, and industrial applications.
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Sunday, January 06, 2013
US Jobs Report Points to an “Economy Mired in Crisis” / Economics / US Economy
By: Barry_Grey
The December employment report released Friday by the US Labor Department reflects an economy mired in crisis. It shows that five years after the official onset of recession and three and a half years after the recession’s official end, the US has failed to generate a recovery in jobs and incomes for the vast majority of the American people.
US non-farm payrolls saw a net increase of 155,000 jobs, somewhat lower than economists’ projections and barely sufficient to keep pace with the normal monthly growth of the working-age population. The official unemployment rate was set at 7.8 percent, the same as the rate for November, which was upwardly revised from 7.7 percent.
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Friday, January 04, 2013
Investor Profit from the Inflation Deflation Reality 2013 / Economics / Inflation
By: DeepCaster_LLC
“There is no practical way that QE can cease here or in Euroland without a total and final collapse of the financial system.”
“The Federal Reserve Really Has No Practical Option To End QE”
Jim Sinclair, jsmineset.com, 1/3/2013
The five year chart of the CRB Index (a Broad Measure of Commodities Prices) shows three descending tops, which is suggestive of Deflation. But to conclude that Deflation is likely to be The Ruling Force in the Economy in 2013 would be a Dangerous Error.
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Thursday, January 03, 2013
Economic Outlook 2013: Unique, Changing, Unpredictable / Economics / Global Economy
By: Andrew_McKillop
Evolutionary biologists, botanists, zoologists, ecologists and other scientists - for example astrophysicists and cosmologists - will tell you that the universal history of change has several unchanging rules. One of these, specially when it concerns living things, is that the history of life is fractal. A very simple example is any tree-type or dendritic evolutionary diagram: take away the time or scale labelling from any part of the diagram and you cannot tell which direction we are moving because evolutionary change is a process of continual splitting of the branches of the tree. We only assume (often wrongly) that living things in a species tend to get bigger or that species get more numerous or more specialized or less specialized - or any other criteria we might apply, almost randomly.
Monday, December 31, 2012
How Is America Really Doing? 75 Facts Revealed / Economics / US Economy
By: GoldSilverWorlds
An amazing list of real facts was published by The Economic Collapse Blog, entitled 75 Economic Numbers From 2012 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe. An excellent article that presents 75 facts & figures, based on research or surveys, indicating the real state of the US. Reviewing those facts and comparing them with the messages in the mainstream media and the government, we see such a huge disconnect.
We selected what we consider “fundamental facts” based on the following themes:
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Monday, December 31, 2012
Why Inflation is the Economy's Hidden Iceberg in 2013 / Economics / Inflation
By: Money_Morning
Martin Hutchinson writes:
Even though Ben Bernanke's Fed has kept interest rates close to zero, inflation hasn't been a big problem since the 2008 financial crisis.
Despite what many observers have expected inflation has remained quite tame.
However in 2013, that may be about to change. One factor that might cause a surge in inflation is the fiscal cliff.
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Saturday, December 29, 2012
Surmounting Government Confiscatory Policies & Bogus Official Economic Data / Economics / Economic Statistics
By: DeepCaster_LLC
January, 2013
“As the miscreants in Washington negotiate solutions to the [various –Ed.] crises, trial balloons have been floated that agreement has been reached to use a new CPI measure—the C-CPI-U, which tends to understate inflation even more than the CPI-U—as way of deceptively reducing cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security, etc. Not too surprisingly, public reaction appears to be turning increasingly negative, as the concept gets broader exposure in the popular press.
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Thursday, December 27, 2012
Economic Transition And The Supercycle / Economics / US Economy
By: Andrew_McKillop
WHEN IS A CYCLE A SUPERCYCLE?
The very first modern stockmarket crash of 1719-1721, of the French bourse was entirely driven by the Apple and Facebook-of-the-day. These were shares in the Mississippi Company, a company modeled on England's South Sea Company which peaked and crashed in almost exactly the same timeframe. Mississippi Co.'s first share offering IPO was in January 1719 at a unit price of 500 livres (the French currency of the time). The shares "went viral" driving prices to 10 000 livres per share by December 1719, an 11-month gain of 1,900 percent. All kinds of people became "investors" and many became millionaires just from their holdings of Company shares. The French word “millionaire” was coined to describe speculators who got lucky and got wealthy as a result of the Mississippi Bubble.
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Why Japan's "Lost Decades" Economic Depression Are Headed For America in 2016 / Economics / Great Depression II
By: Money_Morning
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes:
It's only been a little more than a week since Shinzo Abe won election as Japan's latest Prime Minister in a landslide-election victory and the pundits are already lining up telling investors to "buy Japan" because it's "dirt cheap."
The hope is that Abe's promises of fresh stimulus, unlimited spending and placing a priority on domestic infrastructure will be the elixir that restores Japan's global muscle.
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Monday, December 24, 2012
Present Crisis Pattern, End of the Third Industrial Revolution / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Submissions
Wim Grommen writes: This paper advances a hypothesis of the end of the third industrial revolution and the beginning of a new transition. Every production phase or civilization or human invention goes through a so- called transformation process. Transitions are social transformation processes that cover at least one generation. In this paper I will use one such transition to demonstrate the position of our present civilization. When we consider the characteristics of the phases of a social transformation we may find ourselves at the end of what might be called the third industrial revolution. The paper describes the four most radical transitions for mankind and the effects for mankind of these transitions: the Neolithic transition, the first industrial revolution, the second industrial revolution and the third industrial revolution.
Monday, December 24, 2012
Why Bernanke’s Terrified of 2013 / Economics / US Economy
By: Graham_Summers
On December 12, the US Federal Reserve surprised yet again by announcing QE 4: a program through which it would purchase $45 billion of US Treasuries every month.
Between this program and the Fed’s QE 3 Program announced in September, the Fed will be monetizing $85 billion worth of assets every month ($40 billion worth of Treasuries and $45 billion worth of Mortgage Backed Securities) ad infinitum.
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Sunday, December 23, 2012
Government Spending is Not Economic Growth: Real GDPP 2000–2011 / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Robert_Higgs
In the 1930s and 1940s, when the modern system of national income and product accounts (NIPA) was being developed, the scope of national product was a hotly debated issue. No issue stirred more debate than the question, Should government product be included in gross product? Simon Kuznets (Nobel laureate in economic sciences, 1971), the most important American contributor to the development of the accounts, had major reservations about including all government purchases in national product. Over the years, others have elaborated on these reasons and adduced others.
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Bernanke Loosens Up, Fundementally Misunderstands How Weath is Created / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Frank_Shostak
On Wednesday December 12, 2012 Fed policy makers announced that they will boost their main stimulus tool by adding $45 billion of monthly Treasury purchases to an existing program to buy $40 billion of mortgage debt a month.
This decision is likely to boost the Fed’s balance sheet from the present $2.86 trillion to $4 trillion by the end of next year. Policy makers also announced that an almost zero interest rate policy will stay intact as long as the unemployment rate is above 6.5% and the rate of inflation doesn’t exceed the 2.5% figure.
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Sunday, December 23, 2012
U.S. Miles Driven Economic Indicator Hits Another Post-Crisis Low / Economics / US Economy
By: PhilStockWorld
Courtesy of Doug Short.The Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Commission has released the latest report on Traffic Volume Trends, data through October. Travel on all roads and streets changed by 0.3% (0.9 billion vehicle miles) for October 2012 as compared with October 2011. The 12-month moving average of miles driven increased only 0.51% from October a year ago (PDF report). And the civilian population-adjusted data (age 16-and-over) has set another post-financial crisis low.