Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Portugal Europe’s Economic Comeback Kid? / Economics / Euro-Zone
Marc Lichtenfeld writes: I had just returned to my hotel room in Innsbruck, Austria, when my wife called. Before I could tell her about the beautiful scenery and amazing experiences I was having on The Oxford Club’s European Opportunity Expedition, she stopped me.
I needed to hop a flight to Portugal immediately, she said. My father – who also happened to be in Europe, though not part of our tour – was having emergency (though, fortunately, routine) surgery in Lisbon.
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
If Money Printing Failed in Japan, Why Would It Work in the U.S.? / Economics / Quantitative Easing
What the Federal Reserve is doing in the U.S.—its effort to get the economy going via its money printing program—has already been tried by the second-largest economy in the world: Japan.Unfortunately, the easy monetary policy implemented by the Bank of Japan didn’t spur the Japanese economy. So why would it work for the U.S. economy?
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
The Mirage Called a “U.S. Economic Recovery” / Economics / Economic Recovery
Mohammad Zulfiqar writes: “Just give up being so negative; there’s economic growth in the U.S. economy.”
These were the exact words of my good old friend, Mr. Speculator. Over the weekend, when I received a call from him, he added, “You see the average American is better off than before. There are jobs; and no matter where you look, you won’t find much negativity. Look at the stock markets; they probably will show a 30% increase for 2013.”
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Inflation in the United States - Keeping it Real! / Economics / Inflation
“One only needs to reflect on the dramatic decline in the value of the dollar that has taken place since the Fed was established in 1913. The goods and services you could buy for $1.00 in 1913 now cost nearly $21.00. Another way to look at this is from the perspective of the purchasing power of the dollar itself. It has fallen to less than $0.05 of its 1913 value. We might say that the government and its banking cartel have together stolen $0.95 of every dollar as they have pursued a relentlessly inflationary policy.” - Ron Paul – End the Fed
The BLS reported the CPI this morning. They tell me that inflation is well contained and has only risen by 1.2% in the past twelve months. Our beloved Federal Reserve chairman is worried inflation is too low. It is fascinating that the only people worried about inflation being too low are Ivy League educated economists and bankers whose wealth depends upon the middle class sinking further into poverty.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Economic Lessons from Nazi Germany - Starvation and Military Keynesianism / Economics / Economic Theory
Julian Adorney writes: Many Americans, from the Glenview State Bank of Chicago to author Ellen Brown assume that the Nazi economic regime was successful, but closer examination tells a tale of rationing, shortages, and starvation. Learning why their economy failed can teach us how to avoid the same fate.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, December 12, 2013
U.S. Sub-Par Economic Recovery With a Propensity Towards a Downturn / Economics / US Economy
It is a regular ritual for major US businesses: the end-of-the-quarter conference call in which the CEO dissects what just happened and gives us some insight on what to expect for the future of the company. My good friend Rich Yamarone, the chief economist at Bloomberg, is the creator of the Bloomberg Orange Book, a compilation of macroeconomic anecdotes gleaned from the comments CEOs and CFOs make on their quarterly earnings conference calls. He not only sits and listens to them present their views, he also picks up the phone and talks to them. He is very clued in on what's happening in the real world of business.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Why Last Month’s Employment Numbers Should Worry Investors / Economics / Employment
Michael Lombardi writes:
Finally some good news in the U.S. jobs market?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported Friday that, in November, 203,000 jobs were added to the U.S. jobs market. As a result, the unemployment rate went down to 7.0% from 7.3% in October. In addition to this, the BLS also revised the job numbers from October and September, saying 20,000 more jobs were created than previously reported. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, December 6, 2013.)
Sunday, December 08, 2013
Enormous Discrepancy Between U.S. Jobs and Employment / Economics / Employment
Now that employment distortions related to the government shutdown in October are behind us, let's take a detailed look at the recent and growing discrepancy between jobs as reported on the establishment survey and employment as reported on the household survey.
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, December 07, 2013
Will The Real U.S. Economy Please Stand Up? / Economics / US Economy
Are economic reports finally indicating an acceleration in the economic recovery - or not?
Markets need to know. Investors need to know. Most importantly, the Fed needs to know.
The prognosis changes from month to month, even week to week, and this week even day to day, as expectations for Fed action move from taper on, to taper off, to taper on and back again.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, December 06, 2013
QE Euthanasia of the Economy? / Economics / Quantitative Easing
Today's Outside the Box comes to us from my good friend and business partner Niels Jensen of Absolute Return Partners in London. Niels gives us an excellent summary of how QE has affected the global economy (and how it hasn't). I have found myself paraphrasing Niels all week.
I also want to call to your attention an interview first posted at ZeroHedge between my friends Chris Whalen and David Kotok. This is an inside-baseball view of a not-so-minor issue involving central banks and ZIRP. The FDIC charges 7-10 basis points on deposits for the national deposit insurance scheme. At close to the zero bound, the fee means that banks can lose money on deposits. As Chris and David point out, this is just another distortion being fed into the system. David was the first to introduce me to this concept (and rather passionately). I have not written about it because it gets complicated quickly, but it highlights a very serious problem and one that is not dissimilar to the deflationary aspects of the Basel III requirements, working at odds with what central bankers are trying to do. This goes with my long-held contention that the models the Fed and all central banks are working with are simply inadequate to describe the complexity of the global economy, and we have no true idea what we are doing, just a guess and a hope.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, December 06, 2013
U.S. Fed QE Money Printing Volume to Triple Not Taper / Economics / Quantitative Easing
The US Federal Reserve bond monetization support for government finance support, financial markets, banker welfare, economic props, redemption coverage, and liquidity fire hose functions will continue to expand and definitely not diminish. Only the brain-dead, the system wonks, and the deeply deluded believe the QE volume will taper down. They are paid to think that way in the public forum, their minds compromised, their hearts darkened, their paychecks dependent. As preface in order to properly comprehend the national situation, keep in mind that the USEconomy is stuck in a nightmarish quagmire, with growth steadily in decline at between minus 3% and minus 5% annually, when reality is required. The propaganda must be pushed off the road, the price inflation not labeled as growth, and the system perceived for what it is. The USEconomy is in grotesque deterioration with absent critical mass of industry, widespread debt defaults, retail liquidations, idle plant and equipment (including malls), and systemic capital destruction from the monetary hyper inflation and the imminent specter of ObamaCare tax. In queer fashion, the modern day US factories have become shopping malls. They suffer from at least a 25% vacancy rate nationally.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, December 06, 2013
My Big Fat Chinese Plenum, Taking China's Economy to the Next Level / Economics / China Economy
No, it's not a glandular condition. China's leaders concluded the third Plenum of the 18th Party Congress a couple of weeks ago. Party Congresses last for five years and Plenums (full meetings) are annual except for the first year of each Congress where there might be two or three full meetings.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, December 05, 2013
Three U.S. Economic Charts Obama Hopes You'll Never See / Economics / US Economy
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes: Today I'm going to show you three charts Obama hoped you'd never see.
Brace yourself.
You're about to get a very different view of the "recovery" picture that the administration keeps painting for us.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, December 02, 2013
Revolutionary France’s Road to Hyperinflation / Economics / HyperInflation
Today, anyone who talks about hyperinflation is treated like the shepherd boy who cried wolf. When the wolf actually does show up, though, belated warnings will do little to keep the flock safe.
The current Federal Reserve strategy is apparently to wait for significant price inflation to show up in the consumer price index before tapering. Yet history tells us that you treat inflation like a sunburn. You don’t wait for your skin to turn red to take action. You protect yourself before leaving home. Once inflation really picks up steam, it becomes almost impossible to control as the politics and economics of the situation combine to make the urge to print irresistible.
Friday, November 29, 2013
Unemployed and Deployed in America / Economics / Unemployment
Wendy McElroy writes: Unemployment will be a global tipping point in 2014, and America will tip as well. Europe is already panicking about the likelihood of young people rioting in the streets next summer. The 17-nation Eurozone is predicting severe riots due to soaring unemployment, especially among the young. In September, the Eurozone's general unemployment rate was 12.2%; the rate for young workers was 24.1%. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, youth unemployment is nearly 60% in Greece, 55% in Spain and 40 percent in Italy and Portugal.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, November 29, 2013
Inflation, Shortages, and Social Democracy in Venezuela / Economics / Inflation
The economic turmoil in Venezuela has received increasing international media attention over the past few months. In September, the toilet paper shortage (which followed food shortages and electricity blackouts) resulted in the “temporary occupation” of the Paper Manufacturing Company, as armed troops were sent to ensure the “fair distribution” of available stocks. Similar action occurred a few days ago against electronics stores: President Nicolás Maduro accused electronics vendors of price-gouging, and jailed them with the warning that “this is just the start of what I’m going to do to protect the Venezuelan people.”
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, November 29, 2013
Ron Paul vs Paul Krugman: True Prophet vs False Prophet / Economics / Economic Theory
Isn’t it strange? We are living in the 21st century, a period of time in which people buy land on the moon, humanity has dozens of satellites providing GPS services and real time traffic information, internet brings people and information as close as one click, science and technology are making historic break throughs … but economists cannot agree on the real cause of the latest financial crash (2008).
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, November 28, 2013
The Fed Must Inflate or Die / Economics / Inflation
Chris Martenson writes: The Fed is busy doing everything in its considerable power to get credit (that is, debt) growing again so that we can get back to what it considers to be “normal.”
But the problem is that the recent past was not normal. You may have already seen this next chart. It shows total debt in the U.S. as a percent of GDP:
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Avenomics - The Clock Runs Out for the Japanese Economy / Economics / Japan Economy
By Grant Williams: In 1853 the French romantic composer Charles Gounod wrote a melody that was especially designed to sit over the Prelude No. 1 in C Major written by Johann Sebastian Bach over a century earlier. He titled it (somewhat unimaginatively, perhaps) "Meditation sur le Premier Prelude de Piano de S. Bach."
Interestingly enough, Gounod's father-in-law, the magnificently named Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmerman, transcribed the improvised melody and arranged it for violin, piano, and harmonium; and thus a piece that Gonoud himself never actually wrote down went on to become one of the most-recorded and most-played pieces of music in the history of mankind.
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Navigating the Tidal Shifts in Myanmar / Economics / Asian Economies
Keith Hilden, Georgi Ivanov, and Dylan Waller write: Developments of tidal proportions have occurred in Myanmar in recent years, as the country adopted a pivot in its domestic and foreign policy to re-engage with the world. This polar shift occurred after 50 years of isolation under the rule of a military junta that seized power in 1962. Navigating in Myanmar's quickly evolving position is a challenge, because of the dynamically developing environment in which the country finds itself. Myanmar is emerging from a situation similar to the newly independent post-colonial states in the mid-1900s, as well as the flux in which the post-Soviet space found itself after the collapse of the socialist bloc system and the USSR in 1989-91. Myanmar is developing while straddling two parallel realities.
Read full article... Read full article...