Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Deflation Arrives In The Eurozone / Economics / Deflation
By: Raul_I_Meijer
Dave Fairtex: I've recently been exploring the statistical data warehouse provided by the ECB, and I was able to assemble the following chart, comprising MFI Loans (MFI = monetary financial institution) + Bonds (sovereign & corporate). It was good timing, because it shows that for the first time during this whole crisis, the eurozone has dropped into deflation.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Usury, Greed, Disorganized Capital and The Playtime Economy / Economics / Global Debt Crisis 2013
By: Andrew_McKillop
USURY
The French law No 737 of July 2010 relating to and defining usury for consumer credit loans, and applied by the Bank of France on credit supplying establishments, defines the rate at which loans of less than 1524 euros become "usurious" and illegal at 20.30%. For loans of more than 1524 euros, usury starts at 19.89% annual, for loans from 1 January 2013. The less you borrow, the more you pay in interest - this is economics in motion, for example the notion that it is"logical" that borrowing less produces more risk for the lender! The European Central Bank, which at any time can lend to the Bank of France, for loans from July 2012, from its highest rate Marginal Lending Facility, presently charges 1.50% per year for these "higher risk" loans, which BoF can then distribute or on-lend to private banks at "advantageous rates". Obviously an interesting business.
Friday, February 15, 2013
From Shipping To Shopping: Rationing To Economic Austerity / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Andrew_McKillop
MODELS AND PRECEDENTS
When World War II started in September 1939 the UK's first rationed commodity was unsurprisingly petroleum. By January 1940 food was added to the list: bacon, butter and sugar were firstly rationed, followed by meat, tea, coffee, jam, biscuits, breakfast cereals, cheese, eggs, lard, milk, canned fruits and dried fruits. This, also unsurprisingly, produced a black market within the first 12 months.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
The Deflationary Spiral Bogey / Economics / Deflation
By: Robert_Blumen
What is deflation? According to dictionary.com, it is “a fall in the general price level or a contraction of credit and available money.”
Falling prices. That sounds good, especially if you have set some cash set aside and are thinking about a major purchase.
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Thursday, February 14, 2013
Why Inflation in 2013 Is Imminent / Economics / Inflation
By: Money_Morning
Jeff Uscher writes: Is a spike in the monetary base - currency in circulation plus bank reserves at the Fed - the first sign of imminent inflation?
Art Cashin, the well-respected director of floor operations at the New York Stock Exchange for UBS, recently told King World News the increase in the monetary base may well be a sign of impending inflation.
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Thursday, February 14, 2013
Pensions Catastrophe, Government Tricks Digging a Very Deep Hole / Economics / Pensions & Retirement
By: John_Mauldin
“The government is the prisoner of the bureaucracy. We have 4,021 associations and 6,200 codes. You simply cannot change things. There are 600,000 tax elements. No one really knows who pays what.” – A journalist in Greece
For all the focus on the unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare, there is another unfunded crisis brewing, and this one is in your own back yard. It’s coming to you even if you live outside of the US; it just might take a little longer to get there. I wrote ten years ago that state and local pension funds might be underfunded by as much as $2 trillion. It turns out that I was being overly optimistic. New government research suggests that the figure might be as high as $3 trillion. But what if you take into account that retirees are living longer? An IMF study that we’ll look at in a few minutes does just that. And if we live a lot longer? Oh my. The problems are not universal – some cities and states will do fine, while others are already in deep kimchee – but it’s a big problem and getting worse.
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Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Politicians Waging War on Work / Economics / Economic Theory
By: MISES
Nicholas Freiling writes: Employment law is a mainstay of state economic policy. Few question its efficacy as a means to correct “market failures”—like unlivable wages for meaningful work—that would leave society in shambles. In fact, no serious debate exists among American policymakers about the benefits of such laws. Their utility is simply assumed.
But laws that restrict or stipulate the terms of voluntary employment contracts stifle economic progress and make life harder for everyone—even those for whom the laws were designed to aid.
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Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Why America’s Economic Confidence Is Fragile / Economics / US Economy
By: InvestmentContrarian
George Leong writes: The recession is over, and the U.S. economy is showing some encouraging signs of economic renewal.
Shoppers are hitting the malls and stores, helping to drive up retail sales. I’d stick with the top department stores, like Macys, Inc. (NYSE/M), or discounters, such as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE/WMT), which will continue to rebound.
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Wednesday, February 13, 2013
The Great American Economic Rebound Has Just Begun / Economics / Economic Recovery
By: Money_Morning
Martin Hutchinson writes: The U.S. manufacturing renaissance is not just a fantasy - it is actually happening. Jobs that had been outsourced to China and elsewhere really are returning to the United States.
Believe it or not, this "reshoring" already has reversed the long, steady decline of manufacturing jobs in the U.S.
In fact, since 2010 America has added roughly 500,000 manufacturing jobs, an increase of 4.3%.
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Wednesday, February 13, 2013
China Economy Out With the Dragon, In With the Snake / Economics / China Economy
By: Frank_Holmes
During this Chinese New Year, more than a billion people will be welcoming in the Year of the Black Water Snake, celebrating with family and friends all week long. The previous Year of the Black Water Snake was in 1953, which was when China launched its first Five-Year Plan and the average annual income for a family in the U.S. was about $4,000.
As the Dragon took its last breath of the year, it exhaled plenty of fire into China: Looking at year-over-year data as of the end of January, new bank loans, passenger car sales and exports all rose while inflation was slightly lower. Imports of key commodities we track, crude oil, aluminum and copper, were also exceptional, with month-over-month increases of 6 percent, 4 percent and 3 percent, respectively.
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Sunday, February 10, 2013
Euro-zone Rebalancing the Wrong Way as German Trade Surplus Hits Five-Year High / Economics / Euro-Zone
By: Mike_Shedlock
Looking for evidence of rebalancing in Europe? Don't look here: German 2012 trade surplus soars despite weak December reports
Read full article... Read full article...Germany's trade surplus was the second highest in more than 60 years in 2012, pointing to an underlying resilience in Europe's largest economy, although both imports and exports disappointed in the last month of the year.
Exports rose just 0.3 percent in December from November, compared with a forecast rise of 1.3 percent, and imports fell 1.3 percent against expectations for a rise of 1.4 percent .
Sunday, February 10, 2013
The Economic Errors of Keynes / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Philipp_Bagus
[Los Errores de la Vieja Economía • Juan Ramón Rallo • UNIÓN EDITORIAL, S.A.; 1st edition]
The Austrian School of economics has provided the world with devastating critics of Keynes's magnum opus The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (TGT) for a long time. Friedrich A. von Hayek, Jacques Rueff, Henry Hazlitt, Murray Rothbard, Ludwig Lachmann, Ludwig von Mises, and William Hutt have already provided important arguments against Keynes and Keynesianism.
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Sunday, February 10, 2013
Fed’s Destructive Monetary Policies Expose Mainstream Economic Fallacies / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Frank_Shostak
At the annual meeting of the American Economic Association in San Diego (January 4–6, 2013), Harvard professor of economics Benjamin Friedman said,
The standard models we teach … simply have no room in them for what most of the world’s central banks have done in response to the crisis.
Friedman also advises sweeping aside the importance of the role of monetary aggregates. On this he said,
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Saturday, February 09, 2013
John Williams: How to Survive the Illusion of Economic Recovery / Economics / Great Depression II
By: The_Gold_Report
There is no economic recovery, and there are no signs that a recovery is coming, says Shadowstats.com author John Williams. In this Gold Report interview, he blames mal-adjusted inflation statistics for creating an alternate reality that overestimates economic activity in a way that is unsustainable. Williams warns that eventually the painful truth will be so difficult that even government manipulation won't be able to deny it and that is when hyperinflation will take its toll on those who have not taken his advice for preserving purchasing power and securing wealth.
Saturday, February 09, 2013
Veblen's Prediction: The Triumph Of Capital Rent / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Andrew_McKillop
THEN AND NOW
As early as 1921 Thorstein Veblen felt able to predict that capital rentiers in the non-communist western economies would voluntarily abandon industry, like the rentiers of the recently founded Soviet Union who had been forced at gunpoint to abandon their control of industry, and the "super profits" that industry could deliver. His argument was that capital rentiers in the "free market" economies had already proven, during and after the long depression that started in April 1873 and tailed off by the end of the 1880s, that they could extract more rent, or super profits from the "pure play" of capital, than from classic or conventional economic rent extracting activities, like industry.
Friday, February 08, 2013
Deflation Questions / Economics / Deflation
By: Jeff_Berwick
Robert Blumen writes: What is deflation?
According to dictionary.com, it is “a fall in the general price level or a contraction of credit and available money”.
Falling prices. That sounds good, especially if you have set some cash set aside and are thinking about a major purchase.
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Thursday, February 07, 2013
Illusions of Euro-zone Economic Stabilization / Economics / Euro-Zone
By: Mike_Shedlock
In Germany Rebounds but ... I noted a recovery "of sorts" in Germany, a contraction in France at the steepest rate in four years, and a record decrease in services employment in Italy.
Thus, it should be no surprise to see the Markit Eurozone Composite PMI® shows national divergence hits record high.
Yet, in aggregate, the eurozone contraction decelerated with the eurozone composite PMI rising from 47.2 to 48.6.
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Thursday, February 07, 2013
Euro-zone Prisoner of Bureaucracy, The Good, the Bad, and the Greek / Economics / US Economy
By: John_Mauldin
“The euro will not survive the first major European recession.” – Milton Friedman, 1999
“It seems to me that Europe, especially with the addition of more countries, is becoming ever-more susceptible to any asymmetric shock. Sooner or later, when the global economy hits a real bump, Europe’s internal contradictions will tear it apart.” – Milton Friedman, 1999
“… there will be asymmetric shocks hitting the different countries. That will mean that the only adjustment mechanism they have to meet that with is fiscal and unemployment: pressure on wages, pressure on prices.” – Milton Friedman, 1998
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Thursday, February 07, 2013
U.S. Econcomy ALL IS WELL! PhD in Stupidity / Economics / US Economy
By: James_Quinn
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” – Aldous Huxley
I woke up this past Saturday morning and opened my local paper to find out that all was well. An Associated Press article declared a healthy jobs market, fantastic auto sales, a surging housing market, and a stock market rocketing to new all-time highs. What’s not to love? If the mainstream media says the economy is as good as new, it must be so. Why should we let facts get in the way of a good storyline? The stock market has surged to 2007 highs, so the country’s employment situation must be strong.
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Wednesday, February 06, 2013
Hidden Good News Buried in Bad U.S. GDP Economic Data / Economics / US Economy
By: Money_Morning
Martin Hutchinson writes: The markets were hit with an unexpected twist last week. On Wednesday the Bureau of Economic Analysis shocked markets by announcing that U.S. Gross Domestic Product had declined by 0.1% in the fourth quarter.
That marked the first time economic output had fallen since the end of the Great Recession.
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