Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Trade Solutions That Won’t Work / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Ian_Fletcher
Americans in recent decades have not, of course, been entirely unaware that America has a trade problem. This has drawn into public debate a long list of proposed solutions. Unfortunately, many will not work, some are based on analytical confusions, and a few are outright nonsense. If we are to understand the true scope of our problem and frame solutions that will work, these false hopes must be debunked forthwith.Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Why a Flat Tariff on All U.S. Imports Would Work / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Ian_Fletcher
I advocate protectionism. But one standard criticism is that this would just result in politically connected industries getting tariffs raised on the products they produce. This would corrupt our economy, force consumers to pay higher prices, and serve no legitimate economic logic. Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Economic Booms, Busts, and Food Prices / Economics / Food Crisis
By: Gary_North
Maybe you have heard about rising food prices. It is happening all over the world. We hear of Third World rural populations that are trapped by rising food prices.
Why are food prices rising? Simple: because urban people in formerly Third World nations are getting richer. India and China are the obvious examples. As these economies are freed from the regulations that once burdened them, the growing urban middle class bids up the price of food. People with money in their pockets like to eat more and better food. In the bidding war between rural people with little capital and therefore low incomes vs. urban residents with more capital and higher incomes, rural people lose.
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Saturday, February 26, 2011
In Praise of Mercantilism, or Why Economic History Isn’t Boring / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Ian_Fletcher
Does economic history hold a giant clue for getting America out of its present trade mess? Yes, because it debunks the idea that free trade is how nations become prosperous. Instead, it shows that nations win at international trade by playing a 400-year-old game called mercantilism.Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, February 26, 2011
U.S. Real Growth GDP for Q4 2010 Revised Lower to 2.8% from 3.2% / Economics / US Economy
By: Asha_Bangalore
Downward revisions of consumer spending (4.1% vs. 4.4% advance estimate) and state & local government outlays (-2.4% vs. -0.9% advance estimate) were the two major sources of revisions accounting for the reduction in the pace of growth of real GDP in the fourth quarter of 2010 to 2.8% from 3.2% in the advance estimate. In addition, spending on equipment and software and residential investment expenditures were reported to have advanced at a slower clip in the fourth quarter (see table below).
Friday, February 25, 2011
The Economic Recovery that Never Was / Economics / US Economy
By: Andy_Sutton
It is my belief that as the headlines continue to roll in about fiscal woes from sea to shining sea that we are going to get a full appreciation for the fraud that has been perpetrated on the American people in the form of the ‘economic recovery’ that the media has been stumping for since the middle of 2009. This ‘wag the dog’ type undertaking has been about confidence, perceptions, and little else. Absolutely, there are pockets of the nation where people have found work. After all, when your government dumps nearly a trillion dollars into the economy it is going to have SOME effect. Our goal from the beginning of these hyperstimulation maneuvers was to point out the unsustainability of this course of action and more importantly to predict the consequences thereof.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Top 12 Countries at Extreme Risk of Economic Collapse / Economics / Global Economy
By: Dian_L_Chu
Risk analysis firm Maplecroft just released its new fiscal risk index ranking of 163 countries. Europe trumps all other regions with 11 out of twelve courtiers rated as "extreme risk." However, quite surprisingly, only one PIIGS country--Italy which takes the top spot--is in the top 12.
Friday, February 25, 2011
World Economy Returns to Pre Financial Crisis Levels / Economics / Global Economy
By: Pravda
The year 2010 ended with considerable growths in the volumes of global trade. This index reached the pre-crisis level in December. The volume of trade increased by 15.1 percent during the year. The world economy demonstrated a stable improvement after the critical year of 2009, when the volume of global trade dropped by 13 percent. The commodity circulation is expected to increase as well, experts believe.
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Thursday, February 24, 2011
Inflation Is Here, and It Is Going to Get Worse / Economics / Inflation
By: Frank_Shostak
As compared to September last year, the growth momentum of price indexes shows visible strengthening. Year on year, the rate of growth of the consumer price index (CPI) rose to 1.6 percent in January from 1.5 percent in the month before and 1.1 percent in September last year. Also the growth momentum of the consumer price index less food and energy has strengthened in recent months. The yearly rate of growth climbed to 1 percent from 0.8 percent in December and 0.6 percent in October.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Why Have Nations at All? The Case for Economic Borders / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Ian_Fletcher
Why have nations at all, economically speaking?This question is provoked by the fact that every few months, without fail, somebody writes to me and asks why, if the protectionism I advocate between the U.S. and the rest of the world is rational, why isn't it rational to have tariffs between the various states of the U.S.? And since it clearly doesn't make any sense to have tariffs on trade between, say, California and Oregon, it follows that nations shouldn't practice economic protectionism either.
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Wednesday, February 23, 2011
U.S. Consumer Confidence Moves Up, Largely From the Expectations Component / Economics / US Economy
By: Asha_Bangalore
The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index rose 5.6 points to 70.4 in February, the highest reading in three years (see Chart 3). The Current Situation Index (33.4 vs.31.1 in January) and the Expectations Index (95.1 vs. 87.3 in January) both posted gains, with the latter climbing to the highest level since December 2006 (see Chart 4).
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Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Chinese Workers Surplus Value Makes China A World Economic Power / Economics / China Economy
By: Submissions
Prof. (Dr.) Raju M. Mathew writes: Karl Max, when developed the Theory of Surplus Value, might have never imagined that by using Communism, China would put the same Theory of Surplus Value in to practice more effectively than the Capitalists. Marx believed that the very basis of capital was keeping the workers at subsistence level and making them work at full capacity and taking away their surplus value.
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Monday, February 21, 2011
Address Structural Economic Problems of Unemployment, Debt, and Inflation With Chicanery / Economics / US Economy
By: D_Sherman_Okst
Structural Economic Problem #1: Unemployment
Seventy percent of our economy is driven from private sector employment:
- Without consumers the economy is finished
- Without jobs and with maxed out debt loads the consumer is finished
Monday, February 21, 2011
Commerce Is a People's Revolution / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Douglas_French
The big-box book business has begun to crumble with the bankruptcy filing of book-selling behemoth Borders. The Chapter 11 filing indicates the company is looking to restructure its debts and continue on. But as in the case of bankrupt Blockbuster, there may not be anything to restructure, with both of these old-technology companies destined for liquidation and futures of little more than Wikipedia entries chronicling each company's past glories.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Global Economy on the Edge of Chaos / Economics / Economic Theory
By: David_Knox_Barker
Nobel economist Friedrich Hayek’s most enduring legacy is his defense of classical liberalism and free market capitalism. The Road to Serfdom is Hayek’s case against central planning, something he viewed as a product of human design as opposed to human action. Hayek and his mentor Ludwig von Mises were the preeminent writers and thinkers of the Austrian school of economics and political economy.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
An Improving U.S. Economy, But Where Are the Jobs? / Economics / Economic Recovery
By: John_Mauldin
I am on yet another plane and writing, and I'll finish this letter in Phoenix. As I start, I am not sure of a theme for this week's letter, so (with a tip of the hat to my friend Burton Malkiel, who I will see at Rob Arnott's conference in a few months), today we do a Random Walk Around the Frontlines, surveying what's going on in the world. We'll start with the Fed and interest rates, look at inflation, and see how far we get. And I might get a little controversial, but long-time readers know that is not all that unusual.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Egypt's Economy in Crisis / Economics / Middle East
By: Global_Research
Dr. Ali Kadri writes: Just a week after the Tunisian revolution, at a conference in Beirut, an astute Egyptian social scientist was asked, would the Tunisian contagion spread to Egypt? And his answer was a categorical, ‘it is not likely, Egyptians are religious, conservative and the security apparatus has a good grip on the country.’ Not long after, of course, the Egyptian popular uprising had proven once more that not only cultural explanations of revolutions were inapposite tools of analysis, but it has also shown that when the time comes for people to rise up, they just do so unexpectedly. Suddenly, all the facts on the grounds explain the revolution. They fall into place like a two piece puzzle. It would thereafter be said that the revolution was historically overdetermined despite the most recognisable fact, which is, no one could have predicted it and the social seismic metre did not even record any serious pre-traumatic tremors. All the conditions for the revolution were there last year and the year before. So why now?
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Bernanke Says Two Speed Economic Recovery Requires Different Policies / Economics / Economic Recovery
By: Asha_Bangalore
Chairman Bernanke's speech was drawn from his paper examining the nature of international capital flows prior to the global financial meltdown. The analysis is long on detail and useful for policymakers and research. More importantly, Bernanke indicated that the two speed global economy calls for different policies.
Friday, February 18, 2011
What Economics is Not / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Andy_Sutton
It is starting again. It is a phenomenon that occurs more regularly now, especially with daily talk of massive imbalances right along with a massive boost in activity. More and more people are scratching their heads wondering what gives. Once again, economics has become a debating society. There are Keynesians, Austrians, the Classic folks, and those who will use ridiculous rationale and textbook, but not applicable accounting definitions to try to assert that we’re really getting rich every time the government borrows another dollar. It is no wonder people are confused. Like so many other areas of our society, particularly morality, the definitions have been skewed, the lines, blurred, and the waters made muddy.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Calculating the Misery of Inflation / Economics / Inflation
By: Richard_Daughty
I was, unfortunately, sober enough to realize that I needed to get a lot drunker if I was going to withstand the horror of reading of even more economic fallout of the Federal Reserve's disastrous decisions to create So Freaking Much Money (SFMM).
In particular, Michael Pento, in an essay in the Euro Pacific's Weekly Digest newsletter, writes, "For the year 2010, the trade gap surged 43%, which was the biggest jump in a decade, as our government's efforts to reignite consumer borrowing and spending led to a record number of imported consumer goods."
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