Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Egypt's Next Crisis: The Economy / Economics / Middle East
By: STRATFOR
Until just a few years ago, Egypt’s ruling military elite was able to “borrow” money from Egyptian banks with no intention of paying it back. President Hosni Mubarak’s son Gamal changed all that, reforming and privatizing the system in order to build an empire for himself. For the first time in centuries, Egypt’s financial position was not entirely dependent upon outside forces. Now, Mubarak and his reform-minded son are out of the picture and Egypt has a budget deficit and a government debt load that are teetering on the edge of sustainability.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Food and Energy Prices Major Culprits in U.S. Consumer Price Index Gains / Economics / Inflation
By: Asha_Bangalore
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.4% in January, after a similar increase in the prior month. The difference between December and January price data is that food (+0.5%) and energy (+2.1%) and the core CPI (+0.2%), which excludes food and energy, rose in January, while higher energy prices (+4.0%) played the major role in December. The CPI has moved up 1.63% from a year ago, which is a 48 bps increase since June 2010 (+1.05%), the recent low for the CPI (see Chart 1). Higher food and energy prices accounted for two thirds of the increase in the overall CPI in January.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Global Systemic Crisis, World Geopolitical Breakup By End of 2011 / Economics / Global Economy
By: LEAP
With this issue our team is celebrating two important anniversaries in anticipation terms. Exactly five years ago, in February 2006, the GEAB N°2 suddenly encountered worldwide success by announcing the next "Triggering of a major global crisis" characterized especially by "The end of the West as we have known it since 1945”.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
The Fed's Policy of Creating Inflation: A Massive Wealth Transfer / Economics / Inflation
By: Prof_Rodrigue_Trembl
"If once [the people] become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions." Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), 3rd US President
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), 3rd US President
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Thursday, February 17, 2011
Fed Upgrades U.S. GDP Growth Forecast, Remains Significantly Concerned About Unemployment / Economics / US Economy
By: Asha_Bangalore
The minutes of the January FOMC meeting show the Fed more optimistic about economic growth in 2011. The Fed raised the central tendency for real GDP growth in 2011 to 3.4% - 3.9% from the November forecast of 3.0% to 3.6% (see Table 1). The revisions to projections of economic growth in 2012 and 2013 were small compared with the revision of estimates for 2011.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Bank of England Quarterly Inflation Propaganda Report Attempts to Mask Stagflation / Economics / Inflation
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The Bank of England latest quarterly inflation report continued the trend of pumping out economic propaganda masquerading as forecasts so as to better manage the British populations inflation expectations and prevent a wage price spiral from taking hold by continuing the mantra of temporary factors driving inflation as each month for the past year the Bank of England MPC has danced between differing temporary factors.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Inflation Fools and Central-Bank Clowns / Economics / Inflation
By: Adrian_Ash
With interest rates impotent, more or less quantitative easing looks the only policy choice open...
YOU CAN'T BLAME the financial press for being so wrong, so often.
Every financial decision you might make today is now a speculation on what will happen to interest rates. So pretty much every story a financial journalist might write starts and ends with central-bank cant, too. Because outside the inaction of each monthly vote, central-bank policy is a mass of half-truths and bunk.
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Wednesday, February 16, 2011
America Poised for a Hyperinflationary Event? / Economics / HyperInflation
By: Michael_Pollaro
It is a long standing proposition of many, supported on both theoretical and historical grounds, that one of the surest roads to hyperinflation is one grounded in a government whose answer to every economic and social problem is to borrow and spend the problem away, supported by a central bank able, willing and ready to finance the effort. That support is of course to simply print the money through which to buy the debt so issued by the government – what is euphemistically called monetizing the debt – thereby exploding the supply of money and eventually trashing its value.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
The Politics of Inflation / Economics / Inflation
By: Axel_Merk
In arguing food inflation is not the Federal Reserve’s (Fed’s) fault, Fed Chairman Bernanke points the finger at everyone but him. Just as with a lot of Bernanke’s policies, his argument may hold in an academic setting, but the real world is a bit more complicated.
Summarizing the greatest money printing experiment in monetary history, Bernanke proudly stipulates that the program has been “effective”, because:
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Wednesday, February 16, 2011
China Inflation: Getting Worse and Coming To A Wal-Mart Near You / Economics / Inflation
By: Dian_L_Chu
On Tuesday Feb. 15, China reported its consumer prices (CPI) rose 4.9% year-over-year (yoy) in January, which came in less than expected. Economists were expecting 5.4% inflation, based on a Bloomberg survey.
However, after digesting the data, Asian markets closed mixed on that news, with China’s Shanghai Composite staying flat after a choppy trading session.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
U.S. Economy Flight 666, On a One Way Inflation Ticket To Zimbabwe Part2 / Economics / Inflation
By: D_Sherman_Okst
Part 1 Here: In the fine book “I.O.U.S.A.” former Comptroller General David Walker said, ”[The] fourth and most serious of all is a leadership deficit.” The material I reviewed underscores Walker’s observation.
I’m a huge Paul Ryan fan. I’m impressed with his handle on our budget. I give him a tremendous amount of credit for addressing our dismal fiscal situation head on. I commend him for making it the center of his work. This is something most politicians refuse to even mention, let alone address in public.
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Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Mergers and Acquisitions and the Destruction of Wealth / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Douglas_French
The stock market has been on a tear and it's all about mergers and acquisitions (M&A).
Last year ended up being a blockbuster for global mergers and acquisitions, with the total number of deals and values both rising by over 20 percent for 2010, hitting $2.4 trillion. Private equity buyouts meanwhile rose 7.2 percent, marking the strongest year for buyouts since 2007. Activity in M&A more than doubled in Australia; the Asia-Pacific region saw M&A deal value reach its highest value on record; and M&A deals also jumped 37 percent in Europe.
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Tuesday, February 15, 2011
U.S. Fed Inflation Policy Means The Weak and the Slow Get Crushed / Economics / Inflation
By: Fred_Sheehan
"We do not now have a problem.... Inflation made here in the U.S. is very, very low" - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, February 10, 2011
"Inflation is a means by which the strong can more effectively exploit the weak.... [Inflation] introduces an element of deceit into our economic dealings.... [T]he increasing uncertainty in providing privately for the future pushes people who are seeking security toward the government." - Federal Reserve Governor Henry C. Wallich, Fordham University, Commencement Address, June 28, 1978
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Tuesday, February 15, 2011
UK Inflation CPI 4%, RPI 5.1%, Real 6.6%, Pressure Building on Wage Price Spiral / Economics / Inflation
By: Nadeem_Walayat
UK Inflation for January 2011 leapt to CPI 4% from 3.7%, leaving the Bank of England Governor, Mervyn King to press print on another letter full of worthless excuses as to why high Inflation is still temporary more than a year on. The facts are that the Bank of England via its policy of HIGH Inflation is destroying a lifetime of accumulated capital of savers, as interest earned on savings after tax will be lucky to be at HALF the official inflation rate, never mind the actual inflation rate that is nearer to 6.6%, all as part of the continuing programme for the transference of wealth from tax payers and savers onto the balance sheets of the bailed out banks that generate fictitious profits on the basis of which billions are paid out in bonuses.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
U.S. Economy Flight 666, On a One Way Inflation Ticket To Zimbabwe / Economics / Inflation
By: D_Sherman_Okst
I’ve finally had the time to thoroughly study Bernanke’s entire Press Club speech, his appearance before Representative Paul Ryan’s House Budget Committee and bulk of the recently released 2005 FOMC minutes.
The conclusion I have drawn from all this data is that the captain of our economy, Ben Bernanke, is either an economic imbecile or a financial terrorist. Through evil intent, or sheer stupidity, the outcome remains unchanged. The bottom-line: He has hijacked our economy flight and changed our destination. Bernanke is about to crash Flight 666 and all 308 million of us sitting helplessly in the passenger cabin into Zimbabwe’s airport known as Hell’s Hyperinflation Field.
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Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Inflation Grand Theft USA – Prices Go Parabolic / Economics / Inflation
By: PhilStockWorld
Two percent! That’s how much the price of EVERYTHING has gone up IN AMERICA since Christmas Day, just 6 weeks ago. This is according to the very reliable Billion Prices Project at MIT, which collects pricing data every day from online retailers using a software that scans the underlying code in public webpages and stores the relevant price information in the database. The daily online index is an average of individual price changes across multiple categories and retailers that provides real-time information on major inflation trends.
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Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Economic Outlook: Current Administration vs. Congressional Budget Office / Economics / Government Spending
By: Asha_Bangalore
The current administration and the Congressional Budget Office project a considerable reduction of the budget deficit as a percentage of GDP in 2012 and 2013 (see Chart 1). The current administration predicts the federal budget deficit to decline to 7.0% of GDP in 2012 from 10.9% in 2011 and further reduction to 4.6% is anticipated for 2013. The Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) predictions show the federal budget deficit also dropping to 7.0% in 2012 from 9.8% in 2011. The CBO expects the budget deficit to stand at 4.3% of GDP in 2013.
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Monday, February 14, 2011
Economists Lost in a Maze of Money Aggregates? / Economics / Money Supply
By: Robert_Murphy
One of the most important concepts in economic theory is the quantity of money. However, when going from theory to practical application, things get messy. In the real world, it's not obvious how to count up the amount of "money" in the economy at any given time.
Monday, February 14, 2011
The Two Roads Out of Recession / Economics / Economic Recovery
By: Shamus_Cooke
Recent events in Washington, D.C. should provoke fear and outrage in the average American worker. As the jobs recession staggers on, politicians and labor leaders alike seem bizarrely distanced from reality, unable to advance any ideas that remotely correspond to the basic demands of those tens of millions of unemployed, under-employed, or poorly paid workers.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Ten Reasons Why it is So Difficult to Find a Job in America Today / Economics / Unemployment
By: Pravda
Have you been unemployed lately? If so, then you probably know how frustrating it is to try to find a job in the United States today. It now takes the average unemployed worker about 33 weeks to find a job. There are millions of Americans that have not been able to find a full-time job even after searching hard for an entire year. Some areas of the United States have been devastated so badly by the economic downturn that they are starting to resemble war zones. Unless you have been there, it is hard to even try to describe the extreme frustration that one feels when you are unable to pay the mortgage and feed your family. It can be absolutely soul-crushing.