Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Friday, December 17, 2010
U.S. Housing Market Starts Show Small Recovery / Economics / Economic Recovery
By: Asha_Bangalore
Construction of new homes increased 3.9% to an annual rate of 555,000 in November, following an 11.1% drop in the previous month. Starts of single-family units advanced 6.9% in November to an annual rate of 465,000. The November level of single-family starts is marginally above the three-month moving average of single-family starts (see Chart 1), which suggests that stronger gains are necessary before we declare that home construction activity is out of the woods. Multi-family starts fell 9.1% in November, marking the third consecutive monthly decline.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
The Economic Reality of the Obama Republican Tax Deal / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Robert_Murphy
Economists and other pundits have been discussing the deal struck between Obama and the Republicans. It is an interesting topic because it showcases the enormous gulf between what makes good political sense and what policies are economically beneficial.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
U.S. Inflation Consumer Price Index Contains No Surprises / Economics / Inflation
By: Asha_Bangalore
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.1% in November following a 0.2% gain in the prior month. The CPI has risen 1.1% from a year ago compared with a 1.8% gain in the 12-month period ended November 2009. Energy prices increased only 0.2% in November vs. a 2.6% gain in October. The price index for natural gas (-5.7%) fell but gasoline prices (+0.7%) advanced for the fifth straight month, with November recording the smallest of these five monthly gains. The food price index moved up 0.2% in November after a 0.1% increase in the prior month. The important message is that the CPI continues to show a distinct decelerating trend (see Chart 1).
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Britain's Jobless Economic Recovery as UK Unemployment Hits 2.5 million / Economics / Unemployment
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The latest UK unemployment data caught the mainstream press and academic economists by surprise by showing a rise of 35k to 2.5 million (7.9%) for the three months to September 2010. UK unemployment is particularly hitting young people hard which risks creating a lost generation of increasingly angry youth (19.8% unemployed), as well as 1/2 million jobs expected to be cut from the public sector over the next 2 years, many of whom will find it difficult to adapt to the private sector jobs market.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
How to Escape the Global Debt Trap and Make a Fortune / Economics / Global Debt Crisis
By: Claus_Vogt
We have just released our new book, The Global Debt Trap: How to Escape the Danger and Build a Fortune, which we think is timed perfectly for the events now swirling around us.
And as our way of thanking you for your interest as reader, we are giving you the first sections right here in this issue …
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Economic Crisis in America: Mounting Household Debts, Threat to Pension Funds and Social Security / Economics / US Debt
By: Bob_Chapman
The experts’ keep telling us how great shopping is this Christmas Season when only 17% of shoppers are using credit cards. That is a drop of 50% from last year, and the lowest usage in 27 years. We guess buyers have unloaded the cookie jar and pulled their savings from under the mattress. The consumer sentiment index has risen 2.6, but we will wait to see if attitudes turn into sales. Home buying intentions continue to fall as interest rates hit 4.66% for a 30-year fixed mortgage this past week, putting a further damper on future sales.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Fed Inflation / Economics / Inflation
By: Axel_Merk
In August, Federal Reserve (Fed) Chairman Bernanke stated inflation was too low; in October, the Fed's Minutes lamented that the market appeared not to take Bernanke's August statements seriously enough. In our assessment, today's Fed statement of the Fed's Open Market Committee (FOMC), with an almost verbatim repetition of the previous FOMC statement, screams: "markets: trust us, we mean what we say."
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Chanos Expects to Cash in on His China Shorts During 2011 / Economics / China Economy
By: David_Haas
Here’s a recent interview with Jim Chanos on the critical state of the Chinese economic picture. Chanos typically makes his money short-selling overpriced markets and he’s “all over” China like stink on a pig; has been for well over a year.
Chanos believes 2011 will be his big year to begin cashing in on his China shorts. Here’s his reasoning:
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Bank of England's Inflation Targeting Mandate is Bankrupt as CPI Rises to 3.3% / Economics / Inflation
By: Nadeem_Walayat
UK Inflation for November rose once more to hit 3.3% form 3.2% which makes a mockery of the Bank of England's primary objective of targeting CPI inflation at 2%, instead of which UK inflation has been above 3% for virtually the whole of 2010. Not far behind the bankrupt Bank of England's temporary high inflation mantra is the mainstream press and major institutions and so called think tanks that have lapped up the Bank of England's Deflation threat propaganda and sleep walked their readers into high inflation disaster as inflation protection props have been pulled away one by one (NS&I RPI Indexed Certificates).
Monday, December 13, 2010
The U.S. Economy is Recovering and Employment is Growing - WHO’S LYING? / Economics / US Economy
By: James_Quinn
Have you noticed the latest sound bites coming from the punditry in the corporate mainstream media? Here is the latest wisdom flowing from the lying mouthpieces of the ruling oligarchy (Wall Street, Washington DC, Mega-corporations):The economy is recovering and employment is growing.
Consumers are deleveraging, saving and using cash for purchases.
Retailers are doing fantastic as consumers increase spending.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, December 13, 2010
The Fed, The Chicago School's Achilles Heel / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Robert_Murphy
In a recent post "Triumph of the Austrian Economists," David Frum laments the displacement of the respectable Chicago School as the economists of choice among the political Right. Frum fails to see that conservative Republicans are justified in switching their allegiance to the Austrian economists, because supply-side monetarists have a glaring blind spot when it comes to the Federal Reserve.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Inflation, Deflation and the U.S. Economy Year Ahead / Economics / US Economy
By: Clif_Droke
The inflation versus deflation debate has raged for years but since the credit crisis the debate has become highly politicized. If the credit crisis taught us anything it is that the risk of deflation far outweighs that of inflation. Yet there is an entrenched view emerging in political circles that is actively opposed to the government’s attempts at re-inflating the economy following the deflationary collapse of 2008. Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Mike Shedlock Deflation Proponents Rebuttal of John WIlliams Hyperinflation Call / Economics / Deflation
By: Mike_Shedlock
Those looking for Sunday entertainment can pull out the popcorn and watch this video of John Williams calling for the "Great Hyperinflationary Great Depression", coming your way soon.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Brazil the Low-carbon Economy of the Future / Economics / Brazil
By: Pravda
study by the British economist Nicholas Stern, who advises the UK government on climate change, has highlighted how Brazil can be a perfect example for the future, making the transition from being the fifth greatest polluter to becoming a leader for countries wishing to create low-carbon economies.
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Russia's Central Bank Concerned About Price Inflation Tsunami / Economics / Inflation
By: Pravda
Sergey Ignatyev, the head of the Russian Central Bank, did not exclude a possibility to raise the official bank rate next year to curb inflation. Ignatyev forecast the growth of crediting and the economy in 2011 by 20 and 5 percent respectively.
In November, the board of directors of the Central Bank (CB) decided to preserve the level of the official bank rate and interest rates on CB operations. The official bank rate was preserved on the level of 7.75 percent per annum on June 1, 2010.
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Fudge Factor in U.S. Crude Oil Trade Data? / Economics / Crude Oil
By: Andy_Sutton
For many years now this column has been periodically dedicated to the analysis of economic reports, and the exposure of ‘fudging’ that takes place in most macroeconomic data series. Immediately upon looking at this morning’s trade data it seemed that, once again, something was amiss. It probably jumped out at me because I had just finished a crude oil analysis report for December’s Centsible Investor and the information was still fresh in my mind. However, I am quite sure that I am not the only one who noticed this.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
U.S. Trade Deficit Narrows in October, Provides Lift to Q4 GDP Growth / Economics / Economic Recovery
By: Asha_Bangalore
The trade deficit narrowed to $38.7 billion in October from a gap of $44.6 billion in the prior month. The 3.2% increase in exports of goods and services and a 0.5% decline in imports of goods and services brought about a narrowing of the trade gap in October. Overall, this reading is a big plus for real GDP growth in the fourth quarter.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
John Williams of ShadowStats Warns Hyperinflation Will Start in the Next Couple Months! / Economics / HyperInflation
By: Mac_Slavo
John Williams of Shadowstats has repeatedly warned that our economy is not doing as well as some would have you believe. From unemployment to GDP to current and future liabilities, there are fundamental problems that will not be resolved anytime soon - in fact, they’re likely to get worse.
The end result according to Williams?
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, December 10, 2010
Economic Risk Leads to Financial Mistrust / Economics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: Barry_Elias
My Nov. 12 blog described how modern economists severely miscalculated the economic realities, which fueled the 2008 financial crisis.
Five days after this piece was published, the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) issued a grant to a team of experts: The mission is to derive a computational model that would represent the underlying dynamics of the financial crisis.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Fed QE2 Creates Rapidly Accelerating China Housing Bubbles and Price Inflation / Economics / China Economy
By: Jeb_Handwerger
After QE2, analysts were looking for possible consequences of the Federal Reserve Bank’s actions. What has become apparent is that the Fed has created another bubble in China. Investors globally have transferred devalued U.S. dollars and Euros to buy Chinese property and equities. China has had to combat imported inflation with rapidly rising asset prices. An influx of capital has caused a real estate bubble, a rise in costs of basic goods and excessive speculation in the commodity markets. The Chinese Central Banks will be observing the inflation data which should be coming out this weekend and will be compelled to act aggressively to prevent China from a bust similar to the housing crisis which occurred in the United States in 2007. Yesterday’s IPO’s showed that irrational exuberance is here once again, none since I have witnessed since the late 90’s.