Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Job Creation and Green Energy Sector / Economics / Energy Resources
Even though unemployment claims drop, while job openings rise in September, the U.S. economy still shed 95,000 jobs in September with steep losses in government employment offsetting moderate rise in private sectors, based on the latest Labor Department reports.
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Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Bank of England Prepares to Print Money Despite High Inflation at CPI 3.1% / Economics / Inflation
UK Inflation for September 2010 was unchanged at CPI 3.1%, remaining stubbornly above the Bank of England's upper limit of 3% and target of 2%, despite virtually 10 months of worthless mantra from the BoE Governor that high inflation was ALWAYS just temporary and imminently expected to fall back to below the 2% target. The more recognised RPI (real inflation) measure dipped marginally from 4.7% from 4.6% and which compares against average pay rises of 2% which illustrates the squeeze that ordinary people are experiencing especially as taxes rise and Government spending is cut.
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Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Fed Deflation Concerns Trump Inflation Worries / Economics / Deflation
Sluggish job data released in the United States last week will once again highlight the U.S. Federal Reserve’s primary policy concern: an economic retreat back into a recession followed by years of deflation. We have never been in the double-dip camp, but we have no doubt about the Fed’s priorities, and neither does the global investment community. The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, William Dudley, made it clear that the near-term risk of deflation trumped any long-term concerns about inflation. In fact, the market is now reasonably assuming the Fed is once again committed to asset inflation as a way to re-energize the real economy. The result has been a scramble for risky assets, and “The Bernanke Put” is already joining the popular market lexicon.
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Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Krugman is a Smart Fellow but Obsessed with Government Spending / Economics / Economic Theory
Murray Sabrin writes: Paul Krugman wears many hats — Princeton University professor, New York Times columnist, Nobel Laureate in Economics (2008), prolific author of scholarly books and journal articles, and now president of the Eastern Economic Association. The EEA is a regional scholarly group that publishes a journal and holds an annual academic conference in New York City every other year. The EEA is housed in the Anisfield School of Business, at Ramapo College, where I have taught Corporate Finance, and Financial Markets and Institutions for the past 25 years.
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Tuesday, October 12, 2010
The U.S. Fed Wants an Inflation Boom / Economics / Quantitative Easing
As long time readers know, I am a big fan of Greg Weldon. This week he has very graciously allowed me to reproduce his client letter from last Thursday on some of the issues of Bernanke and Quantitative Easing 2. It prints a little longer than usual because of his format and all the charts, but this is one letter you should take the time to read.
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Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Paul Krugman "I Told You So" Keynesian Stimulus Economic Nonsense / Economics / Economic Theory
As predicted on numerous occasions, Paul Krugman is once again pleading for still more Keynesian stimulus. Please consider Hey, Small Spender
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Monday, October 11, 2010
Fed Mandates Inflation Creation / Economics / Inflation
Much of the content of the latest Fed statement, released on September 21, echoes the central bank's previous post-credit crunch pronouncements: there is still too much slack in the economy, interest rates are still going to be near-zero for an "extended period," and the Fed will continue to use payments from its Treasury purchases to buy yet more Treasuries.
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Sunday, October 10, 2010
US Economy Doing a Great Imitation of a Developing Double Dip Recession / Economics / Double Dip Recession
The September Non-Farm Payrolls report was not good news.
This is a remarkably unnatural US economic recovery, with gold, silver, and other key commodities soaring in price, the near end of the Treasury curve hitting record low interest rates, and stocks steadily rallying as employment slumps and the median wage continues to decline.
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Sunday, October 10, 2010
QE2 Won, But Won’t Un-Block America’s Economic Stagnation, Now Keynes’ Nuclear BubbleOmics / Economics / Quantitative Easing
The justification for QE1 was that there was a “loss of control” and it was likely there would be a train wreck. The evidence that it was successful is that there was not a train wreck; although there was a bit of a scrape.
It’s impossible to say whether America and/or the World would be a better place if …
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Sunday, October 10, 2010
The Ride of the Keynesian Economic Cowboys, Will More QE Make Any Difference? / Economics / Quantitative Easing
Teachers Don't Count?
The Rise of the Temporary Worker
The Ride of the Keynesian Cowboys
Let Us Count the Unintended Consequences
To ease or not to ease? That is the question we will take up this week. And if we do get another round of quantitative easing (QE2), will it make any difference? As I asked last week, what if they threw an inflation party and no one came? We will take as our launching pad today's unemployment numbers, which serve to demonstrate just why the Fed may in fact be ready for some monetary shock and awe.
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Saturday, October 09, 2010
Economic Nonsense From the Washington Post / Economics / Economic Theory
The only genuinely good news in Friday's jobs report was the much needed shedding of 159,000 government workers of which only 77,000 were temporary census workers.
Shed another million government workers and you have a small start as to what needs to happen. Some don't see it that way, including Erza Klein at the Washington Post.
Saturday, October 09, 2010
U.S. Economy is Faltering, Inflationary Depression is in Progress / Economics / Great Depression II
In spite of the disinformation, misdirection and outright propaganda the economy is faltering without the addition of stimulus and quantitative easing. The benefits of inventory accumulation over the past 17 months, which accounted for 60% of the strength in the economy is at an end. We either get more stimulus either governmental or from the privately owned Fed or growth is going to continue to drop. We are looking at indexes that for the most part are at or near their lows. We see short reactive rallies but certainly nothing that leaves us to believe that any kind of a recovery is at hand.
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Saturday, October 09, 2010
September Employment Situation Data Reinforces Expectations of QE2 on November 3rd / Economics / Employment
Civilian Unemployment Rate: 9.6% in September, virtually steady for four straight months. The unemployment rate was 5.0% in December 2007 when the recession commenced. Cycle high for recession is 10.1% in October 2009 and the cycle low for the expansion that ended in December 2007 is 4.4% in March 2007.
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Friday, October 08, 2010
U.S. Economy Has Failed to Recover, Fed Prepares to Pump the Economy / Economics / Great Depression II
Since the US economy has failed to recover as widely predicted, pressure on the Federal Reserve to conjure a solution has increased. In fact, the Fed now faces the hardest choices in its history. It can either redouble its past efforts to re-inflate America's bubble economy (risking the destruction of the US dollar) or it can stop pumping and let the economy deflate to a self-sustaining level. Unfortunately, both choices guarantee severe economic pain - but only one offers the possibility of ultimate success.
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Friday, October 08, 2010
Fantastic Economic News, U.S. Nonfarm Payrolls Decline by 95,000 / Economics / US Economy
Today we have fantastic news from the BLS that the economy shed 95,000 jobs, far weaker than the economists' consensus expectation of a mere 5,000 drop.
Moreover, part-time workers for economic reasons increased by a whopping 612,000 workers, much higher than an recent numbers and also higher than a year ago. The effect of rising part-time work is the effective unemployment rate shot up .4% to 17.1%
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Friday, October 08, 2010
No Economic Recovery, Stimulus Spending and Intended Consequences? / Economics / Economic Stimulus
As was generally expected, this morning’s employment situation report gave another bundle of evidence to suggest that there is in fact no recovery, never was, and that several trillion dollars of ‘stimulus’ has disappeared down a rat hole of greed. In typical fashion, the mainstream press tried yet again to put a positive spin on a negative reality, pointing to the fact that we should rest easy; the Fed is going to buy government bonds to save the day. It is in total wonderment that I listen to these happy expectations and can only guess if these people know what they’re even wishing for. Let’s look at a few examples.
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Friday, October 08, 2010
Less Government Means Less Economic Trouble / Economics / Government Spending
Though our current economic troubles are complex, many mainstream economists have endorsed the simplistic Keynesian theory that massive government spending will produce jobs and prosperity.
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Friday, October 08, 2010
Economic Depressions, Their Cause and Cure / Economics / Economic Theory
We live in a world of euphemism. Undertakers have become "morticians," press agents are now "public relations counsellors" and janitors have all been transformed into "superintendents." In every walk of life, plain facts have been wrapped in cloudy camouflage.No less has this been true of economics. In the old days, we used to suffer nearly periodic economic crises, the sudden onset of which was called a "panic," and the lingering trough period after the panic was called "depression."
Thursday, October 07, 2010
IMF Warns of Slower Economic Growth As Currency War Rages On / Economics / Global Economy
Don Miller writes: Meetings of the Group of Seven (G-7) countries in Washington this week could feature a clash of views that have sparked an international currency war even as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that growth in developed economies is slowing.
The conflict represents a fundamental disagreement about how to sustain the global economic recovery among countries that prefer flexible exchange rates like the United States, and others that are resisting calls to allow its currency to appreciate, like China.
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Thursday, October 07, 2010
Quantitative Easing Inflation Expectation Noise / Economics / Deflation
Scott Grannis on Seeking Alpha has written a pair of interesting articles regarding inflation expectations and Quantitative Easing. Grannis thinks that Quantitative Easing is working. I don't, but that debate depends on the definition of "work".
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