Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Wednesday, October 21, 2009
An Unsustainable Path of Debt Expansion / Economics / US Debt
Debt Growth Exceeds Income Growth - In Q2 2009, total debt outstanding in the United States — financial plus nonfinancial debt — amounted to 373.4% of GDP.[1] At the start of 1952, the debt-to-GDP ratio stood at only 130%. In fact, in the last decades the rise in total debt has increasingly outpaced nominal income — a development which gained momentum after the erosion of the last vestiges of the gold standard in the early 1970s.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Eastern Europe Out of the Financial Crisis Danger Zone? / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Deleted.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Markets Look to UK October’s MPC Meeting Minutes and the Latest CBI Quarterly Industrial Trends survey / Economics / UK Economy
Perhaps unsurprisingly, US government bond and swap markets rallied sharply immediately after yesterday’s weak producer price and housing data. Both sets of numbers are highly relevant to the economic recovery process in the US. A housing market slowdown triggered the current economic and financial crisis and many are looking for the same sector to lead the US into durable economic recovery.
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, October 18, 2009
The US Recession, More Unemployment and Sinking U.S. Dollar / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
What gives? The Obama administration no sooner assures Americans that labour markets had finally stabilised and mass job losses was at an end when the Bureau for Labor Statistics comes out last Wednesday and ruins the party with the bad news that mass layoffs leapt by over 20 per cent in August. An earlier report estimated that manufacturing accounted for 31 per cent of the layoffs. (I have stressed numerous times that manufacturing always bears the blunt of the boom-bust-cycle).
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Good Times ahead, or Beginning of the Greatest Depression? / Economics / Great Depression II
I regulary visit the whenshtf.com forums. They’ve got some very knowledgeable members and often engage in worthwhile discussion. This post was inspired by member LAPD77. You can follow the discussion in this thread.
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Death of Mauldin's Muddle Through Economy? / Economics / Economic Theory
The US government is on an unsustainable path. Deficits are soaring and the Obama administration is planning massive tax hikes.
Moreover, businesses have little reason to hire already because of massive overcapacity. Add increasing health care costs to the list of reasons for businesses not to hire.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Bair Admits FDIC in the Red Until 2012 / Economics / Credit Crisis 2009
Counting projected losses FDIC bank fund in the red until 2012.
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, October 17, 2009
United States Has Caught the Japanese Economic Disease, Who Will buy Our Debt? / Economics / Great Depression II
Muddle Through, R.I.P?
Savings Equal Investments
Japanese Disease
Who Will Buy the Debt?
The New Muddle Through Economy
I first wrote about the Muddle Through Economy in 2002, and the term has more or less become a theme we have returned to from time to time. In 2007 I wrote that we would indeed get back to a Muddle Through Economy after the end of the coming recession. If you Google the term, at least for the first four pages more than half the references are to this e-letter. I get a lot of flak from both bulls and bears about being either too optimistic or too pessimistic. Being in the muddle through middle is comfortable to me.
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, October 17, 2009
U.S. State Tax Revenue Drops Most Since 1963 / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Bloomberg is reporting State Revenue Falls Most Since 1963 on Incomes, Sales.
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Karl Marx Predicted Collapse of US Dollar in 1857 / Economics / Economic Theory
The great October fall of the US dollar is turning into an avalanche. On Tuesday, the American currency lost nine kopeks in Russia and reached a new minimum mark this year - 29.5 rubles per dollar. Within six months (April through September) the dollar lost over 10 percent at the world foreign exchange trading, which marked the sharpest decline since 1991. Some experts believe that the American currency is close to collapse, which may lead to a new financial crisis.
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Is the Real Economy Growing, Expanding, and Making Money? / Economics / Economic Recovery
What a marvelous flimflam! So obvious...and yet so effective! It's a pleasure to watch.
Yesterday, the Dow soared over they 10,000 mark. If it keeps going at this rate – up 144 points yesterday – it will soon equal the post-'29 bounce. All we need is two more days and we're there.
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, October 17, 2009
The Importance of Gresham's Money Law and Fed Bad Money / Economics / Fiat Currency
"Bad money drives out good money." This aphorism has been known as Gresham's Law for almost 500 years. Sir Thomas Gresham never said it exactly like this. The statement is wrong in its familiar form.
Bad money does not drive out good money in a free market. The free market rewards producers of customer-satisfying products and services. Good money drives out bad money on a free market. The definition of bad money is money that the free market refuses to use. Gresham's law, as stated, is incorrect. The opposite is true.
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Fed Strategy Working, Higher Stock Prices Point to Rising Economic Optimism / Economics / Economic Recovery
If you consider all of the structural problems in the U.S. economy, there has not been a lot of progress toward getting things back on track. The root causes of what created the near debilitating financial and economic crisis still remain:
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Japan a Deflation Death? - Nope Stagflation / Economics / Stagflation
Gordon Brown this week announced what can only be described as a car boot sale of UK PLC's bric-a-brac goods, an attempt to sooth markets regarding the budget deficit. Many of the items have been for sale before, but I'm sure the government in their current desperation will be willing to accept lower offers this time around. I agree with privatisation in getting the state out of our lives, but a student loan book and a crossing in Kent are hardly big ticket items, never mind the fact that they are assets that generate money.
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Inflation and Government Deficits, Milton Friedman's View / Economics / Inflation
Before getting started on this month's essay, I would like to say something about last month's chart show. I received a number of favorable comments about the different format. I have to admit that my ego was bruised a bit. I thought you liked my prosaic prose. My ego notwithstanding, I will try to give the customers what they want more often - just not every month. The reason for not providing a chart show every month is that not enough changes that frequently to warrant such. So, this month you are stuck with the prosaic prose. And because not that much has changed from last month save for stronger-than-previously expected consumer spending in the third quarter, I am going to discuss two issues that are getting a lot of ink of late rather than spending time discussing the updated forecast.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, October 16, 2009
Economic Recovery Euphoria, Ignorance Is Bliss / Economics / Economic Recovery
While all the talk at present is about economic corners turned and markets charging ahead, no one is paying much notice to an American economy deteriorating before our eyes. These myopic commentators seem to be simply moving past the now almost-universally held conclusion that before the crash of 2008, our economy was on an unsustainable course. If these imbalances had been corrected, then perhaps I too would be joining in the euphoria. But evidence abounds that we have not veered at all from that dangerous path.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, October 16, 2009
The Flip Side of a Jobless Economic Recovery / Economics / Employment
Perhaps one of the most preposterous statements made during the ongoing financial crisis was by Ben Bernanke when he stated that we would have a ‘jobless recovery’. Certainly this is not a new term, but that doesn’t change the fact that in concept, the idea that a real recovery can occur with rising unemployment seems pretty ludicrous. Again, the devil is in the details and it all comes back to how you define your terminology and ask “A recovery for whom?”
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, October 16, 2009
Greenspan a Decade Behind the Curve / Economics / Central Banks
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan is the worst Fed boss in history, but boy-oh-boy how we loved to watch him smile. We were so attracted to Mr. Greenspan’s girlish grin, in fact, that he could say just about anything and people would eat it up: “I guess I should warn you, if I turn out to be particularly clear, you've probably misunderstood what I've said”. How delightfully playful! He really must be the world’s best central banker!
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Reviving the Economy with Publicly Owned Banks / Economics / Credit Crisis 2009
The credit crunch is getting worse on Main Street, despite a Wall Street bailout that is now in the trillions of dollars. The Federal Reserve's charts show that "base money" is rapidly expanding - meaning coins, paper money, and commercial banks' reserves with the central bank. But the money isn't making it to where it needs to go to stimulate economic growth: into the bank accounts of American businesses and consumers. The Fed has been pumping out money to the banks, and their reserves have been growing at unprecedented rates; but the money supply in the real economy has been declining.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, October 15, 2009
A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism / Economics / Economic Theory
In the wake of the downfall of the Berlin Wall, the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the emergence of capitalism in China, I was asked to teach the comparative-economic-systems class at Auburn University for the summer term in 1989. My only exposure to the topic had been as an undergraduate student, where my teacher was a Cold War–era professor who concentrated almost exclusively on the Soviet Union. His implicit message was to fear the Soviet Union, which would soon come to smother the American dream.
Read full article... Read full article...