Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Protectionism and the Global Banking System Technical Insolvency / Economics / Credit Crisis 2009
By: John_Mauldin
This week I bring you two different articles as an offering for Outside the Box. As a way to introduce the first, let me give you the quote from Merrill Lynch economist David Rosenberg about the rising threat of global trade protectionism:
"The Financial Times weighs in on the rising threat of global trade protectionism in today's Lex Column on page 14 ("Economic Patriotism"). The FT points out that the stimulus packages of many countries include "buy local" provisions. At home, there is a proposed inclusion of a 'Buy American' provision in the economic recovery package and this could set off trade retaliation from importers of US goods. Here is what the FT had to say, 'It was trade protectionism that made the 1930s Depression "Great". Congress would do well to understand that it is in everyone's interest to keep trade open today.'"
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, January 26, 2009
Some Good Amid the Gloom for Investors and the Economy / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
By: Frank_Holmes
When it comes to the global economy, there's a huge surplus of bad news and there's a good chance that more is coming. Positive indicators are in short supply, but there's a good chance that more of these are coming, too. I would like to share some of the more optimistic signs and trends that we are seeing to offset a little of the negativity, just as people look for that first robin or tulip bud as proof that the gloom of winter will not last forever. Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, January 26, 2009
Massive Inflation is Coming / Economics / HyperInflation
By: David_Vaughn
“The Long Dark Night” - As we enter the New Year 2009 we will continue to discover a great deal of changes.
Those bright sunny days of yesterday with portfolios climbing to the sky and house prices reaching for the moon are behind us. For the investment world there is no more bright sun. For the interim period we shall experience a long dark night.
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Monday, January 26, 2009
The Economic Perversity of our Banking System / Economics / Credit Crisis 2009
By: Joseph_Toronto
I recently wrote about the cause of this recession/depression being a collapse of the money supply. The money supply is collapsing because money is literally evaporating with each loan default and bankruptcy and is accelerated by the reverse multiplier effect of fractional reserve banking. Furthermore, given that the collapsing money supply is causing recession, banks are making things worse by doing exactly what banks are supposed to do to preserve their rapidly eroding capital. They stop their lending in a risky economy and buy risk free T-bills or earn interest in their excess reserve account at the Fed. This is the correct thing to do for bank stockholders, but incredibly and perversely is exactly the wrong thing to do for the economy. Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, January 26, 2009
President Obama Gets Economic Broadside as Financial Markets Plunge / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
By: Gerard_Jackson
As Obama assumed the presidency an economic broadside was fired across his bow when the financial markets plunged to new lows. The banks remain in a parlous state and unemployment is still rising. Economist Nouriel Roubini said that if the banking system's losses hit $3.6 trillion -- as expected by quite a few financial observers -- then the "the US banking system is effectively insolvent because it starts with a capital of $1.4 trillion." Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Real Deflation Spells Economic Doom / Economics / Deflation
By: Prieur_du_Plessis
Asha Bangalore (Northern Trust): Home building activity posts new low “Starts of new homes fell 15.5% in December to an annual rate of 550,000. The annual average of new homes started in 2008 is 902,000, the lowest on record. Starts of new single-family homes dropped 13.5% to an annual rate of 398,000, the lowest on record.
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Sunday, January 25, 2009
Is Big Inflation Coming? / Economics / Inflation
By: Mike_Shedlock
Adam Hamilton at Zeal is predicting Big Inflation Coming .
The growing legions of deflationists see an unstoppable depression-like deflationary spiral approaching like a freight train. They cite some convincing data. The stock markets have been cut in half in just a year. In the past 6 months, some key commodities prices fell farther and faster than they did in the entire Great Depression. House prices are down by double digits across the nation, with no bottom in sight. And credit is a lot harder to come by today than in any other time in modern memory.
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Sunday, January 25, 2009
Engines of Economic Growth Beyond the Depression / Economics / Economic Depression
By: Brian_Bloom
The purpose of this high level analysis goes beyond an attempt to explain why an economic depression is virtually inevitable. It seeks also to identify a possible pathway out of the economic quagmire.
It is the view of this analyst that many of our political decision makers and/or their advisers do not clearly understand the overarching macro problem. The relevance of this observation is best illustrated by the following quote from an article entitled “Downturn Accelerates As It Circles The Globe”, which appeared in the Washington Post on January 24th 2009:
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Sunday, January 25, 2009
Obituary of the Too Much Economy / Economics / US Economy
By: Submissions
Our economy is in the process of burying the corpse of Too Much at the corner of Wall Street and Broad. Pall bearers will carry this leveraged ponzi scheme past the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank seeking alms from the poor. Our elected Representatives have decided the corpse will lie in state at the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol until these United States are bled to third world status.Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Forecasting the Four Year Double Dip U.S. Recession / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
By: Paul_L_Kasriel
DUBYA - No, our title does not refer to our 43rd president. Rather, it refers to the shape of an economic scenario that is beginning to look to us as the most probable going forward. The current economic environment is indeed bleak and there are precious few signs of a recovery. But we believe that if the massive fiscal stimulus package being worked up in Congress is financed largely by the banking system and the Federal Reserve, there is a good chance the economy will begin to grow by the fourth quarter of this year and continue to do so throughout 2010. And if we are correct on this, we also believe there is a good chance that the consumer price index will be advancing at a fast enough pace by the second half of 2010 to induce the Federal Reserve to become more aggressive in draining credit from the financial system. Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Financial Apocalypse and Economic Armageddon 2009 / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
By: T_Anthony_Michael
The FOUR HORSEMEN of 2009 - Herald the Death Knell of “Free Market” Capitalism
The global money matrix, worldwide financial architecture and planetary economic landscape most closely resemble the proverbial House of Cards in the form of a Pyramid-Ponzi scheme superstructure built on quicksand. Therefore, any sober and sane inhabitant of planet Earth would only want to be rid of it all. And that's exactly what the FOUR HORSEMEN of 2009, 2010, and beyond, aim to do. Trample it all under, so that we may finally be rid of it all.
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Friday, January 23, 2009
Deflation Misconceptions and Inflationary Parabolic Money Supply Growth / Economics / Inflation
By: Zeal_LLC
Late 2008's stock panic has certainly had a complex and multifaceted impact on popular psychology. Mindsets and outlooks that were scoffed at as recently as 6 months ago have suddenly become fashionable. One of the more intriguing is the meteoric rise to prominence of the deflation thesis.
The growing legions of deflationists see an unstoppable depression-like deflationary spiral approaching like a freight train. They cite some convincing data. The stock markets have been cut in half in just a year. In the past 6 months, some key commodities prices fell farther and faster than they did in the entire Great Depression. House prices are down by double digits across the nation, with no bottom in sight. And credit is a lot harder to come by today than in any other time in modern memory.
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Friday, January 23, 2009
Economic Depression 2009 Will Not Prevent Inflation / Economics / Great Depression II
By: Andy_Sutton
“Three Bears and a missing Goldilocks” - 2006 and 2007 were framed by financial pundits as a time when we could truly have the Goldilocks economy. Growth wouldn't be too fast or too slow, but just right. The Fed had both hands on the wheel and was goosing things just enough to keep the ship headed in the right direction. Of course all the while the same pundits chose to ignore raging inflation at the consumer level as energy and food prices headed for the stratosphere. The fall of energy prices has been spectacular, however, the drop in food prices has been virtually nonexistent. As in the story of Goldilocks, there were some bears who weren't too happy about Goldilocks and her plans for their porridge. Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, January 23, 2009
Great Britain- The “Rust Belt” of Global Finance / Economics / Credit Crisis 2009
By: Money_Morning
Martin Hutchinson writes: Think about Michigan or about Ohio's Mahoning Valley in the 1980s. Both were famous for industries that were world leaders in their time. Yet, once those industries decayed, large parts of both areas became wastelands of home foreclosures, crime and alcoholism.
The decline of the global financial services industry from its unsustainable 2006 peak may produce a similar effect in a once economically thriving country – Britain.
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Friday, January 23, 2009
Unemployment: How Do We Measure A Shortage Of Work? / Economics / US Economy
By: Ronald_R_Cooke
A Modest Proposal - According to the U. S. Department of Labor (DOL), employers cut 524,000 jobs in December, 2008. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased to 7.2%. That’s bad news for a struggling economy. Unemployed people have fewer spending options. They tend to buy only what they absolutely need. Food tops the list. Rent or mortgage payments come next. Then utility bills, emergency medical expenses, and money for transportation – most likely in the form of car or truck payments and fuel. Purchases of clothing, a new car, electronics, toys, and so on can be deferred. Savings erode all too quickly. Personal confidence ebbs. Family life is strained.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, January 23, 2009
German Economic Intervention Has No Limits / Economics / Euro-Zone
By: Mike_Shedlock
Across the board, the 2009 economic news is bad for Germany. Unshipped goods and containers are piling up at the Hamburg port as Germany Faces Worst Post-War Economic Downturn .
Germany is facing its biggest economic decline since the Second World War with Chancellor Angela Merkel's government saying Wednesday it expects Europe's largest economy to contract by 2.25 per cent this year.
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Friday, January 23, 2009
The Great Fall of China / Economics / China Economy
By: Q1_Publishing
Earlier today, China announced its economy grew at a 6.8% in Q4. This is not very good news at all. China's GDP growth is inching perilously close to 6% economic growth. Which is viewed as the minimum to keep the lights on. It's a critical level the world is watching closely. Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Why the Money Supply is Collapsing / Economics / Money Supply
By: Joseph_Toronto
Inflation and deflation are almost always monetary phenomena as are booms and busts, recessions and depressions. The current economic environment has surprised nearly everyone with the sharpness of the decline, it's suddenness and it's sheer ferocity. To better understand what is happening in the economy and how it began, I believe it is helpful to understand the nature of modern money and banking, and the central bank's role. Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
British Pound Panic Selling, Counting Down to Bankrupt Britain / Economics / UK Economy
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The British Pound continued to plunge to new lows in response to the latest step taken by Gordon Brown in effectively bankrupting Britain to win the next election, which is to under-write the toxic bad debts with an another tax payer down payment of £200 billion. This is on top of the £800 billion already committed towards the bailout of the banking sector that began in September 2007 with the initial £2 billion emergency loan to Northern Rock Bank. As you can see we have come a long way from £2 billion in September 2007 to today's £1 trillion, a truly huge number that amounts to £34,000 per UK tax payer, how much will it cost Britain to service such a liability? This is still but the early stages of Britain's road to bankruptcy and currency collapse as my earlier analysis pointed out in November 2008 -
Bankrupt Britain Trending Towards Hyper-Inflation? Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Why the Credit Crisis Bailouts Will Send Inflation Soaring / Economics / Inflation
By: Nick_Barisheff
The US financial crisis has now spread across the globe. Years of easy credit created massive asset bubbles in the housing and financial services sectors. As bond fund manager Bill Gross points out, there was “too much exuberant leverage, not enough regulation; too strong a belief in asset-based prosperity, too little common sense that prices could go down as well as up; excessive “me first” greed, too little concern for the burden of future generations.” Read full article... Read full article...