Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Thursday, June 29, 2017
US Minimum Wage / Economics / Wages
By: Submissions
John Dunham writes: What a difference a day makes. Just this month, a group of researchers at the University of Washington (UW) released a working paper outlining how a $13 per hour minimum wage for restaurant workers in Seattle has led to exactly the opposite effects that proponents predicted.
According to the team at UW, which was funded by the City of Seattle, a 37 percent increase in Seattle’s mandatory minimum wage for restaurant employees resulted in a decrease of working hours for these employees of about 9 percent, and an overall loss in income of $125 per month. This is significant because the minimum wage increase, which was promoted as a way to help lower-wage workers, actually cost those same workers about $1,500 per year on average.
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Wednesday, June 28, 2017
The Fed Has Undermined the US Economy’s Ability to Grow / Economics / US Economy
By: John_Mauldin
BY STEPHEN MCBRIDE : The Fed’s hope was that quantitative easing would stimulate economic growth. But a former senior economist for the Fed believes it has done the exact opposite.
Speaking at the Mauldin Economics Strategic Investment Conference, Dr. Lacy Hunt, the executive vice president of Hosington Investment Management and former senior economist for the Dallas Fed, said that quantitative easing has created “significant unintended consequences.”
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Wednesday, June 28, 2017
“Secular Stagnation” Is Nonsense… Here’s the Real Reason Behind the US Downturn / Economics / Stagflation
By: John_Mauldin
My good friend Charles Gave recently wrote an instructive article titled “Tale of Two Countries.”
In the UK and France, structural growth rates have diverged since 1981. The rate has fallen by two-thirds in France, while in the UK it has risen.
Why?
Well, to begin with, in the UK, Margaret Thatcher was elected prime minister in 1979. She reduced the role of the bureaucracy in managing economic activity and dialed back government spending as a percentage of GDP.
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Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Shrinkflation In UK – Real Inflation Much Higher Than Reported / Economics / Inflation
By: GoldCore
- Shrinkflation – Real inflation much higher than reported and realised
- Shrinkflation is taking hold in consumer sector
- Important consumer, financial, monetary and economic issue being largely ignored by financial analysts, financial advisers, economists, central banks and the media.
- Food becoming more expensive as consumers get less for price paid
- A form of stealth inflation, few can avoid it
- Brexit is the scapegoat for shrinkflation by the media and companies
- Consumers blame retailers rather than central banks
- Gold hedge has doubled in value since 2007
Wednesday, June 28, 2017
China’s First Half of 2017: Growth amid Deleveraging / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
Despite seemingly mixed messages, China’s great shift from easing to tightening has begun. While growth will continue to decelerate, it can still remain on the deceleration track, even as deleveraging has begun.
In May, Moody’s Investor Service downgraded China’s credit rating. But it took less than a day for Chinese financial markets to recover from the downgrade. Recently, index giant MSCI announced the partial inclusion of China-traded A-shares in the MSCI Emerging Market Index. After all, China is currently under-represented in global equity indices relative to its economic influence. The inclusion is predicated on a long and gradual move.
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Saturday, June 24, 2017
Proof That This Economic Recovery Narrative is False / Economics / US Economy
By: Sol_Palha
A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it. Bertrand Russell
The financial media has provided reams of data trying to lay out the case that this economic recovery is real. Many of the statistics provided do indeed support the theme that the outlook is improving. One must, however, keep these two facts in mind when looking at the data:
- The Fed poured huge amounts of money into this market. Minus the money, this so-called economic recovery would have never come to pass
- Due to the low-interest rate environment, corporation borrowed money on the cheap and poured billions into share buybacks since the crash of 2009.
Thursday, June 22, 2017
The Deflation Application / Economics / Deflation
By: Charles_Sizemore
Once in a while I see a financial news headline so obviously ridiculous, I feel I should look at the writer with pity in my eyes and pat them on the head, the way you might comfort a child that just dropped his ice cream cone on the floor.“Inflation is Right Around the Corner, Yellen Insists.”
Of course it is…
In defense of the columnist who wrote the story, these weren’t necessarily his views. He was simply relaying the Fed Chair’s comments from Wednesday.
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Wednesday, June 21, 2017
These 2 Charts Show Why Aging is Greatest Threat to US Budget and Deficits / Economics / Demographics
By: GoldCore
BY PATRICK COX : In its 2017 “Long-Term Budget Outlook,” The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) paints a dire picture of US deficits and debt. It shows that the largest single contributing factor to our rising debt and deficits is aging.
Wednesday, June 21, 2017
Inflation is No Longer in Stealth Mode / Economics / Inflation
By: GoldCore
- IHS Markit index shows UK households pessimistic about finances for 2017-18
- UK household finances remain under intense pressure from rising living costs
- 58 percent of respondents expected higher interest rates in 12 months time
- Inflation in the United Kingdom currently at near four-year high
- Prices up prices by 2.9pc year-on-year, biggest annual increase since June 2013
- In May consumer spending in the UK fell for the first time in almost four years
Monday, June 19, 2017
Raise the Inflation Target and Put a Date on It! / Economics / Inflation
By: Michael_Pento
Raise the Inflation Target and Put a Date on It! That’s the direction some high-profile economist and former members on the FOMC want to go. According to these academics, including Narayana Kocherlakota the former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis from 2009 to 2015, raising the inflation target just isn’t enough. They want to put a time horizon on it as well. In other words, they want to raise the inflation target higher than the current 2% level, and then place a firm date as to when that inflation goal must be achieved.
Saturday, June 17, 2017
Here’s The Case For An Upside Risk In The Global Economy / Economics / Global Economy
By: John_Mauldin
One of the true riddles in the economic world today is a steady drop in total global productivity over the last few decades. That’s in spite of the growing use of computers, robotics, and artificial intelligence.
In theory, productivity should have gone up, but it didn’t.
Professor and Nobel laureate Robert Gordon and others have foreseen that the GDP growth will decline to less than 1%, and they have all sorts of data to back up their claim.
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Thursday, June 08, 2017
This Is The Most Profound Shift The US Economy Has Ever Seen / Economics / Demographics
By: John_Mauldin
By Stephen McBride : This year, the first Baby Boomers turned 70, and that spells trouble for the economy and financial markets.
Speaking at Mauldin Economics’ Strategic Investment Conference, chief economist and strategist for Gluskin Sheff, David Rosenberg, dissected the wide-ranging implications of the wave of Baby Boomers now retiring.
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Friday, June 02, 2017
The Silent Economic Boom / Economics / US Economy
By: Clif_Droke
[Note: I was recently interviewed by Kenneth Ameduri who hosts the Crush The Street internet show. In it I discuss my take on gold, stocks, Trump, the economy and Bitcoin. The interview can be found here: https://crushthestreet.com/videos/live-interviews/economic-bubble-burst-trumps-watch-clif-droke-interview]Though many Americans aren’t feeling it, the economy is quietly gathering forward momentum. With consumers gaining in confidence and real estate heating up on both the commercial and residential levels, the U.S. economy is much stronger than it may seem at first glance.
Thursday, June 01, 2017
About My Healthy Economic Fear of the Chinese / Economics / China Economy
By: Harry_Dent
There’s an old adage in finance concerning borrowing and lending: If you owe the bank $1 million, you have a problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, the bank has a problem.It’s all about scale.
When it comes to countries and markets, there is no scale, and therefore no problem, like the Middle Kingdom.
China is the land of the “biggest.”
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Thursday, June 01, 2017
The Next Recession May Be A Complete Reset Of All Asset Valuations / Economics / Recession 2017
By: John_Mauldin
Sometime this year, world public and private plus unfunded pensions will surpass $300 trillion. That is not even counting the $100 trillion in US government unfunded liabilities. Oops.
These obligations cannot be paid. A time is coming when the market and voters will realize this.
Will voters decide to tax “the rich” more? Will they increase their VAT rates and further slow growth? Will they reduce benefits? No matter what they decide, hard choices will bring political turmoil.
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Thursday, May 25, 2017
5 Trends That Will Shape the Next Decade / Economics / Global Economy
By: John_Mauldin
In a typically ebullient presentation at Mauldin Economics’ 2017 Strategic Investment Conference on Tuesday, author, analyst, and trend-spotter Pippa Malmgren laid out key trends set to shape the early part of the 21st century.
Overall, the future is bright enough to need shades but also sunblock, according to Malmgren. The key thing we need is situational awareness. “Nobody saw the financial crisis, Brexit, or Trump coming,” she said. “I did. Not because I’m smarter than anyone else, but because people insist on looking at the world through a mathematical lens. This is a terrible mistake.”
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Wednesday, May 24, 2017
Louis Gave: Emerging Markets And Europe Will Outperform The US In The Next Decade / Economics / Emerging Markets
By: John_Mauldin
By Stephen McBride : “The key to successful investing is not picking winners, it’s avoiding losers…” Louis Gave, the head of asset management at Gavekal Research, explains his investment philosophy at Mauldin Economics’ 2017 Strategic Investment Conference.
Tuesday, May 16, 2017
How the China Belt and Road Could Change the 21st Century / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
Until recently, globalization was led by the West and benefited only a few advanced economies. After China’s three decades of rapid growth, the Belt and Road initiatives hold potential for more inclusive globalization.During the weekend, the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation flooded Beijing with almost 30 heads of state and government leaders, 1,500 delegates from over 130 nations, and over 70 international organizations.
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Sunday, May 14, 2017
US Economy End Game On? / Economics / US Economy
By: Andy_Sutton
For many years now, thousands of bloggers, writers, and such have chronicled the debacle that is the USEconomy. It is a joke. That fact has been well-established. We can liken it to a cancer. Not every section is influenced in the same manner or degree of severity, but all areas are affected somehow. This publication has struggled to stay firmly on the economic side of the fence and not delve into politics – especially the personal type of politics where Mr. X is the bad guy, but Mr. Y is the good guy. We have, however, entered the arena of geopolitics or the politics of nation vs. nation on many occasions because this is where the arena of battle happens to be.
Friday, May 12, 2017
The Jobs Market Has Divided Into People Who Are Tech Savvy And Those Who Aren’t / Economics / Employment
By: John_Mauldin
Things keep changing. And at an accelerating pace. One of the most important things to write about—and the most difficult—is the future of work. New Technology destroys old jobs, but it would also create new jobs and opportunities.
A clear example of this is the use of drone technology by the military. It requires about 100 people to prep and launch and maintain an F-16 for a single mission. Keeping an unmanned predator drone in the air for 24 hours requires about 168 workers.
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