Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Thursday, May 04, 2017
New Risk for Investors: Fed Considers Jacking Up Inflation Target / Economics / Inflation
By: MoneyMetals
Stefan Gleason : Investors are under-estimating inflation risk. As a consequence, they are under-pricing inflation protecting assets including precious metals.
The Federal Reserve has given itself the objective of engineering an inflation rate of around 2%. However, there are many ways in which real-world inflation can potentially outpace the Fed’s 2% target.
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Monday, April 24, 2017
IMF Says Austerity Is Over - Surplus or Stimulus / Economics / Economic Austerity
By: Raul_I_Meijer
Austerity is over, proclaimed the IMF this week. And no doubt attributed that to the ‘successful’ period of ‘five years of belt tightening’ a.k.a. ‘gradual fiscal consolidation’ it has, along with its econo-religious ilk, imposed on many of the world’s people. Only, it’s not true of course. Austerity is not over. You can ask many of those same people about that. It’s certainly not true in Greece.
Friday, April 21, 2017
Median US Household’s Wealth Has Declined by 40% Since 2007 / Economics / Demographics
By: John_Mauldin
Nominal US household wealth is at an all-time high. But my friend Marc Faber (publisher of the Gloom Boom & Doom Report) says that's mostly an illusion.
Below, Marc looks at the relationship between asset prices and US household wealth, and the effect of that relationship on the economy.
It seems the wealth of the top 0.1% has vastly improved in recent decades (and the top 10% haven’t done at all badly). But “the median household’s or asset owner’s wealth has declined by close to 40% in real terms (adjusted by the CPI) from its peak in 2007.”
Median household increases in wealth are also illusory because the main component of household wealth is pension fund assets (approximately US$22 trillion).
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Thursday, April 20, 2017
The Real Story of China’s Strong First-Quarter Growth / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
After the solid first quarter performance, the central government may be in the unique position to achieve its growth target - even while tightening.In the first quarter, China’s economy grew 6.9 percent; slightly faster than expected and led by strong expansion at factories. What the first quarter data reflects is solid growth in several fronts.
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Tuesday, April 18, 2017
Is US Economy at the Cusp of the Next Recession? or Maybe Worse? / Economics / Recession 2017
By: Plunger
Part II takes a look at the macro economic backdrop for the trade of the year. Spoiler alert- its not a pretty picture, but don’t think doom and gloom, instead embrace crisis and opportunity! With our understanding of the history of oil we now focus on the macro backdrop for our Big Trade.
“When the tide goes out you find out who has been swimming naked”– Warren Buffet
“This time around everything gets revealed in the next recession”-Plunger
In the next recession those leaning the wrong way… the levered players, will be forced to heave out their non-productive assets at fire sale prices. Commodity producers with entrenched costs will have to increase production as lower prices beget even lower prices since insufficient cash flows can only be recovered through higher volume production.
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Friday, April 14, 2017
China Starting To Resemble Bernie Madoff / Economics / China Economy
By: Jeff_Berwick
Aubible.com just released a new show on Bernie Madoff (Ponzi Supernova, available for free to subscribers) that explains how the world’s biggest financial scam was enabled by banks and hedge funds who were making so much money that they chose to ignore obvious red flags.
Which sounds a lot like today’s China, Inc. Here, for instance, is a sequence of events involving China Huishan Dairy Holdings, an apparently too-big-to-fail chain of dairy farms:
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Wednesday, April 12, 2017
Map Shows 16 Countries Will Be Hit Hard By The Global Exporters’ Crisis / Economics / Global Economy
By: John_Mauldin
The world is currently in the midst of an exporters' crisis. The stagnation in global consumption levels and decline of commodity prices have led to increased instability and insecurity in countries heavily dependent on exports.
The origins of the exporters’ crisis lie in the economic recessions that the United States and Europe experienced due to the 2008 financial crash. These countries were major consumers of Chinese goods, notably low-cost manufactured products.
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Thursday, April 06, 2017
From Inflation to Imflation, Agflation and Munflation / Economics / Inflation
By: Submissions
Vakhtang Charaia and Vladimer Papava write: Inflation is an important macroeconomic indicator for the analysis of an established economic situation as well as forecasting the economic development for any country. The “consumer basket,” which helps to indicate the consumer price index (CPI) or the average inflation rate, incorporates several commodity groups and given the correspondent weights encompasses different goods and services. Some of the commodity groups (e.g. electronics, new and used cars, furniture, hotel and restaurant services, etc.) fails to reflect the problem of the low-income population.
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Wednesday, April 05, 2017
Odd, Ominous Economic Trend in the US That Is Not Seen Anywhere Else in the World / Economics / US Economy
By: John_Mauldin
I’ve written about this previously, but there are 10 million American men of prime working age (25 to 54) who have simply dropped out of the workforce. And most of them have not only dropped out of the workforce, they have also dropped out from any commitments or responsibilities to society.
It is not just the labor force they are not participating in; they are not participating in the normal ebb and flow of community life.
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Wednesday, April 05, 2017
India’s Technological Revolution Has Already Left the West Behind / Economics / India
By: John_Mauldin
My friend Raoul Pal, mastermind of Global Macro Investor, writes one of the most expensive macroeconomic letters in the world. His subscriber list is short and extremely exclusive.
Raul comes up with more unique ideas per year than any man I know. What’s fascinating is that once he comes up with an idea, you then begin to see it filtering into the trading/hedge fund community.
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Tuesday, April 04, 2017
The Fake US Economic Recovery May Be Ending / Economics / US Economy
By: Chris_Vermeulen
The “real” Atlanta Fed’s reading of Q1 GDP went off a cliff to less than 1%:
No one has the slightest idea of what is happening as insane levels of debt distort the model’s which economists use to forecast the future economic trends. From here on out, there will be unpleasant surprises all the way around. According to shadow stats, the GDP is in contraction at the rate of -2%.
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Monday, April 03, 2017
Trump's Reflation Trade is Deflating / Economics / US Economy
By: Michael_Pento
The election of the 45th President brought with it great enthusiasm for the U.S. economy to break out of its eight-year growth malaise and to provide it with a huge adrenaline shot of inflation. But the optimism behind Trump's economic agenda took a serious blow with the inability of House Republicans to even get a vote on repealing and replacing Obamacare.
Sunday, April 02, 2017
Maybe The US Economic Recovery Wasn’t Real After All / Economics / US Economy
By: John_Rubino
For a while there it looked like the US and its main trading partners had finally achieved escape velocity. Growth was up, inflation was poking through the Fed’s 2% target, and most measures of consumer sentiment were bordering on euphoric.
Then it all started to evaporate. Lackluster manufacturing and consumer spending reports sent the Atlanta Fed’s reading of Q1 GDP off a cliff to less than 1%:
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Wednesday, March 29, 2017
The Last G-20 Meeting Marks the End of Free Trade / Economics / Global Economy
By: John_Mauldin
BY GEORGE FRIEDMAN : In the last G-20 meeting, its members agreed to drop the forum’s commitment to free trade at the insistence of the United States. That agreement was reached at one meeting and was contained in a single document—such agreements and documents are far from written in stone.
In spite of that, it must be regarded as a historical moment. Excluding the free trade commitment from the agreement marks a fundamental shift in a concept that has been central to global economics for more than a generation.
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Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Charts That Reveal US Real Employment Status and It’s Not Good / Economics / Employment
By: John_Mauldin
The “labor force” from which we get unemployment statistics includes only those people who are either working or wish to be working.
It ignores the retired, those in school, the disabled, and nonworking spouses—as well as those who are not interested in working.
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Sunday, March 26, 2017
China’s Rise in Global Robotics: Toward Consolidation / Economics / Robotics
By: Dan_Steinbock
Chinese robotics is positioned for leadership in global robotics, as the emerging industry is moving toward increasing rivalry and consolidation.In the new and emerging industry, the rise of innovative robotics startups heralds the future. In 2016, almost 130 companies were funded by venture capital, including China-based RooBo, Israeli Roboteam, and German ReActive Robotics. While the most valuable deals involved unmanned aerial systems companies (read: drones), they were followed by agricultural robotics, service robots for businesses and personal use.
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Friday, March 24, 2017
Maps That Explain Why North America Economy Will Flourish / Economics / US Economy
By: John_Mauldin
BY GEORGE FRIEDMAN : The world has seen great change since the end of the Cold War. For much of the past two millennia, political, military, and economic strength has been based in Eurasia. And, since the 1500s, mostly in Europe.
This is no longer true.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the world’s one top power has been in North America. North America is now the center of the international political system. Mainly because of the power of the United States.
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Wednesday, March 22, 2017
Raising the Minimum Wage Is a Jobs Killing Move / Economics / Employment
By: David_Galland
By Stephen McBride: In January, 19 US states raised their respective minimum wages. Washington was among the most generous, hiking by $1.53 (bringing it to $11 per hour). Arizona got an increase of $1.95—their “bottom rung” now sits at $10 per hour.
In all, 4.3 million workers are slated to receive a hike as they earn less than the new minimum wage in their respective states. Well, that’s what’s meant to happen. Judging by the fallout from recent hikes, it seems things aren’t going according to plan.
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Tuesday, March 21, 2017
UK Stagflation, Soaring Inflation CPI 2.3%, RPI 3.2%, Real 4.4% / Economics / Inflation
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The implications of sterling's sharp drop in the wake of the Brexit vote were inflationary resulting in an an increase the price of imports and therefore has been exerting upwards pressure on shop prices as suppliers restock at the worse exchange rate that already depressed retailers such as the big supermarkets had delayed fully implementing that is likely to result in a crisis for the retail sector during 2017 that literally faces a perfect storm, that could even result in a Woolworth's moment...
Monday, March 20, 2017
Small Business Survey Says… Ignore the Hard Data at Your Peril / Economics / US Economy
By: Michael_Pento
Surveys of both consumers and businesses show there is an extreme level of confidence regarding future GDP growth. Consumer confidence is now at its highest level since 2001. Small and medium-sized business owners, the driving force of growth in the economy, appear downright giddy; as the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index recently soared to its highest level since 2004.Read full article... Read full article...