Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
What Bernanke Doesn’t Understand About Debt Deflation and the Economy, Back to the Future / Economics / Deflation
By: John_Mauldin
This week's Outside the Box is an incendiary blog written by Steve Keen on debt deflation and GDP growth. I am not certain as to his math (is he double counting debt and consumer spending?) but he does illustrate very well the problem of a deleveraging recession, which I have been writing about for a long time. This is just a different type of recession we are in. So rather than fret over the absolute certainty of the math, read this for an understanding of the nature of the problems we face. He has the direction right, I think, which is the important part for us to grasp.
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
Gold, and the Future Way Through Economic Collapse / Economics / Great Depression II
By: Darryl_R_Schoon
When younger, Alan Greenspan wondered if he could have prevented the Great Depression had he been Fed chairman during the 1920s. Fate, however, was to give Greenspan a far different future than he expected; instead of preventing a depression, he would cause one.
After the scare of the 1970s, central bankers, i.e. Greenspan et. al., focused on containing inflation and came to believe they had successfully done so, not realizing that monetary expansion had instead morphed into asset bubbles, e.g. stocks, property, and bonds, not general price inflation as in the past.
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Monday, September 06, 2010
The Fed and the Ratchet Effect on Government Size / Economics / Government Spending
By: Robert_Murphy
One of economic historian Bob Higgs's outstanding contributions is the "ratchet effect." During a crisis, the size and scope of government grow tremendously. After the crisis subsides, government shrinks, but not to the precrisis level. In consequence, leviathan expands over the decades, leaping from one crisis to the next.
Sunday, September 05, 2010
Non Farm Payrolls: The Devil Is In the Adjustments / Economics / Employment
By: Jesse
When the US government announced a 'better than expected' headline growth number in its non farm payrolls report for August, a loss of 'only' 54,000 jobs versus a forecasted loss of 120,000 jobs, people had to wonder, 'How do they do it? We do not see any of this growth and recovery in our day to day activity.'
Here's one way that those reporting the numbers can 'tinker' with them to produce the desired results.
Sunday, September 05, 2010
More Economic Stimulus to Fix Unemployment? / Economics / Employment
By: D_Sherman_Okst
In a recent WSJ article titled “Romer Calls for More Stimulus” Romer stated that the government has the tools to fix unemployment and that we need more stimulus.
Another article in Yahoo quoted her stating that the government must lower taxes.
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Sunday, September 05, 2010
The Economic Insane Asylum / Economics / Economic Theory
By: D_Sherman_Okst
In a Nutshell: Our economy is really an insane asylum run by lunatics.
Common Sense: No problem can be fixed before a solution is formed. No solution can be formed until the underlying problems are clearly identified.
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Sunday, September 05, 2010
The Great Traffic Jam of China, Transport Crisis and Investment Opportunity / Economics / China Economy
By: Dian_L_Chu
Well, it is official now - in addition to the Great Wall, the Great Traffic Jam started on Aug. 14--60 miles and ten-day long on an "expressway" into Beijing from Inner Mongolia (see map)--has earned the capital of China the top spot among the cities with the world's worst traffic…, at least according to Foreign Policy.
Sunday, September 05, 2010
Population and Productivity Fundemental Drivers for Economic Growth / Economics / Economic Recovery
By: John_Mauldin
Let's Look at the Rules
Six Impossible Things
Killing the Goose
This week you will get a kind of preview as this week's letter. I am desperately trying to finish the first draft of my book and am one chapter away from having that draft. I have promised my editor (Debra Englander) that she would see a rough draft next week, and the final version will be delivered on the last day of September. More on that process for those interested at the end of the letter. But this week's letter will be part of what will probably be the 4th or 5th chapter, where we look at the rules of economics.
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Sunday, September 05, 2010
Stimulus and Full Employment, Averting the Great Depression Again / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Mike_Shedlock
In multiple posts Paul Krugman is saying "I told you so". For example, please consider Nobody Could Have Predicted
Saturday, September 04, 2010
Economic Suicide as Economies and the Middle Class are Taxed to Death / Economics / Great Depression II
By: Ty_Andros
As our socialist progressive leaders in the developed world murder wealth creation, the middle class and our economies under the guise of saving them. Capitalism is now dead in the lands of its birth because there are NO REWARDS for saving, investing, starting a business, hiring an employee, taking a risk or working your ass off to get ahead.
The rewards for doing so now go to GOVERNMENT, public serpents and their supporters to redistribute to themselves and to the desperate, useful idiots who support them (because they do not have the education required to know not to). As the something-for-nothings in society turn to government to save them more torture lays ahead.
Saturday, September 04, 2010
U.S. Government Policy Caused America's Unemployment Crisis / Economics / US Economy
By: Washingtons_Blog
The unemployment rate has risen again for the the first time in 4 months. I predicted a growing, long-term unemployment problem last year.
Indeed, even after the government plays with the numbers to make them look better (using inaccurate birth-death models and other tricks-of-the-trade), this is how the current jobs downturn compares with other post-WWII recessions:
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Friday, September 03, 2010
Weighing In On the Week’s Economic Reports! / Economics / US Economy
By: Sy_Harding
The stock market this week is saying I was wrong in warning in last week’s column that we might already be back in recession in this, the third quarter of the year.
I have to agree that the alarming trend of worsening economic reports since May seemed to turn a bit more mixed with this week’s reports.
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Friday, September 03, 2010
U.S. Unemployment Rises to 9.6%, A Look Beneath the Surface / Economics / US Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
This morning the BLS reported a decrease of 64,000 jobs. However, that reflects a decrease of 114,000 temporary census workers.
Excluding the census effect, government lost 7,000 jobs. Were the trend to continue, this would be a good thing because Firing Public Union Workers Creates Real Jobs.
Friday, September 03, 2010
Bad Monetary Policy Is Redundant / Economics / Economic Theory
By: MISES
George F. Smith writes: A great thinker once wrote that "all things useful are of such a nature that where there is too much of them they must either do harm, or at any rate be of no use, to their possessors."[1]
Having experienced the harmful results of a paper currency manufactured at will, early US statesmen tried to forbid it from ever happening again. Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution specified that no state shall "make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts," while the
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Friday, September 03, 2010
If a Pure Market Economy Is So Good, Why Doesn't It Exist? / Economics / Economic Theory
By: MISES
Edward Stringham and Jeffrey Rogers Hummel writes: If a pure market economy is so good, why does it not already exist? If governments are so bad, why are they dominant throughout the world today? Indeed, is the widespread adoption of free markets ever likely to occur?
Many recent authors, including Tyler Cowen,[1] Cowen and Daniel Sutter,[2] Randall G. Holcombe,[3] and Andrew Rutten[4] question the feasibility of a pure libertarian society.[5] They maintain that such a system cannot arise or persist because some people will always have both the incentive and the ability to use force against others. These authors offer several reasons why, even if society starts out in a perfect libertarian world without any states (as Murray Rothbard and others advocate),[6] competing groups will eventually form a coercive government.
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