Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Saturday, October 30, 2010
Double Dip Recession Delayed, Not Derailed / Economics / Double Dip Recession
The BEA Advance GDP for Third Quarter 2010 came in at +2.0%. However, Table 2. Contributions to Percent Change in Real Gross Domestic Product shows that Change in private inventories contributed +1.44 while real final sales contributed a mere .6.
How sustainable is that?
Friday, October 29, 2010
A Complexity Manifesto, Capitalists Continue to Increase Complexity Within Their Spheres of Production / Economics / Economic Theory
"Every limit appears as a barrier to be overcome" - Karl Marx (describing the world through a capitalist’s eyes)
There has been much debate since the global financial crisis of 2008 about what exactly happened and why. Some analysts believe that a period of deregulation in the financial sector, including the infamous repeal of Glass-Steagall (separating commercial and investment banking activities) [1], combined with reckless managerial decisions was the primary driver of a housing bubble, which led to a credit crunch and economic recession. Conservatives and libertarians tend to place the blame on government intervention in the housing and financial markets through Congressional legislation, such as the Community Reinvestment Act (putting pressure on banks to issue credit in low-income neighborhoods) [2], and the Federal Reserve's loose monetary policy (targeting low interest rates during the tech and housing bubbles) [3].
Friday, October 29, 2010
China's Massive Monetary Expansion and Crackup Boom / Economics / China Economy
China is pointing the finger at the US, complaining about "Out of Control" US dollar Printing by the Fed.
Read full article... Read full article...Dollar issuance by the United States is "out of control", leading to an inflation assault on China, the Chinese commerce minister said in comments reported on Tuesday.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Loss of Dollar Purchasing Power, The True Fed Inflation Targeting Bullseye / Economics / Inflation
When it comes time to put the current crop of economic blowhards and lunatics on trial for the disaster their insanely-bad advice caused, this quote from Frederic Mishkin, former Fed governor and who is directly responsible for the mess we are in, may come in handy.
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Thursday, October 28, 2010
U.S. Employment is Main Focus of Fed QE Policy / Economics / Employment
The Fed is widely expected to announce the details of the second round of QE (quantitative easing) following its 2-day meeting ending on November 3. There are more questions than answers about the nature of QE2 at the present time. Let's start with QE1 to put things in perspective; QE1 was in place from December 2008 to March 2010. The Fed purchased a sum of $1.725 trillion worth of agency bonds ($175 billion), mortgage-backed securities ($1.25 trillion) and Treasury securities ($300 billion). The outcome was a larger Fed balance sheet reaching $2.3 trillion as of March 2010 (see chart 1).
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Thursday, October 28, 2010
Paul Krugman Challenged to Debate on Keynesian vs Austrian Business Cycle Theory / Economics / Economic Theory
As many readers already know, last week I launched a campaign to pressure Paul Krugman into debating me. In just the first week, this sophomoric 7-minute YouTube video has generated $35,000 in pledges. At this point, I don't see how Krugman will ever live this down until he debates me on Austrian versus Keynesian business-cycle theory.
In the present article, I'll give a little background of how I came up with the idea. Then I'll point out the broader implications of this episode, which go well beyond my jousting with Krugman.
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Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Economies Pummeled by the Strong Arm of the Financial Ruin / Economics / Great Depression II
Casey's Gold & Resource Summit reports that "Casey Research's own resident economic genius Bud Conrad" is the "nonpareil whirling dervish of data points," which is an odd descriptor, and I interpret it as meaning a guy who knows how to send you into cardiac arrest with "a mind-boggling sequence of charts and graphs covering virtually every aspect of the economy."
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Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Global Banking System, Is There Life After Sudden Death? / Economics / Global Financial System
The debate on the Real Bills Doctrine (RBD) within the sound money movement is important because the international banking system, financing world trade as well as domestic trade, is facing its greatest challenge in all history. Indeed, it may succumb to the sudden death syndrome, and all efforts to resuscitate it may fail. Worse still, banks have by now acquired such a bad name, and they have earned such a universal hatred for their role in the global destruction of capital and of individual savings, that any new financial institution in whose name the word "bank" figures may be rejected out of hand by the people, should anyone try to make a fresh start in the banking business after the collapse.
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Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Poststeroid Economics / Economics / Economic Theory
During the ’80s and ’90s, ignorance was bliss. The global economy was growing nicely, and analyzing it (or even paying attention to market cycles) seemed like a waste of time, as the economy came in only three flavors: good, great and awesome. Even if you misread the flavor, the downside was that you’d just make a little less money.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Inflation in the Real World / Economics / Inflation
Jake Weber, Editor, The Casey Report writes: As is often the case, there is a big difference between what the government statistics are reporting and what’s going on in the real world. According to the most recent inflation reading published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), consumer prices grew at an annual rate of just 1.1% in August.
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Tuesday, October 26, 2010
UK Economic Boom Continues, GDP Q3 2010 +0.8%, Academic Economists Remain Clueless / Economics / UK Economy
The UK economic boom continued into the third quarter of 2010 with GDP jumping by 0.8% (+3.2% annualised), that itself followed on from an eye wateringly high growth rate of 1.2% for Q2, both of which were missed by the academic economists that populate the financial institutions and journalists / pseudo economists in the mainstream press that only hours before were expecting growth of 0.4% (1.6% annualised), which despite the economy booming still continue with mantra's based on theoretical models for a none existant double dip recession whilst the real economy literally booms.
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Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Should the Fed Be Concerned about Low Price Inflation? / Economics / Inflation
In its September 21 meeting, the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee expressed concern that the rate of inflation is far too low. According to the minutes some members of the FOMC have said,
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Tuesday, October 26, 2010
More U.S. Inflation Fears / Economics / Inflation
Inflation fears are heating up this week as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke gave a speech in Boston on Friday, causing further frantic flight into gold by those fearful of the coming “quantitative easing” the Fed is set to deliver in November. Others who view gold as a short-term investment engaged in immediate profit-taking after Bernanke's speech.
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Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Debt Default or Hyperinflation, U.S's Only Two Options / Economics / US Debt
I thought I had seen and heard it all after the ludicrous Ben Bernanke, asinine chairman of the Federal Reserve, announced that the official (and thus a lie!) 2% inflation in prices was too, too low, and he wanted higher inflation because, somehow, in some weird little fantasy world that only he and other neo-Keynesian econometric cyber-nerds can see, higher inflation is “consistent with the mandate of the Fed” to achieve stable prices (zero inflation)! Hahahaha!
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Monday, October 25, 2010
Is Today's U.S. Unemployment Rate Higher than During 1930's Great Depression? / Economics / Great Depression II
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David M. Kennedy notes in Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 (Oxford, 1999) that - during Herbert Hoover's presidency, more than 13 million Americans lost their jobs. Of those, 62% found themselves out of work for longer than a year; 44% longer than two years; 24% longer than three years; and 11% longer than four years.
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Monday, October 25, 2010
U.S. Fed Setting the Stage for Hyperinflation? / Economics / HyperInflation
Don Miller writes: The U.S. government wants to stimulate growth in the moribund economy by stoking the fires of inflation. But by leaving interest rates low and buying up bonds - a policy known as quantitative easing (QE) - the U.S. Federal Reserve risks debasing the dollar, which could lead to a prolonged period of hyperinflation that would send prices skyrocketing.
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Sunday, October 24, 2010
The Paradox of Capitalism, The Relevance of John Maynard Keynes / Economics / Economic Theory
Prabhat Patnaik writes: John Maynard Keynes, though bourgeois in his outlook, was a remarkably insightful economist, whose book Economic Consequences of the Peace was copiously quoted by Lenin at the Second Congress of the Communist International to argue that conditions had ripened for the world revolution. But even Keynes' insights could not fully comprehend the paradox that is capitalism.
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Sunday, October 24, 2010
Iceland Inflation, Debt and New Mortgage Crisis, U.S. How Far Behind? / Economics / Global Debt Crisis
The Icelandic financial crisis has been ongoing since 2008 when all three of the country's major commercial banks collapsed after they failed to refinancing their short-term debt and a run on deposits in the U.K.
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Sunday, October 24, 2010
Should You Be Worried About Deflation? / Economics / Deflation
Last month, I followed up on a discussion I began in over a year ago as to why hyperinflation would be a very unlikely scenario in the U.S.
In summary, this devastating scenario is a virtual impossibility despite the printing frenzy by the Fed because the banks have held onto most of this newly printed currency, keeping it out of the hands of consumers. (1) I discussed this fact over a year ago when I first debunked the deflation myth. (2)
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Friday, October 22, 2010
Economic Depression Within the Great Depression / Economics / Great Depression II
By James Quinn, Contributor, The Casey Report : Regular Casey Report contributor James Quinn is the head of strategic planning for one of the world's most prestigious business schools and the host of TheBurningPlatform.com blog. In this article, he is presenting historical indicators that may tell us what’s in store for the U.S. economy.
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