Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Debt Fuelled Zombie Capitalism, Bernanke "Marching Ignorantly Forward" / Economics / US Debt
By: Mike_Shedlock
Australian economist has another blockbuster post on the dynamics of debt deflation and the Great Financial Collapse. Please consider Debtwatch No 41, December 2009: 4 Years of Calling the GFC.
Read full article... Read full article...During a debt-driven financial bubble, which is the obvious precursor to a debt-deflation, rising levels of debt propel aggregate demand well above what it would otherwise be, leading to a boom in both the real economy and asset markets. But this process also adds to the debt burden on the economy, especially when the debt is used to finance speculation on asset prices rather than to expand production–since this increases the debt burden without adding to productive capacity.
Monday, November 30, 2009
A Faith-Based Economic Recovery / Economics / Economic Recovery
By: TheDailyReckoning
Joel Bowman writes: Today we have something extraordinary for you to ponder. We call it, in the prescribed, politico-doublespeak of the times, a “recovery.” Allow us to elaborate for just a moment…
Monday, November 30, 2009
U.S. Debt, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in Real Time / Economics / US Debt
By: Frank_Holmes
Anyone who has visited New York has probably seen The National Debt Clock, a digital readout of how much the federal government owes its creditors. The speed at which that number grows is daunting.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Blame Keynes, Not China for America's Economic Mess / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Gerard_Jackson
Every financial crisis seems to produce its own crop of economic fallacies. The Great Depression gave us the mercantilist fallacy of "demand deficiency" that Keynes dressed up in mathematical garb and convoluted language. Instead of the boom's inevitable bust being treated as a case of "disproportionalities" that needed to be liquidated if the equilibrium was to be restored it was now defined as a simple case of insufficient demand could be easily corrected by increased government spending, i.e., a monetary expansion. (Incidentally, Keynes never argued that this policy would have restored full employment in the 1930s, quite the opposite. Those who argue to the contrary should read T. W. Hutchison's Keynes v. the 'Keynesians'...?, The Institute for Economic Affairs, 1977.)
Friday, November 27, 2009
The Forgotten Economic Depression of 1920 / Economics / Economic Depression
By: Thomas_E_Woods
It is a cliché that if we do not study the past we are condemned to repeat it. Almost equally certain, however, is that if there are lessons to be learned from an historical episode, the political class will draw all the wrong ones — and often deliberately so.
Far from viewing the past as a potential source of wisdom and insight, political regimes have a habit of employing history as an ideological weapon, to be distorted and manipulated in the service of present-day ambitions. That's what Winston Churchill meant when he described the history of the Soviet Union as "unpredictable."
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Thursday, November 26, 2009
Mike Shedlock, a Deflationist Lashing Out at Nouveau Inflationists? / Economics / Deflation
By: Nadeem_Walayat
I recently wrote an article as part of a series on my new inflationary scenario and outlook for the world economies and markets (Deflationists Are WRONG, Prepare for the INFLATION Mega-Trend ), which drew the attention of Mike Shedlock who quotes and responded to the following text -
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Soaring Unemployment and Double-dip Recession? / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
By: Mike_Whitney
Barack Obama's chief economic advisor, Lawrence Summers, is determined to sabotage a second round of stimulus. And, he's getting plenty of help, too. Congressional Democrats are dragging their feet because they're worried about the political backlash and midterm elections, the GOP deficit hawks are looking for a way they can derail the Obama agenda and reestablish their bone fides as fiscal conservatives, and the bailout-traumatized American people are simply opposed to anything that generates more red ink. Even Obama has joined the fray and started badmouthing stimulus stressing the importance of living within our means and trimming the deficits. So it looks like a done-deal; no more stimulus. There's only one problem, without another blast of stimulus the economy is headed for the skids.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Dubai debt Defaults, Deflation In Action, Watched Pot Theory Revisited / Economics / Global Debt Crisis
By: Mike_Shedlock
Last night after a 10 hour drive I was up at 5:00AM watching the futures plunge but not knowing why. Now we know: Dubai default fears spook investors
Thursday, November 26, 2009
While Economic Pundits Play "Gotcha," the Unemployment Situation Improves / Economics / Economic Recovery
By: Paul_L_Kasriel
The best measure of the current condition of the labor market is the state unemployment insurance data. These data are not samples or surveys with guesstimates of how many new jobs were created by new businesses, but the head count of actual people standing in actual unemployment insurance lines. Too be sure, because a government entity is doing the counting, the first count is not always the most accurate count. But after four weeks of counting and recounting, the number that emerges is the one that remains for all times. The monthly labor reports from the Establishment and Household surveys get revised over and over, literally, for years.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
The Next Economic Crisis: Spiraling Inflation - Part 2 / Economics / Inflation
By: Nick_Barisheff
Read Part 1 “The Next Crisis: Spiralling Inflation”
“Under a paper-money system, a determined government can always generate higher spending and hence positive inflation.”– Ben Bernanke
The investment world is a risky and confusing place right now. Part 1 of this article (The Next Crisis: Spiralling Inflation) detailed the reasons why the next stage in the financial crisis will almost certainly be spiralling inflation. This article (Part 2) provides a solution for investors who are looking for a way to shield their hard-earned wealth from the destruction of high and uncontrollable inflation.
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Wednesday, November 25, 2009
America's Stealth Stimulus Plan To Allowing Home Owners to become Deadbeats / Economics / Economic Stimulus
By: Trader_Mark
I was looking through the avalanche of economic data today, and it struck me how once again Americans are spending well over their income growth. I thought to myself, well part of this are all the programs where the American government is subsidizing consumption. In fact we're at the point one of every six dollars of consumption are from goverment, meaning you only need to "earn" 5/6ths of your spending power. [Jun 5, 2009: 1 in 6 Dollars of Income Now Via Government; Highest Since 1929]
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Deconstruction of DeLong's Economic Stimulus Accounting / Economics / Economic Stimulus
By: Robert_Murphy
Ever since the Obama administration released its report detailing the number of jobs "saved or created" from the $787 billion stimulus package, cynics have been having a field day playing with the numbers. Investigations have revealed that many of the respondents' claims of job creation are bogus, and simple division shows that some states received more than $500,000 in stimulus awards for each job "saved or created."
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
GDP and Consumer Spending Offer Hope / Economics / UK Economy
By: LiveCharts
In two days, sentiments on the economy have improved dramatically thanks to a pair of economic reports. Tuesday (November 24), the gross domestic product was said to have risen by 2.8 per cent from the second to the third quarter.
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Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Which Big Western Country Will Default On Its Debts First? / Economics / Global Debt Crisis
By: Money_Morning
Martin Hutchinson writes: Volume in the credit default swap market for rich countries has soared and so have credit spreads, according to a recent Financial Times story, while volume in emerging markets CDS has stagnated. In other words, traders are betting against the governments with high budget deficits, like Britain and the United States, as well as against those with high debt levels, like Japan and Italy.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
The Role of Money Creation in Economic Development / Economics / Quantitative Easing
By: Ellen_Brown
“We are completely dependent on the commercial Banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash or credit. If the Banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless position is almost incredible, but there it is. It is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon.” --Robert H. Hemphill, Credit Manager of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, 1934
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Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Looming Government Budget Deficits Will Make You Dirt Poor / Economics / Global Debt Crisis
By: Gary_North
"Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die." ~ Loretta Lynn
Loretta was singing about kicking the bucket. Kicking the can is what people do before they kick the bucket. It is also what Congress does before Treasury bills kick the bucket.
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Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Government Sovereign Debt Spirals / Economics / Global Debt Crisis
By: John_Mauldin
I have been writing about sovereign debt risk for some time. Japan, Spain, Italy and Portugal are all facing serious fiscal deficits and funding problems within a few years. But Greece may be the first country to hit the wall. In today's Outside the Box, we look at a short column by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the London Telegraph on the problems facing Greece. Greece will soon be faced with deciding which bad choice to make among a very small set of really bad, difficult choices.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Can Asset-Price Bubbles Be Harmless? / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Frank_Shostak
There is an increasing concern among some commentators that the current, extremely loose monetary policy of the US central bank could fuel another round of asset-price bubbles. This in turn, it is held, could pose a serious danger to the US economy.
Some commentators, such as John Taylor (the inventor of the Taylor rule), are urging the US central-bank policy makers to start considering a tighter stance as soon as possible, in order to prevent a repetition of the Greenspan Fed's interest-rate policy, which kept rates at very low levels for too long. (The Fed lowered its policy rate from 6.5% in December 2000 to 1% by June 2003. The Fed kept the rate at 1% until June 2004).
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Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The Great Depression of the 14th Century / Economics / Economic Depression
By: Murray_N_Rothbard
Most people — historians not excepted — are tempted to think of economic and cultural progress as being continuous: in every century people are better off than in the one preceding. This comforting assumption had to be given up quite early when the Dark Ages ensued after the collapse of the Roman Empire. But it was generally held that after the "renaissance" of the 11th century, progress in western Europe was pretty well linear and continuous from that point to the present day.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The Economic Crisis and What Must be Done / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
By: Richard_C_Cook
The United States does not control its own destiny. Rather it is controlled by an international financial elite, of which the American branch works out of big New York banks like J.P. Morgan Chase, Wall Street investment firms such as Goldman Sachs, and the Federal Reserve System. They in turn control the White House, Congress, the military, the mass media, the intelligence agencies, both political parties, the universities, etc. No one can rise to the top in any of these institutions without the elite’s stamp of approval.