Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
The Worst of All Policies - Federal Reserve Policy Blunders / Economics / Credit Crunch
By: Adrian_Ash
"To lend a great deal, and yet not give the public confidence...is the worst of all policies." - Walter Bagehot, Lombard Street
"HISTORY PROVES that a smart central bank can protect the economy and the financial sector from the nastier side effects of a stock market collapse," wrote Ben Bernanke in Foreign Policy magazine, way back in October 2000.
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Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Chinese Consumers Show No Sign of Slowing! / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_and_Markets
Tony Sagami write: Just when U.S. investors were breathing a sigh of relief based on last week's uptick in new home sales, they got smacked again yesterday with far bleaker news on the larger market for existing homes:
• Another decline in sales …
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Monday, August 27, 2007
Bottlenecks and Monetary Policies: More Economic Fallacies that Damage Economies / Economics / Money Supply
By: Gerard_Jackson
The cry is going up from our economic commentariat that the Australian economy is running into “production constraints” and that this in turn will drive up interest rates. It is also argued that this situation is likely to be compounded by the inflationary effects of rising wages. This nonsense, readers, is what passes for economic wisdom, not only in the Australian media but also the world-wide media. Listen out for the same arguments appearing more and more frequently in the US as the Bush boom gets close to its economic economic denoument, unless the Fed unexpectly slaps on the monetary brakes .Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, August 27, 2007
US Dollar RIP / Economics / Inflation
By: Adrian_Ash
"...The call for more money to fix the financial markets comes just as global inflation is beginning to cause real mischief..."
EVEN IN DEATH, it seems, you're no longer safe from the iniquities of inflation.
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Monday, August 27, 2007
The US Trade Deficit and Chinese Surpluses: Economics v Paranoia / Economics / US Dollar
By: Gerard_Jackson
Now that the recent turmoil in international markets has subsided for now attention is returning to the sinister machinations of Beijing and its silent war against the US economy. It is held by some -- in fact, by far too many -- that China is using currency manipulation to deliberately deindustrialise the US and force its manufacturers to export jobs, as evidenced by the US trade deficit. Moreover, China is threatening to use its dollar reserves to sink the US economy.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, August 24, 2007
US Recession, It's a Shoe In / Economics / US Economy
By: Peter_Schiff
The current economic debate really boils down to one essential question: "Will there be a recession?" To me, the question has about as much vitality as debating whether Roger Clemens will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. (With over 300 wins and more strikeouts than any other pitcher besides Nolan Ryan, the Rocket is a sure thing for Cooperstown ). Similarly, a recession is not a question of “if” but merely of “when”.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Don’t Underestimate the U.S. Consumer? The Global Economy Is Strong? / Economics / US Economy
By: Paul_L_Kasriel
These are two common refrains from mainstream economists who never foresaw a recession until it already had been declared by the NBER. Today we received some information that ought to give these mainstreamers pause for thought.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Wall Street and Main Street Are Joined at the Hip / Economics / US Housing
By: Paul_L_Kasriel
Watching Bubblevision and reading the Wall Street Journal (see August 7 edition, " Don't Panic About the Credit Market ," David Malpass), I keep hearing that what happens on Wall Street doesn't materially affect Main Street. I respectfully disagree. Main Street is more dependent on Wall Street than ever before.
Chart 1 shows the history of one simple definition of household surpluses and deficits. This definition subtracts the sum of Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) and Residential Investment Expenditures (RIE) from Disposable Personal Income (DPI). Both PCE and RIE are "line items" in the Gross Domestic Product accounts. RIE is essentially the value-added in the private residential real estate sector - new construction of homes, including remodeling of existing homes, and the value added by real estate brokers. DPI is equal to all income currently earned by households, including employer contributions to pension funds, interest on investments, dividends on corporate equities and rents on property less taxes paid by households.
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Tuesday, August 14, 2007
China's Economic Blackmail / Economics / China Economy
By: Joel_S_Hirschhorn
Massive amounts of Chinese imports are threatening public health and safety. Many food and consumer products pose risks. Lead in children's toys and jewelry. Toxins in foods for pets and humans, and in toothpaste. Unsafe automobile tires. Many prescription drugs made with few safeguards. The list is endless. The federal government is not safeguarding American citizens through thorough testing of imports.
Why?
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Tuesday, August 14, 2007
It's Not the Housing Market That Threatens the US Economy / Economics / US Economy
By: Gerard_Jackson
The reported collapse of the mortgage market has clearly spooked markets and the great majority of analysts. We are even told that this financial ‘disaster' is rippling through Europe and Asia, forcing their central banks to pump up the money supply. But belief that the bursting of a housing boom could send the US economy into recession is, in my opinion, a complete fallacy.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Can China's Central Bank Wait Until August 25, 2008 to Rein In Inflation? / Economics / Inflation
By: Paul_L_Kasriel
The Chinese government reported today that Chinese consumer inflation in July reached 5.6% on a year-over-year basis - its highest rate since February 1997. As the chart below shows, Chinese consumer inflation has been trending higher throughout 2007. The People's Bank of China (PBOC) and the Chinese central government has implemented a series of measures this year in an attempt to rein in consumer price as well as asset price inflation.
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Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Japanese Q2 Real GDP Growth Downshifts Sharply as Export Growth Slows / Economics / Japan Economy
By: Paul_L_Kasriel
After growing at an annualized rate of 3.2% in the first quarter, Japanese real GDP growth slowed to only 0.5% in the second quarter. To be sure, domestic demand growth slowed - from 1.5% to 0.4%. But, as the first chart below shows, a rising percentage of Japanese real GDP is accounted for by its exports. For example, in Q2:2003, real exports accounted for 11.5% of Japanese real GDP. By Q2:2007, this ratio had risen to 15.3%.
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Saturday, August 11, 2007
Making Money vs Creating Wealth - Migrating to New Energy Paradigms Part 5 / Economics / Global Financial System
By: Brian_Bloom
Making money is not the same as creating wealth. The objective of this article is to facilitate an understanding of this deceptively simple statement which, in turn, will facilitate an understanding of the dimensions of the problems now being faced by humanity. Hopefully, this will lead to a realization that these problems – most of them – are soluble within a relatively short space of time.
Perhaps this anecdote will help to set a mental framework:
A long, long time ago I was number two ‘opening bat' for my school's First XI cricket team. I played sport six days a week in those days and had great hand/eye co-ordination. In my mind I can still recall the pleasure of opening my shoulders and smacking a loose ball for six over the bowler's head. The ball would connect with the “sweet spot” of the bat and soar into the bleachers above the sight screen at the far end of the field. It didn't happen often – but when it did, wow!
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Friday, August 10, 2007
Real Estate and Asset Deflation : The Ballgame is Over / Economics / Deflation
By: Steve_Moyer
When those of us at www.PonderThis.net started writing about "the coming asset deflation" in May of 2005, my, my, did our mailboxes fill up with, "Boy, are you ever wrong. The Fed will make sure these bubbles go on forever, stupid!" emails. Still, we had our small, rather quaint following of "fans."
And a motley group we were indeed!
As we developed our argument and saw our stuff get increasingly picked up by financial websites around the world, our "real estate deflation/credit contraction/liquidity crunch will sink all boats" theme took hold and the overwhelming majority of respondents began moving into our camp. Now we receive a stream of emails from readers demanding an update, wanting to know where things will go from here, and/or trumpeting their decisions to get out of (name almost any asset class) while the gettin' was good. Most now think that asset deflation has taken hold. In two years' time, the worm has certainly turned.
That's probably because, um, for the record -- we were right.
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Friday, August 10, 2007
You Know Things Are Bad When The WSJ Trots Out Malpass and Wesbury In The Same Week / Economics / US Economy
By: Paul_L_Kasriel
This headline is from an email I received today from a well-known financial journalist noted for her proclivity for identifying "naked emperors." I will address Malpass' errors in another commentary. But in this short note I want to talk to Wesbury's op-ed piece in today's WSJ, "Fair but Unbalanced".
Before countering some of Wesbury's almost perennial happy-talk, let me acknowledge a bit of truth in his essay. The financial media, especially the broadcast financial media, do like to "spice it up," akin to professional wrestling, by having bulls and bears duke it out. After all, as Wesbury indicates, it's all about ratings and ad dollars. Sound bites sell, not analysis. But that's the extent of our agreement.
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Wednesday, August 08, 2007
US Economic Growth in Domestic Private Final Demand : Its Falling - Can It Get Up? / Economics / US Economy
By: Paul_L_Kasriel
If the housing recession is not spreading to other parts of the economy, how do you account for the fact that growth in real domestic private final demand is slowing? Real domestic private final demand includes the following line items from the gross domestic product (GDP) accounts: personal consumption expenditures, nonresidential fixed investment expenditures and residential investment expenditures. Real domestic private final demand represented about 87% of real GDP in the past five years. Chart 1 shows the growth in real domestic private final demand in recent years – on both a quarter-to-quarter annualized basis and year-over-year basis.
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Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Some Advice For Ben Bernanke on the State of the US Economy / Economics / US Economy
By: Tim_Iacono
Here are a few words of advice for current Fed chairman Ben Bernanke who will prognosticate on the state of the U.S. economy in the FOMC policy statement today.
First, start assigning blame - get political man! The next few months are probably going to be pretty rough and next year might be even worse, so start pointing your finger at the guy who is responsible for all of this.
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Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Monetarism and the US economy / Economics / US Economy
By: Gerard_Jackson
Tom Nugent's article on the US economy and monetary policy inadvertently revealed the severe shortcomings of monetary debate in the US. ( Monetarism: Dead at Last? , National Review Online , 23 July 2007). Nugent refers to Wayne Angell, a former member of the Federal Reserve Board, who appeared on the Larry Kudlow show on CNBC , who said that the Fed was targeting the federal funds rate. What was really interesting was his comment that monetary growth merely responded to changes in the demand for money.
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Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Wage rates, Immigration and Jobs / Economics / Immigration
By: Gerard_Jackson
On the other hand we have the opposing fallacy that immigrants steal jobs. In fact, back in July 2004 John Stone, former head of the Australian Treasury, accused illegal immigrants of stealing jobs from Australians. So which is it? The first fallacy actually rests on very important economic truth that too many economists ignore: so long as there is sufficient capital and land to employ people and the free market prevails persistent widespread unemployment cannot. What is missing, however, is the price of labour. I have no doubt that if the hourly wage rates for those agricultural jobs that Americans are said to look down their noses at were to jump to $30 there would be an abundance of applicants.
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Monday, August 06, 2007
Disturbing Trends 2007 - The US Dollar Under Siege / Economics / US Dollar
By: Michael_J_Kosares
A critical juncture for gold and the U.S. economy
from the author of
"The ABCs of Gold Investing:
How to Protect and Build Your Wealth with Gold"
_____________
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