Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
IMF Christine Lagarde Lagarde - U.S. Economy Not in a Downward Spiral / Economics / US Economy
By: Bloomberg
Christine Lagarde, International Monetary Fund Managing Director, spoke with Bloomberg Television's Tom Keene today about the IMF’s forecast cut for U.S. GDP growth in 2014, how she views the U.S. economy on a global scale and French politics. She also explains why the IMF recommends an increase in the U.S. minimum wage to kick start growth.
Lagarde said, "We have revised downward the 2014 numbers, but we do not think that it will be a downward spiral. We believe that 2015 will be up 3 percent."
Monday, June 16, 2014
The Data Is Clear: Free Markets Reduce Poverty / Economics / Wages
By: MISES
D.W. MacKenzie writes: Some Catholic clergy have, once again, denounced supporters of laissez-faire capitalism. Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga claims that the free market economy is “a new idol” which creates inequality, excludes the poor, and that “this economy kills.” Cardinal Maradiaga does not speak alone. He quoted Pope Francis in his recent remarks and claimed that since the Pope “grew up in Argentina,” he“has a profound knowledge of the life of the poor.”
Sunday, June 15, 2014
The Busted Myth Of War And Economic Growth / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Raul_I_Meijer
A strange point of view is expressed in George Mason University economics professor Tyler Cowen’s NY Times article ‘The Lack of Major Wars May Be Hurting Economic Growth’, strange in more ways than just the obvious ones. Of course we find it counterintuitive to link growth to warfare. And of course we don’t like to make a link like that. But there’s a lot more here than meets the eye. For one thing, the age-old truth that correlation does not imply causality, something Cowen hardly seems to consider at all. Which is curious, and certainly makes his arguments carry a whole lot less weight, and interest. It makes his whole article just about entirely one-dimensional.
Friday, June 13, 2014
Debt is No Salvation / Economics / US Debt
By: Peter_Schiff
Thus far 2014 has been a fertile year for really stupid economic ideas. But of all the half-baked doozies that have come down the pike (the perils of "lowflation," Thomas Piketty's claims about capitalism creating poverty, and President Obama's "pay as you earn" solution to student debt), an idea hatched last week by CNBC's reliably ridiculous Steve Liesman may in fact take the cake. In diagnosing the causes of the continued malaise in the U.S. economy he explained, "the problem is that consumers are not taking on enough debt." And that "historically the U.S. economy has been built on consumer credit." His conclusion: Consumers must be encouraged to borrow more money and spend it. Given that Liesman is CNBC's senior economic reporter, I would hate to see the ideas the junior people come up with.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, June 13, 2014
The Great Myth of Money Velocity / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis
The missing variable in the great monetary equation is money velocity. We hear it over and over again, "There is no money velocity." And therefore, inflation cannot be a problem and is not.
Yet, there is a great divergence between the conventional financial media and the public who goes to the supermarket. The financial media swallows whole the official artifice that inflation is near-zero while ‘J.Q. Public’ sees his/her grocery costs, health insurance, etc. rising by leaps and bounds.
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Thursday, June 12, 2014
Unemployment and A Tale of Two Financial Crises / Economics / Unemployment
By: MISES
D.W. MacKenzie writes: The latest GDP report indicates a slowdown in overall economic activity in the first quarter of 2014. Apologists for the Obama administration attribute the recent slowdown to unusual winter weather. Some have even suggested that the first-quarter slowdown sets the stage for rapid economic growth for the remainder of this year: there is pent up demand and untapped potential productivity, they claim. Mobilization of unemployed resources and satisfaction of unmet demands could, in the remainder of 2014, translate into a faster annual rate of GDP growth, perhaps 3.5 percent. The flaws of this argument should be obvious. One can just as easily argue that the much larger slowdown of 2008 set the stage for fast growth in the 2009-2013 time frame. The 2008 crisis left us with much greater pent up demand and untapped productivity. Yet the recovery that began in 2009 nearly stalled in 2010 and has been extraordinarily slow. Why has the recovery been so very slow?
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Death Cross For Global Economic Growth / Economics / Economic Statistics
By: Andrew_McKillop
The Perfect Storm
World Bank estimates and forecasts of economic growth are as slippy and always-cut-back as IMF forecasts. They share the same “optimistic cognitive bias”. The Bank's latest forecasts, issued Tuesday 10 June, used the terms “bumpy start to 2014”, nearly 6 months through the year, and talked about “cold winter conditions” slowing growth in “several countries”. Not in Europe. It had one of its warmest winters for decades – and growth declined in Europe, also!
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Peak Pollution: China Aims For The Top So It Can Go Down / Economics / China Economy
By: OilPrice_Com
City-dwelling Chinese may still be choking on smog, but amid all the haze, China may turning a corner in its fight on pollution. Top Chinese officials have hinted at the fact that China is working hard to achieve "peak" greenhouse gas emissions, which may come sooner than observers expect. "Peak pollution" refers to the point at which a developing country's economy reaches a high enough level of production to ensure it will continue to grow even as it begins to work on reducing pollution rates.
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Wednesday, June 11, 2014
The US Government Has Nearly As Much Debt As The World Has Wealth / Economics / US Debt
By: Jeff_Berwick
According to a study by the Boston Consulting Group, privately held wealth increased to $152 trillion globally in 2013.
Compare this to estimates putting the US federal government's total debts and liabilities alone at anywhere from $78 trillion to $200 trillion and you can see just how untenable the US government's debt is. The US government is nearly indebted to the equivalent of all the privately held wealth in the world and possibly more!
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Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Debunking The Velocity Myth Once And For All / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Jeff_Berwick
Ed Bugos writes: - “Things are not what they appear to be: nor are they otherwise”
At TDV we demonstrate this truth almost every day – in our blog, our tweets, and in our newsletters.
Just last week Jeff discussed the fallacy of GDP, comparing our lot to that of Jim Carey’s as Truman Burbank, the unaware mark in the Truman Show. In that blog, Jeff discussed one of the main problems with relying on GDP (Gross Domestic Product) as a measure of economic growth.
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Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Economy - The Better It Looks, The Worse It Gets / Economics / Global Economy
By: Raul_I_Meijer
It’s common knowledge at this point, even if there’s never a shortage of voices who will insist on denying it, that many of the numbers we see allegedly describing our economic realities, are not real at all. Unemployment, GDP, the issue is familiar. And if the US government, or any government for that matter, thinks it’s such a great idea to “massage” their numbers, then to quite an extent those of us who pay attention can shrug them off as largely irrelevant, even if they greatly distort many people’s views of where we find ourselves. The nonsense comes in so fast and furious we need to realize we can’t win ‘em all. But we should never be tempted into thinking much of what we read are anything else than fake, virtual zombie numbers. Still, it’s when fake numbers get real life consequences that we need to raise our voices, even if that’s for the umpteenth time. A report issued yesterday by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) makes for such a moment. Here’s what the BBC had to say:
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
U.S. Employment Exceeds Pre-Recession Peak, but Hold the Cheers… / Economics / Employment
By: Money_Morning
Diane Alter writes: The May jobs report had the potential to pass for decent, but then we looked at the labor force participation rate...
Employers added 217,000 jobs in May, leading the labor market to the milestone of recovering all the jobs lost at the depths of the Great Recession. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, remained flat at 6.3%, the U.S. Labor Department reported Friday. Both figures were in line with consensus forecasts of a 220,000 gain and an unchanged rate.
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Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Orbital Teapot Syndrome And Success-Bias Economics / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Andrew_McKillop
Doctor Les Woodcock Says
The former NASA consultant scientist, Dr Les Woodcock of Manchester University UK says he has had enough of Global Warming hysterics. His argument that an unsubstantiated hypothesis cannot rule supreme in climate science also applies to the flagrant and mindless meddling with the economy, for example by 'Super' Mario Draghi of the ECB using his Keynesian spin doctors for the chorus line.
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Can China's Central Planners Revive China’s Economic Miracle? / Economics / China Economy
By: John_Mauldin
For years, when asked whether I thought China would experience a hard landing, I would simply answer, “I don't understand China. Making a prediction would be pretending that I did, so I can’t.” The problem is that today China is the most significant macroeconomic wildcard in the global economy. To understand both the risks and the potentials for the future you have to reach some understanding of what is happening in China today. Last week we started a two-part series on what my young associate Worth Wray and I feel is the significant systemic risk that China poses to global growth.
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Conscious Uncouplings - Global Bad Economies / Economics / Global Economy
By: John_Mauldin
By Grant Williams
It is with hearts full of sadness that we have decided to separate. We have been working hard for well over a year, some of it together, some of it separated, to see what might have been possible between us, and we have come to the conclusion that while we love each other very much we will remain separate.
We are, however, and always will be a family, and in many ways we are closer than we have ever been.
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Tuesday, June 10, 2014
China Economy Leads the World in Green Energy, Gaming and Gambling Markets / Economics / China Economy
By: Frank_Holmes
Last month, Xian Liang, co-portfolio manager of our China Region Fund (USCOX), attended the 19th CLSA China Forum in Beijing. There he and hundreds of other global attendees were given the opportunity to meet with representatives from Chinese corporations, some of which U.S. Global owns. Xian also managed to get a sense of how the nation's recent changes in consumer behavior and governmental policy reforms might affect its investment outlook. Although China remains an emerging market, it has lately taken a number of considerable strides to position itself as one of the world's most attractive places to invest.
Monday, June 09, 2014
Geopolitics in Asia with Marc Faber & Understanding GDP Like Never Before / Economics / Economic Statistics
By: Keith_Hilden
In our latest Squawkonomics interview with Marc Faber, we were told a story of a petulant and wincing state carrying a heavy burden and unwilling to release its full spectrum dominance view on its administration of the world in light of a recent economic fallback, a declining economic share of the global economy, and the very stewardship of the global reserve currency being in flux. The story did not have a clear ending, nor did the reign of the world come effortlessly into the hands of newly important states. Nor did it portend the future of frontier markets and developing countries that could very well benefit from a US with a declining share of global GDP. Perhaps overlooking a wide expanse of undeveloped frontier markets, a quote from Dune author Frank Herbert would be best. “There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.” Indeed, that however the reserve currency question is answered, and however US economic hegemony looks in 10 or 20 years, there is one inevitable variable that stays constant throughout the geopolitical and economic King of the Hill tug of war between global powers. As two or more tigers duel on a mountain for global financial supremacy, the continued development of the rest of the developing world goes on unabated. That is a guarantee.
Monday, June 09, 2014
Economic Doom & Gloom Sells / Economics / Economic Statistics
By: EconMatters
Improving Economic Data
We have noticed that despite an improvement in the economic fundamentals of the United States as per the robust manufacturing numbers, automobile sales data, and upbeat employment numbers in 2014 many go out of their way to find negatives in every economic report instead of focusing on the relativeness of the data. In other words, are we doing better in these areas than two years ago on an “apples to apples comparison” basis?
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Sunday, June 08, 2014
More Phantom U.S. Jobs Created–All In The Wrong Places / Economics / Employment
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
Education is not the answer
Last April I saw a report that 83% of May’s college graduates did not have a job. I remarked that in my day most of us had 2 or 3 job or graduate school offers before we graduated. The latest payroll jobs report issued on June 6 proves that the April report was true.
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Saturday, June 07, 2014
U.S. Civilian Labor Force, Unemployment Claims and Recession Risk / Economics / Employment
By: PhilStockWorld
Courtesy of Doug Short: Every week I post an update on new unemployment claims shortly after the BLS report is made available. My focus is the four-week moving average of this rather volatile indicator. The financial press generally takes a fairly simplistic view of the latest number, and the market often reacts, for a few minutes or a few hours, to the initial estimate, which is always revised the following week.