Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Monday, August 05, 2013
July Jobs Report Confirms Major Problems with U.S. Employment, Economy / Economics / Employment
By: Money_Morning
Diane Alter writes: The July jobs report brings the total number of part-time jobs created this year to more than three times the amount of full-time jobs added.
Welcome to America: Land of part-timers...
The trend was pronounced in June when data revealed part-time jobs grew by a robust 360,000 and full-time jobs declined by 240,000. Friday's July jobs report was further proof.
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Monday, August 05, 2013
The Worst U.S. Jobs Report in Four Months Does One Thing / Economics / US Economy
By: Profit_Confidential
Michael Lombardi writes:
This morning we got news that 162,000 jobs were created in July in the U.S. economy—the worst showing in the past four months. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, August 2, 2013.)
And when we look closely at the July U.S. jobs market report, it gets worse.
First off, the previous months’ numbers keep getting revised downward; the number of jobs added to the U.S. economy in May was revised down from 195,000 to 176,000, and June’s numbers were revised down from 195,000 to 188,000—combined, that’s 26,000 jobs that never really happened.
Monday, August 05, 2013
Shadow Banking - Is our Monetary Policy Dictated by the Peoples Bank of China? / Economics / China Economy
By: Sam_Chee_Kong
The current credit crunch in China is due to PBOC’s (People's Bank Of China) or China's Central Bank refusal to act as the lender of last resort to help banks to get out of their own financial mess. It also demonstrates that Central bank is willing to allow market forces to play a bigger role. This is to mean that banks will have to be on their own since PBOC has indicated that it will not be bailing them out this round. As a result banks have no choice but to be more conservative in their lending policies. What PBOC hope to achieve out of this?
Friday, August 02, 2013
Ravenous Vampire-Hounds Of Inflationary Hell / Economics / Inflation
By: Richard_Daughty
Thinking back on it, I see that I was, indeed, “on the edge” of going, as I seem to routinely be these days, completely berserk about how the evil Federal Reserve is creating so irresponsibly much, so staggeringly much, so impossibly much, so disastrously much excess currency and credit that We’re Freaking Doomed (WFD) to ruination and complete bankruptcy by the unstoppable inflation in prices, crushing weight of unpayable debt and a monstrous, suffocating government.
Friday, August 02, 2013
Why QE Money Printing Hasn't Stimulated the U.S. Economy / Economics / Quantitative Easing
By: Clif_Droke
After the Fed's latest 2-day policy meeting it announced on Wednesday that it would continue its $85 billion per month asset purchase program. The major indices fluctuated from positive to negative throughout the day, as is typical of a Fed meeting day, before closing basically unchanged.
Thursday, August 01, 2013
Curious GDP Deflator: Understanding Why Q2 GDP Growth Wasn’t 0.6% / Economics / Economic Statistics
By: PhilStockWorld
Courtesy of Doug Short:How do you get from Nominal GDP to Real GDP? You extract inflation from the numbers. The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) uses its own GDP deflator for this purpose, one that is somewhat different from the BEA’s deflator for Personal Consumption Expenditures and quite a bit different from the better-known Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation gauge, the Consumer Price Index.
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Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Increasing Probability for Cyclical Recession / Economics / Recession 2013
By: Profit_Confidential
Mitchell Clark writes:
This is a big week for capital markets, with the Federal Reserve meeting and July’s unemployment numbers to be released on Friday.
One thing that’s been clear with the stock market is that it has been staying lofty, mostly due to the expectation that the Fed will continue quantitative easing. But under this continued monetary stimulus, financial results are showing mediocrity.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Economic Future - The Blip! / Economics / Economic Theory
By: John_Mauldin
This week's Outside the Box does not make me feel good, but author Benjamin Wallace-Wells does explain Robert Gordon’s views better than anyone I have seen. (And of course the whole point of Outside the Box is to yank us out of our comfort zones from time to time.)
Dr. Robert Gordon is a professor of economics who has held a named chair at Northwestern University for decades; but as the author of this piece says, "[T]he scope of his bleakness has given him, over the past year, a newfound public profile." Gordon offers us two key predictions, both discomfiting. The first pertains to the near future, when, he says, our economy will grow at less than half its average rate over the last century because of a whole raft of structural headwinds.
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Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Why What Happens to the Chinese Economy Is Critical to America / Economics / China Economy
By: InvestmentContrarian
George Leong writes: The Chinese experiment is over—at least that’s what some in the financial media are saying. Well, guess what? It’s not over, but there will be hurdles along the road for China, as the country struggles to drive its domestic consumption and make sure the economy doesn’t tank.
The reality is that what happens in China is critical to America and the global economy. In fact, I will go as far as to say China is an increasingly important barometer for global business.
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Sunday, July 28, 2013
Ugly Secular Employment Trend of Part-Time Work, Emergening Underclass, the Lost Generation / Economics / Employment
By: John_Mauldin
It is pretty well established that a tax increase, especially an income tax increase, will have an immediate negative effect on the economy, with a multiplier of between 1 and 3 depending upon whose research you accept. As far as I am aware, no peer-reviewed study exists that concludes there will be no negative effects. The US economy is soft; employment growth is weak – and yet we are about to see a significant middle-class tax increase, albeit a stealth one, passed by the current administration. I will acknowledge that dealing a blow to the economy was not the actual plan, but that is what is happening in the real world where you and I live. This week we will briefly look at why weak consumer spending is going to become an even greater problem in the coming years, and we will continue to look at some disturbing trends in employment.
Friday, July 26, 2013
Forecasting China - Rebalancing - Change And Discontinuity / Economics / China Economy
By: Andrew_McKillop
Forecasting China trends is now a hard ride. The days of rock solid 10%-a-year growth are going, going, gone. Like the celestial Dragon which Chinese astrologers place at the center of their Magic Square – able to appear or disappear without warning to the 11 other real Animals such as the Monkey, Snake, Cat or Horse. China has woken up to what is a new problem for Chinese, but not for others. Its slowdown of economic growth, but possible slump into very low growth was a process that took about 40 years for the USA and 20 years for Japan - but may may only take 10 years for China.
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Free Spending Japan Now Headed for Economic Recovery? / Economics / Japan Economy
By: InvestmentContrarian
George Leong writes: It’s official: free-spending Prime Minister Shinzo Abe along with his Liberal Democratic Party and its alliance with the New Komeito Party will control the fate of Japan for the next few years. This will be enough power and support to push forward Abe’s massive and ambitious $1.2 trillion 10-year spending plan to drive the country’s economic recovery and battle deflation.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
U.S. Economic Review - Inflation, GDP and Long-term Interest Rates / Economics / US Economy
By: John_Mauldin
Lacy Hunt and Van Hoisington kick off their second-quarter Review and Outlook with a contrarian view: "The secular low in bond yields has yet to be recorded." And as usual, they have their reasons; but unlike most of the blabbermouth economic talking heads out there, they aren't interested in endlessly parsing the fitful utterances of Ben Bernanke and friends. Rather, they zero in on the fundamental reasons why long-term Treasury yields have probably not hit their low. Those reasons fall, they say, into four categories: (a) diminished inflation pressures, (b) slowing GDP growth, (c) weakening consumer fundamentals, and (d) anti-growth monetary and fiscal policies.
Then Lacy and Van take us deep into the whys and wherefores of their thesis. Their reasoning and the evidence behind it make for compelling reading – but you may want to read twice.
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Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Recognizing the End of the Chinese Economic Miracle / Economics / China Economy
By: STRATFOR
Recognizing the End of the Chinese Economic Miracle
Major shifts underway in the Chinese economy that Stratfor has forecast and discussed for years have now drawn the attention of the mainstream media. Many have asked when China would find itself in an economic crisis, to which we have answered that China has been there for awhile -- something not widely recognized outside China, and particularly not in the United States. A crisis can exist before it is recognized. The admission that a crisis exists is a critical moment, because this is when most others start to change their behavior in reaction to the crisis. The question we had been asking was when the Chinese economic crisis would finally become an accepted fact, thus changing the global dynamic.
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Euro-zone Deflation Warning for U.S. / Economics / Deflation
By: EWI
History shows that the U.S. should pay attention to economies in Europe
The economy has been sluggish for five years. There's no shortage of chatter about "why," yet few observers mention deflation.
One exception is a hedge fund manager who spoke up at the recent Milken Institute Global Conference.
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Sunday, July 21, 2013
Inflation or Deflation? / Economics / Economic Theory
By: John_Mauldin
By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method, they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth. Those to whom the system brings windfalls . . . become 'profiteers', who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished not less than the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds . . . all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless…. – John Maynard Keynes
Saturday, July 20, 2013
IMF Economists Say The Economic Recovery Is A Fake / Economics / Economic Recovery
By: Andrew_McKillop
WE ALWAYS BELIEVE THE IMF
Yet another 'leaked report' this time tells us something we have suspected for a long time – not only concerning the IMF's underhand “plausible denial” way of communicating bad news. The story starts with an internal IMF report called 'confidential' which was 'leaked to a Wall St Journal contributor'. This is now standard practice for the IMF, growing rapidly, and easy to trace back to its handling, or mishandling of European bailouts starting with Greece. One example is this report http://online.wsj.com...? where the IMF 'concedes it made mistakes'. Original leakage of this report generated a mini-crisis among EU27 finance ministers, including harsh words from Economics Commissioner Olli Rehn.
Friday, July 19, 2013
Central Banksters Make the Best Economic Terrorists / Economics / US Economy
By: Richard_Mills
From the minutes of theFederal Reserve meeting April 30th - May 1st 2013.
"Many participants indicated that continued (job market) progress, more confidence in the outlook, or diminished downside risks would be required before slowing the pace of purchases."
On May 22nd Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress that a decision could be made, at any of the next few Fed meetings, to scale back the $85 billion in bonds the Fed is buying each month if the economy looked set to maintain momentum. The S&P 500 closed 0.8% lower, the dollar hit a three year high and the bond market sold off with yields on the 10 year Treasury notes jumping above 2%.
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Friday, July 19, 2013
Are Higher Oil Prices About to Set Off an Inflationary Spiral? / Economics / Inflation
By: Money_Morning
Dr. Kent Moors writes: There is a long-held belief that significant increases in oil prices are harbingers of building inflationary pressures.
It follows from the observation that a market able to absorb more expensive oil is also one where prices are rising elsewhere.
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Thursday, July 18, 2013
Deflation Warning: Money Manager Startles Global Conference / Economics / Deflation
By: EWI
History shows that the U.S. should pay attention to economies in Europe
The economy has been sluggish for five years. There's no shortage of chatter about "why," yet few observers mention deflation.
One exception is a hedge fund manager who spoke up at the recent Milken Institute Global Conference.
Read full article... Read full article...