Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Friday, April 12, 2013
The Keynesian Endgame / Economics / Economic Theory
David Stockman writes: Even the tepid post-2008 recovery has not been what it was cracked up to be, especially with respect to the Wall Street presumption that the American consumer would once again function as the engine of GDP growth. It goes without saying, in fact, that the precarious plight of the Main Street consumer has been obfuscated by the manner in which the state’s unprecedented fiscal and monetary medications have distorted the incoming data and economic narrative.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, April 12, 2013
Is Austrian Economics a Cult? / Economics / Economic Theory
I have experienced not one but two cases where eminent mainstream economists characterized Austrian economics as a cult. I told a friend and colleague of mine who is also an Austrian economist that I would be writing about this. He was worried that to mention the fact that two leading economists held the opinion that Austrian economics is cultish would place the praxeological school in a bad light. Well, maybe it will. However, I strongly believe that "sunlight is the best disinfectant." If these two dismal scientists strongly believe this, they can hardly be the only ones. My goal in writing this present essay is to attack this view as the pernicious and false doctrine that it is. I want to confront it, not run and hide from it.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Why Governments Lie About Inflation? Because It Covers Up Bigger Lies / Economics / Inflation
More and more analysts are catching on to the fact that Government measures of inflation are phony. The US Government tells us that inflation, as measured by the CPI, is 0.8%. This is largely a work of fiction however as the actual cost of goods purchased by consumers has increased.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Yenfamy, Propelling Japan's Economy Toward Certain Reckoning / Economics / Quantitative Easing
By Grant Williams writes: April 4 is a day when things tend to happen. Big things.
April 4, 1841 saw President William Henry Harrison, the ninth President of the United States, die of pneumonia after only 31 days in office. Twenty-four years later to the day, President Abraham Lincoln would be haunted by a disturbing dream. As Lincoln's close friend Ward Hill Lamon recollected:
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Why Bernanke Can’t Stop Deflation / Economics / Deflation
While there are many risks to the current ultra loose money policy, consumer price inflation isn't one of them. Inflation remains persistently low despite the best efforts of central banks to increase it.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) among the G7 economies was only 1.6%, year over year, during February. It was even lower at 1.4% excluding food and energy, according to economist Ed Yardeni. Meanwhile Producer Price Index (PPI) inflation rates are close to zero, Yardeni points out. In the euro zone, the CPI inflation rate is just 1.7%, and 1.4% excluding food and energy. Japan continues to experience deflation despite continuous efforts at reversing it through monetary easing.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
How Central Banks’ Easy Solution Could Devastate the Global Economy / Economics / Quantitative Easing
Sasha Cekerevac writes: Central banks around the world have opened the floodgates with massive levels of quantitative easing in an effort to try to stimulate their respective economies. Turning on the quantitative easing tap is easy; putting the genie back in the bottle will be extremely difficult for central banks globally.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, April 08, 2013
The Real U.S. Unemployment Rate is 13.9% / Economics / Employment
Employers added just 88,000 jobs in March, according to the U.S. jobs report released Friday, hiring at the slowest pace since June 2012.
The number was a huge miss. Analysts expected a gain of 200,000.
"We all over shot it," Austan Goolsbee, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors in U.S. President Barack Obama's first administration, said on CNBC. "This is a punch to the gut. I mean, this is not a good number."
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, April 08, 2013
The Economic World According To Stockman / Economics / Economic Theory
RIPELY CONSIDERED
In a review of main points from David Stockman's troublesome new book for peddlers of the mantra "We are all Keynesians now", in an economic world that Keynes wouldn't even be able to recognize, William Anderson listed the ways that "Neo Keynesians" not only hobble the fragile booms their basically schizophrenic policies produce, but also the fake recoveries that follow in their wake. In particular Anderson looks at Stockman's argument that when an economic boom crashes, the proper response of governments and monetary authorities should be to restore sound money and not try to prop up enterprises that failed in the crash. http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article39835.html
Sunday, April 07, 2013
The Real Reason There Will Be No Economic Recovery in America / Economics / US Economy
Nothing much happened on Wall Street yesterday. The Dow rose 56 points. Gold was flat.
From the Daily Mail in London:
Read full article... Read full article...US sees highest poverty spike since the 1960s, leaving 50 million Americans poor...
Sunday, April 07, 2013
U.S. Non Farm Payrolls Report - Interesting Seasonality Factors / Economics / Employment
As you may recall, the raw input into the Non Farm Payrolls report is the actual count of jobs which the BLS compiles.
To this number the BLS adds the output of the Birth-Death Model, which is their estimate of Jobs lost and created by new businesses not included in the report.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, April 05, 2013
The Stockman Backlash / Economics / Economic Theory
This week, while economists should have been closely considering the implications of the actual bankruptcy of Stockton, California, they instead heaped scorn on the perceived ideological bankruptcy of David Stockman. In other words, Stockman trumped Stockton.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, April 03, 2013
Zombie Parasites vs. Productives, Turning Argentine / Economics / Inflation
Here in Argentina, most things were closed on Monday for the Easter holidays... and are closed again today, too.
What do these Argentines think they are? French?
We wandered the streets. Here in the Palermo Soho neighborhood of Buenos Aires, where we are staying, there were thousands of people window-shopping, eating in restaurants and drinking in outdoor cafes.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, April 02, 2013
America's Continuing Economic Depression / Economics / Great Depression II
Seth Mason writes: This is not what economic recovery looks like. This is, however, what an economic depression looks like:
First, the American workforce is far smaller than it was before the 2008 economic collapse, even though the number of Americans of working age has increased by several millions:
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, April 01, 2013
The Real Fallout From Cyprus Crisis / Economics / Credit Crisis 2013
Holders of the Euro currency should be glad that the Troika is finally doing something besides just making more loans, printing more money and monetizing more debt—unlike what the Treasury and Federal Reserve is in the habit of doing. For me, this has to be positive for the Euro in the long term because the ECB is not expanding its balance sheet, while the Fed is rapidly expanding the U.S. monetary base.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, March 29, 2013
Preparing for Inflationary Times / Economics / Inflation
"All this money printing, massive debt, and reckless deficit spending – and we have 2% inflation? I'm beginning to believe that either the deflationists are right, or the Fed's interventions are working." – Anonymous Casey Research reader
The CPI, in our view, does not accurately measure inflation, which accounts for some of the discrepancy our reader is pointing out. However, the proper definition of inflation is "an increase in the quantity of money," which we've had in spades. We've not experienced the concomitant increase in prices, which is what we're addressing in this article.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, March 29, 2013
The Real U.S. Inflation Rate and What to Do About It / Economics / Inflation
A little over a month ago we did a quick poll on what our readers thought the real rate of inflation was. The idea for polling our readers came from the disconnect between the official government rate of around 1% and what some had told me they were experiencing first hand.
Thank you to everyone who participated, particularly those who shared frustrating examples of the ever-increasing cost of living. There were close to 100 pages of reader comments, and I read them all... every single word.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Should Bernanke Park the Helicopter? / Economics / Quantitative Easing
According to Ben Bernanke, pulling back on aggressive policy measures too soon would pose a real risk of damaging a still-fragile recovery.
The Fed chief is of the view that, for the purposes of financial stability, a continuation of the central bank’s aggressive stimulus, conducted through purchases of Treasury and mortgage securities, remains the optimal approach.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
The Economic Stimulus Trap / Economics / Economic Stimulus
For years we have been warned by Keynesian economists to fear the so-called "liquidity trap," an economic cul-de-sac that can suck down an economy like a tar pit swallowing a mastodon. They argue that economies grow because banks lend and consumers spend. But a "liquidity trap," they argue, convinces consumers not to consume and businesses not to borrow. The resulting combination of slack demand and falling prices creates a pernicious cycle that cannot be overcome by the ordinary forces that create growth, like savings or investment. They say that a liquidity trap can even resist the extraordinary force of monetary stimulus by rendering cash injections into useless "string pushing." Some of these economists suggest that its power can only be countered by a world war or other fortunately timed event that leads to otherwise politically unattainable levels of government spending.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Entrenched Deflation Threatens Economic Recovery / Economics / Deflation
TWO VIEWS ONLY
There are basically only two possible views. One is that entrenched deflation happens when there is persistent falling demand for credit and declining rates of money ciculation in the economy, driving down prices for goods, services and credit. This is confronted and made worse by increasing physical supply (and supply capacity) of goods and services. Due to generalized over-borrowing in the recent "economic cycle", QE Everywhere cannot fill the gap caused by secular deleveraging. All developed economies are "pushing on a string" and the temporary wealth effect of housing price and stock market gains has gone or will evaporate. They will all repeat the Japanese experience in their own way.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Hyperinflation? No. Inflation? Yes / Economics / HyperInflation
While inflation seems to be on everyone’s mind these days, misconceptions abound. Indeed, few concepts in economics are as misunderstood as inflation. This month I take a look at some common questions about inflation, and a few that I wish more people were asking.
Read full article... Read full article...