Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Tuesday, September 15, 2009
US Census Bureau Confirms Rising Poverty, Falling Incomes, and Growing Numbers of Uninsured / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
In early September, The US Census Bureau released its new report titled, "Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2008" showing disturbing data that portends much worse ahead under a president and Congress doing nothing to address it.
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Tuesday, September 15, 2009
U.S. China Tire Trade War Could Lead to Second Great Depression / Economics / Global Economy
Martin Hutchinson writes: When U.S. President Barack Obama late Friday (Sept. 11) signed an order that imposed an additional duty of 35% on tires imported from China, it set up the potential for an old-fashioned trade war.
Currently, global trade is down only 20%. During normal times, worldwide commerce would recover on its own. But as most investors understand all too well, these aren't normal times.
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Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Can Keynesian Spending Achieve National Energy Security ? / Economics / Climate Change
The December Revolution - The coming World Climate Summit, also called COP-15, is scheduled for a marathon 11 day series through December 7-18 in Copenhagen. This will bring together 192 presidents, heads of government or high level delegations, observers from a selected range of UN agencies and some other accredited organizations, selected NGOs and commercial sponsors, and carefully selected press and media. For the public getting in to these meetings is a lot more difficult, with open access sessions being the exception not rule. This has already resulted in accusations that COP-15 is essentially a closed-door forum where climate business will be pushed to the limit. Where national leaders will haggle in private for clear advantages and gains, here, and lower costs and losses, there.
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Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Yellen Calls For "U" Shaped Recession and Another Jobless Economic Recovery / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
One thing I like about Janet Yellen is that unlike Bernanke and Greenspan, she speaks understandable English and is not prone to sugar coating everything. I disagree with much of what she says, but not all of it.
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Tuesday, September 15, 2009
U.S. Retail Sales Bounce on Federally Subsidized Auto Sales / Economics / US Economy
One of my favorite sources of information is The Liscio Report by Philippa Dunne & Doug Henwood. Among other things, each month they survey all the states about tax revenues, expenses and then give us the results in a very pithy fashion. No one pays taxes unless they have to, and thus taxes tell us a lot about the current spending and income situation. Taxes are a far more reliable indicator then surveys, which most "data" is based on.
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Monday, September 14, 2009
Recession Ghost Fleets With No Crew, No Cargo and No Destination / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
The Mail Online has some stunning images of The ghost fleet of the recession.
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Monday, September 14, 2009
U.S. and China, The Alarming Tale of Two Economies / Economics / US Debt
The contrast between the U.S. and China has never been more disturbing.
Here in the U.S., our government is sinking into debt at the fastest pace in history. The federal deficit has nearly quadrupled in a year. New spending programs now before Congress seem to guarantee even higher deficits and debt ahead.
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Monday, September 14, 2009
UK Economic Productivity, Trends and Prospects / Economics / UK Economy
One of the key indicators of how well economies perform is productivity. Over the medium to long term, real income growth, and hence living standards, depend on how fast an economy can grow its output based on its labour and capital inputs. Those economies that perform well on this score tend to be those that are the most flexible and dynamic – i.e. those that have a high degree of skilled labour, undertake strong capital investment, employ a high proportion of their available workforce, and combine their labour and capital inputs in the most efficient manner.
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Sunday, September 13, 2009
Greenspan the Root Cause of this Economic Depression / Economics / Great Depression II
Bernanke, Geithner, and others have stated the biggest mistake in this depression was the failure to rescue Lehman. I have long disagreed, instead declaring the Bankruptcy of Lehman was one of the few things the Fed got right, even if by accident.
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Sunday, September 13, 2009
Decade of No Income Gains for Wage Earners / Economics / Employment
For the first time since the great depression (and possibly even then), US wage earners suffered through A Decade With No Income Gains.
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Sunday, September 13, 2009
1929 Great Crash, Depression, Then and Now Lessons From History / Economics / Economic Theory
Early 1955 finds the American public swamped by forecasts of prosperity and boom. Economic advisers to governments, corporations, universities, labor unions and other groups seem to have resolved in unison to assure the people that a depression like that of the 1930s has been banned forever from the American scene. "Americans need not fear a depression," they say. "Our government will carefully watch our economy and interfere when the need arises."
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Sunday, September 13, 2009
Fiat Money a Tool for War to Kill Americans / Economics / Economic Theory
A few years ago on these pages, I harshly criticized an article urging New Yorkers to "eat local," and went so far as to dub the young lady's column, "The worst economics article ever." I am here to report that her record has been smashed. Floyd Norris's recent New York Times article on the greenback is hands down the worst economics article I have ever read. Not only is it jam-packed full of false history, but it uses the falsehoods to justify monstrous crimes, both in the past and present.
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Sunday, September 13, 2009
Deflation, Falling Velocity of Money Ensures Printing Presses Will Keep Running / Economics / Deflation
Elements of Deflation, Part 2
The Velocity Factor
Y=MV
Sir, I Have Not Yet Begun to Print
There Are No Good Choices
Just as water is formed by the basic elements hydrogen and oxygen, deflation has its own fundamental components. Last week we started exploring those elements, and this week we continue. I feel that the most fundamental of decisions we face in building investment portfolios is correctly deciding whether we are faced with inflation or deflation in our future. (And I tell you later on when to worry about inflation.) Most investments behave quite differently depending on whether we are in a deflationary or inflationary environment. Get this answer wrong and it could rise up to bite you.
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Sunday, September 13, 2009
Fight Deflation by Giving Workers a Pay Rise / Economics / Economic Stimulus
The slight rebound in housing looks a lot different when one considers how much the Fed is meddling in the market. Fed chair Ben Bernanke has purchased $240 billion in US Treasuries to keep long-term interest rates artificially low while--at the same time--buying $740 billion in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities (MBS) to provide the financing for new home buyers. It's the double-whammy; and that's not all. Bernanke plans to continue buying agency MBS (monetization) until he reaches $1.45 trillion, which will make Uncle Sam the biggest player in the housing market by far. How's that for central planning?
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Saturday, September 12, 2009
The Economy Will Not Recover Until Trust is Restored / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
A 2005 letter in premier scientific journal Nature reviews the research on trust and economics:
Read full article... Read full article...Trust ... plays a key role in economic exchange and politics. In the absence of trust among trading partners, market transactions break down. In the absence of trust in a country's institutions and leaders, political legitimacy breaks down. Much recent evidence indicates that trust contributes to economic, political and social success.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Economic Fundementals Suggest This Fall and Winter Could Get Ugly / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Since March of this year, we have seen growing consensus and excitement from the mainstream media and government about an economic recovery underway. Scattered economic indicators are released and spun in a positive light when they are proportionally minuscule improvements compared to the declines already experienced for each given indicator. They typically use this sugarcoated data and ignore reality to say “the worst is behind us, yet perhaps we’ll still see a 10-15% correction in the markets, and growth might be slow for quite awhile”. In under six months from the low, the markets have rallied over 45%. Yet this type of market move up hasn’t been seen since the lead-up to the crash of October, 1987.
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Thursday, September 10, 2009
Government Run Economy, A New Era of Opportunity / Economics / Government Intervention
Could it be that the government is now in the driver's seat of the economy, having replaced the private sector? We certainly don’t believe it is the engine yet, but increasingly it has moved from being the backseat driver directing instructions intermittently, to taking over the steering wheel.
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Thursday, September 10, 2009
Widening U.S. Trade Deficit Signals Economic Recovery / Economics / Economic Recovery
Jason Simpkins writes: The U.S. trade deficit expanded at its fastest pace in more than ten years in July, accelerated by rising oil prices and increased demand for auto parts and industrial supplies.
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Thursday, September 10, 2009
G-20 Governments Inflate the Global Economy to Economic Prosperity / Economics / Economic Recovery
Who says central bankers can’t inflate an economy to prosperity? To head-off the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, the “Group-of-20” central banks have slashed interest rates to record lows, while politicians have funneled trillions into the coffers of the most powerful Oligarchic banks. So far, the cost of mopping up after the world financial crisis is a staggering $12-trillion, or equivalent to around a fifth of the world’s annual economic output.
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Thursday, September 10, 2009
Wave of Unemployment in the U.S. What to Expect and What to Do- Part2 / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Continued from Part 1 hereDecline in Manufacturing
As everyone knows, the manufacturing has shrunk in the United States and the service sector has grown. Even in a manufacturing center such as Detroit, manufacturing jobs have been declining for decades: Read full article... Read full article...