Category: Recession 2008 - 2010
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Wednesday, July 15, 2009
What Really Brought Us out of the Great Depression? / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Does “stimulus” really work? Does quantitative easing work? The historical record suggests not. So what brought us out of the Great Depression? The answer might surprise, even though it shouldn’t...
A grumpy President Obama says that the $787 billion dollar stimulus package “has worked as intended.”
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Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Will Obama's Job Retraining Programs Save The Unemployed? / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
President Obama is mulling rental options for foreclosed homeowners. Furthermore Obama seeks job training for the unemployed, concedes unemployment is getting worse, says auto jobs are not coming back, yet magically assumes job retraining will save the day.
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Wednesday, July 15, 2009
In Promoting Protectionism, American Labor May Be Putting U.S. Workers At Risk / Politics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Can Doing What Seems to be The Right Thing Turn Out To Be The Wrong Thing?
Leo Gerard of the United Steelworkers union is one of America’s most progressive and outspoken labor leaders. I met him at a Cornell University conference that brought environmental organizations and labor unions together to fuse a forward looking consensus on the need for green jobs as key to the transformation of our declining industrial base.
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Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Bernanke Sees Chance of Jobless Economic Recovery / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Given that the Fed's first mission is to delay, confuse, hope, and otherwise attempt to buy time while engaging in wishful thinking along the way, that Bernanke is willing to admit this may be a jobless recovery is a sign that things will likely be at least that bad. In other words, prepare for a job loss recovery.
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Tuesday, July 14, 2009
What the Fed’s Exit Strategy Will Mean for the Economy / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Economics is not an exact science. It pales in comparison to mathematics because it contains a high component of art in its analysis. With that said, there are several principles that still apply. One such principle is: when the condition of an economy becomes overleveraged, it needs to experience consistently expanding GDP with unabated asset price appreciation and a falling currency, or it will become insolvent.
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Tuesday, July 14, 2009
The Shamans Economic Solution: Why Failure is Imminent / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Lets say that Bernanke, Geithner, Krugman are all correct in saying that government stimulus/intervention is the only way to stimulate the economy out of recession/depression. So they ask Obama to spend enough money to create enough jobs to eventually solve the problem. Now there are 2 main ways that government can raise the amount of money that people like Geithner and others have calculated would be enough to stimulate the economy:
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Monday, July 13, 2009
U.S. Economy Recession End, Recovery and Interest Rate Forecast / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
When We Get "There", Will We Know It?- Back in April, our forecast update commentary was entitled, "Are We There Yet?" The "there" referred to a resumption of real growth in the overall economy. Our answer in April was "no," which also happens to be our answer in July. When will we get there? Our answer in April was the fourth quarter of this year, which also happens to be our answer now. Assuming we get there in the fourth quarter, would most households and businesses in America know it if they were not so informed by the media? Probably not. We anticipate another "jobless recovery," which implies a relatively feeble one. We would not be surprised to hear terms early in 2010 such as "double dip."
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Sunday, July 12, 2009
Housing Market Bottoming, Economy Recovering? / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
BCA Research: US economy - it looks like a recovery
“The US economy is transitioning to a recovery path, though it will be bumpy and subdued compared with past cycles.
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Sunday, July 12, 2009
Does 5 Trillion of New Debt Mean End of the Recession? / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
The End of the Recession?
The New Normal Is Still In Our Future
The Hidden Problem Within Unemployment Data
Was Income Really Up?
There is no doubt that the US is in financial trouble. Those talking of a strong recovery are just not dealing with reality. But the US is in better shape than a lot of countries.
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Saturday, July 11, 2009
Secular Economic Stagnation / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Two weeks ago, I indicated that I had gone into a full, risk neutral hedge on my call options portfolio. This, of course, was equivalent to a call to cash in light of weakening market conditions. Since that time, the market has continued to deteriorate technically, and this technical deterioration clearly reflects uncertainties over economic fundamentals. This call to hedge or cash remains in play.
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Saturday, July 11, 2009
When Will The Economic Recovery Begin? Never / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Robert Reich writes: The so-called "green shoots" of recovery are turning brown in the scorching summer sun. In fact, the whole debate about when and how a recovery will begin is wrongly framed.
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Friday, July 10, 2009
U.S. Unemployment Claims: How Bad are the "Real" Numbers? / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
As noted in Continuing Claims Soar by 159,000 to New Record the record continuing claims number is dramatically understated by over 2.5 million. Charts of what is really happening are shown below but first let's recap the data as reported by the Department of Labor.
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Thursday, July 09, 2009
34 Million Americans Now on Food Stamps / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Earlier today, in Continuing Claims Soar by 159,000 to New Record; Initial Jobless Claims Skewed By Autos I noted The peak in initial claims might be in but the peak in unemployment has not. Moreover, reported continuing claims hit 6.883 million, setting a new all time record.
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Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Another Victim of America’s Ponzi Scheme Economy (Part 1) / Politics / Recession 2008 - 2010
As of yesterday, Lear Corp., an auto parts supplier for the "Little 3" joined the list of others who have been victimized by the collapse of America’s Ponzi scheme economy.
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Tuesday, July 07, 2009
U.S. State Budget Gaps and Investment Implications / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
State budgets are a shambles. Sales taxes, corporate taxes, personal income taxes and other taxes are being raised all over the country. The budget problems and consequential taxes will impact municipal bond rates and default risk, and after-tax investment returns on many forms of investment.
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Monday, July 06, 2009
Yes, We're Still in a Recession / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
In the words of Maxwell Smart…missed it by that much! The jobs report came in much worse than expected and forced investors to review their “green shoots” thesis and pushing down stocks by 200 points in the process. One of the more interesting points about the jobs data is in the past seven recession since WWII, this one has shown the greatest percentage loss of jobs and unless it bottoms right now, will be the longest decline in jobs, beating the ’73-’74 recession.
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Saturday, July 04, 2009
HyperInflation or Deflation Depression, Which is More Probable? / News_Letter / Recession 2008 - 2010
Dear Reader
The inflation / deflation debate continues to rage as deflationists see continuing collapse in the global economies under the weight of the deleveraging debt mountain as recently iterated in a 20 minute video by the worlds foremost proponents for deflation.
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Friday, July 03, 2009
U.S. Economy Economic Recovery Achilles Heel / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
BIG PICTURE – The much anticipated economic recovery is now fully discounted by the financial markets. Most strategists and economists seem to agree that the US economy is stabilising and will start to revive towards the end of the year. Interestingly, the ‘great depression’ hyperbole doing the rounds last autumn has now been replaced by the ‘green shoots’ hype. It seems as though everyone is spotting some kind of ‘green shoots’ somewhere in the economy. If one didn’t know any better, after reading the latest headlines in the media, one could easily get the impression that perhaps the geniuses in the financial community have now become experts in horticulture!
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Friday, July 03, 2009
Is Still More Economic Stimulus Needed? / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
It hasn’t been a good week for Wall Street’s ‘green shoots’ analogy. This week’s economic reports looked more like crop-killer than fertilizer, certainly not providing much support for the current popular wisdom that consumers will soon be spending us out of the recession.
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Thursday, July 02, 2009
U.S. Economy Heading for Japan of the 1990's or Argentina 2002? / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Introduction: The inflation / deflation debate in the US is still alive and well. In deflation camp, there is the rising star du-jour Nouriel Roubini and old timer Robert Prechter. They argue the debt collapse would cause price deflation and depress world economies for years to come. The inflation camp includes Jim Rogers and Marc Faber, who said on May 27 2009 that "I am 100 percent sure that the U.S. will go into hyperinflation "
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