Category: Recession 2008 - 2010
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Thursday, January 08, 2009
Unintended Consequences of the 20th Century and Beyond / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
“The law of unintended consequences is what happens when a simple system tries to regulate a complex system. The political system is simple. It operates with limited information (rational ignorance), short time horizons, low feedback, and poor and misaligned incentives. Society in contrast is a complex, evolving, high-feedback, incentive-driven system. When a simple system tries to regulate a complex system you often get unintended consequences.” Andrew GelmanRead full article... Read full article...
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Unemployment Claims Crash Multiple State Websites / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
As pink slips mount, so do calls to state unemployment centers. Those calls are pouring in so fast that state unemployment claim systems are overwhelmed .
Electronic unemployment filing systems have crashed in at least three states in recent days amid an unprecedented crush of thousands of newly jobless Americans seeking benefits, and other states were adjusting their systems to avoid being next.
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Thursday, January 08, 2009
Massive Jobs Contraction In Small and Medium Sized Businesses / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
2008 is poised to become of the worst years ever for jobs. So far it is 11 out of 11 months for job losses. December will make it a perfect 12 of 12.Furthermore, it is now looking likely that December will exceed November's grim total of 533,00 jobs lost. See Jobs Contract 11th Straight Month; Unemployment Rate Hits 6.7% for more details.
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Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Unemployment Pink Slips Mount and So Do Concerns / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Increasing numbers of "Pink Slips" are weighing on the minds of consumers. Every industry, every service is affected, not just in the US, but globally. Please consider Alcoa to cut 13 pct of global work forceAlcoa Inc., the world's third-largest aluminum maker, said Tuesday it will cut 13,500 jobs, or 13 percent of its work force, and slash spending and output to cope with the global economic slowdown.
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Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Families Start Saving; Does This Aggravate The Nation's Woes? / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Inquiring minds are reading Hard-Hit Families Finally Start Saving, Aggravating Nation's Economic Woes . Here are some snips from the article, followed by a rebuttal.
Rick and Noreen Capp recently reduced their credit-card debt, opened a savings account and stopped taking their two children to restaurants. Jessica and Alan Muir have started buying children's clothes at steep markdowns, splitting bulk-food purchases with other families and gathering their firewood instead of buying it for $200 a cord.
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Sunday, January 04, 2009
Deep Global Economic GDP Contraction During 2009 / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Financial Times: GMAC gets $6 billion injection from US Treasury
“The US Treasury department late on Monday unveiled up to $6 billion in aid for GMAC, the financial services group which is critical to part-owner General Motors‘ turnaround.
“The Treasury said in a statement it would buy $5 billion in senior preferred equity with an 8% dividend from GMAC, characterizing the investment as part of ‘a broader program to assist the domestic automotive industry in becoming financially viable'.
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Monday, December 29, 2008
There's No Pain-Free Cure for Recession / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Belt-tightening is required by all, including government. The following are excerpts from my article that ran in the Wall Street Journal on the 27th of December. The piece considers why unlimited government activism to fight the intensifying recession is so universally appealing.Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Credit Crisis 2008 Ends as Economic Crisis of 2009 Begins / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Investors spent the holiday-shortened Christmas week in an un-merry mood, digesting more gloomy economic data and taking stock of a tumultuous 2008.
With the S&P 500 Index and the Dow Jones Industrial Index down by 35.8% and 40.6% respectively for the year to date, many investors would be anxious to wave the old year goodbye. But changing the calendar digits from '08 to '09 will regrettably not make an iota's difference to the perilous nature of the investment environment facing investors as we usher in the New Year.
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Saturday, December 27, 2008
Unemployment Prevention- Companies Implementing Unpaid Vacations and Four Day Weeks / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Jason Simpkins writes: The U.S. unemployment rate, currently at a level of 6.5%, could rise to 8% next year . But it could also find a ceiling sooner than expected, as more companies implement unpaid vacations and four-day workweeks to preserve jobs.
The U.S. recession may just now be entering full swing, but storm clouds have been gathering for more than a year and many companies have already trimmed payrolls. Now, the goal for many companies is to prepare for an economic rebound by finding ways to keep the their skilled productive labor intact.
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Friday, December 26, 2008
U.S. Recession 2009 Depth Analysis / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Martin Hutchinson writes: What Shape Will the U.S. Recession Take: U, W or ‘Bloody L?’ Right now, the conventional wisdom seems to be that the United States is looking at a "U-shaped" recession and recovery. Output declined gently in the third quarter, is dropping sharply now and will continue dropping sharply in the first and possibly the second quarter of the New Year, finally bottoming out and beginning a slow recovery thereafter.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Higher Wages or Bubblenomics: What's it gonna be? / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Wages, wages, wages. It all gets down to wages.A strong economy must be built on a solid foundation of steadily rising wages. If wages don't keep pace with production, the only way the economy can grow is through the expansion of debt, which leads to disaster.
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Wednesday, December 24, 2008
U.S. Economy GDP Contracts by 0.5% in Third Quarter / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Mike Caggeso writes: The U.S. economy shrank 0.5% in the third quarter, marking the slowing pace since 2001 and continuing a still deepening recession that has wrung the markets since last year.Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Global Recession, Crashing Interest Rates Igniting Government Bond Bubbles / Interest-Rates / Recession 2008 - 2010
Duke University: CFO Survey – historic recession to last another year“Chief financial officers in the United States and around the world are more pessimistic than at any time in the history of the Duke University/CFO Magazine Global Business Outlook Survey. The majority of chief financial officers in the US and Europe say their firms will slash spending and employment in 2009, and their firms will post losses. The recession will last another year, according to nearly two-thirds of CFOs.
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Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Expect Smaller If Any Pay Increases During 2009 / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
The latest business survey from Hewitt Associates Inc. suggests that Pay Raises Will Take A Hit
Employers, who as recently as October said they were barely modifying their salary budgets for 2009, have changed their tune in December, this time bringing some workers' projected annual pay raises to a low not seen in three decades.
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Sunday, December 14, 2008
Imploding Overly Leveraged Private Equity Deals Deepen Recession / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Shah Gilani writes: The once booming business of private equity faces an uncertain future. What's not uncertain, however, is that many private equity deals are imploding from the weight of leveraged debt and greed. Inevitable bankruptcies will result in higher unemployment and a deeper recession.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
The Global Economic Crisis- Bad and Worsening / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
In a new article, economics professor Richard Wolff explains the current crisis in Marxian terms. It "emerged from the workings of the capitalist class structure. Capitalism's history displays repeated boom-bust cycles punctuated by bubbles. They range unpredictably from local, shallow and short to global, deep and long." Clearly we're now in one of the latter and potentially the worst ever.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Economic Depression, Deflation and Your Financial Survival / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Martin Weiss writes: If you're still skeptical that we're sinking into America's Second Great Depression, you don't have to believe Alan Greenspan, who says we're already experiencing the worst financial crisis in a hundred years. Nor need you heed the news that the economy just lost a half-million more jobs or that retail sales have just suffered their worst plunge in 35 years. All you have to do is get up from your chair, open the door and take a walk outside.Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Manipulated Stock Market Discounting a Recovery? / Stock-Markets / Recession 2008 - 2010
Welcome to the Weekly Report. This week some fool decided the US had been in recession for a year. I hope they don't get paid too much. What I find amusing is that straight away all sorts of bull side writers and shills started talking about the US stock market being a discounting system, looking 6 months ahead, look for signs of recovery etc blah.Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, December 06, 2008
The Velocity of Money and Economic Deflation / Economics / Recession 2008 - 2010
"A severe global recession will lead to deflationary pressures. Falling demand will lead to lower inflation as companies cut prices to reduce excess inventory. Slack in labour markets from rising unemployment will control labor costs and wage growth. Further slack in commodity markets as prices fall will lead to sharply lower inflation. Thus inflation in advanced economies will fall towards the 1 per cent level that leads to concerns about deflation.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, December 05, 2008
US Jobs Report To Set Market Tone / Stock-Markets / Recession 2008 - 2010
Yesterday was another sloppy day for stocks which sagged under the weight of earnings misses and dismal 2009 guidance (Nokia, Merck), big layoff announcements (AT&T, DuPont), weak chain stores sales numbers and ever widening credit spreads for corporates. This sell off comes despite another supportive plunge in the price of crude oil and more eye catching rate cuts from central banks in New Zealand, Indonesia, Sweden, UK and the Eurozone.Read full article... Read full article...