Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
U.S. Commercial and Industrial Demand for Loans Remains Weak / Economics / US Economy
By: Asha_Bangalore
The Fed's Senior Loan Officer Survey results of October indicate that demand for commercial and industrial loans from large and medium sized firms was weaker compared with the third quarter survey (see chart 1). A larger percentage of bankers indicated weaker demand from small firms. This information is discouraging because stronger economic growth in the months ahead is tied to a likely pickup in loan demand.
Monday, November 08, 2010
Thinking Clearly about Capital, Interest, and Income / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Robert_Murphy
Nowadays, Austrian economists are most famous for their theory of the business cycle, as developed by Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. However, they also made many contributions to the pure theory of capital and interest, most notably in the seminal work of Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk and later in that of Hayek. In the present article we'll see that these insights are relevant today, as mainstream economist Scott Sumner lashes out justifiably against absurd tax policies but, in the process, throws economic theory out the window too.
Monday, November 08, 2010
The Business Boom-Bust Cycle in Microcosm / Economics / Economic Theory
By: George_Reisman
The essential features of the boom-bust business cycle can be understood by viewing them in terms of the financial circumstances of a single individual.
Thus, imagine that an ordinary person has been going about his life more or less living within his means. And now, one day, he receives a registered letter from a major bank. The letter informs him that he is the sole heir of a distant relative who possessed a substantial fortune, and that he should come into the bank's main office in his city to sign the necessary documents and receive all the necessary authorizations to henceforth dispose of this fortune as he sees fit. Naturally, he quickly goes in and takes possession of his newfound fortune.
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Monday, November 08, 2010
How the Government Lies About Low CPI Inflation, Krugman Deflation Propaganda / Economics / Inflation
By: Submissions
Robert Wenzel writes: With commodity prices soaring, Paul Krugman is in a trap with his deflation call, so he has decided to turn to Richard "I am not a crook" Nixon to explain why price inflation is really not happening.
Krugman tells us to forget about the prices that are going up. They are too volatile, he tells us. He says that what we should focus on are tricky sticky price indexes, specifically, core CPI.
Monday, November 08, 2010
Lessons From the 1930's Great Depression, Create Jobs by Executive Order / Economics / Government Spending
By: Global_Research
Jeanne Mirer and Marjorie Cohn writes: On May 6, 1935, with the country in the midst of the Great Depression, and with indirect efforts to create jobs having not moved the needle of unemployment rates, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 7034 and appropriated $4.8 billion for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The WPA put millions of Americans to work constructing buildings, painting murals to decorate them, and performing plays for audiences that had never before seen a dramatic production. In the process, many were saved from poverty and starvation and the economy began to revive.
Monday, November 08, 2010
Fed Debases the Imperial Dollar, Inflation, Stagnation and Higher Interest Rates Ahead / Economics / Inflation
By: Prof_Rodrigue_Trembl
"Under a paper money system, a determined government can always generate higher spending and hence positive inflation."Ben Bernanke, future Fed Chairman (in 2002)
“My thesis here is that cooperation between the monetary and fiscal authorities in Japan could help solve the problems that each policymaker faces on its own. Consider for example a tax cut for households and businesses that is explicitly coupled with incremental BOJ purchases of government debt – so that the tax cut is in effect financed by money creation. Moreover, assume that the Bank of Japan has made a commitment, by announcing a price-level target, to reflate the economy, so that much or all of the increase in the money stock is viewed as permanent.”Ben Bernanke, future Fed Chairman (in 2002)
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Saturday, November 06, 2010
Bernanke Leaps into a Liquidity Trap, Thoughts on the U.S. Employment Numbers / Economics / Economic Theory
By: John_Mauldin
A Few Thoughts on the Employment Numbers
Bernanke Leaps into a Liquidity Trap
How to Spot a Liquidity Trap
Toy Blocks
I am in London finishing my new book, The End Game, which will be out after the first of the year, as soon as Wiley can make it happen. Working with my co-author, Jonathan Tepper, we are making good progress. We intend to quit (a book like this is never finished) tomorrow afternoon.
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Saturday, November 06, 2010
U.S. October Employment Report Shows Economy is Slowly But Surely Retreating From the Cliff / Economics / Economic Recovery
By: Asha_Bangalore
Civilian Unemployment Rate: 9.6% in October, virtually steady for five straight months. The unemployment rate was 5.0% in December 2007 when the recession commenced. Cycle high for recession is 10.1% in October 2009 and the cycle low (for the expansion that ended in December 2007) is 4.4% in March 2007.
Payroll Employment: 151,000 in October vs. -41,000 in September. Private sector jobs increased 159,000 after a 107,000 increase in September. Net gain of 93,000 jobs after revisions of private sector payroll estimates for August and September.
Friday, November 05, 2010
Bernanke's Bubble Making Solutions Are the Problem / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Mark_Thornton
Ben Bernanke, the man who purports to be the savior of the economy today, was actually deeply involved in creating the housing bubble, encouraging people to invest in toxic assets, and orchestrating the cover-up after the bubble collapsed. Now he is bludgeoning the economy into depression. Just like his predecessor Greenspan, his statements are replete with misleading, convoluted, and inconsistent claims, all designed to disguise the role of the Fed in the economic calamity.
Friday, November 05, 2010
From QE2 To Economic Titanic, The Global Asset Inflation Surge / Economics / Inflation
By: Andrew_McKillop
Ben Bernanke has cranked the U.S. Fed's printing presses one more time, with a new injection of
US$ 600 billion. Market operators have responded with the only tune they know: bid up all hard
asset real resource prices in the Commodities space and, for a while, also talk up their paper
cousins in the Equities space, while the US dollar wilts by the hour. Not so far forward, however,
this creation of virtual value will hit the iceberg of runaway asset inflation, then vast deflation, as
QE2 turns to Titanic.
Thursday, November 04, 2010
John Locke vs. the Mercantilists and Inflationists / Economics / Inflation
By: Murray_N_Rothbard
From the early decades of the 17th century, English mercantilists were bitter at the superior prosperity and economic growth enjoyed by the Dutch. Observing that the rate of interest was lower in Holland than in England, they chose to leap to the causal analysis that the cause of the superior Dutch prosperity was Holland's low rate of interest, and that therefore it was the task of the English government to force the maximum rate of interest down until the interest rate was lower than in Holland.
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
Academic Economists are the Unholy Priests of the Bankster's / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Global_Research
Gabriel Donohoe writes: "Political Economists," according to Stephen Zarlenga in The Lost Science Of Money, "became the priesthood of the new Bank aristocracy, often serving as a propaganda apparatus to whitewash the monetary power structure. They put forward false ideas and smoke screens on the nature of money, primitive concepts that help entrench the bankers."
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
U.S. Economy Could Swallow Five Bitter Pills or One Sweet but Deadly / Economics / US Economy
By: Michael_Pento
It seems the current Chairman of the Federal Reserve is of the belief that diluting the dollar is the cure for everything from a recession to male pattern baldness. And like other snake-oil salesmen before him, Mr. Bernanke is heavy on promises and light on results. Here are five prescriptions that money printing can't fulfill:
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
China Economic Growth and Technological Development Milestones, Investment Opportunities / Economics / China Economy
By: Tony_Sagami
China impresses me every time I visit. The skyline is dotted with new skyscrapers that didn’t exist a year ago, gorgeous, modern, sleek bridges that belong on the cover on an engineering magazine are everywhere, new freeways have seemingly popped out of nowhere, and the hustle and bustle of construction dominates your senses.
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
Making Sense of the Money Supply / Economics / Money Supply
By: Chris_Riley
With the Fed’s rapid expansion of the monetary base in recent years, many commentators have pointed out that this has not led to growth in the money supply and hence the Fed is powerless to deal with “deflationary” forces in the economy.
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Dr Ben "Kevorkian" Bernanke Helping U.S. Economy Commit Suicide / Economics / Great Depression II
By: James_Quinn
Everyone has watched one of the best TV series of all-time - M*A*S*H. You also know the tune that played during the opening credits as helicopters delivered wounded soldiers to the 4077 Mobile Army Surgical Unit. Most people have never heard the lyrics that go with the music. The song is Suicide is Painless and the lyrics were sung during the M*A*S*H Movie. As I watched the movie a few weeks ago, the lyrics struck home. Our country has been slowly committing suicide for the last 40 years. The movie and TV series were set during the Korean War. It is fitting that military spending is one of the major causes of our suicide as a nation. On an inflation adjusted basis, the US has doubled spending on Defense since 1962. It is on course to rise another 20% in the next four years. Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about the military industrial complex in 1961:
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Keynesian Economic Confusion Means Investors Should Continue to Accumulate Gold / Economics / Economic Theory
By: John_Mauldin
Michael Lewitt is one of the most provocative writers I know. He consistently gives me something to chew on with his monthly letter. How he comes up with all those quotes (usually from sources I have never read but should have) amazes me. He has a unique view of the markets as he run Collateralized Debt Obligation funds and really understand the nitty-gritty of the bond and credit markets.
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
From Quantitative Easing To Stagflation? / Economics / Stagflation
By: Dian_L_Chu
The United States economy grew at a sluggish annual rate of 2 percent in the third quarter, the Commerce Department reported last Friday. On the bright side, the economy is growing faster than the 1.7 percent growth in the second quarter and has registered the fifth straight quarter of expansion.
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
ISM Manufacturing Survey Shows Continuing Sluggish U.S. Economic Recovery / Economics / Economic Recovery
By: Asha_Bangalore
The ISM composite index of the manufacturing sector rose to 56.9 in October, the highest since May 2010. The headline and details indicate that the factory sector is back on its feet after a sluggish performance in the third quarter. The index tracking new orders, a forward looking indicator, increased to 58.9 in October vs. 51.1 in the prior month.
Monday, November 01, 2010
Why China’s Economic Growth is More Bark Than Bite / Economics / China Economy
By: Investment_U
Carl Delfeld writes: Is the great Chinese locomotive destined to run off the rails?
It is, according to renowned short-seller, Jim Chanos.
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