Featured Articles on the Economy
22 Mar 2011
Often lost in the discussion of the monthly employment situation is real earnings.
The standard for measuring hourly earnings is the Bureau of Labor Statistics series called: Average Hourly Earnings of Production...
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21 Mar 2011
The G-7 finance ministers acted last week to halt the strengthening of the yen and dampen market volatility in the face of the twin tragedies in Japan. A key question is, why would the yen strengthen?
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16 Mar 2011
The substance of this alert centers on the unknown aftershocks that may result from the world's third largest economy, Japan, rapidly shifting from an exporter of funding to a consumer of it.
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15 Mar 2011
Given the stark contrast between asset class performance before and after the implied announcement of QE2, the Fed’s statements related to quantitative easing in the coming weeks will have a significant impact on the outlook for stocks and the...
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15 Mar 2011
My thoughts are with those trying to contain the nuclear reactor crisis in Japan, and with their families, who are justifiably worried about the health consequences their loved ones risk as they work long hours in hazardous and difficult conditions.
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12 Mar 2011
Banking crises unleash powerful deflationary forces of deleveraging and falling monetary velocity. In this environment, people, corporations, and eventually governments are unable to pay their debts and default. Government defaults typically lead...
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8 Mar 2011
The current inflationary trend is likely to be interrupted by a temporary - yet disruptive - period of violent deflation
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4 Mar 2011
So today, two bits of news came out: Unemployment declined to 8.9% last February, as the U.S. economy added 192,000 jobs; and the Federal Reserve signaled that it is definitely-definitely-definitely ending Quantitative Easing 2 (QE-2) in June, as...
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3 Mar 2011
“Making the chicken run” is what Rhodesians used to say about neighbors who packed up and got out during the ‘60s and ‘70s, before the place became Zimbabwe. It was considered “unpatriotic” to leave Rhodesia. But it was genuinely idiotic not to.
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3 Mar 2011
Government statistics guru John Williams believes the most important economic indicators used by our political leaders in their decison-making - the Consumer Price Index, the unemployment rate, the Gross Domestic Product - are deeply flawed in how...
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1 Mar 2011
What a month it has been in the oil markets! Brent crude prices accelerated their price trend, breaking above their trading band, while WTI broke $100 for the first time since 2008. The price increases were due to the market’s indigestion of Middle...
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22 Feb 2011
Call it monetizing the debt or whatever you want, the Fed has expanded their balance sheet almost 4 3/4 times since July, 2008. It would be logical to assume that some of that liquidity has "trickled down" to the equity and commodity markets.
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21 Feb 2011
In the long term, QE2 is obviously not a sustainable course. Nonetheless, QE2 can continue as long as (1) the United States remains politically stable, (2) the U.S. dollar remains the world reserve currency and (3) the value of the U.S. dollar...
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20 Feb 2011
Never in history has there been an economy this large with such serious economic structural problems: Unemployment 23%, unmanageable debt north of 128 trillion, the largest...
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17 Feb 2011
The USD/JPY was one of the strongest trending pairs of 2010 as it dropped from its 2010 HI of 95.00 in March to its 2010 LO of 80 by October. The pair tends to move in a much less volatile manner than other pairs such as EUR/USD and GBP/USD, so the...
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15 Feb 2011
After the close yesterday, FedEx preannounced that this quarter's results were going to be negatively impacted by the weather and fuel costs. However, the stock was not badly affected after hours, nor were the futures. And, lo and behold today, FDX...
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14 Feb 2011
“Hyperinflation accompanied by a housing collapse is simply impossible—by definition.” - None-too-clever financial blogger.
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12 Feb 2011
Our argument in Endgame is that while the debt supercycle is still growing on the back of increasing government debt, there is an end to that process, and we are fast approaching it. It is a world where not only will expanding government spending...
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10 Feb 2011
Misunderstandings can be quite expensive for investors, and this article will examine two common but mistaken beliefs about short-term government debt and inflation.
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8 Feb 2011
Once again, the latest U.S. employment numbers for January 2011 gave mixed signals. Employment rose by a mere 36,000 yet the unemployment rate fell to 9.0% from December's 9.4% rate. How can that be? Moreover, how should we make sense of these...
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7 Feb 2011
Ever since the global financial crisis struck in 2008, there has been a lively debate between those who have been expecting a prolonged deflation and those who have been predicting a rapid transition to inflation. In certain respects, both sides of...
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7 Feb 2011
Now we move our time clocks forward almost 400 years. We examine a period that the vast majority of investors personally experienced; the roaring ‘90s.
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31 Jan 2011
I know what you’re probably thinking. How can stocks keep going up when things look so terrible? The U.S. is running trillion dollar deficits, ( $1.5 trillion for 2011), the unemployment rate is stuck over over 9%, ( double that figure if you look...
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31 Jan 2011
Most of this week’s newsletter was about the release last week of China’s fourth quarter GDP growth numbers by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). You can find the full NBS report on their website, but here is the key paragraph
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30 Jan 2011
This week I had the privilege of being on the same panel with former Comptroller General David Walker and former Majority Leader (and presidential candidate) Richard Gephardt. A Democrat to the left of me and a self-declared nonpartisan to the right...
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28 Jan 2011
In 2011 we think a number of very positive themes will play out for investors. We see the following developments in 2011, all of which create interesting investment opportunities.
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26 Jan 2011
A holistic look at four interrelated motivations the United States government has for destroying the value of the dollar.
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25 Jan 2011
Last Monday OPEC revised its world oil demand growth upwards given the pace of global economic recovery. “Given the latest upward revision in world GDP, world oil demand growth is forecast at 1.23 bpd averaging 87.3 million bpd in 2011, 50,000...
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24 Jan 2011
There can be little doubt that Fed Chairman Benjamin Bernanke has been a very, very good friend to gold investors. However, some of those who have benefited from his largesse now fear that the recent selloff in gold indicates an imminent end to...
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20 Jan 2011
A précis of each of the voting members of the FOMC, which is scheduled to change this coming Jan. 25.
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