Key Articles on Commodities
9 Mar 2011
US Fed Chairman Bernanke and the Quantitative Easing programs are caught in a negative feedback loop, the instruments at risk being the US Dollar and the US Treasury Bond. The former suffers from lost integrity and direct inflation effect. The...
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16 Feb 2011
Rising prices driven by speculation is not the same as organic inflation, and diverting national income to the banks will not create organic inflation.
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11 Feb 2011
Here at Casey Research, our view of the Great Depression of the 1930s is a little different from that of most people. In our eyes, Franklin Roosevelt wasn’t a hero, he was a villain. Nearly everything he did served to extend and deepen the economic...
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2 Feb 2011
The financial markets were primarily concerned with the possibility of price deflation when the financial crisis began in 2008. The Federal Reserve System (the Fed) responded to the possibility of price deflation by taking unprecedented actions....
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26 Jan 2011
There are many ways that oil shocks affect the economy, and none of them is good. As the prices of gasoline, diesel and home heating fuel rise, consumers’ energy bills eat up a growing share of their after-tax income, forcing cutbacks in more...
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24 Jan 2011
The 9.4% unemployment rate in December 2010, an elevated reading, is down from a high of 10.1% in October 2009. The recent cycle low for the unemployment rate was 4.4% in May 2007. Although each business cycle is different, it is still worthwhile to...
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18 Jan 2011
With less than 10 months remaining on his term as head of the European Central Bank Jean-Claude Trichet is looking towards wrapping up loose ends and cementing his legacy.
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18 Jan 2011
While it may stimulate US exports and help to create conditions for renewed economic growth in the US (rather than relying mainly on the stimulation of consumer spending), QE2 represents a debasement of the US dollar and suggests that demand for US...
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10 Nov 2010
Initial jobless claims fell 24,000 to 435,000 during the week ended November 6. Initial jobless claims have dropped in three out of the last four weeks. The 4-week moving average at 446,500 is the lowest since September 13, 2008 (see chart 1)....
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3 Nov 2010
A love affair with silver is so natural. The fundamentals are astoundingly positive and bullish in price prospects. My basic argument has been repeated many times. Industry has countless uses for silver, significant demand. But industry has only...
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19 Oct 2010
The Federal Reserve’s (Fed) extraordinarily low interest rate policies have encouraged fixed income investors to take on evermore exposure to credit risks. With the global economic recovery looking more and more unstable...
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19 Oct 2010
The view of the employment numbers for September gives the impression that the economy is improving. The private sector is adding jobs even as the government reduces employment as census workers end their assignments. Looking deeper, the employment...
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12 Oct 2010
When markets don’t perform the way politicians want, you can count on them to bypass, manipulate or manage these markets. All too frequently these attempts are motivated by short-term political needs where appearances take priority over substance....
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11 Oct 2010
To ease or not to ease? That is the question we will take up this week. And if we do get another round of quantitative easing (QE2), will it make any difference? As I asked last week, what if they threw an inflation party and no one came? We will...
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6 Oct 2010
I really dislike sounding inflammatory. Saying that things are going to go terribly wrong runs a risk of being classed with those who think the world will end in December 2012 because of something Nostradamus or the Bible says, or because that’s...
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24 Sep 2010
New orders for manufactured durable goods in August decreased $2.5 billion or 1.3 percent to $191.2 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. Down three of the last four months, this decrease followed a 0.7 percent July increase. Excluding...
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23 Sep 2010
The recent announcement by the NBER that the recession ended in June of 2009 confirms articles written by the author around that same time. This week Mr. Treece expands his anti-double-dip argument and points to more signs of a continued recovery.
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20 Sep 2010
The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research indicated today that the recession which commenced in December 2007 ended in June 2009. The 18-month recession is the longest on record in the post-war period. The 1973-...
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18 Sep 2010
Booms and busts happen also under the gold standard like we had in the 19th century various railroad and canal booms, and we also had real estate booms, first on the east coast in Chicago, then, at end of the century, in California.
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15 Sep 2010
Just last week, it was reported that the turnout for the Democratic primary was the lowest in 80 years. While the Republicans are clearly energized by their concerns about the direction the Democrats are taking the country in, the Democrats...
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9 Sep 2010
There are three major errors that have been committed by every retailer in America. They failed to recognize that the spending per household was 30% over inflated due to debt financed demand. They then extrapolated the spending per household using a...
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8 Sep 2010
People find ways to survive under capitalism. They find ways to exist under regulation.
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7 Sep 2010
Seasonally the weakest part of the year, especially during mid-term elections, put on show after a weak start on more “better than expected” news, especially from the much analyzed employment report. Adjusting for the reduction in census workers,...
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4 Sep 2010
As far as economic advisers are concerned: The best of the worst is gone. We are left with the worst. The government can lead, follow - or in this case - just get in the way.
David Walker was right: Our biggest deficit is our leadership deficit.
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3 Sep 2010
Were this week's few encouraging economic reports really enough to even offset the week's negative reports, let alone the deluge of negative reports from previous weeks?
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1 Sep 2010
Word on the street is that the Fed is now "out of bullets." Many economists fear that in its efforts to spur recovery, the Fed may have already exhausted its array of monetary ammunition and that it has nothing left of significance to fire at the...
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25 Aug 2010
Common Sense: No problem can be fixed before a solution is formed. No solution can be formed until the underlying problems are clearly identified.
The officials in charge of fixing the economy have not articulated the underlying problems. Worse,...
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23 Aug 2010
Recently there have been some encouraging signs that Congress is finally willing to admit what should have been evident two years ago. Even after a $150 billion bailout, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are still bankrupt and should be abolished.
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23 Aug 2010
It is of little wonder that investors are tossing their hands up in the air when looking at investment performance or economic data, what look’s promising on the surface is fraught with danger below (like the oil spill?). Early week data regarding...
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23 Aug 2010
In a CNBC debate last week, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich presented a set of contradictory beliefs that unfortunately reflect the conventional wisdom of modern economists. In a discussion with Wall Street Journal columnist Stephen Moore, Reich...
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