Author Topic: US Economy, the stock market , and other investment/savings strategies  (Read 519706 times)

Crafty_Dog

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« Last Edit: October 12, 2015, 12:53:04 PM by Crafty_Dog »


DougMacG

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Re: US Economics, the stock market , and other investment/savings strategies
« Reply #1052 on: October 12, 2015, 09:02:59 PM »
"There was a recovery?"

You beat me to that!  Ready to start some recovery jokes?  How will we know it's over - the lady with the fat calves will sing?  Where were you when the Obama recovery hit?   I sneezed, my eyes closed, and I missed it.  How was it?

While we were 'recovering', we had this biggest debt run-up, greatest unfunded liabilities, lowest business startup rate, most people who left the workforce, and the biggest drop in median income in our nation's brief history.

Recovery means return to normal, not return to some new normal.

G M

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Re: US Economics, the stock market , and other investment/savings strategies
« Reply #1053 on: October 12, 2015, 09:11:51 PM »
I laughed at the fat calves line.  :-D

DougMacG

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Re: US Economy, First-Time Homebuyers at 28-Year Low
« Reply #1054 on: November 06, 2015, 11:49:03 AM »
Allegedly a housing story but really this is about employment, income, demographics and the state of the economy.  Just wanted to get this posted before Wesbury tells how great hiring was last month.

Share of First-Time Homebuyers Falls in U.S., Now at 28-Year Low
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-05/share-of-first-time-homebuyers-falls-in-u-s-now-at-28-year-low

To anyone, please tell us how this could possibly be good economic news.
« Last Edit: November 06, 2015, 11:54:43 AM by DougMacG »

Crafty_Dog

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Wesbury
« Reply #1055 on: November 09, 2015, 01:09:25 PM »
The idea is quite simple, at least if you’re a finance professor drawing out equations on a blackboard: stocks are worth all future dividends or profits discounted to present value. So if expected future profits go up, stocks should rise. But if expected future profits remain stable while interest rates rise, then profits are worth less and stocks should go down.

But that certainly hasn’t worked in the past few weeks. At the close on October 14, the federal funds futures market was putting only about a 25% chance on the Federal Reserve raising rates by the meeting on December 16. And remember, that was before the meeting in late October, so it reflected the total possibility of raising rates in either October or December.

Now the odds of a December rate hike are around 70%. As a result, the yield on the 10-year Treasury climbed from 1.99% on October 14 to 2.34% as of Friday, an increase of 35 basis points. This makes sense. Long-term rates mostly reflect expectations about future short-term rates. So, if investors put higher odds on a near-term rate hike – and rising short-term rates in the years ahead – then long-term yields should move up.

It also makes sense that gold fell by about 8%. Earlier rate hikes won’t make monetary policy “tight.” But earlier rate hikes could make the stance of policy “less loose,” which undermines the argument for runaway, hyper-inflation. Rate hikes have traditionally put downward pressure on the growth rate of nominal GDP, compared to the growth rate that would have existed had the Fed held rates lower. This means a lower path for future inflation and therefore lower gold prices.

But, contrary to conventional wisdom, as the odds of a Fed rate hike have increased in the past few weeks, so have stock prices. Partly this is due to better economic data, but with bond yields higher and no real change in profit forecasts, the rise in stock prices has the bears perplexed. The reason the bears are so confused is that they think the entire rise in stock prices during recent years is a “sugar high” – caused solely by easy Fed policy and Quantitative Easing.

This, we think, is a huge mistake, which ignores or dismisses the massive rise in corporate earnings the US has seen in the past few years. These earnings have been driven by relentless entrepreneurship, innovation, and creativity.

This is why the market recovered from the Panic in 2008-09. During the panic, bond yields fell and stocks plummeted. Now, yields are rising and stocks are rising at the same time.

The key issue is investors’ appetite for risk. When investors panic and flee from risk, bond yields and stock prices both drop. But several years into the bull market that started when mark-to-market accounting was limited, the panic is still receding. Every day more investors realize that the over-the-top “doom and gloom forecasts” just aren’t coming true. Certainty and confidence are slowly returning.

It’s also important to recognize that this time “it really is different.” The coming rate hike cycle will be different from any other time in history. In the past, raising rates required the Fed to slow reserve growth, or actually drain reserves from the banking system, slowing or reversing money growth.

But there are currently $2.6 trillion in excess reserves and the Fed has no plans to drain them, but will instead pay banks more to hold those excess reserves. The idea is that higher rates will encourage banks not to lend, which will keep money growth (like M2) in check. In other words, there is excess liquidity in the system and the Fed is doing little to contain it.

In other words, money will not be tight any time soon, a key reason we remain bullish. Just because stocks aren’t as attractive as they were in March 2009 doesn’t mean they can’t keep going higher. In fact, we still think the S&P 500 is at least 25% undervalued, even if interest rates move higher.

G M

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65 Trillion!
« Reply #1056 on: November 12, 2015, 07:37:22 PM »

Crafty_Dog

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Crafty_Dog

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Wesbury on full time and part time jobs
« Reply #1058 on: November 17, 2015, 07:06:04 PM »
The Worst Recovery Ever?For Part-Time Jobs To view this article, Click Here
Brian S. Wesbury, Chief Economist
Robert Stein, Deputy Chief Economist
Date: 11/17/2015

Mark Twain has been attributed with saying “If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're misinformed.” And given the media’s portrayal of the job market recovery over the past six-and-a-half years, we can see where he was coming from.

We hear all the time “It’s a part-time recovery for jobs.” In reality, exactly the opposite is true. This has been the worst recovery for part-time jobs in more than 40 years! We aren’t really sure where the idea came from to begin with. Maybe it was because part-time jobs rose substantially during the last recession and people just assumed that trend continued.

Or maybe it’s because the media, playing the role of armchair economists, dug into the household side of the employment report and figured out that you can see how many part-time or full time jobs are reported each month, and they cherry-pick just the months that show large part-time gains to support their argument.

Take for instance April of 2015, the household survey showed a gain of 437,000 part-time jobs while full-time showed a 252,000 loss. So for that single month, all of the gains in household employment were due to part-time jobs. But, as with many data series, the month-to-month reports can be very volatile.

To get a better idea of what’s really going on, you need to look at the trend over at least the past year. Take that small step back, and a much clearer picture emerges. It turns out that, from October 2014 to

October 2015, the US added 2.3 million full-time jobs and actually lost 507,000 part-time jobs. So despite monthly volatility, all of the jobs created in the past year have been full-time.

The table (see PDF) shows expansions and contractions in the US economy going back to January 1970. It’s true, the last recession did see a large gain in part-time employment, but this recovery has been like nothing we have seen in the last 45 years – part-time jobs have actually declined by 276,000, while full-time jobs have risen by 9.3 million. This means 100% of the jobs that have been created in this expansion so far have been full time jobs. 100%! And the employment picture keeps improving.

Private sector payrolls have risen for 68 consecutive months, the best streak going back to at least the early 1900’s. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate has been cut in half from 10% to 5% and the more expansive U-6 rate, which also includes marginally attached and discouraged workers as well as those employed part-time for economic reasons, has fallen from a high of 17.1% down to 9.8% in October.

Don’t get us wrong, we aren’t praising the strength of this economic recovery. We still call it a plow-horse. Government is too big, taxes are too high and regulation is much too onerous. And jobs could be growing faster with better policies in place, but this has certainly not been a part-time recovery. The pouting pundits trying to push that story are either cherry-picking the data or never looked at it to begin with. Either way, they are just plain wrong.

DougMacG

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Re: US Economics, the stock market , and other investment/savings strategies
« Reply #1059 on: November 18, 2015, 05:23:13 AM »
Job growth was one half of population growth.
http://www.multpl.com/united-states-population/table

Somehow he spins that into a positive.


DougMacG

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Re: More quality work from Scott Grannis
« Reply #1061 on: November 19, 2015, 11:28:29 AM »
http://scottgrannis.blogspot.com/2015/11/fed-liftoff-is-good-news.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FtMBeq+%28Calafia+Beach+Pundit%29

We have to keep hearing about 66 consecutive months of job growth, longest streak on record:
http://www.politicususa.com/2015/09/04/boom-obama-economy-marks-66th-consecutive-month-private-sector-job-growth.html

At the same time, the Fed, with the best economists in the world (allegedly) and the best data in the world, keep meeting and deciding that this economy is too fragile to handle interest rates above 0%.  A 1/4 point increase could put this economy back into a tailspin,they argue by their actions.

ZIRP (Zero Interest Rate Policy) has been the law of the land since December 2008; that includes every minute of the tainted Obama 'recovery'.

I don't know that the end this nonsense will be instantly positive.  Nonetheless, we all know it must end.

Maybe the Fed put this off as long as possible in order to put the 'correction' from this false recovery on future leaders.

Crafty_Dog

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Wesbury: Uh oh , , , is temporary , , ,
« Reply #1062 on: December 01, 2015, 05:08:07 PM »
Data Watch
________________________________________
The ISM Manufacturing Index Declined to 48.6 in November To view this article, Click Here
Brian S. Wesbury - Chief Economist
Bob Stein, CFA - Deputy Chief Economist
Date: 12/1/2015

The ISM manufacturing index declined to 48.6 in November, well below the consensus expected level of 50.5. (Levels higher than 50 signal expansion; levels below 50 signal contraction.)
The major measures of activity were mixed in November. The new orders index fell to 48.9 from 52.9, while the production index dropped to 49.2 from 52.9. The employment index jumped to 51.3 from 47.6, and the supplier deliveries index increased to 50.6 from 50.4.
The prices paid index declined to 35.5 in November from 39.0 in October.

Implications: No two ways about it, at 48.6 in November the ISM manufacturing index fell below 50, signaling contraction, for the first time in three years and came in lower than the forecast from any economic group. Today’s data highlight a stark contrast in two broad sectors of the economy: services, where the economy is expanding briskly and prices are rising, versus goods, where both growth and inflation are soft to non-existent. ISM survey respondents cited the strong dollar as a headwind to global sales, while low energy prices continue to hurt companies in the energy sector. Adding to the trouble, stores are still working through excess inventories that resulted from overaggressive purchasing earlier in the year. While we would much rather see readings above 50, there are two important things to remember with today’s report. First, the manufacturing sector represents a much smaller portion of the economy than the service sector, which has been growing much more rapidly in 2015. Paired with solid gains in employment and wages, as well as positive trends in housing and consumer spending, the economic fundamentals suggest a recession is nowhere in sight. Second, the inventory buildup is a temporary factor, and the pickup in hiring activity suggests companies are expecting orders to move higher soon, too. The drop in the overall ISM index looks a lot like the last time the manufacturing index fell below 50 back in November 2012, and that one-month dip was followed by three years of economic growth. In other words, ignore headlines that suggest the sky is falling and the Fed should hold off on raising rates later this month. The modest readings from the ISM manufacturing report in 2015, after peaking at 58.1 in August 2014, have given some pessimists reason to cheer, but we see no broad-based evidence of a significant slowdown. And remember, the ISM is a survey which can reflect sentiment as much as actual economic activity. A look at the big picture, rather than a focus on volatile monthly data, shows a green light for the Fed. In other news this morning, construction increased 1% in October (1.2% including upward revisions to prior months). The gain in October was led by federal government construction projects, single-family homes, and manufacturing facilities (chemicals, in particular). Yesterday, the National Association of Realtors reported that pending home sales, which are contracts on existing homes, increased 0.2% in October after dropping 1.6% in September. Our models suggest existing home sales, which are counted at closing, will be up slightly in November.
________________________________________

DougMacG

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Re: Wesbury: Uh oh , , , is temporary , , , says our G M was right all along...
« Reply #1063 on: December 01, 2015, 07:13:23 PM »
Uh, oh.  That's about as pessimistic as Wesbury ever gets.

"index...came in lower than the forecast from any economic group...growth soft to non-existent. ...strong dollar as a headwind to global sales,  low energy prices continue to hurt companies in the energy sector. Adding to the trouble, stores are still working through excess inventories that resulted from overaggressive purchasing earlier in the year. ...Paired with solid gains in employment and wages (huh?), as well as positive trends in housing(?) and consumer spending (oh,no!), ...inventory buildup is a temporary factor...the economic fundamentals suggest a recession is nowhere in sight. (Translation, you are hereby warned of impending doom)  ...ignore headlines that suggest the sky is falling... we see no broad-based evidence of a significant slowdown. (Parse that, depending on what the meaning of is is.)  A look at the big picture, rather than a focus on volatile monthly data (who is focusing on monthly data, BW?), shows a green light for the Fed. In other news this morning, construction increased 1% in October (1.2% including upward revisions to prior months). The gain in October was led by federal government construction projects,... Yesterday, the National Association of Realtors reported that pending home sales, which are contracts on existing homes, increased 0.2% in October after dropping 1.6% in September.  (Isn't that a net drop of 1.4% in just 2 months?)

The good news is:





objectivist1

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What Will A Dollar Collapse Look Like?
« Reply #1064 on: December 02, 2015, 06:14:07 AM »
VERY ugly - that's how it will look - much worse than most can even imagine:

What Will Happen When the Dollar Collapses?
Dave Hodges
June 2nd, 2014

 
This article has been generously contributed by Dave Hodges and was originally published at The Common Sense Show.

currency-collapse1 (1)Will It Be a False Flag Attack Or a Currency Collapse?

Hitler initiated a false flag event and burned down the Reichstag to gain control over the German government. Could the same happen here in the United States? My initial response to that question is, does it really matter? The pattern of societal collapse and subsequent governmental enslavement of the American people will be largely the same whether the precipitating incident is a false flag attack or a currency collapse. For the purpose of simplicity, let us call the precursor event to all-out martial law, a currency collapse.

The Federal Reserve Is the Enemy of Humanity

The Federal Reserve has been bleeding this country to death for a century. What the dollar bought 100 years ago, can only buy three cents of product today. This means that 97% of the value of our currency has gone into the pockets of the Federal Reserve investors for the past 100 years.

I am amazed at the abject ignorance of the American people and that they think the Federal Reserve is actually part of the federal government. As we like to stay in the alternative media, the Federal Reserve is no more federal than Federal Express. For the record, the Federal Reserve is a privately held corporation which sells stock to preferred insiders. In 1913, a small majority of Congress commissioned the Federal Reserve to control banking in the United States. Without a doubt, this was the worst decision ever made by an act of Congress.

The Dollar Is Diving

The world is running from the dollar, or should I more accurately state the Petrodollar. Until recently, our dollar was used as the currency of international trading. Further, the dollar was also the reserve currency for oil. All foreign countries wishing to purchase oil from the Middle East, first had to purchase dollars from the Federal Reserve. After FDR took us off the gold standard during the Great Depression and Richard Nixon finished the task of providing America with a totally Fiat currency, the only backing that our dollar enjoys is that of being the reserve currency for both trading and for oil (i.e. the Petrodollar scam).

The major cause of the present  economic calamity is fractional reserve banking. When the government goes to the private Federal Reserve and asks for one trillion dollars, the federal reserve gets to print one trillion for the government, at interest, and $10 trillion dollars for themselves and to lend out at high interest rates. This inflationary practice erodes the value of your dollar while enriching our Federal Reserve investors. Ultimately, the currency upon which we depend on will be destroyed and life as we know it will be changed forever.

The practice of fractional reserve banking should be wholly illegal because it creates a state of permanent inflation for the benefit of a few and sets up economic demise for the many.

A Changing of the Financial Guard

The nations presently running from our petrodollar are India, China, Iran, Japan, South Africa and Australia have signed their own trade agreements and their currency of choice is no longer the dollar!

When the collapse of the dollar occurs, it will literally and figuratively come like a thief in the night, and I do mean overnight!

We are all familiar with the concept of inflation, which is the intentional byproduct of the Federal Reserve.  But I am not just talking inflation, I’m speaking about hyperinflation which is caused by the collapse of the value of the currency resulting in runaway prices. Here are three examples of how quickly a currency collapse can occur when a nation’s money when its money no longer holds it value:

1. In Weimar Germany, from 1922 – 1923, prices  doubled  every three days.

2. In the modern era, in Yugoslavia from 1992-94, witnessed prices doubling every 34 hours.

3. In Zimbabwe, in the two year period from 2007 – 2008, prices doubled  every 25 hours.

History is replete with examples of currency collapses and they typically follow very predictable patterns in which a nation unravels and social chaos, and many times, widespread violence and even genocide becomes part of the national landscape.

What Does a Currency Collapse Look Like?

It can accurately be stated that a lot has been written and rehearsed by the federal government on the topic of the effects of a currency collapse and its subsequent impact on society. NORTHCOM, DHS and FEMA as well as other federal entities have practiced for this eventuality. In each and every scenario, the facts remain the same, human beings and society follows a very predictable pattern of decline when the currency of the day collapses. And normally, the currency collapse comes without any warning to the general public.

When George Soros recently pulled his money from the S&P 500 and from Bank of America, Citibank and JP Morgan, all Americans should have sat up and taken notice. Generally, when the currency collapses, a stock market crash is right on its heels. Because of the repeal of Glass-Steagall, a banking meltdown will immediately occur following the collapse of the stock market because since Clinton’s presidency, banks are now allowed to loan money for investment in the stock market and for down payments for homes. It was irresponsible of Congress to repeal Glass-Steagall, because it made surviving an economic Armageddon a near impossibility just as it did during the 1929 crash.

In a currency collapse, your life savings will be wiped out. From this point on, the effect cascades like a roaring tsunami racing across the open ocean.

Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy demonstrated that gas stations will be bone dry within two days following a complete collapse. Subsequently, commerce will not move. If you are on vacation, you may not make it home. On the second day following a currency collapse, being on the road will be a risky endeavor because of other desperate motorists who will lie in wait to rob other motorists of essential supplies and resources.

With no available fuel, the grocery and drug stores will be empty within one to three days. There will be no food to be had except for that which is decaying in your refrigerator and that in which you can beg, borrow and steal from your neighbors who will also be begging, borrowing and stealing. from your other neighbors. If you have an adequate food and water supply, you better have an adequate gun and ammo supply in order to defend your assets. And when will you sleep? The protection of your critical assets is a 24/7 proposition. Therefore, having a cooperative survival plan is critical.

Without gas, people will stop going to work. Corporations will disappear overnight. Hurricane Katrina showed America that the police cannot be expected to stay on the job more than 48-72 hours as they will be home protecting their families and foraging for food and water like everyone else. The emergence of former police, now operating as gangs, will become common in an effort to secure the products which will ensure survival. Therefore, when your home is under attack, there will nobody to call. Everyone will be on their own.

The elderly and the chronically ill will be the first to die. Too old to defend their assets, the elderly will find themselves overpowered as they will make easy preys of opportunity for the roving gangs. The chronically ill will have no way to procure their medication and even if they survive the looting rampage which will follow a currency collapse, these poor souls will perish without access to their life-sustaining prescriptions.

The money in your wallet will be useless. Cell phones will not work. Heating and air conditioning will not work either and depending on the time of year, the environment could prove deadly to untold numbers of people.

Water treatment plants will stop operating for the same reasons that you will not be able to find a cop during this crisis nobody will be manning the water treatment plants. Toilets will back up and diseases will spread like wildfire. Cholera will become the leading cause of death even surpassing homicide. Something as simple as toilet paper will become a prized commodity. There will be no trash pickup and more disease will result due to the increased rodent population.

Clean drinking water and hunger will become the dominant motivator in society. Roving bands of looters, turned murderers, will sweep through neighborhoods seeking to obtain these critical elements of survival. Young women will sell themselves for a can of food for their children. Society will see the widespread loss of human dignity and self-respect.

Infanticide and euthanasia of the weak will become common events because there will be decided efforts to reduce the amount of mouths to feed. There will be the stark realization that the lights are not coming back on and the ensuing sense of hopelessness will lead to murder-suicides within families and simple incidences of suicide will be used as a means to escape the horrendous circumstances.

Humanity’s Darkest Hour

There will come a time when all the available animals will be devoured and then there will be only one place to turn to for food. History shows thatcannibalism will set in by the beginning of the third week. Extreme hunger will lead to humans hunting humans as an available food supply. There is a real possibility that this could begin to occur within 15-20 days following the currency collapse.

The Government’s Version of the Final Solution

If the establishment military has properly planned, they will move into take control but they will not move quickly. The more death there is, the fewer people there will be to control. Government will typically move in with their solutions towards the end of the second week as has been the case in past economic collapses. The earliest the military could be deployed on the streets would be about four days from the event. Even then, the military cannot be everywhere. Christians should pay particular attention for when the Roman currency was debased in the third century, there was a revolving door for Roman emperors and Christians became the scapegoats for the economic issues.

To fully understand the relationship that will exist between yourself and the government, Google “Executive Order 13603″. The reasons behind the creation of Executive Order 13603 will soon become readily apparent. You will retain ownership over nothing including food, water, guns, ammunition, your house, your car and even yourself. If you survive, you will be conscripted to work in some capacity in a specialty and location not of your choosing. The provisions for dealing with potential dissidents will go into motion under the NDAA which allows for mass arrest and secret incarcerations without due process. There is one ironclad thing that you can count on, food and water will be used to control the people following the collapse of the dollar

Who Will Help Us?

When past currency collapses occur, organizations such as the World Bank, the IMF, the UN and the US have appeared to render their predatory version of help in exchange for control of critical infrastructure and other capital considerations. Because of this aid, more people survived in the impacted areas. However, what happens when the top dog collapses? Who would be able to come and render aid in America? Even in a world disgusted by our imperialistic ways would  offer help, could they? Not under the coming circumstances could anyone offer help because they will be in a worse situation.

In short, there will be nobody riding in to rescue the United States. Despite some rebelling against the dollar, the world is still dependent upon our currency. When the currency collapses it will pull the rest of world down with us. The subsequent collapse of global currencies will indeed constitute a major depopulation event and all the elite have to do is wait it out in places like the tunnels under Denver International Airport.

During this time, Americans will truly discover if there really are FEMA camps and what they will be used for. If people want to eat, they will be enticed to go where food is promised. Although you can count on the above mentioned events transpiring in the event of a currency collapse, what lies ahead is unknown to a large extent because the top dog will not have been economically obliterated in modern history.

Conclusion

In addition to what has previously been written, in an economic collapse, we can expect the government to impose travel restrictions and martial law. Life, as we know it will not be recognizable.

Obama is willing to talk about the $17 trillion dollar deficit. However, you never hear the government nor the media discuss the real debt? Our real financial obligations total $240 trillion dollars through programs like social security, Medicare, public pensions and welfare. Subsequently, I want to make one thing abundantly clear; It is not a matter if we are going to have a currency collapse, it is when.  And the when is much sooner than later.  It could happen tomorrow, next month and even next year. We do not have two years left in the American economic engine. A currency collapse is nothing to look forward to, and people who intend on surviving the event should be in the midst of their preparations.


Dave Hodges is an award winning psychology, statistics and research professor, a college basketball coach, a mental health counselor, a political activist and writer who has published dozens of editorials and articles in several publications such as Freedom Phoenix, News With Views, and The Arizona Republic.


« Last Edit: December 02, 2015, 06:17:48 AM by objectivist1 »
"You have enemies?  Good.  That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

Crafty_Dog

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Re: US Economics, the stock market , and other investment/savings strategies
« Reply #1065 on: December 02, 2015, 07:53:24 AM »
The solution is to end to fractional reserve?  Seriously?

objectivist1

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Re: Fractional Reserve Banking...
« Reply #1066 on: December 02, 2015, 01:32:11 PM »
Crafty,

I think this is a necessary part of the solution - I agree with Murray Rothbard that fractional-reserve banking constitutes fraud/embezzlement.  Full-reserve banking ought to be mandated by the U.S. government, and the Federal Reserve abolished in the best-case scenario.  Yes, there will always be loan-shark-type unregulated activity, but this will not be enough as a percentage of the total economy to destabilize the financial system.  In this area, Ron Paul is 100% correct - despite his loony isolationist beliefs.

Below is an excerpt from a Wikipedia entry on full-reserve banking:

In the post-World War II era, economists have shown little interest in 100%-reserve banking, although some have examined the issue and concluded that the costs and inconvenience of a full-reserve banking system would outweigh any benefits.[4][5] However, economist Milton Friedman at one time advocated a 100% reserve requirement for checking accounts[6] and economist Laurence Kotlikoff has also called for an end to fractional-reserve banking.[7] According to Austrian economist Murray Rothbard, reserves of less than 100% constitute fraud on the part of banks, and full-reserve banking would eliminate the risk of bank runs.[8][9] Austrian economist Jesús Huerta de Soto also vehemently advocates full-reserve banking.

Some economists have noted that because banks would not earn revenue from lending against demand deposits, depositors would have to pay fees for the services associated with checking accounts. This, it is felt, would probably be rejected by the public.[5][10] Economists Diamond and Dybvig have warned that under full-reserve banking, since banks would not be permitted to lend out funds deposited in demand accounts, this function could be expected to be taken over by unregulated institutions. Unregulated institutions (such as high-yield debt issuers) would take over the economically necessary role of financial intermediation and maturity transformation, therefore destabilizing the financial system and leading to more frequent financial crises.[4][11]

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, Martin Wolf endorsed full reserve banking, saying "it would bring huge advantages".[3] John H. Cochrane also has come out in favor of full reserve banking.[12] In a response in the New York Times, Paul Krugman stated that the idea was "certainly worth talking about", but worries that it would drive financial activity outside the banking system, into the less regulated shadow banking system.[13]

Currently, no country in the world requires its banks to keep 100% reserves, although a 2015 government study commissioned by Iceland recommended its implementation.[14]
"You have enemies?  Good.  That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

G M

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Recession in 2016?
« Reply #1067 on: December 03, 2015, 01:12:16 AM »

Crafty_Dog

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Wesbury: Service Sector still OK
« Reply #1068 on: December 03, 2015, 12:10:25 PM »
The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index Declined to 55.9 in November To view this article, Click Here
Brian S. Wesbury, Chief Economist
Robert Stein, Deputy Chief Economist
Date: 12/3/2015

The ISM non-manufacturing index declined to 55.9 in November from 59.1 in October, coming in below the consensus expected 58.0. (Levels above 50 signal expansion; levels below 50 signal contraction.)

The major measures of activity were mostly lower in November, but all remain above 50, signaling expansion. The business activity index fell to 58.2 from 63.0 while the new orders index declined to 57.5 from 62.0. The employment index moved lower to 55.0 from 59.2 in October. The supplier deliveries index increased to 53.0 from 52.0.

The prices paid index rose to 50.3 in November from 49.1 in October.

Implications: Despite coming in well below consensus expectations, at 55.9 the ISM non-manufacturing index continued to signal robust growth in the service sector that makes up most of the US economy. This marks a stark contrast from the manufacturing sector, and suggests the Fed should and will start raising rates in mid-December. There are still a few key data releases before the Fed announces its decision on the 16th, but the decisive data should come in tomorrow’s employment report. And plugging this morning’s initial jobless claims reading of 269,000, a 39th consecutive week under 300,000, we are now forecasting payroll gains of 198,000 nonfarm and 188,000 private. In other words, unless tomorrow presents a huge negative surprise, the Fed will have no reason to wimp out yet again. In November, twelve of eighteen service industries reported growth. The most forward looking measures, business activity and new orders, showed a slower pace of growth, but both remain at very healthy levels. Expect activity to remain strong over the coming months as companies move to fill the steady flow of new orders coming in. The employment index is also painting a positive picture. Despite some monthly volatility, the first eleven months of 2015 have shown employment growing at the fastest pace since the series began in 1998. On the inflation front, the prices paid index inched back above 50 in November, showing that prices rose modestly after two months of declines. Taken as a whole, today’s reports on employment and service sector activity have set the stage for the Fed to finally make the much-overdue first rate hike before year end.
 

DougMacG

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Re: Wesbury: Service Sector still OK ...
« Reply #1069 on: December 03, 2015, 12:46:09 PM »
from the Glibness thread:

President Obama:  "I think the issue is just going to be the pace and how much damage is done before we are able to fully apply the brakes."

objectivist1

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Re: Obama's statement...
« Reply #1070 on: December 03, 2015, 02:05:42 PM »
Translation:  "I'm steadily implementing Cloward-Piven to collapse the present system, but that takes a little time.  The actual collapse may not occur until I'm out of office, and then we (the Democrats) will blame it on the next President, and call for a complete government takeover as a solution."
"You have enemies?  Good.  That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.



Crafty_Dog

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Re: US Economics, the stock market , and other investment/savings strategies
« Reply #1073 on: December 05, 2015, 03:30:47 PM »
Worth noting is that the large % of these jobs were in Texas, North Dakota, and other fracking revolution states.


G M

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Credit ratings cut
« Reply #1074 on: December 06, 2015, 12:34:05 AM »


Crafty_Dog

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Re: US Economics, the stock market , and other investment/savings strategies
« Reply #1076 on: December 06, 2015, 08:27:19 AM »
The list of what Stockman has been wrong about over the years is quite long (as Scott Grannis can describe in considerable detail) but this particular entry by him has peaked my curiosity.  I will see if I can get Scott to comment.

DougMacG

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Re: US Economics - Job Growth?
« Reply #1077 on: December 06, 2015, 10:13:32 AM »
I like Scott Grannis but cringe when I hear economists repeat and dwell on known flawed economic measures. It makes me wonder who the audience is, equities buyers?   Yes, the Fed should end its ZIRP, zero interest rate policy, not because the economy is solid or job 'growth' is sufficient, but because the Fed interest rate wasn't the problem and creating this additional distortion isn't the solution.  Two wrongs don't make an economy right.  Grannis mentions the real problems in passing, "...despite all the headwinds (e.g., high tax burdens, huge new regulatory burdens)".  More helpful would be if those problems were the headline and the job growth in name only was the footnote.

Stockman may be a flake and anti-supply-sider now, but he offers facts that are noteworthy:  The shrinkage of 'breadwinner' type jobs are masked in statistics by the expansion of jobs that average roughly a third of median breadwinner pay level.

Assuming Fed ZIRP affected jobs at the margin, this pyrrhic growth of the last 7 years is attributable to short term gimmicks, not underlying fundamentals.  Touting the false accomplishment props up the people who admit they are really applying the brakes.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Crafty:  "Worth noting is that the large % of these jobs were in Texas, North Dakota, and other fracking revolution states."

   - While those like Obama who tout this 'growth' oppose fracking and success in any other industry of real growth. 

Crafty_Dog

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Scott Grannis replies to David Stockman
« Reply #1078 on: December 06, 2015, 11:18:45 AM »
Thank you for the thoughtful comments.

I emailed Scott and he has been kind enough to reply:

"Stockman wears his bias in plain view, and he is adept at putting together numbers that appear to validate his biased interpretation of government data. But the same data he disparages he also uses to prove his points. He argues that the data are completely misleading ("These artifacts of the BLS’ seasonally maladjusted, trend-cycle modeled, heavily imputed, endlessly crafted and five times revised “jobs” numbers”), and then he proceeds to mine the same numbers for proof of what he asserts is the real reality.

"His main point seems to be that the jobs growth of the past six years is all a mirage, just a lot of empty, low-paying jobs.

"I would agree that the jobs numbers are suspect, and I make that point repeatedly: the monthly jobs numbers are notoriously subject to significant revisions after the fact. So you have to take them with a few grains of salt. But you can’t dismiss them entirely.

"Nevertheless, there are statistics that can’t be fudged or revised, such as tax receipts. Taxes don’t lie, and no one pays more in taxes than he really owes. If anything, higher tax rates encourage evasion and trickery, so we ought to look at actual tax receipts as being inherently downwardly biased relative to reality on the ground, considering that marginal tax rates have been increasing in recent years..

"But let’s look at the sum of individual income tax receipts and payroll tax receipts over the past 15 years, the period during which he argues that hours worked of all persons have been virtually flat. On an annual basis that sum increased at a 3.1% compound annual rate, from $1.63 trillion to $2.56 trillion. All the new jobs have been inconsequential, since hours worked haven’t changed, he argues, yet the workforce generated almost $1 trillion in tax revenues in the past year than it did 15 years ago.

"I say you can’t ignore the jobs numbers completely, and you can’t claim that all the new jobs have been stupid and worthless jobs, when it is abundantly clear that the people out there working are paying a lot more in taxes."

objectivist1

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Re: US Economics, the stock market , and other investment/savings strategies
« Reply #1079 on: December 09, 2015, 06:13:22 AM »
In-Store Sales Collapse 10% Over Black Friday Weekend

Tuesday, 01 December 2015   Brandon Smith  Alt-Market.com

There are dozens of excuses and rationalizations for why this has happened, including the nonsensical lie that it has been caused by stores "spreading sales out over the entire Christmas season".  I'm sorry, but retail outlets plugged Black Friday just as hard this year, from my observations, as any other year.  And, Americans for some insane reason still treat Black Friday as a kind of "tradition".  People were out in force on Black Friday weekend, but they are BUYING LESS.  Once this Christmas shopping season is over, it will likely be rated as one of the worst in years.  Online sales are also well below predictions for this year and have not nearly filled the hole that has been left by brick and mortar stores.  I predicted this development in my article 'Economic Crisis Goes Mainstream - What Happens Next?', based on the fact that global shipping rates and numbers have plunged, signalling crumbling demand.  Where demand falls, so falls the economy...

 

Sales at brick-and-mortar stores between Nov. 26 and Nov. 29 totaled an estimated $20.43 billion, 10.4% lower than 2014, according to ShopperTrak, a consumer research and analytics company. "There are several contributing factors, including fewer available store hours on Thanksgiving Day and a later Hanukkah that is anticipated to push sales into December," said ShopperTrak founder Bill Martin in a statement. Sales on Thanksgiving day were an estimated $1.76 billion, a 12.5% decrease from last year. Sales on Black Friday were about $10.21 billion, about 12% down from last year. With seven key shopping days left in the year, ShopperTrak said it maintains its 2.4% brick-and-mortar sales growth forecast for the holiday season.
"You have enemies?  Good.  That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

DougMacG

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Re: US Economics, the stock market , and other investment/savings strategies
« Reply #1080 on: December 17, 2015, 08:06:17 AM »
(Venezuela thread)
Following Gilder made me money at first and then lost me far more. 

Those were bizarre times.  I worked in the industry and had the additional overconfidence of thinking I had inside information.  Fiber optic buildout growth projections were all in triple digits at the time it crashed to zero.  I still didn't believe it and made one more big bet.  Haven't bought a share of a stock since - which also isn't the right lesson.  In the real estate crash on paper I lost close to 10 times as much.  But they were hard assets they didn't fundamentally change.  Those fiber optic pathways under the oceans are hard assets too, alive and well.  We paid for them and don't own them anymore as the businesses went under.  Gilder was right on technology and wrong on business investment.

My Grandpa used to say don't take partners in business.  With stocks today you share ownership with people who are investing with different (millisecond) timeframes.

I can't imagine having money in the market now, no matter how long the bulls have been right.  What is Wesbury's record at calling the next fall?

DougMacG

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Re: US Economics, The lack of Startups
« Reply #1081 on: December 18, 2015, 08:46:42 AM »
I have been harping on this for a long time before we had data to back it up.  The Obama economy has the worst rate of real business startups in the history of our country.  The long term effect of this catastrophe is worse than all the hundreds of trillions of dollars of unfunded liabilities combined.

A certain number of new companies need to be started that will grow to a thousand employees and a billion in sales every year, and so many more that will grow to a hundred employees and a dozen employees and so on.  And filing an LLC to protect an existing asset that will never employ anyone doesn't count.

Now we have data and it is alarming:

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2015/12/18/america_has_a_serious_start-up_slump_101923.html

America Has a Serious Start-Up Slump: Discouraging news about American entrepreneurship.

We confidently assume that we have the world's most entrepreneurial nation, and the proof seems overwhelming. Google, Facebook and Twitter are but three (relatively) recent startups that have become corporate titans.

Before them, there were others: Microsoft, Intel and FedEx. We seem to excel at nurturing new firms. Or do we?

Previous studies have shown that, despite the success of firms like Facebook, the number of startups has dropped sharply, from about 13% of all firms in the late 1980s to about 8% in 2011.

Now a new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research reports that the expansion of the remaining startups - which traditionally has been much faster than the growth of existing companies - has slowed considerably.

By some measures, it now barely exceeds the average of older companies.

So there's a double whammy: fewer startups and slower growth at the survivors.

This could be one reason the recovery from the Great Recession has been so sluggish, with the economy's growth averaging about 2% annually from 2010 to 2014, much slower than earlier post-World War II recoveries.

Using Census Bureau data, the study examined business births (the creation of new firms), deaths (companies going out of business) and growth from 1976 to 2011. It confirmed earlier studies: Though most new firms fail in their first five years, the growth of the survivors is so strong that it offsets the losses of other firms and creates much of the economy's overall increase in jobs. But that began to change after 2000, when startups' high growth faded.

The upshot: "Startups and high-growth young firms (under five years) contributed less to U.S. job creation in the post-2000 period than in earlier periods," said the report.

The startup slump may also help explain the slowdown in productivity.

(This could go in so many threads...)




Crafty_Dog

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Re: US Economics, the stock market , and other investment/savings strategies
« Reply #1082 on: December 18, 2015, 09:27:01 AM »
This is a VERY important theme and I am glad to see you bring it up.  I have pasted your post here as well:  http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=2194.new#new so that we can focus on in its own right without being diluted among the other themes of this thread.   (Here too works as well)
« Last Edit: December 18, 2015, 09:32:11 AM by Crafty_Dog »

Crafty_Dog

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Wesbury admits his prediction for this year missed the mark
« Reply #1083 on: December 28, 2015, 05:19:11 PM »
Let?s Try Again: S&P 2,375 To view this article, Click Here
Brian S. Wesbury, Chief Economist
Robert Stein, Deputy Chief Economist
Date: 12/28/2015

The future exists to keep forecasters humble. And our 2,375 forecast for the S&P 500 at year-end 2015 has done just that. We are humbled, but we do tip our hat to Jim Paulsen at Wells Fargo Asset Management who said that 2015 would be a tough year for US stocks.

Jim was right and we were wrong. To date, the S&P 500 has been basically flat in 2015, yet it did pay about a 2% dividend, which means the index beat gold, which is down about 10%, while the 10-year Treasury Note has had a total return of only about 1.5%. Oil is down 31% so far in 2015, European stocks and emerging markets disappointed as well. Japan is up 8.1% and the Nasdaq is still up 6.2% in 2015. All of this just goes to show how difficult it is to pick the perfect investment every year.

This is why we look at fundamentals. We don’t think a recession is likely in 2016. We expect Plow Horse economic growth and resilient corporate profits. As a result, we believe US stocks are still undervalued. We view the 2015 pause, after six years of increases, as a pause that refreshes.

So here we go again. Not only do we believe Northwestern will beat Tennessee on New Year’s Day, but we expect the S&P 500 to end 2016 at 2,375, 15.7% above current levels. This is based on our Capitalized Profits Model, which discounts corporate profits by the 10-year Treasury yield.

Given a 10-year Treasury yield that currently stands at 2.25%, the “raw” version of the model says the S&P 500 is “worth” 4,228. Yes, we realize that sounds insanely high. But this number is artificially high because current Fed policy is holding the yield curve “artificially low.” Using a more reasonable 10-year discount rate of 4%, instead, gives us a “fair value” calculation of 2,378.

And if we’re wrong about interest rates, if long-term yields remain stubbornly low much longer than we think, then we’re being too pessimistic about equities. A discount rate of 3.25%, for example, would put fair value at 2,925. Another way to think of this is that if the “new normal” crowd is right and interest rates stay low, then stocks have to go to much higher levels before future returns would be expected to be held down significantly.

For now, we still think the 10-year yield is eventually headed for 4%. Over long periods of time, the 10-year yield tends to equal nominal GDP growth – real GDP growth plus inflation. The Federal Reserve projects that nominal GDP growth will hover around 4% per year over the longer run, which is consistent with a 10-year yield of 4%.

Yes, the 10-year yield has fallen short of nominal GDP growth over the past five years, but over the past ten years (through the third quarter), the Note yield has averaged 3.17% while nominal GDP growth has averaged 3.18%. In other words, the so-called “broken” link between yields and the economy is a figment of the time period chosen.

However, because the Fed will lift rates in a gradual and patient manner, we forecast the 10-year yield ends next year at 3%. As a result, any danger to stocks will not be due to a rapid increase in interest rates. If you want to worry about our forecast for stocks, you should focus on profits.

We are not all that worried. Yes energy earnings are down, but we do expect real GDP to grow at a Plow Horse 2.5% annual rate in 2016. This is a slight acceleration from 2015, but no different than the 2.5% growth of 2013 and 2014.

Plow Horse economic growth should generate continued gains in the labor market. Payrolls should be up another 2.5 million, about the same as this year, and wage growth should accelerate, drawing more adults back into the labor force. As a result, the unemployment rate should continue to drop, but not quite as fast, hitting around 4.7% around Election Day. However, with fewer “discouraged” workers, the expansive U-6 definition of unemployment, what some call “true unemployment” will fall faster than the official rate.

Meanwhile, given loose monetary policy, inflation should pick up faster than most anticipate. We estimate a 2.5% increase in the CPI in 2016. As soon as energy prices stop falling, the other parts of consumer prices, which have been growing beneath the radar, will take over. For example, rent of shelter, which makes up about one-third of the CPI, is up 3.2% from a year ago and has accelerated for five years in a row. Medical care is up 2.9% in the past year.
All-in-all, 2016 looks like another year of healing from the Panic of 2008. The bull market continues to run and the economy continues to grow. If we knew how to move assets each and every year to get the “best” returns, we would trade the market much more, and benefit. But, so-called “macro-traders” don’t win very often. As a result we stick with fundamentals, which say US stocks remain undervalued.

G M

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Saudi Aramco
« Reply #1084 on: January 04, 2016, 06:15:03 AM »
Might want to buy some US oil stocks and short the Saudis.

DougMacG

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The Recovery that wasn't!! IBD. Worst Economic Recovery Ever, Stephen Moore
« Reply #1085 on: January 05, 2016, 06:46:41 AM »
Had we had AVERAGE growth out of recession, we would have added 5 MILION more jobs.  That is a workforce the size of Pennsylvania.
Had we had REAGAN growth out of a recession, we would have added 12 MILLION more jobs.
------------------------------------------------
Sorry, This Is Still The Worst Economic Recovery Ever
Investor's Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/123115-787733-obamanomics-gets-f-grade-for-failing-to-create-economic-growth-jobs.htm#ixzz3wNep0KWK
-------------------------------------------------

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jan/3/stephen-moore-the-obama-economic-recovery-that-was/
The Obama recovery that wasn’t

...eight years of virtually zero income gain. And President Obama and his Washington political pundits wonder why voters are in such a cranky mood.

Last week the Joint Economic Committee of Congress issued a report on the Obama recovery loaded with even more dismal news. On almost every measure examined, the 2009-15 recovery since the recovery ended in June of 2009 has been the meekest in more than 50 years.

Start with the broadest measure of economic progress: growth in output. The chart below compares the Obama growth pace with that of the average recovery coming out of the last eight recessions and with the Reagan recovery and over the same number of months (77). Democrats used to disparage the Reagan expansion as nothing special, yet the growth rate over the first 25 quarters under Reagan was 34 percent versus 14.3 percent under Obama.

How much does this matter? If we had grown at an average pace, GDP in 2015 would have been about $1.8 trillion higher. Under the Reagan recovery growth would have been $2.7 trillion higher.


It is certainly true that every recession is different in cause and consequences, so the JEC dug deeper into the numbers. It examined GDP growth on a per-capita basis. The Reagan recovery was abnormally strong in part because it happened when millions of baby boomers swept into the work force adding to growth. But even on a per-capita basis, real GDP has grown only 9.0 percent versus 18.8 percent for the average recovery. That is the lowest of any post-1960 recovery.

Next the JEC measured job market trends. Again we see a failing record. Yes, official unemployment of just over 5 percent today is very low. But that’s the biggest lie in America — right up there with “we’re from the government and we’re here to help.”

The distortion is due to the fact that 94 million people in America over the age of 16 aren’t in the labor force. If job growth had been the same as the average recovery we would have at least 5 million more Americans working — which is nearly the size of the workforce in Pennsylvania.

Amazingly, if we had had a Reagan-paced job recovery we would today have at least 12 million more Americans working. Job creators are still on strike and it’s a result of EPA rules, Obamacare, tax hikes, and other assaults against business.

When fewer people are working and wages are stagnant, incomes don’t grow. That’s the real sorry story of the Obama era. If the Obama recovery had been just average, in other words a C grade, JEC calculates that “after-tax per person income would be $3,339 (2009$) per year higher,” families can no longer be fooled with happy talk about “hope and change.” They feel the tough times.

The JEC’s dreary conclusion tells the whole story of the era of Obamanomics: “On economic growth the Obama recovery ranks dead last.”

One other statistic that stands out on the Obama record as we begin his last year in office. The debt is up to $16.5 trillion and by the he leaves office our indebtedness will be almost double where it was when he entered the Oval Office. Just the interest payments alone cost half a trillion dollars a year. This is the Obama legacy and if liberals want to take ownership of this bleak record — it’s all theirs.

• Stephen Moore is an economic consultant with Freedom Works and a Fox News contributor.


G M

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How is the plow horse today?
« Reply #1086 on: January 07, 2016, 08:41:27 AM »
I'm guessing Wesbury is saying it's a great time to buy.

DougMacG

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Re: How is the plow horse today?
« Reply #1087 on: January 07, 2016, 09:36:00 AM »
I'm guessing Wesbury is saying it's a great time to buy.

He is still writing his apology for being wrong about last year.  Was 100% exposure to risk last year worth the -0.7% return?


G M

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Crafty_Dog

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Re: US Economics, the stock market , and other investment/savings strategies
« Reply #1090 on: January 08, 2016, 04:59:14 PM »
Westbury says our exports to China are $100 billion.  If those suddenly went to zero, it would cut only one half of 1% from our growth.  

One half of 1% is our growth.

Missed in that is what if our imports from China went to zero - our standard of living would collapse.
« Last Edit: January 08, 2016, 05:02:39 PM by DougMacG »

ccp

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Retail ready to crash
« Reply #1091 on: January 15, 2016, 04:13:33 PM »

Crafty_Dog

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Re: US Economics, the stock market , and other investment/savings strategies
« Reply #1092 on: January 15, 2016, 06:26:32 PM »
For the record, I confess to entertaining the notion that the party may be over and that the big Fustercluck has finally begun.

G M

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Re: US Economics, the stock market , and other investment/savings strategies
« Reply #1093 on: January 15, 2016, 09:12:54 PM »
For the record, I confess to entertaining the notion that the party may be over and that the big Fustercluck has finally begun.

"If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.”


― Herbert Stein, What I Think: Essays on Economics, Politics, & Life

ccp

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fusercluck
« Reply #1094 on: January 16, 2016, 03:18:50 AM »
Welcome to Puerto Rico

G M

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but the other 7% are doing awesome!
« Reply #1095 on: January 16, 2016, 06:57:07 PM »
http://www.redstate.com/2016/01/13/study-93-us-counties-still-havent-recovered-recession/

Plowhorse!

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-15/retail-sales-in-u-s-decrease-to-end-weakest-year-since-2009

Sales at U.S. retailers declined in December to wrap the weakest year since 2009, raising concern about the momentum in consumer spending heading into 2016.
The 0.1 percent drop matched the median forecast of 84 economists surveyed by Bloomberg and followed a 0.4 percent gain in November, Commerce Department figures showed Friday in Washington. For all of 2015, purchases climbed 2.1 percent, the smallest advance of the current economic expansion.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2016, 07:00:37 PM by G M »

Crafty_Dog

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WSJ: $29 oil and the dollar
« Reply #1096 on: January 16, 2016, 08:28:40 PM »
$29 Oil and the Dollar
As the greenback keeps rising, commodity prices keep falling.
ENLARGE
Photo: Getty Images/Ikon Images
Jan. 15, 2016 6:56 p.m. ET
82 COMMENTS

Equities took another beating on Friday, on the heels of one more Chinese market selloff and oil sinking below $29 a barrel for the first time in 12 years. The Dow industrials and the S&P 500 are down more than 8% in two weeks, and the growing fear is that this is a harbinger of recession.

Amid the hunt for culprits, one place to look is the link between the price of oil and the dollar. There has long been an inverse correlation between dollar strength and commodity prices, as we saw more than a decade ago. As the Federal Reserve made its historic mistake of staying too easy for too long in the early 2000s, oil began its long march upward to $100 a barrel and beyond. The correlation has been going in reverse in the last year as the dollar strengthens and oil plunges.

Morgan Stanley tracked this correlation in a smart research note earlier this week. While not ignoring the fundamentals of oil supply and demand, especially lower oil demand from slower growth in China, Morgan Stanley estimated that increasing dollar strength could take the oil price down to $20 a barrel.

The Fed’s inevitable unwinding of its post-panic monetary exertions explains part but not all of the dollar’s rebound. Central banks in Japan and Europe have been pursuing a devaluation strategy and capital flight from China is causing the yuan to depreciate. As more investors demand dollars, the greenback strengthens and the chances of currency markets overshooting grows.

If oil does fall to $20, the economic pain is likely to be considerable throughout the oil patch and commodity markets. Energy bankruptcies will proliferate. Eventually low prices will lead to cuts in supply and oil will find a bottom. But the carnage might be reduced if the dollar stabilized against major currencies. Meantime, the world desperately needs pro-growth economic policies, but it’s hard to see where they’ll be coming from any time soon.


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objectivist1

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Economic Meltdown Being Led By U.S., Not China...
« Reply #1099 on: January 20, 2016, 11:28:51 PM »
The U.S. Is At The Center Of The Global Economic Meltdown

January 20, 2016   Brandon Smith


While the economic implosion progresses this year, there will be considerable misdirection and disinformation as to the true nature of what is taking place. As I have outlined in the past, the masses were so ill informed by the mainstream media during the Great Depression that most people had no idea they were actually in the midst of an “official” depression until years after it began. The chorus of economic journalists of the day made sure to argue consistently that recovery was “right around the corner.” Our current depression has been no different, but something is about to change.

Unlike the Great Depression, social crisis will eventually eclipse economic crisis in the U.S. That is to say, our society today is so unequipped to deal with a financial collapse that the event will inevitably trigger cultural upheaval and violent internal conflict. In the 1930s, nearly 50% of the American population was rural. Farmers made up 21% of the labor force. Today, only 20% of the population is rural. Less than 2% work in farming and agriculture. That’s a rather dramatic shift from a more independent and knowledgeable land-utilizing society to a far more helpless and hapless consumer-based system.

What’s the bottom line? About 80% of the current population in the U.S. is more than likely inexperienced in any meaningful form of food production and self-reliance.

The rationale for lying to the public is certainly there. Economic and political officials could argue that to reveal the truth of our fiscal situation would result in utter panic and immediate social breakdown. When 80% of the citizenry is completely unprepared for a decline in the mainstream grid, a loss of savings through falling equities and a loss of buying power through currency destruction, their first response to such dangers would be predictably uncivilized.

Of course, the powers-that-be are not really interested in protecting the American people from themselves. They are interested only in positioning their own finances and resources in the most advantageous investments while using our loss and fear to extract more centralization, more control and more consent. Thus, the hiding of economic decline is enacted because the decline itself is useful to the elites.

And just to be clear for those who buy into the propaganda, the U.S. is indeed in a speedy decline.

In 'Lies You Will Hear As The Economic Collapse Progresses', published in summer of last year, I predicted that “Chinese contagion” would be used as the scapegoat for the downturn in order to hide the true source: American wealth destruction. Today, as the Dow and other markets plummet and oil markets tank due to falling demand and glut inventories, all we seem to hear from the mainstream talking heads and the people who parrot them in various forums is that the U.S. is the “only stable economy by comparison” and the rest of the world (mainly China) is a poison to our otherwise exemplary financial health. This is delusional fiction.

The U.S. is the No. 1 consumer market in the world with a 29% overall share and a 21% share in energy usage, despite having only 5 percent of the world’s total population. If there is a global slowdown in consumption, manufacturing, exports and imports, then the first place to look should be America.

Trucking freight in the U.S. is in steep decline, with freight companies pointing to a “glut in inventories” and a fall in demand as the culprit.

Morgan Stanley’s freight transportation update indicates a collapse in freight demand worse than that seen during 2009.

The Baltic Dry Index, a measure of global freight rates and thus a measure of global demand for shipping of raw materials, has collapsed to even more dismal historic lows. Hucksters in the mainstream continue to push the lie that the fall in the BDI is due to an “overabundance of new ships.” However, the CEO of A.P. Moeller-Maersk, the world’s largest shipping line, put that nonsense to rest when he admitted in November that “global growth is slowing down” and “[t]rade is currently significantly weaker than it normally would be under the growth forecasts we see.”

Maersk ties the decline in global shipping to a FALL IN DEMAND, not an increase in shipping fleets.

This point is driven home when one examines the real-time MarineTraffic map, which tracks all cargo ships around the world. For the past few weeks, the map has remained almost completely inactive with the vast majority of the world’s cargo ships sitting idle in port, not traveling across oceans to deliver goods. The reality is, global demand has fallen down a black hole, and the U.S. is at the top of the list in terms of crashing consumer markets.

To drive the point home even further, the U.S. is by far the world’s largest petroleum consumer. Therefore, any sizable collapse in global oil demand would have to be predicated in large part on a fall in American consumption. Oil inventories are now overflowing, indicating an unheard-of crash in energy use and purchasing.

U.S. petroleum consumption was actually lower in 2014 than it was in 1997 and 25% lower than earlier projections predicted. A large part of this reduction in gas use has been attributed to fewer vehicle miles traveled. Though oil markets have seen massive price cuts, the lack of demand continued through 2015.

This collapse in consumption is reflected partially in newly adjusted 4th quarter GDP forecasts by the Federal Reserve, which are now slashed down to 0.7%.  And remember, Fed and government calculate GDP stats by counting government spending of taxpayer money as "production" or "commerce".  They also count parasitic programs like Obamacare towards GDP as well.  If one were to remove government spending of taxpayer funds from the equation, real GDP would be far in the negative.  That is to say, if the fake numbers are this bad, then the real numbers must be horrendous.

And finally, let’s talk about Wal-Mart. There is a good reason why mainstream pundits are attempting to marginalize Wal-Mart’s sudden announcement of 269 store closures, 154 of them within the U.S. with at least 10,000 employees being laid off. Admitting weakness in Wal-Mart means admitting weakness in the U.S. economy, and they don’t want to do that.

Wal-Mart is America’s largest retailer and largest employer. In 2014, Wal-Mart announced a sweeping plan to essentially crush neighborhood grocery markets with its Wal-Mart Express stores, building hundreds within months. Today, those Wal-Mart Express stores are being shut down in droves, along with some supercenters. Their top business model lasted around a year before it was abandoned.

Some in the mainstream argue that this is not necessarily a sign of economic decline because Wal-Mart claims it will be building 200 to 240 new stores worldwide by 2017. This is interesting to me because Wal-Mart just suffered its steepest stock drop in 27 years on reports that projected sales will fall by 6% to 12% for the next two years.

It would seem to me highly unlikely that Wal-Mart would close 154 stores in the U.S. (269 stores worldwide) and then open 240 other stores during a projected steep crash in sales that caused the worst stock trend in the company’s history. I think it far more likely that Wal-Mart executives are attempting to appease shareholders with expansion promises they do not plan to keep.

I am going to call it here and now and predict that most of these store sites will never see construction and that Wal-Mart will continue to make cuts, either with store closings, employee layoffs or both.

As the above data indicates, global demand is disintegrating; and the U.S. is a core driver.

The best way to sweep all these negative indicators under the rug is to fabricate some grand idea of outside threats and fiscal dominoes. It is much easier for Americans to believe our country is being battered from without rather than destroyed from within.

Does China have considerable fiscal issues including debt bubble issues? Absolutely. Is this a catalyst for global collapse? No. China’s problems are many but if there is a first “domino” in the chain, then the U.S. economy claims that distinction.

China is the largest exporter in the world, not the largest consumer. If anything, a crash in China’s economy is only a REFLECTION of an underlying collapse in U.S. demand for Chinese goods (among others). That is to say, the mainstream dullards have it backward; a crash in China is a herald of a larger collapse in U.S. markets. A crash in China is a symptom of the greater fiscal disease in America. The U.S. is the primary cause; it is not the victim of Chinese contagion. And the crisis in the U.S. will ultimately be far worse by comparison.

I wrote in 'What Fresh Horror Awaits The Economy After Fed Rate Hike?', published before Christmas:

"Market turmoil is a guarantee given the fact that banks and corporations have been utterly reliant on near-zero interest rates and free overnight lending from the Fed. They have been using these no-cost and low-cost loans primarily for stock buybacks, purchasing back their own stocks and reducing the number of shares on the market, thereby artificially elevating the value of the remaining shares and driving up the market as a whole. Now that near-zero lending is over, these banks and corporations will not be able to afford constant overnight borrowing, and the buybacks will cease. Thus, stock markets will crash in the near term.

This process has already begun with increased volatility leading up to and after the Fed rate hike. Watch for far more erratic stock movements (300 to 500 points or more) up and down taking place more frequently, with the overall trend leading down into the 15,000-point range for the Dow in the first two quarters of 2016. Extraordinary but short lived positive increases in the markets will occur at times (Christmas and New Year’s tend to result in positive rallies), but shock rallies are just as much a sign of volatility and instability as shock crashes."

Markets moved immediately into crash territory after the new year began. This was an easy prediction to make and one that I have been reiterating for months — just as the timing of the Fed rate hike was an easy prediction to make, based on the Fed’s history of deliberately increasing instability through bad policy as the economy moves into deflationary spirals. The Fed did it during the Great Depression and is doing it again today.

It is no coincidence that global markets began to tank after the first Fed rate hike; no-cost overnight lending to banks and corporations was the key to maintaining equities in a relatively static position.  As the U.S. loses momentum, the world loses momentum.  As the Fed ends outright stimulation and manipulation, the house of cards falls.

I have said it many times and I’ll say it yet again: If you think the Fed’s motivation is to prolong or protect the U.S. economy and currency, then you will never understand why it takes the policy actions it does. If you understand and accept the fact that the Fed is a saboteur working carefully and incrementally toward the destruction of the U.S. to make way for a new globally centralized system, everything falls into place.

To summarize, the U.S. economy as we know it is not slated to survive the next few years. Read my article 'The Economic Endgame Explained' for more in-depth information on why a collapse is being engineered and what the openly admitted goal is, including the referenced 1988 article from The Economist titled “Get Ready A World Currency In 2018,” which outlines the plan for a reduction of the dollar and the U.S. system in order to make way for a global basket reserve currency (Special Drawing Rights).

It is astonishingly foolish to assume that even though the U.S. has held the title of king of global consumption share for decades, that our economy is somehow not a primary faulty part in the sputtering global economic engine.  Economies are falling because demand is falling.   Demand is falling because Americans are not buying.  Americans are not buying because Americans are broke. Americans are broke because central bank policy has created an environment of wealth destruction. This wealth destruction in the U.S. has been ongoing, but only now is it becoming truly visible.  The volatility we see in developing nations is paltry compared to the financial chaos we now face.  Anyone who attempts to dismiss the dangers of a U.S. breakdown or the threat to the unprepared public is either an idiot, or they are trying to divert and distract you from reality. The coming months will undoubtedly verify this.
"You have enemies?  Good.  That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.