America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
Monday’s (August 9) Barron’s had an article titled “Time to Print, Print, Print.” The article provides an overview of the concept of Quantitative Easing (QE) in the context of our current economic situation. I don’t agree with many of its conclusions and insinuations, however. In particular, the article seems overly positive on the idea of …
Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal had an Op-ed titled “Unemployment: What Would Reagan Do?” I found the article interesting as it provides a good explanation of the Civilian Employment-Population Ratio and its history. An excerpt: “Since America has about 238 million noninstitutionalized civilian adults of working age, this decrease means that we have nearly 12 …
Deflation has been a popular topic lately. Some have recently expressed that deflation can be a scenario from which one can remain unimpacted, or will profit from. Examples include a August 7-8 Wall Street Journal article titled “How to Beat Deflation-And Even Profit From It.” A recent article by Robert Prechter Jr. in the August …
As I have commented previously, as in the October 30 post, in my opinion the official methodologies used to measure the various job loss and unemployment statistics do not provide an accurate depiction. However, even if one chooses to look at the official statistics, the following charts provide an interesting (and disconcerting) long-term perspective of …
The recently introduced “Economic Security Index” is notable on many fronts. Here is a summary from the “About” page: “The Economic Security Index (ESI), sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, measures the share of Americans who experience at least a 25% drop in their available family income whether due to a decline in income or a …
For the last few quarters, I have been commenting upon the general lack of revenue growth in corporate results. I have focused on a variety of diversified manufacturers and distributors, all of them well-respected S&P500 firms. My last comment on this issue was on May 5. For the recently released 2Q 2010 financial results, …
Many people who are optimistic about economic growth site “New Orders” as a rationale. For reference purposes, here is a chart of Durable Goods New Orders, through 6-1-10, on a Percent Change From Year Ago basis: source: St. Louis Fed Below is the latest ECRI WLI Growth chart. I find the (loose) resemblance (from 2008) …
Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi released a paper dated July 27 titled “How The Great Recession Was Brought To An End.” (pdf) From the report, page 1: “In this paper, we use the Moody’s Analytics model of the U.S. economy—adjusted to accommodate some recent financial-market policies—to simulate the macroeconomic effects of the government’s total policy …