America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
On March 30 the Business Roundtable’s CEO Economic Outlook Survey was released for the 1st quarter. The March Duke/CFO Magazine Global Business Outlook Survey was released on March 9. Both contain a variety of statistics regarding how executives view business and economic conditions. In the CEO survey, of particular interest is the CEO Economic Outlook …
On March 22 MacroMarkets released its March Home Price Expectations Survey results. Here is the Press Release (pdf); the accompanying chart is seen below: (click on chart image to enlarge) As one can see from the above chart, the average expectation is that not only has the residential real estate market (nearly) hit a “bottom” …
One doesn’t hear much about the STLFSI (St. Louis Fed’s Financial Stress Index) with regard to measuring stress in the financial system. Here is a document (pdf) that explains the construction of this index. My thoughts on this index are varied and complex. For now, I am simply posting it as a reference, as I …
On February 18 I wrote a post concerning Alan Greenspan’s comments regarding the stock market “as a stimulus.” In this post, I would like to highlight comments made by Federal Reserve officials (Bernanke and Sack) as well as another made by Greenspan, as I believe that these official comments regarding the stock market’s “wealth effect” …
I have written many posts concerning the vulnerability of the U.S. Dollar to a substantial decline, and the ill-effects such a decline would have on the U.S. economy and markets. The U.S. Dollar is now at 75.65, and is exhibiting weak “price action” and weak technicals. As one can see from the following chart, the …
On February 14 I wrote a post highlighting Milton Friedman’s “Free to Choose” television series of 1980. From time to time I plan on commenting on various material contained therein as much of it is highly relevant to issues we are currently encountering. His following comments are particularly noteworthy given today’s economic environment and intervention …
On March 21, Gallup released results from an annual survey in which they gathered information on American’s concerns about 14 major national issues. The survey responses indicated that the economy was the top-ranking concern, with 71% indicating they worry about the economy “a great deal.” Here is an excerpt from the Press Release that I …
Here is an update on various indicators that are supposed to predict and/or depict economic activity. (Past updates of these indicators, as well as previous posts discussing the individual indicators, can be found under “Economic Indicators“) : The March Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI)(pdf) updated as of March 21, 2011: – The Consumer Metrics …
Today’s Barron’s has an interview with Joseph Stiglitz. I found his answer to the following question to be an interesting perspective: Before we talk about all that, what are the most surprising developments since you won your Nobel Prize? Surprising to whom? The bubble episode surprised so much of the world—Greenspan and Bernanke believed that …
On February 14 I wrote a post highlighting Milton Friedman’s “Free to Choose” television series of 1980. From time to time I plan on commenting on various material contained therein as much of it is highly relevant to issues we are currently encountering. In Volume 9 there are a couple of comments made, at roughly …