America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
On March 28, 2011 I wrote a post (“The STLFSI“) about the St. Louis Fed’s Financial Stress Index (STLFSI) which is supposed to measure stress in the financial system. For reference purposes, the most recent chart is seen below. This chart was last updated on March 7, incorporating data from December 31,1993 to March 1, …
While I do not agree with the current readings of the measure – I think the measure dramatically understates the probability of deflation, as measured by the CPI – the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta maintains an interesting data series titled “Deflation Probabilities.” As stated on the site: Using estimates derived from Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities …
In the last post (“Total Household Net Worth As A Percent Of GDP 4Q 2012“) I displayed a long-term chart depicting Total Household Net Worth as a percentage of GDP. For reference purposes, here is Total Household Net Worth from a long-term perspective (from 1949:Q4 to 2012:Q4). The last value (as of March 7, 2013) …
The following chart is from the CalculatedRisk blog post of March 7, 2013 titled “Fed’s Q4 Flow of Funds: Household Mortgage Debt down $1.2 Trillion from Peak.” It depicts Total Household Net Worth as a Percent of GDP. The underlying data is from The Federal Reserve Flow of Funds 4Q 2012 report: (click on chart to enlarge image) …
On October 17, 2011 I wrote a post titled “Danger Signs In The Stock Market, Financial System And Economy.” This post is a brief 22nd update to that post. My overall analysis indicates a continuing elevated and growing level of danger which contains many worldwide and U.S.-specific “stresses” of a very complex nature. I have written numerous …
On March 5, Gallup released the poll results titled “U.S. Economic Confidence Falls as Sequester Becomes Reality.” The subtitle is “Prior to sequester, confidence held at the monthly five-year high.” An excerpt regarding the monthly average reading for February: Although Americans’ confidence in the economy fell last week, monthly U.S. Economic Confidence held steady at -13 …
“Affordability” of products and services, both now and in the future, is an issue that seems to lack recognition, for a variety of reasons including aggregate U.S. income trends. One example of this was highlighted on Wednesday, and was seen in a CNBC article titled “New Cars Increasingly Out of Reach for Many Americans” that discusses …
U.S. Dollar weakness is a foremost concern of mine. As such, I have extensively written about it. I am very concerned that the actions being taken to “improve” our economic situation will dramatically weaken the Dollar. Should the Dollar substantially decline from here, as I expect, the negative consequences will far outweigh any benefits. The negative impact of a substantial …
As I stated in my July 12, 2010 post (“ECRI WLI Growth History“): For a variety of reasons, I am not as enamored with ECRI’s WLI and WLI Growth measures as many are. However, I do think the measures are important and deserve close monitoring and scrutiny. The movement of the ECRI WLI and WLI, …
On March 28, 2011 I wrote a post (“The STLFSI“) about the St. Louis Fed’s Financial Stress Index (STLFSI) which is supposed to measure stress in the financial system. For reference purposes, the most recent chart is seen below. This chart was last updated on February 28, incorporating data from December 31,1993 to February 22, …