America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
I have written many blog posts concerning the worrisome trends in income and earnings. Along these lines, one of the measures showing disconcerting trends is that of hourly earnings. While the concept of hourly earnings can be defined and measured in a variety of ways, below are a few charts that I believe broadly illustrate problematic …
Shortly after each monthly employment report I have been posting a continual series titled “3 Critical Unemployment Charts.” Of course, there are many other employment charts that can be displayed as well. For reference purposes, below are the U-3 and U-6 Unemployment Rate charts from a long-term historical perspective. Both charts are from the St. …
As I have commented previously, as in the October 6, 2009 post (“A Note About Unemployment Statistics”), in my opinion the official methodologies used to measure the various job loss and unemployment statistics do not provide an accurate depiction; they serve to understate the severity of unemployment. However, even if one chooses to look at the …
Recently Deloitte released their “CFO Signals” “High-Level Summary” report for the 3rd Quarter of 2015. As seen in page 2 of the report, “One hundred fourteen CFOs responded during the two-week period ending August 21. Seventy-one percent of respondents are from public companies, and 84% are from companies with more than $1B in annual revenue. …
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 …
The St. Louis Fed’s Financial Stress Index (STLFSI) is one index that is supposed to measure stress in the financial system. Its reading as of the September 24, 2015 update (reflecting data through September 18) is -.715. Of course, there are a variety of other measures and indices that are supposed to measure financial stress and other related …
Doug Short had a blog post of September 29, 2015 (“Consumer Confidence Improved Moderately in September“) in which he presents the latest Conference Board Consumer Confidence and Thomson/Reuters University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index charts. They are presented below: (click on charts to enlarge images) – – There are a few aspects of the above charts that …
“Stock market capitalization to GDP” is a notable and important metric regarding stock market valuation. In February of 2009 I wrote of it in “Does Warren Buffett’s Market Metric Still Apply?” Doug Short has recently published a post depicting this “stock market capitalization to GDP” metric. As seen in his September 25, 2015 post titled …
For reference purposes, below are two sets of charts depicting growth in the money supply. The first shows the MZM (Money Zero Maturity), defined in FRED as the following: M2 less small-denomination time deposits plus institutional money funds. Money Zero Maturity is calculated by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Here is the “MZM …
Many people place emphasis on Durable Goods New Orders as a prominent economic indicator and/or leading economic indicator. For reference, below are charts depicting this measure. First, from the St. Louis Fed site (FRED), a chart through August, updated on September 24, 2015. This value is $236,322 ($ Millions): (click on charts to enlarge images) …