America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
In the August 9, 2011 post (“QE3 – Various Thoughts“) I posted a chart that depicted the movements of the S&P500, 10-Year Treasury Yield and the Fed Funds rate spanning the periods of various Federal Reserve interventions since 2007. For reference purposes, here is an updated chart from Doug Short’s blog post of June 6 …
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 …
On June 5, Gallup released the poll results titled “U.S. Economic Confidence Up in May, Steady Last Weekend.” The subtitle is “Confidence improved to -17 in May, the highest monthly average in over four years.” Three of the most notable excerpts: Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index averaged -17 in May, improved over the -20 averages recorded in …
On October 17, 2011 I wrote a post titled “Danger Signs In The Stock Market, Financial System And Economy.” This post is a brief 13th 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 …
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, …
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 …
On March 28, 2011 I wrote a post (“The STLFSI“) about the STLFSI (St. Louis Fed’s Financial Stress Index) 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 May 31, incorporating data from 12-31-93 to 5-25-12 on a …
Doug Short had a blog post of May 29 (“May Consumer Confidence: The Third Month of Shrinkage“) in which he presents the 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 …
In various posts I have commented about the troubling long- and short-term trends in income growth. (Many of these past posts are seen under the “household income” tag) While there are many ways to measure these income trends, regardless of the measurement or time period used, the trends appear worrisome. As I highlighted in the …