America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
On Sunday, “60 Minutes” did a segment on state budget problems. Both video and a transcript are available. The segment is worth viewing, especially for those who lack familiarity with the issue. While I don’t agree with some of its comments, it provides a good overview of the situation and some of the complexities involved. …
Today’s Barron’s has a cover story titled “Outlook 2011.” Among the average forecasts of the 10 respondents (strategists and investment managers) was the following: A year-end 2011 S&P500 target of 1373.25 $92.90 S&P500 EPS for 2011 $100.83 S&P500 EPS for 2012 (an average from 6 respondents) 3.2% GDP growth for 2011 In a separate story …
During QE1 (the first round of The Federal Reserve’s Quantitative Easing) there seemed to be substantial commentary and discussion concerning the exit of such a program. Over the last few months the discussions over the exit strategy seem to have diminished greatly – despite the start of QE2 and speculation of additional QE programs, i.e. …
On Tuesday the November PPI figures were released, and they continue their recent trend of being significantly higher than the CPI figures. Should this trend continue, it will of course likely have a significant impact on many companies’ profitability. I believe there are many reasons for why PPI growth is trending significantly higher than CPI. …
The December Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey was published December 13, 2010. I found a couple of excerpts, seen below, to be especially notable: “The economists now see stronger expansion in the first half of 2011, with growth picking up speed as the year progresses. For the year, they expect GDP will rise 3%. …
The December 9, 2010 Livingston Survey (pdf) contains, among its various forecasts, a S&P500 forecast. It shows the following price forecast for the dates shown: Dec. 30, 2010 1200 June 30, 2011 1250 Dec. 30, 2011 1298.5 Dec. 31, 2012 1350 These figures represent the median value across the 33 forecasters on the …
The following chart is from the CalculatedRisk Blog of December 9, 2010. It depicts Total Household Net Worth as a Percent of GDP. The underlying data is from The Federal Reserve Flow of Funds 3Q 2010 report: (click on chart to enlarge image) As seen in the above-referenced CalculatedRisk blog post: “According to the Fed, …
In announcing QE2 in their November 3 FOMC meeting, the statement contained the following excerpt: “Consistent with its statutory mandate, the Committee seeks to foster maximum employment and price stability. Currently, the unemployment rate is elevated, and measures of underlying inflation are somewhat low, relative to levels that the Committee judges to be consistent, over …
In his “60 Minutes” interview of Sunday (which I commented upon in the last post), Ben Bernanke responded to a question (from Scott Pelley) regarding the wealth disparity: Pelley: The gap between rich and poor in this country has never been greater. In fact, we have the biggest income disparity gap of any industrialized country …
Ben Bernanke gave his second interview to “60 Minutes” last night. This interview is very notable in many respects. I could make extensive comments on various aspects of the interview, as I continue to have vast differences of opinion with many of Ben Bernanke’s stated comments and analyses. For now I will make some …