America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
The recently introduced “Economic Security Index” is notable on many fronts. Here is a summary from the “About” page: “The Economic Security Index (ESI), sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, measures the share of Americans who experience at least a 25% drop in their available family income whether due to a decline in income or a …
For the last few quarters, I have been commenting upon the general lack of revenue growth in corporate results. I have focused on a variety of diversified manufacturers and distributors, all of them well-respected S&P500 firms. My last comment on this issue was on May 5. For the recently released 2Q 2010 financial results, …
Many people who are optimistic about economic growth site “New Orders” as a rationale. For reference purposes, here is a chart of Durable Goods New Orders, through 6-1-10, on a Percent Change From Year Ago basis: source: St. Louis Fed Below is the latest ECRI WLI Growth chart. I find the (loose) resemblance (from 2008) …
Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi released a paper dated July 27 titled “How The Great Recession Was Brought To An End.” (pdf) From the report, page 1: “In this paper, we use the Moody’s Analytics model of the U.S. economy—adjusted to accommodate some recent financial-market policies—to simulate the macroeconomic effects of the government’s total policy …
On July 8 I wrote my last post concerning the U.S. Dollar. In the last line of that post I said “…I continue to believe the U.S. Dollar is highly vulnerable to a substantial decline.” As “substantial decline” is somewhat open to interpretation, I would like to clarify what I meant. Here is a chart …
Here is an update on various indicators that are supposed to predict and/or depict economic activity. These indicators have been discussed in previous blog posts: The July Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI)(pdf) updated as of July 26, 2010: The Consumer Metrics Institute Contraction Watch: The USA TODAY/IHS Global Insight Economic Outlook Index: An excerpt …
I have been following The Consumer Metrics Institute’s work since March. I have previously written two posts focusing on their work (both found on March 31), as well as included it in the monthly “Updates On Economic Indicators.” To briefly summarize, I find their work and methodologies very interesting, especially given that they appear quite …
On July 1, 2010 ContraryInvestor.com posted the following chart: (click on chart to enlarge image) I find this chart interesting especially given its long-term perspective. As seen by this measure, the post-2007 experience is (very) atypical… back to <home> SPX at 1102.66 as this post is written
Here are four charts reflecting confidence survey readings. These are from the SentimenTrader.com site. I find these charts valuable as they provide a long-term history of each survey, which is rare. Each survey chart is plotted in blue, below the S&P500: (click on each chart to enlarge image) Conference Board Consumer Confidence, last updated 6-29-10: …
The Wall Street Journal had an article on July 17-18 titled “Roads to Ruin: Towns Rip Up the Pavement.” The story highlights the practice of converting paved roads to gravel instead of repaving them in order to save money. This is yet another example of our (national) inability to maintain our infrastructure. I believe that …