America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
Occasionally I hear “That won’t be allowed to happen,” which has been said by many prominent people within the political, financial and economic community. This phrase, in essence, is meant to say that some type of severe economic weakness or other calamitous economic event won’t, and can’t, occur. I find this phrase rather mystifying; rarely …
Just a couple of quick administrative notes… Obviously, changing past posts’ content is disingenuous. However, sometimes it is necessary. My policy has been, and will continue to be, the following: I allow myself to change post content on the same day the post is created, to allow for editing, rewording, accuracy, formatting, etc. After that …
On June 17, ContraryInvestor.com had a chart that showed retail sales per capita since 2005. Total retail sales, as depicted, includes autos and gasoline: Below the Retail Sales Per Capita is a chart of the S&P Retail Sales Index. Of course, this view of total retail sales, on a per-capita (factoring in population growth) basis, …
On June 22 Ivan Seidenberg, Chairman of The Business Roundtable, gave a speech (pdf) to the Economic Club of Washington. Here are some notable speech passages: “But frankly, we have become somewhat troubled by a growing disconnect between Washington and the business community that is harming our ability to expand the economy and grow private-sector …
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 June Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI)(pdf) updated as of June 28, 2010: The Consumer Metrics Institute Contraction Watch: The USA TODAY/IHS Global Insight Economic Outlook Index: An excerpt …
Although almost everyone believes we are in an economic recovery, it behooves us to at least consider whether instead we are in a continuing Depression, as I have previously written. Beginning on June 22, 2009, I wrote a series of four blog posts that examined various aspects of our economic situation and whether we were …
A June 17 2010 Raghuram Rajan interview contained several interesting viewpoints. While I don’t necessarily agree with what he says in this interview, I found it to be well worth reading. Of particular note was the following comment, which I found provocative – if not very much so – and thought-provoking, as its implications, if …
On Wednesday (June 23) MacroMarkets released its June Home Price Expectations Survey results. Here is the Press Release (pdf); the accompanying chart is seen below: As one can see from the above chart, the expectation is that not only has the residential real estate market hit a “bottom” as far as pricing; but that steady …
I found this June 10 blog post, titled “The Chances of a ‘Double-Dip’ are Essentially Nil” by Macroeconomic Advisers to be notable. Of course, I am not in agreement with those that believe any material further economic weakness will be avoided. However, many economists feel differently; as I have noted in the post of June …
I recently came across a notable excerpt in ECRI’s “U.S. Cyclical Outlook” of December 2009 (pdf): “The bottom line is that long expansions are needed after severe recessions to undo the damage. After the 1932-33 depression, not even four years of expansion were quite enough, despite 10% annual GNP growth. This time trend growth is …