America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
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 …
As I have commented previously, as in the October 6, 2009 post, in my opinion the official methodologies used to measure the various job loss and unemployment statistics do not provide an accurate depiction. However, even if one chooses to look at the official statistics, the following charts provide an interesting (and disconcerting) long-term perspective …
My thought on the matter is that the overall topic of inflation and its effects is a complex one. Adding to the complexity is the definition of inflation. Most people define inflation in terms of CPI, but there are many different ways of defining the concept. On this blog, to avoid confusion, I try to …
Here is a link to the FOMC Minutes of November 2-3, 2010. (pdf) One item of interest is the section titled “Summary Of Economic Projections.” This section displays and discusses projections and statistics of various measures including GDP, Unemployment Rate, and PCE Inflation. As stated in the FOMC Minutes: “In conjunction with the November 2–3, …
In the November 22 – November 28 Bloomberg BusinessWeek, p23, Nassim Taleb is quoted as saying the following, which I find interesting: “Bernanke is someone who talks about returns without talking about risk. It’s identical to a pilot who talks about speed but not about safety. The measures he is using may work, but should …
Last Monday, CNBC aired a recent interview (with a transcript) of former President George W. Bush by Larry Kudlow. The interview focused on George W. Bush’s recently published book (“Decision Points”) and the Financial Crisis of 2008-2009. I found various comments by George W. Bush to be interesting. In many instances I disagree with what …
I am finding “The Billion Prices Project” to be valuable. From the homepage, “The Billion Prices Project is an academic initiative that collects prices from hundreds of online retailers around the world on a daily basis to conduct economic research.” Two of the most prominent benefits I see from the data include that data is …
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 November Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI)(pdf) updated as of November 22, 2010: – The Consumer Metrics Institute Contraction Watch: – The USA TODAY/IHS Global Insight Economic Outlook Index: …
In Friday’s post, I mentioned consumers’ migration to lower-priced stores. This continual consumer migration to lower-priced sources can be seen in a variety of statistics. One statistic that I find particularly interesting is contained in a Forbes story of September 3, 2010 titled “The Next Web Phenom.” At the end of the story it states …