America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
The following chart is from the CalculatedRisk Blog of September 18, 2010. It depicts Total Household Net Worth as a Percent of GDP. The underlying data is from The Federal Reserve Flow of Funds 2Q 2010 report: (click on chart to enlarge image) As seen in the above-referenced CalculatedRisk blog post: “According to the Fed, …
As seen in the recently (September 16) released “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States, 2009” (pdf) from the U.S. Census Bureau, Real Median Household Income was $49,777 in 2009, as seen on page 6. On page 14, the Poverty Rate is seen at 14.3%, encompassing 43.6 million people. As seen on …
As many are aware, Standard & Poors publishes earnings estimates on a quarterly basis. My previous post concerning their estimates can be found at this May 30 post) Currently, their estimates for 2010 add to the following: -From a “bottom up” perspective, operating earnings of $82.87/share -From a “top down” perspective, operating earnings of $78.29/share …
The stock market appears to be at an important juncture. As seen in the below chart, by Ron Walker (thechartpatterntrader.com) there is the much-discussed potential Head and Shoulders formation that looms large: (click on chart to enlarge)(chart courtesy of StockCharts.com) As well, the VIX is just above 20. As I have commented upon previously, over the …
On Friday, September 10 Timothy Geithner was interviewed by The Wall Street Journal. During this interview, he said: “[The] typical error most countries make coming out of a financial crisis is they shift too quickly to premature restraint. You saw that in the United States in the 30s, you saw that in Japan in the …
I found a few items of interest in the September Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey. Perhaps the most interesting were the questions asked of the economists, including “Why is the U.S. recovery so disappointingly slow?” Also, similar to recent surveys in which this double-dip question has been asked, the survey said “The economists on …
“When you live in a bubble, everyone is delusional…” – -Nouriel Roubini, May 11 2010 Charlie Rose interview Many people fail to see any asset bubbles in our current economic environment. Others see isolated asset bubbles. As I have previously stated in the April 8 post, “Our societal inability to spot and prevent asset bubbles …
On September 9 The Wall Street Journal had various people respond to the question of “What Should the Federal Reserve Do Next?” Among the various responses, I found this excerpt from Allan Meltzer’s response to be most interesting: “In “A History of the Federal Reserve,” I concluded that the principal mistakes the Fed has made …
I have mentioned The Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) in a variety of posts, first in a March 30 post and then in the monthly Updates on Economic Indicators. I view the CFNAI (which is usually expressed via a 3-month moving average denoted CFNAI-3) as being among the most valuable of commonly referenced official …
Bloomberg BusinessWeek had a story on September 2 titled “Wayne McLeod: The Life and Death of a Mini-Madoff.” This Ponzi scheme was particularly brazen as it targeted federal law enforcement personnel. The story is an interesting one. I would slightly disagree with one statement in the article, “As primitive as they are, Ponzi schemes are …