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Speaking today in Baghdad, outgoing Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen reiterated his warnings that the national debt is the “biggest threat we have to our national security” because all that debt is getting in the way of increasin
Map has been updated to reflect data through April 2011.
The correlation between consumer confidence and recession might not hold this time — although that would be the first split for 40 plus years.
America's WTF (certainly not to be confused with Winning The Future) economy summarized in one easy chart.
U.S. stocks rallied, extending the biggest two-day advance for benchmark indexes since March 2009, as the largest increase in American retail sales in four months tempered concern economic growth is slowing.
Confidence among U.S. consumers plunged in August to the lowest level since May 1980, adding to concern that weak employment gains and volatility in the stock market will prompt households to retrench.
The chart shows the correlation with sentiment and the consumer component of GDP which is about 70% of the economy and why I say the "recovery" is over.
Adjust for population growth and the growth drops to 94%. And when we adjust for both population growth and inflation, retail sales are up only 18.9% over the past two decades.
And how did all this that happen? As I've been repeatedly pointed out, it happened because we failed to force banks and other financial institutions to stop lying about asset valuations, putting a stop to the hiding of both risks and losses.
UMichigan consumer confidence just printed at 54.9, on expectations of 63.0. This is the lowest since May 1980. And what's worse, inflation expectations were unchanged. Looks like those high inflation expectations are starting to get anchored.
1. Arrogance – All of our lives we have been fed the lie that somehow we are better than everyone else. We believe this so much that we feel it is morally acceptable to stick our noses in everyone's business. We have 777+ military bases all over...
The United States isn’t merely double-dipping back into recession, but worse — it's in the early stages of a depression that will strangle the economy possibly for years to come, says Robert Prechter, president of Elliott Wave International.
Great chart from JPM (pre August sell off):
If you liked the past two weeks, you're going to love the next two years: welcome to the age of instability. As I explained yesterday, the quasi-religious belief in the stock market as a secure store of wealth has faded, and for good reason...
Some state and local governments that issue debt could face “significant stress” if market instability continues and see credit downgrades, Moody’s warned Wednesday.
It has been a continuous confirmation over his tenure, of what the Austrians/libertarians have long understood, that Greenspan's policies would get us into trouble. We're now in stagflation and the potential ways out are going to be very catastrophic
Read Letter
Stocks finished near session lows in choppy trading Wednesday, with the Dow and S&P wiping out all of the previous session's gains led by financials, as investors continued to cautiously monitor developments in the European banks.
OK, now you’ve seen the size of the problem that Congress is wrestling with this week. But what can we, and our elected Reps, do about this, to prevent a future recurrence?
Economists estimate the "multiplier" from government spending at about 1.5. That means for every $1 cut in government spending, about $1.5 dollars are taken out of the economy. The first year of cuts are therefore $375 billion to $400 billion in te
And unless the Fed can continue to baffle them with bullshit, by declaring that the recession is here, but it is really good for your 401(k), California's troubles are only set to escalate.
So we are left with a massive amount of debt, a massive amount of capital and labour that is unprofitable in the world we face, and a balance sheet of insufficient resources to keep the illusion alive.
The bond market is telling you that there will be no material economic growth for the next two years and that a deflationary depression is the economic path that will be followed.
Dow Jones Industrial Average
Now is the time for bold moves to save the economy, and maybe even the country.
European stocks lose after Asian slump, but US stocks rise at opening as US Federal Reserve huddles into meeting.
For the fifth consecutive month, NFIB’s monthly Small-Business Optimism Index fell, dropping 0.9 points in July—a larger decline than in each of the previous three months—and bringing the Index down to a disappointing 89.9.
Stock market volatility is now so high that it’s reached the level that occurred right after the 9/11 terrorist attack (see Figure 1) – a period of incredible political and economy uncertainty.
Global Depression
American International Group Inc., the bailed-out insurer, sued Bank of America Corp. over $10 billion in losses on mortgage-bond investments. The bank dropped 20.3 percent in New York trading.
Ruin will thunder through the financial system like winged death.
