Category: Economy
You ain’t seen nothing yet?
by Michael Pettis On Wednesday I will be putting up my piece on the politics of China’s adjustment process, but before doing that I wanted to mention a few recent particles worthy of comment. First, Jamil Anderlinin has a long and interesting article in today’s Financial Times on China’s fast-speed railways. The most interesting part
A Recovery That Looks Like Recession
by Comstock Partners For some strange reason a number of economists and strategists seen on TV and quoted in the press maintain that the exceedingly weak recovery we are now undergoing is really a "normal" or "average" recovery. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is not our opinion, but is based on fact.
Warren Buffett: “We’re still in a recession.” Technical recoveries don’t count.
Warren Buffett wants his street cred back! He’s coming down on the side of most people on main street who believe the recession is still ongoing despite what the NBER stat gurus say. Reuters quotes: "We’re still in a recession," Buffett told CNBC television in an interview broadcast on Thursday. "We’re not gonna be out
The Big Interview with Robert Shiller
Robert Shiller puts the odds for a double dip recession at greater than 50%; so he is worried that we are headed back down again. I missed Robert Shiller’s Big Interview with the Wall Street Journal last month so I am posting it now. Here he is talking to the Wall Street Journal’s Simon Constable
Color on Weekly Jobless Claims
The weekly jobless claims are not often the stuff that moves the foreign exchange market, but the disappointment with today’s data is noteworthy and hitting the the fx market as the foreign currencies began recovering from the profit-taking earlier today. What makes today’s report particularly important is that it coincides with week that the non-farm
Is The American Dream Fading?
Below is the full hour-long "Investing in America" CNBC town hall meeting from this past Monday where President Obama took questions from concerned Americans on his plans for the economy. For those who don’t want to watch the full version, below is a shorter excerpt, reactions and commentary. Enjoy. (Homeowner Reactions) (Baby Boomer
Charts of the Day: The New Z.1 is Out!
by Annaly Capital Management Last Friday was a Z.1 Flow of Funds day, always a fun day. The 137 page report from the Federal Reserve features data for the second quarter of 2010. Total credit market debt outstanding grew slightly during the quarter, rising just $14.7 billion to $52.1 trillion. A chart that we like
On recessions and recoveries
The main street reaction to the NBER’s determination of a recovery starting in June 2009 has been – as expected – angry. Here are a few sample comments to my post on the recession’s end: Obviously we need to redefine "recession." Most people would either laugh or become enraged at the idea that the recession
NBER: Double Dip or Banana Split?
by the Consumer Metrics Institute We founded the Consumer Metrics Institute precisely because we felt that the economic bureaucrats in Washington were out of touch with the economy that most of us live in. They remind us of those patients sitting in wheelchairs in the "memory impaired" wards at nursing homes: with crystal clear recall
Exploiting Bernanke
Frederick Sheehan is the author of Panderer to Power: The Untold Story of How Alan Greenspan Enriched Wall Street and Left a Legacy of Recession (McGraw-Hill, 2009). It is unfortunate the media does not make better use of an accessible resource: itself. Newspapers and financial TV are generally content to report what is being said
The recession ended in June 2009
The NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee has determined that the recession which began in December 2007 ended in June 2009. In the report announcing this decision, the NBER wrote that economic activity is typically lower post-recession than it was pre-recession, meaning that the initial stages of a technical recovery will not seem like a recovery.
The Chances of a Double Dip
by Gary Shilling Investor attitudes have reversed abruptly in recent months. As late as last March, most translated the year-long robust rise in stocks, foreign currencies, commodities and the weakness in Treasury bonds that had commenced a year earlier into robust economic growth – the "V" recovery. As a result, investors early this year believed