David Rosenberg on the economic depression in the United States

David Rosenberg recently spoke to WealthTrack’s Consuelo Mack about prospects for the US economy. Rosenberg believes that upside to US economic growth will continue to be constrained by high levels of debt. Despite historic levels of fiscal and monetary stimulus, “no major economic indicator that measure the economy from employment to GDP to industrial production to real incomes has managed to get back to their prior cycle highs in late 2007″, notes Rosenberg. He believes that we are in a depression.

Video below

Rosenberg also sees Operation Twist QE3

David Rosenberg was on Bloomberg and sees operation twist. But he also says he doesn’t see how the Fed could prevent a US recession. His view is that the recession is already baked in. He goes further and says that Ben Bernanke is ‘always aggressive but never early’ meaning Bernanke will get the fed to do something – but it will be small beer until the economy collapses

Gross and Rosenberg: QE3 will see interest rate caps

Yesterday, I indicated that the FOMC has already considered offering unlimited quantitative easing to target specific interest rates during the second round of quantitative easing. I believe the Fed will do this in QE3, and apparently Bill Gross and David Rosenberg do as well. While a QE3 is still a way’s off – probably not until 2012 – it makes sense to think about how it will be conducted

Rosenberg Sees ’99% Chance’ of US Recession by 2012

I don’t have any comments on this yet, but it is definitely newsworthy

Rosenberg: ‘this is about speculative investing based on Bernanke liquidity principles’

From David Rosenberg’s Breakfast with Dave missive: Dallas Fed President Fisher, who is an FOMC voter this year, told Bloomberg News yesterday that there is not going to be any more stimulus after June. This is going to leave Mr. Market in a bit of a quandary because based on our analysis, there has been

Chart of the Day: U.S. Real Wages

This chart was put together by David Rosenberg of Gluskin Sheff. It shows that wage growth in the U.S. is not keeping pace with inflation. For the statistical recovery to continue sustainably, we will need to either see this trend reversed. Alternatively we could see an increase in aggregate debt levels or a disproportionate increase

Rosenberg: Fifteen Reasons To Love The Loonie

From this morning’s Breakfast with Dave missive: FIFTEEN REASONS TO LOVE THE LOONIE (WE COULDN’T STOP AT TEN!) Better growth than in the U.S.A. and without need for stimulus Responsible central bank, limiting growth in its balance sheet Better fiscal backdrop More conservative political environment Triple the exposure to raw material than the U.S.A. Investors

Inflation V Deflation – Which Door Do You Pick?

By Claus Vistesen As the debate between the inflationistas and deflationistas appears about to rev up again, I thought that I would try to put pen to virtual paper and sketch out my thoughts on the matter. The specific catalyst for looking into this is, naturally, in part the fact that oil looks set to

Rosenberg bullish on energy stocks, cautious on growth due to oil shock

Earlier in the week, David Rosenberg wrote that he is bullish on energy stocks due to the exogenous shock that tensions in the Middle East are creating in the energy complex. However, this is not a bullish story for overall U.S. growth or for business profit margins. In the Bloomberg video below Rosenberg tells Margaret

On Britain’s Austerity and Rosenberg’s Depiction of Obama as Herbert Hoover

I have written a post or two offering the opinion that Barack Obama faces an economy more akin to Herbert Hoover’s than Franklin Roosevelt. See "Barack Obama as Herbert Hoover" where posited the following: My intent here is not to malign Obama, Roosevelt or Hoover or make facile comparison but to identify important differences between

Ten Ideas That Would Turn David Rosenberg Bullish on the USA

From today’s Breakfast with Dave research note at Gluskin Sheff (highlighting added):

1. An energy policy that truly removes U.S. dependence on foreign oil (shale case, coal, nuclear).
2. A complete rewrite of the tax code that promotes savings, investment, and a revamp of the capital stock. Cut tax rates, eliminate loopholes and costly tax breaks. Tax consumption, promote savings and investment. That is crucial. But it will take political courage (ask Brian Mulroney).
3. A credible plan that reverses the runup in the debt to GDP ratio. This includes not just on-balance sheet items but new rules governing entitlements too. We need delineation of the future of Fannie and Freddie if there is any … they became wards of the government nearly three years ago and there is still no clarification on this file (slightly more important than these periodic consumer spending gimmicks that have surfaced over the past few years). We need a complete rewrite of social contracts and a reversal in sacred cows that have been created over the years that are completely unaffordable. Plus, people are not going to learn to live within their means if our politicians continue to set a bad example. The act of dipping into Social Security, incentivizing companies who are already cash-rich to spend more on new equipment and extending a Bush tax cut that always had a 10-year expiry date at the expense of the already severely strained public purse was political expediency at its worst.
Published by Edward Harrison on 24 January 2011 10:00

David Rosenberg on America’s Turning Japanese

by Edward Harrison The US post-bubble experience is often compared to the Japanese post-bubble experience. I have written a number of posts on the Japanese experience myself. Here are a number from 2008: A cautionary tale: story from 1994 Japan: The Japanese housing bubble continued to deflate long after the bubble economy first started to