Marshall Auerback here with a few thoughts about this economic cycle, external imbalances, fiscal stimulus, and current account deficits.
This is not the Great Depression. We are going to have “muddle through” here precisely because we lack the courage to deficit spend on the magnitude we did in World War II. We are spending too much [...]

I don’t want to beat a dead horse here, but the Chinese have been making a lot of muscular moves diplomatically. While shifts in balance of power often take decades, it is increasingly apparent that China is making a strategic move in that direction right now.
We have been chronicling these moves here in a [...]

The following post is up on Morgan Stanley’s website and highlights the degree to which money printing has become the policy tool of choice used by central bankers with which to fight this deflationary threat. I have highlighted the whole paragraph on the inflationary risk of all of this.

Recently, I have highlighted the comments of a number of investing gurus, most of whom are fairly positive on the market. This includes Jeremy Grantham, Marc Faber, Bill Fleckenstein, Fred Hickey, Marty Fridson and Steven Leuthold (Louise Yamada is a notable exception). However, when it comes to the global economy, the situation is much murkier, the likes of David Rosenberg at Merrill Lynch/BofA have made the case for continued economic weakness in the United States.

The standard bearer of the global-economy-is-weak-and-needs-rebalancing theme is Stephen Roach. And he is not a tad bullish on the global economy.

I give Obama high marks for much of what he has accomplished in such a short span and the tone he has set. However, on the economic policy front, there have been lapses. This video suggests there have been many.

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Obama, Geithner Get Low Grades From Economists – WSJ
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Fellow econblogger Michael Panzner of Financial Armageddon was on Bloomberg TV and radio today telling folks what all of this credit crisis, bear market, nationalization stuff really means for globalization, the U.S. and stocks.  He recently wrote a book on this very topic called “When Giants Fall.”
He is not at all upbeat about the prospects [...]

The results of my poll are back and  according to readers we are clearly in Depression.  A plurality of you voted for depression with a small ‘d,’ edging out those who see Depression with a Big  ’D.’
I agree with this assessment as I also voted for a depression with a small ‘d.’  Let me tell you [...]

Overnight, the Japanese government released figures for Q4 2008 GDP that pointed to a depression-like fall in the Japanese economy. GDP contracted 3.3% from Q3, or 12.7% using the U.S. convention of annualizing those numbers. This is the largest such quarterly contraction in Japan since 1974. While a very poor number was expected, this number was even worse than forecast.

The man who recently uttered the D-word about the global economy tells all to Charlie Rose.  The video is from this past Friday.

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On February 6th, I started a poll asking whether the global economy was experiencing a recession or a depression. In the interim, I have tried to stay neutral on the issue.

Now it is time to close out the poll. Below you can add your vote. I will release the final results tomorrow.