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Caroline Baum notes that Obama, when asked about the dubious quality of the estimates of the number of jobs created or saved by his plan, replied "this is an inexact science". For once, I agree with Obama. Estimating the exact number of net job gains or losses caused by a particular science is ...
Government
Barack Obama
In July, the inflation rate reached a low of -2.1%. Since then, this number has increased to -0.2% in October as the deflation from July to October 2008 has been removed from the 12 month comparison and as consumer prices rose between July and October 2009. The big increase will however come in ...
Currencies
Inflation
Jeffrey Sachs points out that the U.S. government is dysfunctional, while also arguing that this dysfunctional government needs to expand its control over the economy.... Of course, he would presumably says that an ideal government would do this and that which would be so great. But even ...
Other
The Bank of Israel was the first to raise interest rates and is now the second (after the Reserve Bank of Australia ) to raise it a second time. Most analysts hadn't expected it, but given the relatively (compared to other countries) high Israeli growth rate and the increase in inflation the ...
Other
Anglo Irish Bank
Interest Rate
The Chicago Fed national activity index fell to -1.08, its weakest level since June. The 3 month moving average also weakened, to -0.91. According to the Chicago Fed, a 3 month moving average above -0.70 indicated the end of a recession. And while it did briefly rise slightly above that level ...
Stocks
CSI 300 Index
The Dutch statistics bureau reports that foreign owned companies (especially North American owned companies) in Holland has a lot higher labor productivity than Dutch owned companies. Does that mean that foreign ownership is what caused the higher productivity? Well, the foreign ownership per ...
Other
George Will provides an interesting perspective on the "peak oil" theory (though he doesn't use that term), pointing out that as early as 1914, imminent depletion of resources was predicted, something which has been repeated again and again after that, only to be followed by increased ...
Commodities
Oil
Global Downturn
The latest U.S. recovery has been a really strange on. Except for stock prices and the headline GDP and industrial production numbers, almost no numbers have indicated recovery. Real wages , employment , real disposable income , tax revenues and (probably, first numbers for that are released ...
Other
Gross Domestic Product
In my theoretical reasoning regarding why carry trade is in fact profitable , I argued for it from the perspective of the text book scenario on why uncovered carry trade can't be profitable. Namely, because traders knowing about the interest rate differential will trade up the value of the ...
Other
A reader asked me to comment on this article in the New Zealand Herald. Some economists at the Treasury in New Zealand argues that if New Zealand would tighten fiscal policy this would lower interest rates, something which in turn would weaken the exchange rate something which in turn would ...
Government
US Trade Deficit
I have hinted or mentioned explicitly several times before (for example here , here and here ), high interest rate currencies tend to give a higher return than low interest rate currencies. I will now elaborate on this issue. In my own compilation of returns for investors (based on 3-month ...
Government
While this is near universally ignored by the financial media who only look at the leading indicator index, the coincident indicator index dropped again , albeit only slightly, for the second month in a row. The coincident index is made up of nonfarm payrolls, real disposable income excluding ...
Other
Before I continue, I should immediately say (to pre-empt misunderstandings) that I think China should make the yuan stronger. Not however, for the reasons most pundits argue but rather because China needs to rein in the obvious inflationary excesses of their current boom, and currency ...
Currencies
Paul R. Krugman
Two data was published today that confirmed that the U.S. economic recovery is anything but robust. First, housing starts and to a lesser extent building permits dropped sharply in October , indicating that the big increase in residential construction in the third quarter was only temporary. ...
Other
Housing Market
Alan Reynolds explains it here . Note how Obama economic advisor Larry Summer's previous writings are used against the policies of the Obama administration, just as in the issue of whether a health insurance mandate should be considered a tax [increase] .
Government
Barack Obama
Unemployment
Stimulus Plan
U.S. Industrial production rose 0.1% in October, far less than most economists had expected, following 3 months of more solid gains. Manufacturing alone declined, as did mining, but that was more than compensated by gains in utilities (electricity) production). One detail that no one, as far as ...
Other
The Euro area trade surplus was €3.7 billion in September 2009 , compared to a €6.0 billion deficit in September 2008. This happened despite the fact that Germany saw its surplus drop to €10.6 billion in September 2009 , down from €15.3 billion in September 2008. This means that the deficit for ...
Currencies
Euro
Spain
The Japanese Cabinet Office today reported higher than expected quarterly real GDP growth of 4.8% at an annual rate in Japan, something which contributed to the global stock rally today. Yet they also reported that nominal GDP growth was -0.3% at annual rate, meaning that the 4.8% real growth ...
Other
Gross Domestic Product
October inflation data for all EU countries except the UK was released today by Eurostat. Some of the information had already been released or hinted by national statistics offices (such as the dramatic Baltic disinflation ), but some interesting information still came out. One such fact was ...
Currencies
Euro
George W. Bush warns of the danger posed by increased government intervention. A bit too late for that insight, given the increases in government spending he presided over, and given how the TARP programme he created is what has allowed Obama to take over much of the financial sector and auto ...
