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Peter Schiff: The Economy Is Actually Getting “Sicker” Because of FED Policy Peter Schiff: Wall Street’s rising back thanks to the taxpayers TALEB: ‘If I Were President, I’d Fire Bernanke!’ If inflation is zero, why does my paycheck feel like it’s shrinking? …. So how can inflation be at zero percent when so many of us feel like our paychecks don’t go as far as they used to? Mark Thoma is a professor of economics at [...] By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com Legendary trader Yra Harris says, “The currency wars are real, and the game is on.” Harris says the global currency war is what helped Volkswagen gain market share in the last few years. So, what is Japan doing? It is cutting the value of its currency so Toyota will gain market share….
US to Win Currency War, Then ‘Implode’: Schiff …”There is a currency war going on,” Schiff said at the Inside ETFs [...] From All Star Charts: Let’s try to keep it real for just a second. Stocks are on fire, no question. And not just U.S. stocks, but indices all over the world are ripping higher. But we need to put things into perspective and recognize that we are still nowhere near the real all-time highs for stocks. Sure, in nominal terms, the S&P 500 is just 7% from reaching the 2007 highs. But in [...] London Gold Market Report from Ben Traynor BullionVault Thursday 15 November 2012, 07:30 EST
Eurozone Enters Recession, Worldwide Gold Demand Down in Q3
THE DOLLAR gold price drifted lower to $1720 an ounce during Thursday morning’s London session, around ten Dollars down on the week, as stocks and the Euro also drifted lower following the release of weak economic growth data from the Eurozone.
The silver price dropped below $32.60 an ounce, more-or-less exactly where it started the week, [...] by Michael Can we believe any of the economic numbers that the government is feeding us these days? Most of the focus recently has been on thebizarre jobs report that the government released last Friday, but the truth is that the inflation rate is a lie too. In fact, the way that the government calculates inflation has changed more than 20 times since 1978. The government is constantly looking for ways that it can [...] Inflation has been picking up since the recession ended in 2009. The problem with the CPI increasing year over year with no rise in household incomes is that the standard of living for most Americans erodes every year that incomes do not keep up. Household incomes are back to levels last seen in the mid-1990s while the cost of necessities has gone up. This brings us to our article today that [...] From Charles Hugh Smith: Inflation is generally viewed as a monetary phenomenon (print money excessively and you get inflation), but let’s use a very simple definition: any loss of purchasing power. If your income buys fewer goods and services, for whatever mix of reasons (geopolitical, weather, monetary, fiscal, etc.), that’s inflation “on the ground.” Consider this breakdown of the components that together make up the standard measure of inflation, the Consumer Price Index [...] (CNSNews.com) – Average retail gasoline prices have more than doubled under President Obama, according to government statistics, rising from $1.84 per gallon to $3.85 per gallon. The average gasoline price is calculated by the Energy Information Agency, and shows that over the past 43 months of President Obama’s term retail gasoline prices have more than doubled, rising from an average of $1.84 per gallon to $3.85 per gallon. Rising gasoline prices were particularly prevalent [...] From Bloomberg: The cost of living in the U.S. climbed in August by the most in more than three years, reflecting a surge in fuel costs. The 0.6 increase in the consumer-price index was the biggest since June 2009 and followed no change in the previous month, the Labor Department reported today in Washington. The median forecast of 85 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News called for an advance of 0.6 percent. The [...] CHINESE HARD LANDING
For decades, experts have been predicting a crash in China.
They warned that the centrally planned, export-dependent economy, could not sustain itself year after year. But through multiple crises, China has motored along, lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in the process. But things appear to be different this time. Corporate profits are tanking, and the Shanghai Composite is at the same levels it was during the depths [...] ANAHEIM, CALIF. (CNNMoney) — After four straight months of declines, consumer price inflation has finally edged up in China. China’s annual inflation rate rose 2.0% in August, the government’s National Bureau of Statistics reported Sunday, up from 1.8% in July — a two-and-a-half year low. Food prices, which account for more than a third of the inflation calculation, rose 3.4% during the month. Household finances in China are especially susceptible to fluctuations in food [...] The X-12/13-ARIMA seasonal adjustments on today’s data were not quite up to snuff as both the CPI, printing at 0.0% (or 1.4% Y/Y) on expectations of 0.2%, the biggest CPI miss since January and the Empire Manufacturing index, at -5.85 on expectations of a +7.00 print, posting the biggest miss in 14 months. Notably, the number of employees declined in August from 18.52 to 16.47, while margins got crushed as [...] Silver has perked its head up and sniffed the next round to hyperinflation is on the way. Load up the truck; it’s expected to be the best ride, yet. Here’s why: No less than three articles penned by well-placed journalists at the ‘establishment’ rags of the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and the Economist were launched within days of each other, with all three ‘suggesting’ that Bernanke better start stirring-up the animal spirits—on the pronto! Jon Hilsenrath of the Wall Street [...]
From Jon: GDP Highlights: Inflation Data Won’t Constrain Fed A few quick thoughts on GDP report out this morning: Key price indexes are uniformly running below the Federal Reserve’s 2% objective. The personal consumption expenditures price index was up 1.6% from a year ago, thanks in part to falling gasoline prices. This is the price index that the Fed watches most closely, more so than the consumer price index produced by the Labor [...] With the heat-wave in Southern Europe, the missing Monsoon, and the earth-cracking drought in the US, it is no surprise that corn, wheat, and soymeal prices are soaring as crop yields plunge. The level of inventories were already low going in and as Bloomberg notes, consumers around the world will feel the effect of higher food prices as the worst drought in 50 years impact the world’s largest exporter of [...] Food inflation fears grow as corn jumps to record Long-term food crisis is just beginning, say analysts Myra P. Saefong, MarketWatch Corn in a drought-stricken farm field near Evansville, Indiana on July 18. SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — More than four years after food inflation sparked a wave of riots around the world, consumers are facing the highest-ever prices for corn and may have seen the last of the rock-bottom prices for food staples. “Food today [...] WASHINGTON — On Tuesday morning at precisely 8:30, after a 10-second countdown synchronized to the Naval Observatory’s atomic clock, a Labor Department official will flip a master switch in the agency’s battened-down pressroom and newswire computers will blurt out the monthly Consumer Price Index. Until that moment, the market-sensitive data will be guarded with launch-code secrecy, a precaution against anyone who might try to take advantage of an accidental or a surreptitious [...] By Craig Stephen HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — China may have reassured investors it has avoided a collapse in growth, but corporate profits and prices are increasingly taking the strain. There was some relief as GDP growth came in at 7.6% in the second quarter, but the economy is showing new signs of falling into deflation. Some analysts argue China will now need much more aggressive interest-rate cuts. In April, [...] Already, Nike says that its Chinese stockrooms are piling up with inventory. Similar complaints are coming in from McDonald’s, Caterpillar, and Procter & Gamble Co. Within China, the stakes of a slowdown are high as well: for half a century, political scientists have recognized that political unrest does not tend to erupt in places that are most deprived; it hits when a pattern of rising growth and expectations abruptly stops. And that is Beijing’s [...] via thehill:
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) and 17 House Democrats, including several Congressional Black Caucus members, proposed legislation Wednesday that would increase the minimum wage to $10 an hour. Jackson said his bill, the Catching Up to 1968 Act, is needed to help low-income workers “catch up” to inflation, which he said is eating away at the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. He also said it would give [...] Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) is joined by, left to right, Ralph Nader, Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and Representative John Conyers (D-MI) at a press conference outside the US Capitol on June 6, 2012, to call for an increase in the minimum wage. Photo by George Zornick. If today’s minimum wage workers earned the same as their counterparts in 1968, they would receive $10 per hour. That, unfortunately, is $2.75 more [...] The great thing about investing in treasuries now is that you don’t have to stay awake at night and worry that you might lose money on your investment. We are now at that no-risk point where we can guarantee that you will lose money on your investment: Treasury Sells Inflation Notes at Record Low Negative Yield The U.S. sold $13 billion of 10-year inflation-indexed notes at a record negative yield with investors willing to [...] Economic Data Dump Keeps Everyone Confused, Pessimism About Future Increases We bring you “baffle with bullshit” Tuesday edition, where retail Sales ex-autos and gas miss consensus modestly, but the Empire Manufacturing beats by a mile… even as forward business conditions slide to lowest since October. To summarize: Consumer Price Index: monthly change prints at 0.0%, same as expectations of 0.0%; Core CPI +0.2% also same as expected: source When will U.S. house prices recover? Likely never. But that’s no reason not to buy. The latest S&P / Case-Shiller numbers, reported last week, show that prices in 20 major markets declined 3.5% over the year through February. They’re now back to 2002 levels. If we subtract for inflation, they’re back to 1998 levels. But consider: After subtracting for inflation, prices are also back to 1986 levels. And 1955 levels. And 1895 [...] by charleshughsmith Modern investing offers the promise that investors who “do their homework” and use data more intelligently than the herd can gain a valuable edge. But what if the underlying data available to the investing public is fundamentally flawed? The federal government agencies that issue headline data and the mainstream media that reprints the data without skeptical analysis would have us believe that these indicators — the unemployment rate and the consumer [...] |
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Is ShadowStats’ Inflation Closer To The Truth Than CPI?
Hi folks. I have been researching whether ShadowStats’s (SGS) Alternate Inflation Rate is more accurate than the CPI, and I’ve found several problems with SGS inflation. I’ve only found a few of these issues partially addressed in the public section of shadowstats.com. I sent these questions to SGS through their contact form but got no reply.
The site is http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts
1) This blog post shows US house prices deflated by CPI-U-Research, which shows [...]