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Homelessness on the rise in America 3 years ago Obama promised to end homelessness for children & families within a decade. Since making that pledge, the number of families facing homelessness has been rising. Fears that federal budget cuts will make the problem even worse. Middle class resigned to stagnation America’s middle class has long embodied the nation’s optimism. Today, though, the chief preoccupation is less a dream of upward mobility than the [...] Over the last three days, countries around the world have been publishing their manufacturing purchasing managers index (PMI) reports. And the message around the world is clear: manufacturing activity decelerated sharply in April. The U.S. and China are growing marginally, but both decelerated. Europe continues to be in sharp contraction. And even Germany saw its manufacturing sector begin to contract in April. According to JP Morgan, the global manufacturing PMI fell to 50.5 in April, down from [...] by Charles Hugh-Smith If you set out to design a system that would implode with devastating consequences, it would be the Keynesian Cargo Cult’s neofeudal financialization debtocracy.
The heart and soul of the Keynesian Cargo Cult is the dogma that the cure for all economic ailments is more aggregate demand, i.e. consumption. The Keynesians’ fanatic faith in boosting consumption would be merely childishly naive if it didn’t directly support a parasitic neofeudal debt-serfdom. [...] Global Financial Crisis – Tensions at G-20, IMF Meetings. No Economic Recovery in Sight Last weekend’s meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the G-20 saw further calls for policies to stimulate global economic growth. There were no concrete measures advanced to implement such a program, however, amid deepening divisions among the major powers. While the discussions were not characterised by the air of crisis that accompanied some recent meetings, they were [...] George Soros Warns “Central Banks Are Creating Financial Instability” While the crisis in Europe is first in Goerge Soros’ mind because it is the “hottest” risk flare currently, his biggest concern in what he calls the “disarray in global cooperation,” or what we would call ‘dueling central banks’. “The almost universal adaptation of quantitative easing,” worries him and he notes that “Europe is the last bastion of orthodoxy,” in this regard [...] The current implied results for the US, UK, and the big 4 in Europe is more than a little worrying – with the French in most trouble. As per Deutsche Bank: Currency wars are making headlines again with the Bank of Japan’s decision to double its inflation target to 2% while committing to open-ended asset purchases next year. The news comes as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been pressuring the central bank to devalue the yen. Bloomberg reports this move is the BOJ’s strongest commitment yet to end two decades of stagnation. The yen rose after the announcement, signaling that some investors were disappointed [...] from Zerohedge: As the world’s equity markets prepare to rally on the back of yet more central bank printing as Japan’s Shinzo Abe takes the helm with a 2% inflation target, to be announced momentarily, and a central bank entirely in his pocket, The Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard suggests a rather concerning analog for the last time a Japanese minister attempted to salvage his deflation/depression strewn nation: the 1930s ‘brilliant rescue’ by Korekiyo Takahashi, who [...] China Warns: Prepare For Worst Are we approaching the start of World War 3 in a way that was once though unimaginable? China has warned its’ citizens to “prepare for the worst” as tensions in the region escalate dramatically. Where will these ‘war games’ lead? Let’s all hope that this does not grow beyond the current proportions being seen now. From the Business Insider.: After repeatedly flying surveillance aircraft into disputed airspace with Japan, [...]  China HSBC PMI 49.5, Exp. 49.1, 8 month high. Last 47.9. Notes “Input costs and output charges increase” The unofficial HSBC China manufacturing PMI just came out. The October reading climbed to 49.5 from 47.9 in September. This final number was notably stronge than the HSBC China Flash (or preliminary) number, which came in at 49.1 last week. Here are the key points from Markit: Modest fall in output signalled The market is not amused… *BERNANKE SAYS STAGNATION IN LABOR MARKET IS `GRAVE CONCERN’
Source: Zerohedge
Ben Bernanke’s Jackson Hole speech is out. The full speech is below ———– Monetary Policy since the Onset of the [...] The Markit/JMMA Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index fell to 47.7 in August.
This is down from 47.9 in July. This is the sharpest rate of contraction in manufacturing activity since April 2011, a month after the tragic earthquake and tsunami devasted the country. Key points from Markit; Output and new orders down at accelerated rates Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/japan-pmi-august-2012-8#ixzz257jR5dqF by Bloomberg Aug. 8 (Bloomberg) — A stagnation in electricity output that fanned speculation China’s slowdown is intensifying may instead be evidence of an accelerated transition to a more services-based economy. The government will release information on July electricity production tomorrow as part of its report on industrial output. Power generation in June was unchanged from a year earlier even as industrial production rose 9.5 percent. Heavy industries including metals and cement consume [...] This earning’s season is starting to raise some red flags. As expected, corporate profits are starting to show some serious signs of deterioration. Q3 is expected to show a year over year decline in earnings now and Q4 is expected to show a sharp bounce back. As uncertainty is likely to persist into Q3 I would expect those Q4 estimates to come down some. Factset has some details on this quarters [...] Despite an aggressive campaign of job creation, a new report shows that New York City’s unemployment rate has risen to 10 percent– the same rate seen during the height of the recession in September 2009. The rise had James Brown, the principal economist with the New York Labor Department, explaining the details of labor growth and stagnation, reported WCBS 880?s Marla Diamond. “A lot of the growth in New York City has [...] The U.S. economy is in dire straits, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says in an interview from an upcoming documentary on the U.S. economy. A excerpt of that movie was published on Vanity Fair today.
“If you look at the income of the typical male worker in the United States today, it’s the same as it was in 1968. Almost half a century of stagnation,” Stiglitz argues. The economist goes on to blame political inequality for [...] From FT: The problem, then, is not so much that policy hasn’t worked but, instead, that we expect too much from it. Stagnation is a lot better than Depression but there are still plenty of people out there who believe that, with a bit more effort and a few more macroeconomic policy wheezes, the good times will return – despite the evidence of persistent “optimism bias” in official forecasts based on [...] Germany’s economic growth will slow to 1 percent in 2013 from an estimated 2 percent this year as the euro-area debt crisis pushes the region’s largest economy toward stagnation, the Kiel Economics institute said. The risk that Germany will enter a recession has “risen markedly,” according to a report today on the website of the research group, which is one of the institutes compiling twice- yearly economic forecasts for the German government. To contact the [...] (Reuters) – The United States faces 20-percent odds of a return to recession, rating agency Standard & Poor’s said on Tuesday, although it said a slow recovery remains the company’s baseline forecast for the world’s biggest economy. “But the risk of another downward leg on the recession remains real,” the agency said in a statement. While S&P said it could be underestimating American consumers, years of stagnation, as Japanhas seen, could also occur. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/26/us-usa-ratings-sandp-idUSBRE85P0Z120120626 David Cameron will attack Germany and other European countries for failing to stop the euro breaking apart
David Cameron will today express grave doubts about the survival of the euro amid fears that a collapse could drag Britain into a [...] By Marcin Sobczyk The euro-zone debt crisis is heading to a climax that will likely be as bad as the collapse of Lehman Brothers at the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008, said Zbigniew Jagiello, chief executive of PKO Bank Polski SA (PKO.WA), Poland’s largest bank by assets. “We’re nearing a potential breakthrough moment. There’s official talk now about how Greece may exit the euro zone,” he told a press [...] About 10,000 people staged a mass “stroll” through central Moscow on Sunday to test the state’s tolerance a week after police beat and scattered demonstrators upset over Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency. With few police in evidence, demonstrators gathered at a statue of revered poet Alexander Pushkin and walked down Moscow’s Boulevard Ring to the site of an Occupy-style, 24-hour protest two km (1.25 miles) away. Police took no action. “We [...] The eurozone’s private sector contracted sharply in April and by more than initially thought, a survey says. The Markit eurozone composite purchasing managers’ index (PMI) fell to 46.7 in April from March’s 49.2. Any figure below 50 suggests contraction. This is the sharpest fall since October last year, and one of the steepest contractions in almost three years. “Marked declines in new business” and weak manufacturing exports were largely to blame for [...] More Americans than forecast filed applications for unemployment benefits last week, a sign that the labor market is taking time to improve. Jobless claims fell by 1,000 to 388,000 in the week ended April 21 from a revised 389,000 the prior period that was the highest since early January, Labor Department figures showed today inWashington. The median forecast of 48 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News called for a drop to 375,000. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-26/more-americans-than-projected-filed-jobless-claims-last-week.html
The reading was the latest [...] GARY SHILLING: The Japan Train Wreck Is Accelerating For more than a decade, economists have been predicting a crisis in Japan, as the country finally collapses under the huge debt load it has accumulated over two decades of stagnation. As yet, however, these predictions have been wrong. Japan’s economy is still struggling, but the country’s interest rates remain near zero, and the government can borrow as much money as it wants. The [...] |
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