Category Archives: Business News and Analysis

all business news

China and the US: What the Future Holds

by Elliott Morss, Morss Global Finance Introduction Matthew Nimetz, an eminent scholar, lawyer, venture capital executive, and former senior US/UN diplomat, recently presented a thought-provoking paper at a joint meeting the National Committee on American Foreign Policy and the China … Continue reading

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Initial Unemployment Claims Back on Track

Actual Initial Claims Data Much Stronger Than Headline Number, Keeping Market On Fed’s Plot Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner The Labor Department reported that the seasonally adjusted (SA) representation of first time claims for unemployment rose by 17,000 to 361,000 … Continue reading

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Last Week’s Unemployment Claims Data Was Not Good News

Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner The media proclaimed that the initial unemployment claims report last week beat economists expectations, and was therefore good news. A hard look at the actual data says otherwise. The Labor Department reported that seasonally adjusted … Continue reading

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The Hollowing Out of America

by Steve Fraser, History News Network “Debtpocalypse” looms. Depending on who wins out in Washington, we’re told, we will either free-fall over the fiscal cliff or take a terrifying slide to the pit at the bottom. Grim as these scenarios … Continue reading

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Are High College Costs Redistributive?

by Mike Konczal, Next New Deal Aaron Bady has a fantastic piece on the boosters who argue that MOOCs and other forms of online education will fundamentally transform higher education, addressed as a response to Clay Shirky. There’s a few … Continue reading

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What Made Sandy So Destructive?

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Marking Down Global Growth

Written by Stephen Swanson In October the IMF marked down its estimates for global growth. In its latest WEO it foresees global growth of 3.3 percent in 2012 and 3.6 percent in 2013, down from 3.5 percent this year and … Continue reading

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How to Build a Time Machine

by John Hussman, Hussman Funds With industrial production, capacity utilization, real disposable income, real personal consumption, real sales retail and food service sales, and real manufacturing and trade sales uniformly declining in their latest reports, coincident economic indicators – having … Continue reading

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ISM Numbers Are Weak Before QE3 Cash Begins To Flow

Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner The October headline seasonally adjusted aggregate Purchasing Managers Index reading of 49.5 fell far short of the consensus expectation of 51.2.  I track the not seasonally adjusted ISM Manufacturing New Orders index as the kernel … Continue reading

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First Time Unemployment Claims Drop After Sandy, But Jobs Growth Rate Slows

Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner The Labor Department reported that seasonally adjusted (SA) first time claims for unemployment fell by 23,000 to 393,000 from a revised 416,000 (was 410,000) in the advance report for the week ended November 24, 2012. … Continue reading

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European Banking Union Proposal

The sovereign debt crisis has revealed severe flaws in the EU internal market. Common monetary policy has not been accompanied by the transfer of authority to supervise banks and risks of banks and states have become dangerously intertwined. This column summarises the proposal of the German Council of Economic Experts for a full banking union which aim at correcting these deficits. Continue reading

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Why Financial Repression Will Fail

The author – Ron Hera – argues that the financial repression will fail eventually. Financial repression occurs when governments channel funds into their own sovereign bonds in order to reduce debt levels through mechanisms such as directed lending, caps on interest rates, capital controls, debt monetization, or by other means. To establish his points, Mr. Hera catches readers’ attention towards “The Liquidation of Government Debt”, “Crisis and Consequence” and many other facts. Continue reading

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The Idea That US Consumer Is Resilient Is A Myth

America is in verge of experiencing another disastrous bubble in some segment of its economy, argues Lee Adler. Studying the data, Mr. Adler concludes that the Americans are spending less. According to him, the upcoming bubble is unlikely to do any good to the economy just as the last one. As a result, the economic downturn will affect the standard of living in the country.

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The Declining Significance of Wine Tastings

by Elliott Morss, Morss Global Finance Introduction The Judgment of Paris in 1976, chronicled in George Taber’s book, was the first in a series of widely reported blind tastings. Below, I summarize the findings from those tastings (and my own … Continue reading

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Jobless Recoveries and the Disappearance of Routine Occupations

The US economy is recovering. But what explains the stubborn malaise in its labour market? This column argues that future recovery from recession will likely be jobless because technological advances and mechanisation now enable troubled firms to shed middle-income jobs in favour of machines and automation. If these jobs are not recouped during subsequent economic recovery, future recoveries may well remain jobless. Continue reading

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The Employment and GDP Relationship

The author – Menzie Chinn – evaluates the latest GDP release to conclude whether job creation is less than what would be expected, given the growth in real GDP. Continue reading

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Too Big to Fail is a Red Herring

TARP Revisited: Banks “Too Large to Fail”- A Red Herring by Elliott Morss, Morss Global Finance Introduction Remember the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)? Initiated in 2008 to bail out the US financial system, it is still around. In this, … Continue reading

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The Great Debate©: Did Fannie and Freddie Cause the Great Financial Crisis?

The Neville Awards Case Against Fannie and Freddie Written by John Lounsbury The Neville Awards is a website that has collected published media reports and opinion about the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in creating the Great Financial … Continue reading

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What Have Economists Ever Done for Us?

by Andrew G. Haldane, Executive Director Bank of England, from Vox EU There is a long list of culprits when it comes to assigning blame for the financial crisis. At least in this instance, failure has just as many parents … Continue reading

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Credit to Small Enterprises: The silent crisis

by Jayati Ghosh, from Triple Crisis Blog A new BIS working paper by Cecchetti and Kharroubi makes a point that is becoming more widely known, especially after the continuing financial crises experienced globally since 2008. This is that the level … Continue reading

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