Economic Data

I have two topics I want to highlight this morning. First, there are the US housing inflation numbers from Case Shiller, which are at a 7-year high. Then there is the fiscal drag in the US, Denmark, the UK, the Euro Zone and Canada. What I…

So QE cannot possibly offset the effects of fiscal tightening in the lives of ordinary working people - the largest part of the population. In fact because it seems to discourage productive corporate investment, it may even reinforce…

I don't think it's a big secret that I believe Greece will eventually leave the eurozone. I have said this repeatedly. But I have also written that I do not believe that Greece would attempt to do so while Europe's economic crisis is…

Europe's GDP numbers have just been released today and they are miserable. They show the Netherlands and France in recession along with the rest of the periphery. And even outside the euro zone, we got some pretty dire numbers out of the…

In a number of posts recently I have highlighted the impact of declining workforces on economic growth and the way the policies pursued to address the Euro debt crisis are having the impact of accelerating the movement of young people away…

We speak of the case in which positive shocks are self-reinforcing, as a virtuous circle, and the case in which negative shocks are self-reinforcing as a vicious circle, but the important point is that these processes are part of the same…

There is an experiment being conducted in Japan, but the experiment isn’t Abenomics (which I suspect won’t work, and could end very badly). No, the experiment is about learning to grow old with dignity, not as individuals, but as societies.

I am not a fan of quantitative easing or zero rates. I think that is clear from my posts over the past 4 years. Nevertheless, I do like to link out to posts that put QE and zero rates in a more favourable light because we need to get a…

I have been arguing for several years that once China begins the adjustment process, which I expect to characterize the ten-year period of the current administration, growth rates must slow significantly. My expectation for long-term growth…

By Marc Chandler The US jobs report offered a pleasant surprise after the string of mostly disappointing data. Private sector employment rose 165k and the Feb and March series were revised up by 114k jobs. The 3-and 6-month averages now…