United States

We are staring into a cyclical downturn in the second half of this year. Behind that is a whole other set of challenges, more structural in nature, which will take years to sort out. Our American friends - except for a small but rather…

Much like the US manufacturing index, the global manufacturing index has hit three year lows. The numbers indicate a contraction in global manufacturing activity, with the JPMorgan Global Manufacturing PMI now below 50% at 48.9% for June…

The Institute for Supply Management released its widely-followed index of manufacturing activity today. The data show that the US manufacturing sector contracted in June for the first time since July 2009. Given economic weakness elsewhere…

Comstock Partners argues that slowing growth as well as deficit and debt problems in the Eurozone, U.S., China and the emerging nations increases the odds of a deflationary global recession and a renewed down leg in the ongoing secular bear…

Earlier in the year, I predicted that corporate profitability would fall as US corporate profit margins were cyclically high. The New York Times is reporting that corporate profits fell in Q1 2012 for the first time since the fourth quarter…

The big news in the US today was the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee's decision to extend its simultaneous purchase of longer-dated Treasuries and sale of shorter-dated ones. This effort, dubbed Operation Twist, was set to expire at…

I was on the Alyona Show panel these past two Mondays talking to Alyona and Reason's Anthony Randazzo about the debt crises in the US and Europe. As much as we tried to find something we could disagree on, we ended up agreeing a lot in both…

The link I want to highlight today is on the relationship between the slowdown in growth globally and US multinational earnings.

Lakshman Achuthan is sticking to his call that the US will enter recession in the second half of 2012. He spoke to CNBC's Squawk Box crew about it this morning. Take a look.

In 1921, the US, a creditor nation, was fighting boom time inflation and turned to 'austerity' to defeat it. Europe on the other hand was seeing a debt-laden deflationary episode after the Great War. This episode has historical lessons for…