John Williams: Hyperinflation and Double-Dip Recession Ahead
by ilene - May 4th, 2011 4:00 pm
Interview with An interview with Karen Roche of The Gold Report
Economic recovery? What economic recovery? Contrary to popular media reports, government economic reporting specialist and ShadowStats Editor John Williams reads between the government-economic-data lines. "The U.S. is really in the worst condition of any major economy or country in the world," he says. In this exclusive interview with The Gold Report, John concludes the nation is in the midst of a multiple-dip recession and headed for hyperinflation.
John Williams: Hyperinflation and Double-Dip Recession Ahead
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The Gold Report: Standard & Poor’s (S&P) has given a warning to the U.S. government that it may downgrade its rating by 2013 if nothing is done to address the debt and deficit. What’s the real impact of this announcement?
John Williams: S&P is noting the U.S. government’s long-range fiscal problems. Generally, you’ll find that the accounting for unfunded liabilities for Social Security, Medicare and other programs on a net-present-value (NPV) basis indicates total federal debt and obligations of about $75 trillion. That’s 15 times the gross domestic product (GDP). The debt and obligations are increasing at a pace of about $5 trillion a year, which is neither sustainable nor containable. If the U.S. was a corporation on a parallel basis, it would be headed into bankruptcy rather quickly.
There’s good reason for fear about the debt, but it would be a tremendous shock if either S&P or Moody’s Investor Service actually downgraded the U.S. sovereign-debt rating. The AAA rating on U.S. Treasuries is the benchmark for AAA, the highest rating, meaning the lowest risk of default. With U.S. Treasuries denominated in U.S. dollars and the benchmark AAA security, how can you downgrade your benchmark security? That’s a very awkward situation for rating agencies. As long as the U.S. dollar retains its reserve currency status and is able to issue debt in U.S. dollars, you’ll continue to see a triple-A rating for U.S. Treasuries. Having the U.S. Treasuries denominated in U.S. dollars means the government always can print the money it needs to pay off the securities, which means no default.
TGR: With the U.S. Treasury rated AAA, everything else is rated against that. But what if another AAA-rated entity is about to default?
JW: That’s the problem that rating agencies will have if they start playing around with the U.S. rating. But there’s virtually…
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Consumer Metrics Institute Growth Index
by ilene - August 26th, 2010 1:48 pm
Consumer Metrics Institute Growth Index
Courtesy of Doug Short; with data from Rick Davis at CMI
Note from dshort: The index data is now updated through August 24. The current Growth Index contraction continues.
The charts below focus on the ‘Trailing Quarter’ Growth Index, which is computed as a 91-day moving average for the year-over-year growth/contraction of the Weighted Composite Index, an index that tracks near real-time consumer behavior in a wide range of consumption categories. The Growth Index is a calculated metric that smooths the volatility and gives a better sense of expansions and contractions in consumption.
The 91-day period is useful for comparison with key quarterly metrics such as GDP. Since the consumer accounts for over two-thirds of the US economy, one would expect that a well-crafted index of consumer behavior would serve as a leading indicator. As the chart suggests, during the five-year history of the index, it has generally lived up to that expectation. Actually, the chart understates the degree to which the Growth Index leads GDP. Why? Because the advance estimates for GDP are released a month after the end of the quarter in question, so the Growth Index lead time has been substantial.
Has the Growth Index also served as a leading indicator of the stock market? The next chart is an overlay of the index and the S&P 500. The Growth Index clearly peaked before the market in 2007 and bottomed in late August of 2008, over six months before the market low in March 2009.
The most recent peak in the Growth Index was around the first of September, 2009, almost eight months before the interim high in the S&P 500 on April 23rd. Since its peak, the Growth Index has declined dramatically and is now deep into contraction territory.
It’s important to remember that the Growth Index is a moving average of year-over-year expansion/contraction whereas the market is a continuous record of value. Even so, the pattern is remarkable. The question is whether the latest dip…
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The Straight Scoop
by ilene - August 18th, 2010 8:09 pm
The Straight Scoop
Courtesy of Michael Panzner at Financial Armageddon
You’ve heard what the clueless analysts, disingenuous policymakers, conflicted Wall Street paper-pushers, and corporate cheerleaders have had to say about the so-called recovery. Now listen to what one of the world’s largest private companies — which presumbaly means they don’t have to worry too much about "managing" expectations or convincing the masses to believe in financial fairytales — has to say about where things stand:
"Cargill Sounds Warning of a Slow Recovery" (Financial Times)
Cargill, the world’s largest agricultural commodities trader, on Tuesday warned that the global economic recovery had yet to gain traction as it reported a second straight decline in annual profit.
As economists debate the merits of government intervention to avoid a double-dip recession, the company said the economic outlook was uncertain.
“More uncertainty lies ahead, for the world has yet to transition from a policy-stimulated upturn to a structurally sustained recovery,” Cargill said in its annual report. “Europe’s debt crisis and China’s monetary tightening are moving markets. Governments have made promises that their economies cannot fulfil. Regulations are changing in unpredictable ways.”
The Minnesota-based company has a unique vantage on global economic trends, trading commodities from corn to oil to salt with employees in 66 countries.
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David Tice Says Double-Dip Recession ‘In the Cards’ for U.S.
by ilene - July 31st, 2010 3:07 pm
David Tice Says Double-Dip Recession ‘In the Cards’ for U.S.
Courtesy of Edward Harrison at Credit Writedowns
David Tice, chief portfolio strategist for bear markets at Federated Investors Inc, talks about the outlook for the U.S. economy. He sees a double dip coming and argues against stimulus to prevent it, saying policy makers shouldn’t act as “Good Time Charlie” preventing the deleveraging of U.S. households.
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We’re In A One-and-a-half Dip Recession
by ilene - July 23rd, 2010 1:59 pm
We’re In A One-and-a-half Dip Recession
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Courtesy of Robert Reich
We’re not in a double-dip recession yet. We’re in a one and a half dip recession.
Consumer confidence is down. Retail sales are down. Home sales are down. Permits for single-family starts are down. The average work week is down. The only things not down are inventories – unsold stuff is piling up in warehouses and inventories of unsold homes are rising – and defaults on loans.
The 1.5 dip recession should be causing alarm bells to ring all over official Washington. It should cause deficit hawks to stop squawking about future debt, blue-dog Democrats to stop acting like Republicans, and mainstream Democrats to get some backbone.
The 1.5 dip recession should cause the President to demand a large-scale national jobs program including a new WPA that gets millions of Americans back to work even if government has to pay their wages directly. Included would be zero-interest loans to strapped states and locales, so they didn’t have to cut vital services and raise taxes. They could repay when the economy picked up and revenues came in. The national jobs program would also include a one-year payroll tax holiday on the first $20,000 of income.
The President should stop talking and acting on anything else – not the deficit, not energy, not the environment, not immigration, not implementing the health care law, not education. He should make the whole upcoming mid-term election a national referendum on putting Americans back to work, and his jobs bill. Are you for it or against it?
But none of this is happening. The hawks and blue dogs are still commanding the attention. Herbert Hoover’s ghost seems to have captured the nation’s capital. We’re back to 1932 (or 1937) and the prevailing sentiment is government can’t and mustn’t do anything but aim to reduce the deficit, even though the economy is going down.
It looks like there’ll be an extension of unemployment benefits. (If it weren’t for the human suffering involved, I wish the Republicans had been forced to filibuster that bill all summer and show the nation just how much they care about people without jobs.) But the fiscal stimulus resulting from this will be tiny. Jobless benefits are humane but they alone don’t get jobs back.
And what about the Fed? It’s the last game in town. The 1.5 dip recession should…
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NY Fed’s Dudley: Double Dip Unlikely
by ilene - July 23rd, 2010 4:52 am
NY Fed’s Dudley: Double Dip Unlikely
Courtesy of Jr. Deputy Accountant
I’m sick of hearing this from every two bit central banker with nothing better to do but assure us everything is under control. Of course there will be no double dip, we never got undipped from the last one. Duh.
Business Week:
Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William Dudley said the U.S. economic expansion may slow this quarter, while a relapse into recession is unlikely.
“Growth in the third quarter may turn out to be a bit less than we saw in the first half of the year, though we think there is only a slight risk of a double dip,” Dudley said today at a press briefing on the regional economy at the New York Fed.
Gee, that sounds slightly less Armageddon-ish than Bernanke’s statements yesterday, who has been dosing Bill’s coffee with Prozac?
Anyway, what’s the reason Dudley gives for not expecting a double dip? Easy money and data that shows credit conditions are easing. Well that’s awesome, let’s wait and see what sort of impact financial reform and the Fed’s new credit card rules have on credit and get back to that issue when we’ve got more data.
More BW:
The risk of the economy slipping into a second recession is low in part because monetary policy is “quite stimulative,” Dudley said in response to questions from reporters at the briefing. The nation also doesn’t face “excesses in terms of inventories” and “highly cyclical” industries such as housing and auto sales are “already at very depressed levels,” he said.
Dudley also said he’s “optimistic” about avoiding a double dip because the Fed’s senior loan officers survey has shown credit conditions are easing.
The U.S. expansion over the past year has been less robust than prior recoveries, with a “sluggish recovery in employment,” Dudley said.
I’m shocked that a supposed economic genius would actually say stimulative monetary policy can keep this thing afloat in case we get with a second wave of economic disaster – did no one inform him that the Fed is out of arrows and standing out there all limp and useless with nothing left to shoot?
Guess not.
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ECRI Plunges At 9.8% Rate, Double Dip Recession Virtually Assured
by ilene - July 16th, 2010 12:49 pm
ECRI Plunges At 9.8% Rate, Double Dip Recession Virtually Assured
The ECRI Leading Economic Index just dropped to a fresh reading of 120.6 (flat from a previously revised 121.5 as the Columbia profs scramble to create at least a neutral inflection point): this is now a -9.8 drop, and based on empirical evidence presented previously by David Rosenberg, and also confirming all the macro economic data seen in the past two months, virtually assures that the US economy is now fully in a double dip recession scenario. "It is one thing to slip to or fractionally below the zero line, but a -3.5% reading has only sent off two head-fakes in the past, while accurately foreshadowing seven recessions — with a three month lag. Keep your eye on the -10 threshold, for at that level, the economy has gone into recession … only 100% of the time (42 years of data)." We are there.
Complete collapse in the long-term chart:
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‘Double-Dips Are Not as Infrequent as You Might Think’
by ilene - July 12th, 2010 4:16 am
‘Double-Dips Are Not as Infrequent as You Might Think’
Courtesy of Michael Panzner at Financial Armageddon
Morgan Stanley’s Stephen Roach is the featured guest on the Wall Street Journal’s Big Interview, and unlike many of his peers, he relies on facts rather than fantasy in formulating his economic outlook. Given what you and I already know about the reality on the ground, it’s no surprise to find that Mr. Roach is less than sanguine about where things stand:
WSJ: You’ve been warning of a disappointing U.S. recovery, so I’d like to ask you right off the bat: Just how likely do you see the prospects of a double-dip kind of event?
Roach: I give it a higher probability than most — maybe 40% at some point over the next year. We have a weak recovery, weak labor market, weak consumer purchasing power, and a consumer — 70% of the economy — that is still massively overextended in terms of debt; unprepared in terms of savings; and unable to rely to rely on property and credit bubbles to support consumption. So, if you have a disappointing consumer and any kind of an unexpected shock, you can go down again.
Here is the full interview:
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It’s More Than Just Birth-Death
by ilene - July 10th, 2010 8:29 am
It’s More Than Just Birth-Death
Courtesy of John Mauldin at Thoughts From The Frontline
Just how dynamic is the US job market? If I told you we created over 4 million jobs in April, would you believe me? I had a long conversation with Mohamed El-Erian of PIMCO yesterday. He is openly speculating that
First a quick commercial note. I want to let Conversations subscribers know that we will post on Monday a Conversation I recently did with Rick Rule and Marin Katusa. Rick is a decades-long friend and maybe the smartest and most successful resource investor I know of. Katusa writes a resource letter for Casey Research and is wicked smart on energy. This is a very good piece that you don’t want to miss, as Katusa identifies what he thinks are some of the really great new energy plays.
It’s More Than Just Birth/Death
Last week, I wrote about the Birth/Death Adjustment in the Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly employment numbers. Jeff Miller took me to task in his blog for not noting that the B/D numbers are not seasonally adjusted (which I know) and a few other items. I did some research on his work on employment numbers and came away with a few new thoughts that I think are worth sharing. Miller (a former professor and a nice guy) and I spent several hours on the phone talking about the BLS data and what he sees as an unusual divergence in the data, which I agree is far more interesting than the B/D Assessment.
To get to the interesting part, I am going to risk boring you with a few wonkish background paragraphs. First, let’s look at the basic process of how the BLS does its survey. Basically, the BLS tries to count every job in…
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Recession 2010?
by ilene - July 8th, 2010 6:34 pm
Recession 2010?
Courtesy of Michael Snyder at The Economic Collapse
If you watch any mainstream news program these days, it is almost a certainty that someone will mention the word "recession" before a half hour passes. In fact, it seems like almost everyone is either predicting that we are going into a recession, or they are warning of the need to avoid a recession or they are proclaiming that we are still in a recession. So will the U.S. economy once again be in recession in 2010? When you consider all the signs that are pointing that way, the evidence is compelling. The truth is that there is bad economic news wherever you turn. There is bad news in the housing industry. There is bad news in the financial markets. There is bad news in the banking system. There is bad news coming out of Europe. There are even signs that the bubble in China may be about to burst. Plus, the economic impact of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill could end up being the straw (or the gigantic concrete slab) that really breaks the camel’s back. So there are certainly a lot of pieces of news that "gloom and doom" economists can hang their hats on these days. There is a very dark mood in world financial markets right now, and it seems like almost everyone is waiting for the other shoe to drop. But does all of this really mean that we are looking at the start of another recession before the end of 2010?
The truth is that nobody really knows. Things certainly look very ominous out there. The dark clouds are gathering and the economic winds are starting to blow in a bad direction. The following are 24 pieces of evidence that do seem to indicate that very difficult economic times are imminent….
-U.S. Treasury yields have dropped to stunning new lows. So why are they so low? Well, it is because so many investors are anticipating that we are headed into a deflationary period. In fact, many economists are warning that the fact that Treasury yields are so low is…
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.