Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis Fri 2010-07-16 18:59 EDT

Expect Second-Half Housing and Durable Goods Crash

Michael Shedlock

Those who think manufacturing is going to lead the way to a sustainable recovery need to think again. Data suggest durable goods sales are about to collapse...if consumers are not going to be buying appliances (or cars according recent surveys), and if commercial real estate is going to remain in the dumps, technology spending is likely unsustainable, and states will be laying off workers to balance budgets, pray tell where is the second half growth or jobs coming from? Here's a hint: Don't expect miracles from further stimulus either. The current Congress is not much in the mood and the next Congress is likely to be downright hostile to significantly more deficit spending. All things considered, earnings estimates and the stock market are both priced well beyond perfection, as are forward GDP estimates.

Durable Goods Crash; expectations; Housing; Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis.

Credit Writedowns Sat 2010-05-22 20:38 EDT

Out of control US deficit spending [MMT introduction]

Regular readers know that, while I have a little of what Marshall Auerback calls deficit terrorism in my DNA, I fully support fiscal stimulus as a means to arrest a deep downturn...the US economy will not be able to sustain recovery for long without stimulus. The likely result of withdrawing stimulus is a recession that is deeper than the last one aka a major depression...a lot of talking heads are trying to bamboozle people with tales of woe about hyperinflation and sovereign bankruptcy in the US to support specific claims about what deficit spending can and can't do. Deficit hawks, in particular, are on the warpath...I am throwing in the towel on policy makers because it's clear that Obama has been captured by the deficit hawks and we are headed for a painful recession within the next two years...The policy debates aren't working because the actual mechanics of a fiat monetary system are being obscured by ideological political debates. So, what I want to do is lay the foundations of modern money with you so we can strip away the politics and ideology from the economics...

control; credit writedowns; deficit-spending; MMT introduction.

The Big Picture Mon 2009-10-12 10:03 EDT

Fixing Derivatives Regulation

Any plan that seeks to reverse the unregulated wild west that derivatives have existed in since 2000 must have a simple beginning: Repeal the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. This ruinous and corrupt legislation, pushed through by the Bonnie & Clyde of deivatives, Enron Board member Wendy Gramm, and her astonishingly clueless ideologue husband, former Texas Senator (and current UBS member) Phil Gramm, lay at the heart of the current derivatives debacle. After Greenspan, Gramm is the single most culpable individual in terms of damaging the global economy.

Big Picture; Fixing Derivatives Regulation.

Blog entry Sat 2009-09-19 13:28 EDT

The Angelides Commission: Tell America What Happened

Robert L. Borosage

Today the new Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, modeled after the New Deal-era Pecora Commission, begins its investigation into possible misconduct by the financial sector causing last year's market meltdown...We are pleased that the Financial Crisis Commission is coming together, under the leadership of chair Phil Angelides...the Commission should aspire to be the modern day version of the Senate Banking Hearings in the 1930s that came to be named after the chief counsel, Ferdinand Pecora...The Angelides Commission -- if it fearlessly lays out the facts, exposes the excesses, the deformed incentives, the frauds and crimes, that are at the root of the current crisis has the potential of playing a similar role to that of Pecora.

Angelides Commission; blog entry; happened; tell America.

Fri 2008-11-07 00:00 EST

naked capitalism: Willem Buiter: "We are laying the foundations of the next systemic crisis"

Buiter lambasts Paulson

Foundation; lays; naked capitalism; system crisis; Willem Buiter.

Thu 2007-05-10 00:00 EDT

The Black Commentator - Wanted: A Plan for the Cities to Save Themselves - Issue 52

"Rampaging capital lays waste to the nation and the world the principal source of war and the despoiler of American cities."

Black Commentator; Citi; Issue 52; plans; save; wants.