Salient to Investors: A. Gary Shilling at A. Gary Shilling & Co writes: There is an important distinction between good deflation caused by excess supply – as after the Civil War and in the 1920s – and bad deflation created by deficient demand – as in the 1930s and Japan over the last
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: A. Gary Shilling at A. Gary Shilling & Co writes: The current fiscal and monetary offsets to the powerful deflationary forces are temporary. When deleveraging ends and normal economic growth resumes, the Fed will be forced to eliminate the huge excess reserves. General price deflation is the likeliest
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: University of St. Gallen economists found that nations that pushed the EU to probe China for product dumping later secured greater trade with her. Lead author Simon J. Evenett said in the last decade, France and Germany made 51 protests, and Italy 41. Trade missions and visits by government ministers to China boosted exports. Michael
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Economic data disproves the claim that the US national debt is hurting the economy. Economists across the political spectrum dispute the Rogoff-Reinhart conclusion that countries with debt loads greater than 90 percent of GDP grow more slowly. With borrowing costs near record lows, the cost of paying off the national
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Bernard Baumohl at Economic Outlook Group said America’s shadow economy – estimated by economists to be $2 trillion – may explain why retail sales have grown at an annual rate of 3.5 percent or more since September 2010. Over 30 percent of the unemployed have been out of work for
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Simon Johnson at MIT writes: US rates on government debt are very low, the dollar is not depreciating rapidly, and inflation seems stable – no imaginable circumstance under which the US would need to borrow from the IMF. Thomas Jefferson was obsessed with the idea that debt was bad
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Michael Montgomery at IHS Global Insight said current work weeks are very, very, very long on a historical basis, and a cause of job growth in manufacturing, which with housing and other industries starting to join autos in supporting manufacturing, makes the job gains more sustainable. Transportation
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The WHO said people are living longer than ever before, but men have seen less improvement and are a generation behind women. The gap between the sexes is 7.5 years and largely due to lifestyle and occupational differences. As of 2010, life expectancy for women in Europe is 80
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Peter Temin at MIT and David Vines at Oxford write: The global economy succeeded in the second half of the 20th century because US power could recruit countries to cooperate to maintain prosperity, and again at the end of the 19th century led by Britain. The US
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Research by Bradford DeLong at Berkeley and Lawrence Summers shows that with short-term interest rates near zero, the multiplier is at its most powerful, so increased spending could be unusually potent in reviving growth and pay for itself and bring lower deficits in the long run. DeLong said the budget cuts
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