Category Archives: USA

The Great Recession–Moving Ahead

“The Great Recession–Moving Ahead,” a Conference Sponsored by the Swedish Ministry of Finance, Stockholm, Sweden

 

The Great Recession: Moving Ahead

The recession that began in the United States in December 2007 ended in June 2009. But the Great Recession is a near-worldwide phenomenon, with the consequences of which many advanced economies–among them Sweden–continue to struggle. Its depth and breadth appear to have changed the economic environment in many ways and to have left the road ahead unclear.

Today I will discuss three key aspects of the challenges policymakers face as they seek to move ahead. These are: (1) The impact of the Great Recession and the associated Global Financial Crisis on the growth of output, both in the short term and over the longer term. (2) The reform of the financial sector–in other words, how much progress have we made in creating a safer and more stable post-crisis financial environment? (3) The impact of the crisis on the conduct of monetary policy–in particular, how to balance the goals of achieving stable inflation and full employment while also taking into account the need to maintain financial stability. I will leave it to others to address the important challenges facing fiscal policymakers as they determine the appropriate roles and paths for fiscal policy at both the macro- and micro-levels.

To keep the focus sharp, I will deal primarily with the economy of the United States. But policymakers around the world confront related challenges and I will draw also on the post-crisis experiences of other economies. And I should make it clear that my comments today are mine alone and do not necessarily represent the views of other members of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System or the Federal Open Market Committee.1

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  • 72
    Dr Faber is predicting a 1987-type stock market crash this year only it will be worse. The US technology-heavy Nasdaq plummeted by 3.1 per cent on Thursday night (US time), its biggest one-day drop since November 2011. Dr Faber, the editor of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, has already…
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  • 64
      With the Federal Reserve printing trillions upon trillions of dollars to keep the economic system afloat, many investors and financial pundits have surmised that the fundamental economic problems facing the United States during the crash of 2008 have been resolved. Stocks are, after all, at historic highs. But the…
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  • 59
    "The stock market is at an all-time, but economic activity is not at an all-time," explains billionaire investor Sam Zell to CNBC this morning, adding that, "every company that's missed has missed on the revenue side, which is a reflection that there's a demand issue; and when you got a…
    Tags: market, fed, ahead, economic, trading
  • 58
    On Tuesday, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen promised the House Financial Services Committee "a great deal of continuity" in monetary policy as she fills the shoes of Ben Bernanke.   However, Yellen is not Bernanke. And depending on her read on the economy, she will use her powers to influence…
    Tags: monetary, committee, federal, policy, economy, will, open, market, reserve, financial

French finance minister blasts USD dominance

After the U.S. imposed a fine of US$9 billion on BNP Paribas as the latter had helped countries like Sudan to avoid sanctions launched by the U.S., French finance minister Michel Sapin appealed that rebalancing of currencies used in international payments is possible and necessary; BNP’s punishment case should raise the awareness of all nations that it is necessary to use various currencies, Financial Times reported. 

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    EUR/USD fresh highs after breaking through 1.3650 resistance and 50DMA at 1.3655  
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    Politics follows geopolitics, or so it has often seemed throughout history. When the Athenian democracy’s empire rose in the fifth century B.C.E., the number of Greek city-states ruled by democrats proliferated; Sparta’s power was reflected in the spread of Spartan-style oligarchies. When the Soviet Union’s power rose in the early…
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  • 60
      When even hedge funds are overwhelmingly on the same side of an investment as the broader market, you know it's a crowded trade. This is where the euro finds itself going into 2015. Traders, investment banks, asset managers and the so-called "smart money" of hedge funds are all betting…
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  • 59
    It certainly could be, but the odds do not favor it. Statistically speaking, it is far more likely that a run-of-the-mill correction is now underway and working its way through each sector of the market, to varying degrees of severity. Counter-trend rallies are sharp and short (think Wednesday), which is…
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  • 58
    The August 2013 gross domestic product report by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis drew little attention, but it contained a fairly remarkable piece of data: Inflation-adjusted GDP per capita in the United States hit a new all-time high in the second quarter of 2013, the first time a new…
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How a US decision to allow oil exports could change the world’s energy balance

America has allowed its oil companies to export oil as announced in private letters to oil companies. This will, for sure, cause a stir in the global oil markets and lead to lower prices. Global oil prices previously soared due to the fall in the supply of oil- stoppage of oil exports by Libya, and broad turbulence in Nigeria. About 3.5 million barrels, out of the total 90 million barrels of oil consumed daily, were taken off the market. The US decision to allow the export of condensate (an extremely light oil) by two Texas companies, could have a dramatic impact if the Commerce Department provides a broader definition of what is condensate for export purposes. The type of crude oil being produced in US is too light for American refineries to process. If all of this light oil is exported, it would surpass the exports of Iraq seriously undermining oil prices. 

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  • 77
    Most people that discuss the "economic collapse" focus on what is coming in the future.  And without a doubt, we are on the verge of some incredibly hard times.  But what often gets neglected is the immense permanent damage that has been done to the U.S. economy by the long-term…
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  • 73
    The following are the expectations for the minutes of the January FOMC meeting by the economists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citibank, Morgan Stanley, Barclays Capital, and other leading banks. http://www.efxnews.com/
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  • 71
    If trade and financial sanctions were imposed on Russia, the cost to the UK might well exceed the cost to Russia. That is presumably why the Foreign Office wrote - in a document carelessly (or deliberately?) displayed yesterday for the lenses of photographers - that "the UK should not support…
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Four Dimensions of the FOMC Meeting

The FOMC meeting is the week’s highlight even though policy outcome seems a foregone conclusion. It will continue with the tapering course that Bernanke put on the Fed on before he left. However, there are more moving parts than usual, and it is worth reviewing.
Essentially, there are four elements of the FOMC meeting: composition, statement, forecasts and press conference.
  • Composition
  • Statement
  • Forecasts
  • Press Conference

http://www.marctomarket.com/2014/06/four-dimensions-of-fomc-meeting.html

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    The Federal Reserve holds its last policy meeting of the year on Tuesday and Wednesday, resulting in plenty of material to be scoured for clues about when interest rates will start inching up. The central bank’s policy committee releases its statement and new economic projections at 2 p.m. Wednesday, followed…
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  • 73
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  • 69
    Several Fed Officials Said Forecasts Overstated Rate Rise Meeting minutes revealed that in March, Fed Reserve policy makers discussed that a rise in their median projection for the main interest rate exaggerated the likely speed of tightening. Treasury yields rose last month after policy makers predicted that the benchmark interest…
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  • 65
    Employers in the U.S. boosted payrolls and the unemployment rate held at 6.7 percent even as more Americans entered the labor force, showing steady progress that will prompt Federal Reserve policy makers to continue reducing stimulus while keeping interest rates low. Payrolls rose 192,000 last month after a 197,000 gain…
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  • 59
    The Labor Department’s initial estimate of August job growth on Friday is expected to show another solid month of hiring. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal forecast the economy added 225,000 jobs, which is roughly in between the 12-month average of 214,000 and the 3-month average of 245,000. The unemployment…
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How Much Longer Will the Dollar Remain the Reserve Currency of the World?

The US Dollar’s status as a reserve currency seems to be a perennial concern for many people these days.  I think this concern is often dramatically overstated.  I was reminded of this point as I was reviewing the slides from Jeff Gundlach’s presentation yesterday which showed the following chart:

Source : http://pragcap.com/how-much-longer-will-the-dollar-remain-the-reserve-currency-of-the-world

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    The plunge of the lira has already exposed the Turkish economy’s dependence on short-term foreign investment. Most foreign capital is invested in Turkish stocks and bonds rather than longer-term projects. All it takes is a phone call or a few clicks of a mouse for short-term investors to move their…
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Wolf of Wallstreet is paying back everyone this year.

Jordan Belfort, whose memoir “The Wolf of Wall Street” was turned into a film by Martin Scorsese, expects to earn more this year than he made at his peak as a stockbroker, allowing him to repay the victims of his fraud.

“I’ll make this year more than I ever made in my best year as a broker,” Belfort told a conference in Dubai today. “My goal is to make north of $100 million so I am paying back everyone this year.”

Belfort, a motivational speaker, will use his earnings from a 45-city speaking tour in the U.S. to repay about $50 million to investors. That was his share of the fine, he said.

U.S. stockbrokerBelfort spent 22 months in jail for money laundering and securities fraud in the 1990s after his Long Island-based Stratton Oakmont Inc. defrauded investors out of more than $200 million. That story was retold last year in a blockbuster film starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

http://www.bloomberg.com/

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    For the first time, New York City has surpassed Moscow for the most billionaire residents, according to the latest global rich list from Hurun, a group that tracks wealth in China. According to Hurun, New York added 14 billionaires this year, bringing its total to 84. Moscow, meanwhile, lost a…
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  • 58
    If Trump commits to introducing positive changes such as cutting taxes and boosting infrastructure spending, then it will be “happy days” again for investors What did portfolio managers said about Trump area? There are two spectacularly different scenarios for stocks under the new president, depending on which Trump shows up…
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  • 54
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Jeff Bezos’ stealthy foray into the unsexy world of B2B distribution is likely

Forget the delivery drones and TV deals. Jeff Bezos’ stealthy foray into the unsexy world of B2B distribution is likely his most disruptive move yet — and it has an $8 trillion swath of the economy running scared.

In recent months global Internet retail behemoth Amazon.com   has green-lit six new original TV shows, announced an online streaming deal with HBO and tested same-day grocery delivery on the West Coast.

Up next? Possibly a smartphone. And, if billionaire CEO Jeff Bezos has his way, packages dropped off by unmanned drone.

But there’s one thing Bezos hasn’t been talking about: AmazonSupply, an e-commerce site targeting the unsexy but hugely lucrative wholesale and distribution market. His silence is especially surprising as the site has the potential to turn into the most important development in the company’s history since it started selling books. Yet Bezos has uttered only 28 words in public–ever–about Amazon Supply, describing it in passing as “an incredible category” during the company’s 2012 annual meeting.

http://www.forbes.com/

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  • 53
    Amazon is offering its warehouse employees up to $5,000 to quit their jobs, even as the company is in the process of adding workers and locations. The "Pay to Quit" program, which was announced by CEO Jeff Bezos in his letter to shareholders late Thursday, is an effort to make…
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  • 51
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  • 51
    Publicis CEO Maurice Levy's last-ditch offer to let Omnicom chief John Wren be CEO couldn't save the $35 billion deal to create the world's largest advertising company.   http://postcards.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/
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Behind the failure of the Publicis-Omnicom merger

Publicis CEO Maurice Levy’s last-ditch offer to let Omnicom chief John Wren be CEO couldn’t save the $35 billion deal to create the world’s largest advertising company.

 

http://postcards.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/

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How An IPO Actually Works

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China’s Economy Surpassing U.S.? #China #USA

There are a number of reports around Wednesday that China’s economy, by one measure at least, is likely to surpass the U.S. in size sometime this year.

The headlines will surprise many people, used to hearing China’s economy will overtake the U.S. sometime in the 2020s, or even later.

On Wednesday, the International Comparison Program, a statistical project coordinated by the World Bank, announced new data on the size of economies by purchasing power parity that suggests China’s economy is bigger than previously thought.

But the latest news is anything but surprising.

Regular GDP power rankings are compiled by converting a country’s gross domestic product into U.S. dollars at market exchange rates. The U.S.’s economy in 2012 was valued at over $16 trillion, twice the size of China’s, according to World Bank statistics. It’s by these measures that China’s economy won’t overtake the U.S. for a decade or more.

http://blogs.wsj.com/

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