Weekly Indicators for September 15 -19 at XE.com

 - by New Deal democrat

My Weekly Indicators piece is up at XE.com.

At the beginning of this year, I forecast a deceleration of growth in the latter part of the year.  It may be starting to show up.

About recovery, the American people "get it"

 - by New Deal democrat

I wanted to pass this on, from Pew Research via Digby.

Asked about whether the American economy is in a recovery, and if so, how strong, here was the breakdown of the replies:

It strikes me that this is probably also a pretty good self-report on economic well-being over the last few years.  Most Americans' individual position has improved, but not as much as they would like or need.  A small minority has made out quite well, and a larger minority has been completely left behind.

This is the point Bonddad and I have been making for 5 years.  Yes, the economy is recovering, yes it is a positive.  It's just not good enough.  The American people get it.

August housing permits: apartments are still carrying the market

 - by New Deal democrat

I have a new post up at XE.com about this morning's housing report.

Most of the analysis seems to be slightly DOOOMish clickbait. In fact, while this report was poor month-over-month,  a longer-term look supports positivity about the coming months.

John Hinderaker: The Great Contrary Indicator

On September 3, 2009, John Hinderaker at Powerline wrote the following:

We’ll let it rest there: hyperinflation or default. One or the other is the inevitable result of the unprecedented irresponsibility of Barack Obama’s administration. Either one is a disaster, not so much for us, but for our children. Obama and his advisers are gambling, evidently, that we don’t care much what happens to our children and grandchildren, or to our country after we’re gone.

Yet today, we have this from Dr. Yardeni:

 

Since Mr. Hinderaker made his inflation prediction, global inflation has been tame to non-existent. (Invictus and I debunked this claim of hyperinflation when it was made.  See this article at the Huffington Post)

 

And the US default?

 

 

 

The budget gap is closing.

 

And then in 2010 he advised that you should buy gold:

 

This seems like a clue as to where the Obama administration intends to take the economy. If I’m not mistaken, Jimmy Carter did much the same thing: juice the currency, try to stimulate growth and worry about the inevitable inflation later. The problem, of course, is that the federal government’s policies are doing just about everything possible to suppress economic growth. Nothing the Fed can do will make up for an anti-growth, anti-business administration. But it can create inflation, and here’s betting it will. The moral of the story is, look for the dollar to decline sharply. Buy gold.

 

So -- how is that gold bet paying off?  According to today's Business Insider Gold Looks Like Death:

 

Remember gold?

We used to talk a lot about it around these parts, but we've pretty much stopped following it ever since the whole goldbug, Fed-hater thing got so thoroughly discredited.

Anyway, it's not looking so hot. In fact, it kind of looks like death.

And the dollar collapse:

 

 

Here's the deal: Mr. Hinderaker has been a great contrary indicator for the past 5 years.   Whatever he says, DO THE OPPOSITE.  He's that bad

 

 

 

 

 



The loosening OIl choke collar is helping real wage growth

 - by New Deal democrat

I have a new post up at XE.com.  Together with the trend of slowly rising wage growth, today's -0.2% CPI reading, fueled by the continued loosening of the Oil choke collar, is just what the doctor ordered.

John Hinderaker Can't Even Read A Graph

Now we have the headline "Income Stagnation Under Democrats."

Hinderaker posts this graphic from the Census, claiming it shows Democratic policies lead to a drop in incomes:

Except, of course, that isn't what the graph shows.  It shows the incomes rose in the 1980s and 1990s (Democrats and Republicans) and then moved sideways under Bush (who Hinderaker called a genius) and down under Obama.   In other words, it rose under a Republican and Democrat, stagnated under Bush and fell under Obama.  This is called chart reading, which Hinderaker obviously can't do.

And then there is this:

 

 

The reality is that as the labor force participation rate rose (largely due to women and baby boomers entering the labor force) incomes and the economy expanded.  But as the baby boomers started to retire (which is the primary reason for the drop in the LFPR) incomes started to stagnate.

 

So, Hinderaker can't even read a simple graph correctly.  Dear God, but this man is stupid.

John Hinderaker's Economic Incompetence In One Venn Diagram

Many thanks to both Economists View and Professor Krugman for linking to this piece.  If you'd like to read my more serious economic articles, please go over to the XE.com Currency Blog where most of my work is posted now.

I love when John Hinderaker tries to take down Paul Krugman.  One of the participants has a Nobel Prize in economics; the other has been consistently wrong about the economy for the better part of 10 years.  (In case you're wondering, the "Krugman is a hypocrite" argument was debunked here.   As usual, a simply internet search would have revealed that, but Hinderaker was never big on research.)

So, when Hinderaker used a Venn diagram from another blog, I made one of my own.  As you may know, Hinderaker was a big proponent of the argument that the Fed's QE would lead to a massive spike in inflation.  As I recently noted, Bloomberg calculated the cost of investing based on this advice.  Based on their calculations, the "inflation is just around the corner" trade would have lost an investor over $1 trillion dollars.  In honor of that little bit of data, I made the following diagram to show just how incompetent Hinderaker is at economics: