measure of the financial deficit that households are running at an annualized rate. |
Nobody wants a strong currency, and since the U.S. currency is fundamentally weak, foreign central banks need to buy up dollars to keep their currency from appreciating. |
Not surprisingly, we're starting to see weakening demand. |
Nothing seems to be going quite right. We're not seeing mass defections. The weather has been bad. Frustrations are starting to build that this might be going into a less antiseptic phase. |
Now, of course, a lot of it ... was in auto sales and production is probably going to flatten out in the months ahead. |
O'Neill was like the offensive line of the Green Bay Packers playing in a dome -- they can't hear signals. O'Neill couldn't hear the signals the White House was sending, and they got rid of him. Presumably, Snow has better hearing. |
Oddly enough, corporations are lending to the government sector and to the household sector to finance our spending. That's not really a good mix. What leads to growth for our economy is business investment. |
OPEC doesn't suffer from money illusion. It decided they want an honest dollar for an honest barrel of oil. |
People need to reload here -- they can't buy a car every month. But don't fret, because we're going to get a big tax refund next year, and that will cause spending to pick back up. |
Rising bond yields would hurt the housing market. Unless incomes pick up to offset higher financing, you're going to have a problem. |
Since central banks aren't letting their currencies appreciate against the dollar, that implies that all the currencies will depreciate against gold and commodities in general. |
Sustained economic growth is dependent on profit growth. Without profits, there will be no new hiring of workers and no new capital spending. |
That, plus the fact that the Bank of Japan won't be buying as many Treasury and agency securities, will put upward pressure on rates. |
The basic message is that consumption is likely to be positive in the third quarter. We're looking at most likely another quarter of relatively modest consumer spending, but positive nonetheless. |
The creation of credit by the Fed, just like the scrip printed by a counterfeiter, does not result in the increased supply of energy. |