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Flash Update January, 15th, 2008
• Retail Sales Revisions Show Sharper Downturn
• Inflation Irregularities Also Signal Reporting Distortions
Flash Update January, 13th, 2008
• Recession Recognition Settles In
• Moody’s Cautions on U.S. Credit Rating
• December M3 Growth at 15.2%
Flash Update January, 6th, 2008
• The Tempest Intensifies
• December Payrolls Really Contracted
• U.6 Unemployment Rate Surged to 8.8%
• Money Growth Remains a Problem
December 2007 Edition January, 2nd, 2008
• Actual 2007 Federal Deficit Topped $4.0 Trillion
• Fed Allows Strongest Money Growth in 36 Years
• Inflationary Recession Intensifies Sharply
• Dollar and Gold Breathers Are Proving Short-Lived
• Solvency Crisis Intensifies as System Careens Towards Economic and Financial Disaster
• Pushing the system ever nearer to the brink of the ultimate liquidity crisis, the Fed’s December 11th easing, albeit minimal, played to the Wall Street speculators, not to the increasingly troubled global community holding large quantities of a rapidly-debasing U.S. dollar. Those not-so-happy dollar owners can see the U.S. economy sinking quickly into an inflationary recession, with the U.S. banking system facing a solvency crisis and the U.S. central bank playing games with itself. Such portends very difficult times for the greenback and the U.S. financial markets in 2008. The gold and silver markets, however, will be primary beneficiaries of these troubles.
Flash Update December, 28th, 2007
• Economic Data Take Successive Hits
• Help-Wanted Advertising Plunges to Lowest Level Ever
Flash Update December, 18th, 2007
• Actual 2007 U.S. Federal Deficit at $1.2 Trillion, $5-Plus Trillion on Consistent Basis
Flash Update December, 15th, 2007
• Annual CPI Inflation at 4.3% (SGS-Alternate CPI 11.7%), PPI at 7.2%
• Industrial Production Suggests Fourth-Quarter Contraction
Flash Update December, 13th, 2007
• November “Core” Retail Sales Gained 0.78% versus 1.22% Non-Core
• Prior Food and Energy Inflation Revised Higher
Flash Update December, 7th, 2007
• Gimmicks Mask November Payroll Contraction
• SGS-Ongoing M3 Annual Growth Rises Again in November
• Official CPI Annual Inflation Could Break 4% Next Week
• Fed’s Quandary Remains
Flash Update December, 2nd, 2007
• What Is Scaring The Fed?
• GDP Numbers Are Utter Nonsense
• Other Data Show Tumbling Economy
November 2007 Edition November, 26th, 2007
• Inflation Surges as Economic Activity Plunges
• System Nears Abyss and Fed Moves to Sit on Its Hands Again
• Dollar and Gold Movements Are Just Beginning
• Wall Street Pushes Hard for Interest Rate Fix That Cannot Work and May Not Happen
• In fairness, there is little that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke can do, except to play out a losing hand. It was a hand laid off on him by Alan Greenspan, aided and abetted by the U.S. Congress and recent Administrations. As dependent as a drug addict on his next fix, the U.S. stock market is addicted to interest rate cuts, and the pressures on the Fed for another fix are tremendous. Yet, the Fed continues to signal, as clearly as it signals such things, that there is no rate cut coming.
Flash Update November, 19th, 2007
• Annual Inflation Surge Should Continue
• Inflation-Adjusted (SGS)Peak Gold Price Is $6,030
Flash Update November, 14th, 2007
• October "Core" Retail Sales Unchanged
• Data Massaging Gets Worse as Energy Prices Collapse(?)
Flash Update November, 9th, 2007
• October M3 Growth Breaks to New 36-year High
• Trade Numbers Again Appear Massaged
• Beware Next Week's Surge in Annual Inflation!
• The System Begins to Crack
Flash Update November, 2nd, 2007
• Data Appear Massaged as Market Manipulation Tool
• October Payrolls Fortuitously Show No Need for Further Easing
• Household Employment Plunges by 250,000
Flash Update October, 31st, 2007
• Fed Action Likely Foreshadows Jobs Report
• GDP Report Fundamentally Was Nonsense
October 2007 Edition October, 29th, 2007
• Inflation Indicators Surge While Recession Signals Mount
• Anticipated Fed Easing Pummels Real-World Markets
• Dollar Tanks, Oil and Gold Soar and Funding Crisis Continues
• Wall Street's Pollyannas Ignore Darkening Fundamentals
• With all-time high oil prices topping $90 per barrel, with the U.S. dollar indices at record lows and under selling pressure, and with the SGS-Ongoing M3 annual growth at a 36-year high of 14.7%, the near-term inflation outlook is turning about as bleak as it gets. On the economic front, annual growth in new orders for durable goods, housing and employment all are generating new, or confirming prior, recession signals. This is despite overstatement of some recent economic activity in the employment data apparently aimed at removing some pressures on the Fed to ease. Nevertheless, the markets are expecting a quarter-point fed funds rate cut on Wednesday. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) most likely will follow market expectations, in that it has had some hand in setting the consensus outlook, and the U.S. central bank likely will look to be as non-disruptive to the markets as possible. Even so, current expectations already are roiling the currency markets. Any rate cut beyond consensus could prove particularly disruptive for the U.S. dollar. At some point — and that point may have been reached — Fed easing will become counterproductive, pummeling domestic U.S. liquidity. Where Wall Street, Administration and Fed efforts appear to be concentrated on continued artificial propping of equity prices, a dollar-induced liquidity crunch would hit both the equity markets and the credit markets hard. Despite increasing volatility in this unsettled environment, the stock market has held up remarkably well, so far. Gold and dollar prices already are at levels that risk inviting short-lived central bank interventions. |
