As I consider my 2013 Economic Predictions, I have to take a lesson from my “Economic Predictions for 2012.” I was right in all the trends, because economic fundamentals drive the trends, but I was wrong in not seeing how denial of economic reality could maintain itself longer than I thought, slowing the speed and [… Read More]
2012 brought a change to global stock markets we have never witnessed. The unprecedented money-mongering of central banks has caused stock exchanges to completely unhitch themselves from economic reality. Markets now react inversely to their economies, a situation that begs for a devastating stock market crash. The great stock market bubble of the Great Recession [… Read More]
It’s time to assess my own 2012 economic predictions. In looking honestly at the shortcomings in my predictions, I see something interesting. The picture of events formed a ghost image to my own forecast. It shaped up weaker than I had predicted, and yet has taken the exact form I envisioned, albeit in paler colors [… Read More]
This week’s collection of economic news articles strongly reinforces my predictions earlier in the year that Iran will not back down from its nuclear program and that an Iran war will play a significant economic role in 2012 (with both the economic impacts of rising oil costs and the cost of war being added to [… Read More]
Will an Iran war with Israel and/or America happen in 2012 before the U.S. presidential elections or after? When will Israel attack Iran? What is the key factor that could change Obama’s timing that no one is thinking about … except maybe Obama.
It’s time to assess how well I’ve done (or not done) during 2012 in making economic predictions. As these prognostications have been scattered over various posts, I’ll gather all of them here in one place and dig into them with straightforward honesty.
The Eurozone crisis calmed a little now that the European summit has agreed on a plan, but for how many days, and what about Greece? The agreement reached in Brussels raised stock markets around the world but only because the deal exceeded expectations, and that’s only because expecations were already priced into the market and [… Read More]
The euro crisis dominated economic news and set the stage for the summer I have been anticipating. Stocks fell; unemployment climbed; sales dragged; manufacturing sluffed off; consumer spending receded. Interest on the U.S. debt also ticked upward when the annual deficit soared over the trillion-dollar barrier for the fourth straight year. And that was just one week! [… Read More]
At the beginning of last week a big financial advisor proclaimed that the markets’ little downturn meant nothing. The market would go right back up. He was certain that Europe’s problems that week would quickly be yesterday’s worries. He gets paid too much to be that certain about that much and be that wrong. I [… Read More]
Some people predict the economy is going down in order to sell gold. I call them the “gold bears.” Others make economic predictions as a way of guiding people in their stock or bond investments. They are the golden calves of the Wall Street bull. I have completely different agenda than either. The gold bears [… Read More]
A year ago, the news was full of articles about China trying to slow down its growth to align its speed with that of the rest of the world and to keep inflation in check. Now, everywhere in the press you read concerns about China’s slowdown. How fickle can the press and market investors be? [… Read More]
The U.S. stock market lurched up and down, twice each way, last week, closing at its worst so far this year. Then bad news at the first of this week, boosted the Dow above 13,000 again, merely because the news wasn’t as bad as expected. Then
Pessimism is creeping back into the U.S. business world, and even the Fed is now warning, as I did earlier, that student loans are in danger of becoming another economic crisis. This is the climate where desert dwellers like me thrive. According to the Federal Reserve last week, nearly one third of all student loans [… Read More]
Actually, these bubbles aren’t tiny like the ones Don Ho sang about, and they don’t make me feel warm and fuzzy either. They’re great big bubbles that make me pop….
