This years targets is only off by .1%, but next years target went from 1.8% to 0.5%.
Comments »Will Europe Hurt U.S. Companies ?
China’s Yield Curve Inverts
Hussman: Recession Probability ‘Near 100 Percent’
U.K. Growth Estimates Get Slashed Over EU Sovereign Debt Crisis
The U.K. will receive collateral damage as the debt crisis threatens to slow the whole of Europe.
Comments »Merkel Advisers Say Plans to Fix the Euro is Only a Way to Buy Time; As a Result They Cut GDP Growth Estimates
Lagarde Warns of a Lost Decade
“In our increasingly interconnected world, no country or region can go it alone,” Lagarde said in a speech to a forum in Beijing today. “There are dark clouds gathering in the global economy.” China and India echoed the call for cooperation in a separate statement.”
Comments »Seven in Ten Blame Economy for Not Hiring
Basically 77% of small business owners have no intentions of hiring near term.
Comments »U.S. Job Openings Hit a Three Year High
Roubini: The Next MF Global Could Be Goldman Sachs
“Roubini was in fine form yesterday, scaring the bejeezus out of his followers on Twitter by saying that several huge financial institutions could collapse in the blink of an eye like MF Global.
These houses of cards, Roubini tweeted, include:
The problem, as Roubini has consistently warned, is the banks’ dependence on short-term financing to maintain their long-term asset leverage and run their businesses.
What killed MF Global, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, AIG, and other huge financial firms, after all, was the sudden refusal of short-term lenders to continue lending money to the firms.”
Comments »Barrons.com Draws a Direct Link to Europe’s Crisis on U.S. Banks (video)
Analyst: Hong Kong Entered Recession Last Quarter
“Hong Kong’s economy, a barometer of global growth, probably sank into recession with a contraction in the third quarter, according to Daiwa Capital Markets Ltd. and Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd.
Gross domestic product shrank 1.5 percent from the previous quarter, seasonally adjusted, said Kevin Lai, a Hong Kong-based economist at Daiwa. The report is due Nov. 11. Lai came closest in a Bloomberg News survey to predicting the 0.5 percent contraction in the second quarter.”
Comments »Australia’s Trade Surplus Retracts More Than Expected
Skousen: Actual Unemployment Rate Is at ‘Great Depression Level’
Beyond U6 at 16% Skousen says were around 20% and nearing great depression levels.
Some how it does not feel that way, but numbers do not lie….the men behind the numbers make a pitch and then you buy.
Comments »U.S. 10 year yield down .089, inside 2%
Apparently, the bond market is spooked.
Comments »A close look at Chinese poverty
Comments »Teng, who didn’t complete primary school, earns 70 renminbi (about $12 per day) working at a brick factory in Luan, a nearby city. His marriage prospects are poor, because he doesn’t earn much money. And he can’t leave for a higher-paying job on the coast because he must take care of his parents.
To reach this village in the Qinling Mountains, you drive 90 minutes outside bustling Xi’an on a deserted toll road. In China, the infrastructure frequently precedes the traffic. Turning off the highway, you climb into the mountains on a well-paved road that climbs around gorges, past a shallow, rushing river where water spills rapidly over large boulders, past a temple complex nestled in a small valley. The small bus beeped loudly every time it rounded a switchback. After 45 minutes, we pulled off the main road into the village — about 40 yards of paved road flanked by a couple dozen buildings with terra cotta roof tiles, and braids of drying corn nailed to the wall.
Here, 28 families scratch out a meager existence. The children have left for schools in larger towns, and the able-bodied who can seek work in the cities. The rest go into the mountains to gather herbs, grow some soybeans and corn, or subsist on extremely meager pensions of about80 renminbi ($15) per month.
Here’s some breaking news for the China bulls: Despite the gleaming towers of Shanghai, the monumental glass-and-steel sprawl of Beijing, the massive airports and high-speed rail networks, this is a very poor country. The urban China of bourgeois living, brand names and chic restaurants is real and growing. But the denizens of modern China are only 20 years removed from the poverty of Ta Ping. And a huge chunk of the country remains trapped in it.
“China is in the process of developing from a poor country to a rich country,” says Wen Hai, a senior professor of economics at Beijing University. “On the one hand you have the people on the coasts, and then you see the backwater.”
