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While fears have mounted about a double-dip recession in the US and Europe, Mongolia’s small, open economy grew a staggering 17.3% year-on-year during the first half of 2011, according to a World Bank report released late last week. The country’s booming copper and coal mining industry is driving the economy, but at the same time makes it vulnerable to a global downturn. Mining comprises 22% of overall GDP and the sector expanded 40% in 2010, despite continued political controversy about how best to exploit the natural riches held in the two vast mining complexes of Oyu Tolgoi (copper) and Tavan...

In the wake of existing home sales reports on Monday, and new home sales yesterday, GDP and residential investment forecasts came tumbling down. Check out the latest "GDP Nowcast" from the Atlanta Fed. "The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the first quarter of 2015 was 1.7 percent on February 26, down from 1.9 percent on February 18. The first-quarter nowcast for real residential investment growth fell from 11.1 percent to 2.3 percent following Monday's existing-home sales release from the National Association of Realtors and yesterday morning's releases on sales and construction costs of...

In 2006-2007 I called for a recession. We got a big one. I called for another one in 2011, as did the ECRI. That recession never happened. 50% is not a very good recession predicting track record except in comparison to consensus economic opinions that have never once in history predicted a recession. Consensus opinion is batting a perfect 0.00% Investigating the Record By the way, the ECRI was late in calling the recession of 2007. They still deny it. And questions regarding the 2001 recession and ECRI have still not been answered. I have talked about all of this...

Economic growth in the Philippines will overtake China's by 2016 as the former country continues to be an outperformer due to a strong domestic upswing in businesses and industry, growing foreign direct investments and record-high remittances from Filipinos working abroad, according to GDP forecasts in the recently released "2015 Annual Outlook" by Citibank. In turn, China, long time among the fastest growing countries in Asia and worldwide, is cooling down its economy to make GDP growth "more sustainable" as it is suffering from high public debt, reduced domestic consumption, over-investment in housing and infrastructure and regional economic imbalances. China will...

There was much hope that when Q3 GDP soared to 5%, primarily on the back of Obamacare spending recalendarization and a massive consumption/personal saving data revision, that the US economy would finally enter lift-off mode. Those hopes were reduced by about 60% when moments ago the BEA announced that Q4 GDP was revised from the original 2.64% print to only 2.18%, which while better than expected, was the lowest economic growth rate since the "polar vortex."

If anyone has stopped to ask just why global central banks are in such a rush to create inflation (but only controlled inflation, not runaway hyperinflation... of course when they fail with the "controlled" part the money paradrop is only a matter of time) over the past 5 years, and have printed over $12 trillion in credit-money since Lehman, the bulk of which has ended up in the stock market, and which for the first time ever are about to monetize all global sovereign debt issuance in 2015, the answer is simple, and can be seen on the chart below....

At least one economist gets off campus frequently enough to see what the real economy looks like and, naturally, he’s a free market type. Perhaps he should take his colleagues on a field trip. “American businesses spend almost $2 trillion per year (or roughly another 10 percent of GDP [Gross Domestic Product]) complying with regulations, including the 79,311 pages of the 2013 Federal Register,” Nikolai G. Wenzel, a visiting assistant professor of economics at Florida Gulf Coast University, said at a Fund for American Studies conference last November. “Think for a moment that the Declaration of Independence adds up to...

Tyler Durden 02/16/2015 You know things are bad in the ship-building business when... amid considerably larger than expected losses, China's COSCO announced that it has dis-assembled 8 vessels in January alone (including 3 bulk carriers) and will be decommissioning and disposing of them as it awaits a "more conducive" environment. It appears that is not coming anytime soon, as The Baltic Dry Index just hit 522 - a new all-time low (down a stunning 53 of the last 55 days). As COSCO explains in its HKSE Statement:(snip)

Moody's Say's Cheaper Oil WILL NOT Boost Global Growth... What have I been saying all along... Someone should tell the morons at CNBC... Lower oil prices will fail to give a "significant boost" to global growth in the next two years, Moody's has said. The ratings agency said any boost from cheaper oil would be offset by the eurozone's economic woes as well as slowdowns in China, Japan and Russia. As a result, Moody's said it would not be revising its growth forecasts for the G20 countries. "For the G20 economies, we expect GDP growth of just under 3% each...

Two phrases that Daniel Patrick Moynihan put into America’s political lexicon two decades ago are increasingly pertinent. They explain the insufficient dismay about recent economic numbers. Moynihan said that when deviant behaviors — e.g., violent crime, or births to unmarried women — reach a certain level, society soothes itself by “defining deviancy down.” It de-stigmatizes the behaviors by declaring them normal. And sometimes, Moynihan said, social problems are the result of “iatrogenic government.” In medicine, an iatrogenic ailment is inadvertently induced by a physician or medicine; in social policy, iatrogenic problems are caused by government. When the economy grew by...

US GDP growth fell short of expectations in last year's fourth quarter, the government reports. National output increased 2.6% in the final three months of 2014 vs. the previous quarter (seasonally adjusted annual rate). The consensus forecast was looking for something better—a 3.2% rise, according to Econoday.com's survey of economists. The soft number for headline growth in Q4 is a bit surprising when you look at the statistical elephant in the room, namely, consumer spending, which accounts for nearly 70% of GDP. Personal consumption expenditures accelerated to a 4.3% pace in the fourth quarter, a handsome improvement over Q3's...

Markit's US Services PMI missed expectations of 53.7, priting at 53.3, its lowest since Feb 2014 (mid Polar Vortex). From record highs in June, PMI has plunged non-stop for six months leaving Markit noting Q4 growth is looking more like 2.0% than the 5.0% exuberance in Q3.US Services PMI plunges... and along with the tumble in manufacturing leaves the US Composite PMI at 14 month lows... It gets worse. From the report, via Chris Williamson, Chief Economist at Markit said:“The US economy lost significant growth momentum at the close of the year. Excluding the drop in activity caused by the October...

The folks over at the New York Times are keeping up their tradition of shilling for big government spending. In a recent column, the Times suggests that a recent uptick in government spending is creating prosperity, and boosting the economy. According to the Times: For a long stretch, government spending cutbacks at all levels were a substantial drag on economic growth. Now, finally, relief is in sight. For the first time since 2011, local, state and federal governments are providing a small but significant increase to prosperity.Yeah… Government is taking your money, spending it on redistributive welfare programs and special interest...

December 26, 2014 by John Hinderaker About that 5% GDP Growth Rate… Just before Christmas, the Commerce Department announced that third quarter GDP growth came in at an upwardly-revised 5% annual rate. Nearly everyone hailed this as wonderful economic news. The New York Times celebrated the apparent return to rapid growth: [H]ere, for the holidays, is the festive news: The economy roared ahead at a 5 percent annual growth rate in the July through September quarter, the fastest quarterly growth since 2003. …The biggest revision that boosted G.D.P. was in personal consumption spending, the biggest engine of overall economic activity,...

The revision which helped create last quarters incredible growth was the forced mandatory costs incurred by the American people from the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), which accounted for two-thirds of the entire boost in consumer spending. Consumer spending, as opposed to the recording of revenues from actual production and industry which used to be the primary components of economic growth in America, on average accounts for more than 70% of the entire Gross Domestic Product. And if you took out payments made by the American people towards mandatory government healthcare, GDP may have been in negative growth for last quarter,...

On December 23, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) of the Commerce Department issued its latest revision of U.S. economic growth for the third quarter period (July through September). According to the BEA, the U.S. economy grew at a 5.0% annual rate during that quarter. Unfortunately, the once honorable Bureau of Economic Analysis of the Census Bureau tweaked the quarterly GDP numbers in order to achieve the 5% growth rate. This tweaking was predicted by Tyler Durden of zerohedge.com.When Durden analyzed the final revision for the first quarter back on June 25 (Here's the reason for the total collapse in Q1...

Evidence is mounting that the U.S. economy is kicking into high gear. Gross domestic product soared 5% on an annual basis in the third quarter, the government said on Tuesday. To put that in perspective, it's the strongest quarter of growth since 2003. "Other than the first quarter's weather-induced contraction, there's no doubt the economy has been great this year," said Dan Greenhaus, chief global strategist at BTIG. Investors cheered the news, sending the stock market to record highs with the Dow crossing 18,000 for the first time ever.

Fast forward to today when as every pundit is happy to report, the final estimate of Q3 GDP indeed rose by 5% (no really, just as we predicted), with a surge in personal consumption being the main driver of US growth in the June-September quarter. As noted before, between the second revision of the Q3 GDP number and its final print, Personal Consumption increased from 2.2% to 3.2% Q/Q, and ended up contributing 2.21% of the final 4.96% GDP amount, up from 1.51%. So what did Americans supposedly spend so much more on compared to the previous revision released one...

Sam Ro December 23, 2014America is just killing it. Q3 GDP growth was just revised up to 5.0% from last month's estimate of 3.9%. This is the fastest pace of growth since Q3 2003. This was also much stronger than the 4.3% expected by economists. "The increase in real GDP in the third quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from PCE, nonresidential fixed investment, federal government spending, exports, state and local government spending, and residential fixed investment. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, decreased," the BEA said. Personal consumption growth was revised up to 3.2% from 2.2%....

There’s much worrywarting over the new figures from the IMF IMF telling us the fact that China is now the world’s number one economy in terms of size. The truth is though that, other than for collectors of statistical trivia, this really isn’t important. Perhaps on a par with wondering how Lady Gaga is going to dress next but no more than that. Because the whole idea of “an economy” as defined by the borders of a nation state is pretty arbitrary anyway and further, it matters a great deal more how many people that economy is spread over than...