Economic Overviews

The Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Commission has released the latest report on Traffic Volume Trends, data through September. Travel on all roads and streets changed by -1.5% (-3.6 billion vehicle miles) for September 2012 as compared with September 2011. The 12-month moving average of miles driven increased a tiny 0.27% from September a year ago and the civilian population-adjusted data (age 16-and-over) has set a new post-financial crisis low of -8.6%. Words: 732

"Trying to do business internationally for Americans is becoming a real nightmare. The once land of the free & home of the brave has been transformed into George Orwell’s 1984 nightmare squared....The damage to international capital flows is off the charts. This single law has wiped out whatever international trade advantages Americans once enjoyed." ~ Martin Armstrong Words: 692

Now that President Obama has been re-elected, Obamacare will become reality and that means that a lot more people in the United States will have health insurance and, if the program works as it is supposed to, it also means that the growth of healthcare spending overall will eventually slow. Both of those are good but, in the near term, Obamacare also means a lot of people will be paying more taxes and higher insurance premiums. (You didn't think Obamacare was free, did you?) Below are some of the new taxes you're going to have to pay to pay for Obamacare. Words: 565

We’ve all heard countless times from mainstream economists, policymakers, and their ilk that America is somehow immune from consequences. They always pin their argument on the dollar standard. ‘Our’ central bank issues the reserve currency of the globe and that alone immunizes us from any repercussions. The 25% unemployment of Spain and Greece? The 50% unemployment among the young people in Spain? Forget about it! Never going to happen here because our paper is better than everyone else’s. Right? Sounds good, but only if you take them at their word and ignore the realities that lie just under the surface. [Let's take a closer look those realities.] Words: 2220

Until policymakers see the light, it's very slow and steady as she goes, with a chance of higher inflation on the horizon. This is not necessarily bad for the stock market, however, since I continue to believe that both stocks and bonds are priced to the expectation that growth will be very weak or even negative in the years to come. Words: 696

Total sales for the season are projected to be at $586 billion - a 4% increase over last year - and this year, mobile is going to make a big impact on just how that money gets spent. We've gathered a wealth of data relative to this year's holiday retailing season, specifically as it pertains to online and mobile behaviors, and you'll find that data in this infographic

In his effort to get lawmakers to mobilize, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke coined the term “fiscal cliff” in a testimony before the House Financial Services Committee on February 29, 2012. Investors consider it to be one of the biggest...risks that could cause markets to crater but since February, analysts have pointed to a host of other “cliffs” that threatened to destabilize the markets and the economy. Here are 8 others that people are talking about most. Words: 1140

China’s miracle is driven by one thing and one thing only: its trade surplus with the U.S., which went from zero in 1990 up to now more than $300 billion a year [but] since the darkest hours of the 2008 global economic meltdown, China has made little progress in shifting its reliance away from exports, and, as a result, the Chinese economy is dangerously exposed to a renewed downturn in global trade. Words: 500

It's easy to find analysts and investors who are certain that a deal [to avoid the fiscal cliff] will be reached, or at least that the can will be kicked down the road to buy more time. It's also easy to find more pessimistic views that are based on the lack of cooperation in the past, and a deeply polarized country and political system. However, I think many are missing the point, which is that austerity is coming to America - taxes are going up and government spending will be reduced - [and. as such,] the United States is likely to face a recession and market correction in 2013, regardless of whether or not a compromise is reached over the Fiscal Cliff. Words: 970

The (relative) impact on economies around the world would be major but particularly on Canada, Mexico and to a lesser extent on some other economies in a precarious state –- the UK, Germany, China, and Japan. [The details are illustrated, country by country, in a map below. Take a look.]