Economy

There is a strong correlation – both historically and logically – between interest rates and credit card debt delinquencies. As rates rise, outstanding debt burdens become difficult to service so, until the Fed reverses their tightening, things will only worsen for credit-card users from here. That’s why a serious question needs to be asked: with auto loans, student loans, and credit card delinquencies all on the rise – and we’re not even in a recession – what can we expect from here?

If the dollar keeps rising - which I don't believe it will, or can - U.S. exports will fall and imports will rise, negatively affecting GDP and the trade deficit. Things are going to get choppy.

Everyone seems to be preoccupied with rising inflation nowadays. While I agree that inflation will rise over the next 1-3 years, I don’t think it will even reach high-single digit levels. A return to the 1970s’ double-digit inflation is extremely unlikely. [Here's why.]

We have lived through a credit induced holographic standard of living considered to be “normal”. Never...has a genuine lifestyle been funded continuously on credit. Each attempt always failed miserably. The only difference today is that more of the world is involved along with more credit used than ever before. The only logical conclusion is this latest credit experiment to fund lifestyle will fail on a far grander scale than ever before!

According to market research company New World Wealth, the world has increased in private wealth by 12% over the past year to $215 trillion [of which,] incredibly, the vast majority of this wealth – about 73.5% – is held by the following 10 countries:

Almost all governments and commentators have lined up since 2009 to support the money-printing policy but the hard bit happens now as it starts to become obvious that the policy has failed. We now have all the debt, but we don’t have the growth that would enable it to be paid off

The petroyuan has launched. Let's investigate its success or lack thereof, primarily the latter.

The Fed has been trying to increase inflation, operating at the macro level, but what does inflation mean at the micro level — specifically to your household? Let's do some analysis of the Consumer Price Index, the best-known measure of inflation.

The Fed has created a Frankenstein monster and now they're trying to kill it to extract themselves from the loose monetary policies they put in place to take us out of the last financial crisis. They're more than likely going to take us into another crisis.

With volatility returning to domestic equities, it might be time for investors to consider increasing their exposure to foreign markets, specifically emerging Europe...With that in mind, I’d like to share with you the top six fastest growing countries in emerging Europe, based on their just-released manufacturing PMIs for the month of March.