Tag Archives: economy

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

I told you, “Watch the Commodities Market”, more bad signs of inflation

The Commodities Market “…is sending us the mother of all price signals. The prices of all important commodities except oil declined for 100 years until 2002, by an average of 70%. From 2002 until now, this entire decline was erased by a bigger price surge than occurred during World War II.”-Jeremy Grantham, GMO LLC

I recently wrote a post that advised people to stop paying attention to stock markets, and start watching commodities markets.  Jeremy Grantham’s research shows why.

According to Grantham, commodities prices (oil, gas, food, clothes, metals, etc) have been going up for the last eight years, big time.  The Federal Reserve has been downplaying inflation, until recently, but Grantham’s research shows inflation has been with us for a while.  He also claims the last eight years has seen the biggest jump in commodities prices since World War 2 (see, wars are not good for the economy, unless you become the world’s arms dealer and can stay out of any actually fighting).

Grantham says the rise of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) has also affected commodities, possibly permanently: “I believe that we are in the midst of one of the giant inflection points in economic history. The world is using up its natural resources at an alarming rate, and this has caused a permanent shift in their value.”

Grantham explains why everyone should pay attention to commodities, rather than stocks: “…stock prices and they can be, often are, psychologically flakey. But commodities are made and bought by serious professionals for whom today’s price is life and death.”

Grantham says commodities are truly affected by supply and demand, so, with the booming economies of the BRICS, and the ever growing and expanding War on Terror, all of which increase demand for limited supplies, viola, long term inflation!

“We all need to adjust our behavior to this new environment. It would help if we did it quickly.”-Jeremy Grantham, GMO LLC

Business/Economics, U.S.

Federal Reserve admits inflation is a problem, new jobs could make it worse

Despite years of denial, the Federal Reserve ( a privately run bank) is now saying inflation is a concern: “If we are going to have success in creating a long-run sustainable recovery with lots of job growth, we have to keep inflation under control.”-Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve Chairman

The problem is so bad that the Federal Reserve is worried that job growth could actually make things worse: “It is not clear that we can get substantial improvements in payrolls without some additional inflation risk.”

Federal Reserve chairman Bernanke had been saying for months that inflation isn’t that much of a problem.  Now Bernanke is saying that the best way to create jobs is to keep prices down.  In other words, fighting inflation is now the main focus, jobs will come later.  As part of the fight on inflation, the Federal Reserve has decided to keep the interest rates it charges financial institutions low/unchanged.

Business/Economics, U.S.

Unemployment up, spending way down, blame it on the inflation the government denies is happening

Job analysts were shocked Thursday, April 28, when the weekly first time unemployment claims jumped by 25,000.

“This is a major disappointment because it’s another move in the wrong direction. This is more than just a misstep for the job market. It’s a signal that the robust job growth we’ve seen recently is poised to lose momentum.”-Tim Quinlan, Wells Fargo

Total number of initial jobless claims jumped to 429,000 in the week ended April 23, analysts were expecting it to drop to 390,000.

The government is reporting that overall unemployment numbers show a drop in unemployment, but, more and more analyst think that’s because unemployed people have simply exhausted the time limit for unemployment benefits, NOT because they found work.

“We can’t be certain it’s a positive trend yet. The Labor Department doesn’t specify whether these people are rolling off their benefits or if they’ve found jobs.”–Tim Quinlan, Wells Fargo

Another factor is that each state has its own limits on unemployment benefits, so the federal reporting is not accurate state by state. For healthy improvement in the job market  the economy needs to add between 150,000 and 200,000 jobs every month, which it has not been doing.

Add to the jobs loss shock, the GDP shock.  The U.S. Commerce Department reported Thursday, April 28, that Gross Domestic Product percentages fell to 1.8% (it’s funny, some media reports are calling it an increase, maybe compared to last April).  At the end of 2010 GDP was at 3.1%, so April’s numbers are definitely a drop.

The Department of Commerce is blaming the drop on decreased consumer spending, due to, guess what, inflation.  The drop shocked analyst who were expecting GDP to hit 4.3%.

“Undoubtedly, consumers are cutting discretionary spending to compensate for rising food and energy prices.”-Jim Baird, Plante Moran Financial Advisors

Retail prices were up 3.8% from a year earlier.  Add to that the slow housing market, decreasing government domestic spending (even though the government continues to spend money outside the country), and even bad weather are taking a toll on any “recovery”.

 

 

Business/Economics, U.S.

WalMart says; What Economic Recovery?

“Purchases are really dropping off by the end of the month even more than last year. This end-of-month [purchases] cycle is growing to be a concern.”-Mike Duke, CEO WalMart

WalMart executives are doubting claims of an economic recovery, because their sales are down.

Most WalMart shoppers are low income workers who live paycheck to paycheck.  CEO Mike Duke said because of inflation (which official government agencies deny is happening) their customers are running out of money, faster than ever.

Duke admitted that WalMart had to raise prices on produce, but tried to compensate by lowering prices on electronics, but you can’t eat electronics.

WalMart officials are now going to try to lower all their prices, in the hopes it might boost their falling sales.

 

Fukushima

School 50km from Nuke Plant must remove top soil!

The city of Koriyama is 50km (31 miles) away from Fukushima Daiichi, well out of the evac zones, yet the soil at their schools are so contaminated they have get rid it.

Starting this weekend, they will remove the top 2 centimeters (.78 inches) of soil from 28 schools.  Even after the soil removal, school officials say they will not allow the children to play in the yards for more than one hour per day.

 

 

 

Fukushima

Female TEPCo employee contaminated 3 times safe limit!

A female employee, working at the Fukushima Daiichi nuke plant, is contaminated with three times the safe limits for women.  She was working at the damaged plant, directing emergency crews.

Tokyo Electric Power Company thinks she was contaminated when taking off the protective suit.  They say most of her contamination is internal, so they think she inhaled the radiation. TEPCo is now testing all female employees at the nuke plant.  Safe exposure limits for women are set lower than men.

Fukushima

Toyota has better idea of how bad the parts supply problem is

Toyota officials claim they have a better idea of the parts supply problem, but they refuse to go into any detail.

Supplies of microchips, rubber materials and paint additives are the main problems (affected by the loss of electrical power by the shutdown of nuclear plants, most of Japan’s electricity comes from nuclear power).  However, Toyota officials refuse to discuss how many parts they might have, or if there are going to be anymore production delays.

One Toyota official said they normally have two and a half months of inventory on hand, but did not elaborate.

Business/Economics, International

Venezuela quits Andean Community, wants to join MERCOSUR

Venezuela has officially quite the economic union “Andean Community”.  It’s made up of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.

Venezuela said it quite the trade group because of free-trade agreements signed with the United States and Andean pact members Peru and Colombia.

Venezuela now hopes to join MERCOSUR, a trade group made up of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.

Fukushima

Japan still issuing confusing radiation reports!

Reports are being issued saying emitted radiation levels, from Fukushima Daiichi, are going down.  At the same time reports are being made about increasing radiation levels in water.

Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission estimates the amount of radioactive emissions are down at around 1 terabecquerels per hour as of Sunday.  They compare that to 154 terabecquerels per day on 05 April.  But they are talking about emissions into the air.

Tokyo Electric Power Company is reporting skyrocketing radiation levels in water coming from Fukushima Daiichi’s damaged reactors.  A survey done on 21 April,  found an increase of radioactive substances in the flooded basement of Reactor 4’s turbine building.

TEPCo says the levels of cesium-134 and 137 increased about 250 times, compared to last month.  Radioactive iodine has also increased.

A possible reason for the decrease in air borne radiation, and an increase in water born radiation, could be due to the amount of water being pumped into the reactors.  However, the over all result is not a decrease in radioactive  emissions, it’s just shifted from the air to the water.