Via Lance Roberts of Street Talk Live,
While the general consensus from the media, and the majority of analysts, is that the U.S. economy will avoid a recession - there have been numerous indicators that have continued to point to deterioration in the economic fabric. Most recently industrial production in the U.S. dropped sharply, along with capacity utilization rates, due to the growing recession in Europe, and slowdown in China, which has impacted exports from domestic manufacturers.
This past week the monthly release of the Leading Economic Indicators showed that the leading-to-lagging indicator ratio dropped to 89.5 which matches the lowest level in more than 2 1/2 years. Historically when the leading-to-lagging ratio has fallen below 91 the economy was either in, or about to be in, a recession.

While it is not popular within the media, or blogosphere, to point out economic concerns but rather why markets are going to engage in a continued bull market - the simple reality is that by the time the NBER announces an official recession it will be far to late for investors to minimize the damage. The leading-to-lagging ratio continues to point to an economy that has very little, if any, actual momentum which leaves it very susceptible to exogenous shocks.
So, while there are many things to be thankful for within the economy this holiday season - it will pay for investors to continue to consider both sides of the economic argument as we move into 2013. Ignoring the trends of the macro-data could prove costly.
I'm short paper.
I think I'd be long rag paper... looks like a printing storm abrewin'.
Wonder if the data is available for the chart to be extended to the 1920s? I'd like to see how that scenario held up over a long time period -- not that this one ain't scary enough.
Wouldn't it be safe to say that there was never NOT a recession when this indicator was in this territory? I mean how sure does one have to be of this certainty.
America deserves a recession for "voting" Obama in again, a nice tough 1-2 year recession just to remind the masses how stupid they really are!
If I'm not mistaken, the last recession seems to have pre-dated Obama. Are you implying that "the other" candidate would have steered our course clear of the dreaded recession reefs? You are saying what exactly?
My view is that it's not who voted for whom, but that there was no viable alternative in this 2-party system. And that has been true for many, many election cycles now. If your solution is simply to vote for "the other guy", that has proven to be a faulty choice.
Quite right RockyRacoon. In fact most recessions over the last 150 years started under Republican administrations. Many complex factors go into creating recessions....not the least of which are schlerotic policies left over from previous administrations.....but the facts are the facts.....more recessions start under the Republicans. The down side of this is ususally there is a regime change to Democrats who wrongly take the credit for the post-recession improvement (note I did not say recovery....you can never recover from fiat induced booms without first eliminating fiat) when their policies put into place future hurt such as rampant debt. Then again....it was our Blessed Leader Ronald Reagan who opened that debt genie and bent over like no one else in American History to the Military Industrial Complex.
So yeah....in the end....it's a two party fisting-fest for us sheeple. But recessions do primarily start with Republicans since their banking pimps run rough-shod over the deregulation and banking gifts their Republican whores give to them.
All you need to know:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PkWf9M3rUw&feature=related
Ignoring the trends of macro data has been very profitable since March of 2009.
Green shoots that were actually withering sprouts left over from previous years that never grew.
Millions of jobs created out of thin air by the BLS, those that were actually created being minimum wage jobs going to people 55 and over.
$8 trillion more in debt with a couple hundred trillion dollars to go in unfunded liabilites.
Record people on food stamps, SS disability, a full 50% of the population receiving government assitance, over 50% of national income derived through government transfers. Corporations going out of business left and right. The real housing market still declining. 25 year low labor participation.
Yet, near record highs in stocks and a media celebrating that everthing is better than ever. As is was in the Soviet Block, propoganda can be very profitable to those with connections. You can watch your neighbor starve while the box claims there has never been a more bountiful harvest.
Agreed. It comes down to a question of corporate earnings, going forward. Gary Shilling says cost-cutting may have run its course.
You lost me at "consensus from the media".
The picture of Obama representing both the bankers and the mob is a very realistic one.
The international bankers’ plan was to diversify the American public, not rent a mob but buy a mob, using the 1965 Immigration Act. This would split the nation into multiple factions, making it more difficult for a political party or mass movement to compose an opposition to banker rule. Its success was apparent in the 2012 election results.
The powerful minorities got the message, voting accordingly en masse, and now, America’s middle class of small businessmen, doctors, skilled workers, engineers, property owners, savers and pensioners, is dead in the water unless it resists.
It is one thing for a country to lose a war; it means the enemy was stronger. But it is another for a country to lose its economy; it means the enemy was smarter.
America’s economic occupation by a power other than the people began in 1913 with the Federal Reserve Act; the international bankers using control of the nation’s money supply to since become absolute master of all the nation’s industry and commerce, and all domestic and foreign policy.
This near absolute control was played out in the 2012 election which turned the nation over to a combination of bankers and the mob under Obama, i.e., with Robert Rubin and the Hispanics arm-in-arm; the Chicago boys, AIPAC and Bernanke all of one team.
Turning the country over to the mob, IMO, is the end not the beginning of mob rule. Because it now becomes a question of whether or not the bankers can finish the job. I say they can’t.
It is the beginning of the final game with the tax-paying, property- owning middle class on one side and the low- and high-end takers on the other. In short, it is a question of whether the 2012 mob can finish the job of its socialist takeover of America, and I say, it can’t.
The reason is that the mob is unmanageable, untamable, and uncontrollable and when it begins to believe, as it is now told, that all property is public, it will be only a matter of time before complete chaos ensues. And the political class won’t have the ability to provide for the mob’s demands.
IOW, the American people have to consent to substantially higher taxes, to bringing more and more dependent voters into the country, to the continuing redistribution of wealth and to a growing acceptance of a police state and being checked at every point.
What I’m hearing and reading is they won’t.
JR...how about you research the concept 'high functioning schizophrenic' and consult with a psychiatrist. It is bad enough guys like Max Keiser get a TV show. I like to read comments here and I don't like wading through your garbage.
Why do people spread propaganda? It is fairly obvious that leftists, not some banking cabal, is seizing political power by use of racism and class envy.
The revolution of 1776 brought us the separation of church and state.
Perhaps the next revolution will bring about the separation of education and state.
...it will pay for investors to continue to consider both sides of the economic argument as we move into 2013.
the hell it will. be long or be wrong. that is all.
Looks like we should be coming out of the recession soon. Maybe Bernanke needs to lower interest rates and lend more.
What a world. What a world. We are doomed and the banksters are lying cheating theives.
Not an original thought but worth repeating: LEI is an anagram.
!EKNANREB KCUF
And the orhse's ssa eh dore ni no.
Please Lord, let me sell my house before the Sheeple awaken.
Why, is real estate going to crash some more? Won't money-printing raise prices of that light-volume equity like it has with stocks?
I believe that we will have a collapse of some form. So, I believe that housing prices will collapse.
If we do have a collapse(again, I believe we will), I think we will experience either a deflationary collapse, or a hyperinflationary boom-bust collapse. Either way, it's a collapse.
Then again maybe we shouldn't worry, the Bernank is on it. He has the perfect exit strategy that he talks about and has kept us updated on a very regular basis --> ZIRP, QE1, QE2, Operation Twist(gold price suppression), QE3... QEInfinity/Eternity/Forever. That IS the exit strategy. So, maybe we won't have a collapse!? Haha.
chart also suggests that a steep drop of 5-6% as in 2002 and others ‘signals’ recession, but not so in mid 1980’s.... & in 1990’s about 5% was ok.... About a 3% drop now
But employment was a-BOOMING just a month or two ago. How could this be? I mean, really, are yo saying we are being lied to by our government? Perposterous. Unpatriotic, even. Perhaps you need sopme time picking rice to think this over.
Actually, this chart screams 'buy stocks'
Entering a recession while we are not recovered from the last one will cause this one to hurt much worse.
They called the last one the "Great Recession" I wonder what they will name the coming hell-hole.
Love me some Lance!
:D
No matter which way I look at it, no matter what point I start from, I inevitably come up with the same result. Buy guns, gold, and ground bitchez!!
"Buy guns, gold, and ground bitchez!!"
Why go through all that trouble when it's much easier to just buy a politician,