Business

Submitted by Pater Tenebrarum via Acting-Man.com,

A Negated Breakdown

There have been remarkable gyrations in the gold sector lately. The typical rebound out of a November/December low (typical in recent years after the end of the tax loss selling period) was initially cut short in January in the course of the global stock market decline. This was a bit surprising, because it was widely held that the recovery in the gold price was a result of said stock market decline.

The Keynesians will not be pleased. Despite the holiday season, December spending disappointed with no change MoM (0.0% vs +0.1% exp). This is further sentiment-destructivbe as income data rose more than expected MoM (+0.3% vs +0.2% exp) even as income growth YoY slipped to its weakest in 9 months.

Perhaps most sadly of all, 42% of December Personal Income gains came from Government Social Benefits, mostly Social Security and Medicare. Vive le recovery.

After last week's relatively quiet, on macro data if not central bank news, week the newsflow picks up with the usual global PMI survey to start, and end the week with the US January payrolls report.

Here is a closer look at what to expect via DB:

Haruhiko Kuroda's move to NIRP and Mario Draghi's implicit promise to ramp up PSPP in March underscore the extent to which Janet Yellen has made a policy mistake by hiking at a time when the US economy (not to mention the global economy) looks to be decelerating and the disinflationary impulse looks to be gathering steam.

The West Is Traveling The Road To Economic Ruin

Paul Craig Roberts

Michael Hudson is the best economist in the world. Indeed, I could almost say that he is the only economist in the world. Almost all of the rest are neoliberals, who are not economists but shills for financial interests.

If you have not heard of Michael Hudson it merely shows the power of the Matrix. Hudson should have won several Nobel prizes in economics, but he will never get one.