James Seaberg

The Fed is Deflating: 10 Reasons Why

Jim, I commend you for your great analysis of our present situation with your recent three articles. It is amazing how many comments the article from the 10th of March 2008 has elicited by “flow5”. “flow5” mentioned Keyenes and Friedmann which both are wrong in mayor parts of their theories. I would like to submit that the study of Ludwig von Mises and his great work Human Action and related articles would solve many of our present-day controversies. This book can even be downloaded free of any charge courtesy of mises.org. If there are readers who are hurt by this recession and which are not economists, they probably would enjoy the very readable book The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve by G. Edward Griffin.

Import Prices and Retail Sales: Two More Clues About the Future

If we discount the retail/food service sales of the above chart by the "true" inflation calculated in the shadowstats.com, we will find that the retailers and food sellers shipped 10% less goods out of the door than last year (13% p.a. inflation minus 3 % higher nominal sales). That means the consumer bought 10% fewer goods than last year. Now, if that is not a recession!

Global 'Oil Shock' Rattles World Stock Markets

A scarce resource like crude oil can go up even in a fixed exchange rate system. We need only the concerted efforts of the major central banks to inflate the money supply. This unbelievable money supply growth which we are experiencing presently together with the prospect of peak oil will assure much higher oil prices even if the US falls into a recession. Solution: Buy USO (an ETF).