World View: Eurozone Plummets into Deflation
- Eurozone plummets into deflation
Eurozone plummets into deflation
Inflation versus deflation (Don Stott, Silver Bear Cafe)
' Dec 2012 1.5% ' Jul 2013 1.1% ' Aug 1.1% ' Sep 1.0% ' Oct 0.8% ' Nov 0.9% ' Dec 2013 0.7%
This has been a fairly dramatic trend and demonstrates that deflation is becoming firmly lodged in the European economy.
For over ten years, mainstream economists have been predicting inflation or hyperinflation because central banks have had near-zero interest rates and have been pumping trillions of "printed" dollars into the economy. For ten years, Generational Dynamics has been predicting a deflationary spiral. Once again, generational theory is right, and mainstream economists are wrong. Mainstream economists didn't predict and can't explain the tech bubble of the 1990s, the real estate and credit bubble of the 2000s, or the financial crisis of 2007.
It was perfectly obvious that there was a huge real estate bubble in the 2004-2007 time frame, as I wrote about many times in that period. Mainstream economists, however, didn't even recognize the bubble until around 2009, when they started saying, "Oh yeah, by the way, there was a real estate bubble in 2006. Let's not do that again." Are you kidding me? Mainstream economists have no clue what's going on, and they have no clue what will happen next year, except to assume that the same thing that happened last year will happen next year, and you don't need mainstream economists to make that "prediction."
The Wall Street stock market bubble has gotten so large that even some mainstream financial advisers are predicting a crash soon. (See, for example, Estimating the Risk of a Market Crash, John P. Hussman Ph.D.) According to Friday's Wall Street Journal, the S&P 500 Price/Earnings index (stock valuations) on Friday (January 3) morning was 18.88, which is astronomical by historic standards, indicating that stocks are far overpriced, and the stock market bubble is worse than ever.
As Europe spirals into deflation, it's worth duly noting that Bank of England Governor Mark Carney is expressing concern about China's credit bubble. The Chinese credit system has grown to $24 trillion from $9 trillion in late 2008, equivalent to adding the entire US commercial banking system.
Generational Dynamics predicts a continued deflationary spiral, and a massive world financial crisis, as a crisis in one country or market creates a chain reaction that affects the entire world. Reuters and Telegraph (London) and Telegraph (Dec 2013)
70 percent of teens with ‘gay’ attraction later say they are exclusively heterosexual: study
ITHACA, NY, January 9, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com)
- Questions are being raised about the validity of research on
teenagers with same-sex attractions after a Cornell University professor
found that more than 70 percent of teens who said they had ever had a
same-sex “romantic attraction” later told researchers that they were
unreservedly heterosexual.
The study, published last month in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, also known as Add Health, which conducted four waves of surveys on teens as they matured into adulthood from 1994 to 2008.
Study author Ritch Savin-Williams, director of Cornell's Sex and Gender
Lab, said that some of the "inconsistent" data may have been caused by
confusion over the questions in Add Health, which could have led some
teens to incorrectly say they were homosexuals. But Savin-Williams
highlighted "the existence of mischievous adolescents who played a
‘jokester’ role"
"In this essay, we argue that researchers who base their investigations of non-heterosexuality derived from reports of romantic attractions of adolescent participants from Wave 1 of Add Health must account for their disappearance in future waves of data collection," Savin-Williams wrote in the introduction to his study.
He said that survey questions about “romantic attraction” might have confused the teens, especially since the Add Health survey did not define what the term meant.
He also noted the role of “jokester” replies, citing hundreds of survey responses from teens who said they had an artificial arm, hand, leg, or foot, which subsequently proved to be false when the teens were interviewed at home.
Click "like" if you want to defend true marriage.
The researcher pointed out that the existence of “inconsistent” teens is not new to social science studies, but inconsistencies in the Add Health data may have been ignored by analysts and may have led to misleading conclusions. “It’s not that we saw something that no one else had seen,” Savin-Williams said. “But they kept using the data...People should have said, ‘Hold on here. Who are these kids?’”
He noted that many previous Add Health data analyses have shown suspiciously high numbers of same-sex attracted teens, but argues that confused teens and false answers may have distorted those results, making the studies on sexual minority teens inaccurate.
"The high prevalence of Wave 1 youth with either both-sex or same-sex romantic attractions was initially striking and unexpected," Savin-Williams wrote. "Subsequent data from Add Health indicated that this prevalence sharply declined over time such that over 70% of these Wave 1 adolescents identified as exclusively heterosexual as Wave 4 young adults."
"Importantly, these ‘dubious’ gay, lesbian, and bisexual adolescents may have led researchers to erroneously conclude from the data that sexual-minority youth are more problematic than heterosexual youth in terms of physical, mental, and social health," Savin-Williams concluded.
An abstract with a link to obtain the full report is available here.
The study, published last month in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, also known as Add Health, which conducted four waves of surveys on teens as they matured into adulthood from 1994 to 2008.
"In this essay, we argue that researchers who base their investigations of non-heterosexuality derived from reports of romantic attractions of adolescent participants from Wave 1 of Add Health must account for their disappearance in future waves of data collection," Savin-Williams wrote in the introduction to his study.
He said that survey questions about “romantic attraction” might have confused the teens, especially since the Add Health survey did not define what the term meant.
He also noted the role of “jokester” replies, citing hundreds of survey responses from teens who said they had an artificial arm, hand, leg, or foot, which subsequently proved to be false when the teens were interviewed at home.
Click "like" if you want to defend true marriage.
The researcher pointed out that the existence of “inconsistent” teens is not new to social science studies, but inconsistencies in the Add Health data may have been ignored by analysts and may have led to misleading conclusions. “It’s not that we saw something that no one else had seen,” Savin-Williams said. “But they kept using the data...People should have said, ‘Hold on here. Who are these kids?’”
He noted that many previous Add Health data analyses have shown suspiciously high numbers of same-sex attracted teens, but argues that confused teens and false answers may have distorted those results, making the studies on sexual minority teens inaccurate.
"The high prevalence of Wave 1 youth with either both-sex or same-sex romantic attractions was initially striking and unexpected," Savin-Williams wrote. "Subsequent data from Add Health indicated that this prevalence sharply declined over time such that over 70% of these Wave 1 adolescents identified as exclusively heterosexual as Wave 4 young adults."
"Importantly, these ‘dubious’ gay, lesbian, and bisexual adolescents may have led researchers to erroneously conclude from the data that sexual-minority youth are more problematic than heterosexual youth in terms of physical, mental, and social health," Savin-Williams concluded.
An abstract with a link to obtain the full report is available here.
Por qué hemos estado perdiendo la guerra contra la pobreza desde la época de Johnson
Hace cuarenta años, el presidente de Estados Unidos Lyndon B. Johnson declaró en tono desafiante la guerra. No, no era contra el comunismo ni contra las fuerzas comunistas de Vietnam. En su lugar, este texano alto y desgarbado declaró la guerra contra la pobreza. Entre sus comentarios preparados para un Congreso conjunto, Johnson dijo de manera confiada: “…Nuestro objetivo no es sólo aliviar los síntomas de la pobreza, sino curarla y, sobre todo, prevenirla”.
Un estudio rápido del 36º presidente de Estados Unidos nos revela a un joven profesor expuesto a algunos de los más profundos niveles de pobreza e indigencia a lo largo de la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México, lo que ayuda a explicar por qué Johnson se puso un objetivo tan honorable y ambicioso cuando se convirtió en el jefe ejecutivo del país.
Desgraciadamente, tras cuatro décadas y miles y miles de millones de dólares gastados en los programas federales contra la pobreza, la realidad es que el número de americanos que vive en la pobreza ha aumentado. Según los últimos datos de la Oficina del Censo, el número de americanos que vive en la pobreza se mantiene en torno a los 50 millones. Mientras que el gobierno establece oficialmente el nivel de pobreza en unos ingresos individuales de alrededor de $11,500, para una familia de cuatro miembros la cifra ronda los $23,550.
En el caso de los hispanos, estas cifras dan aún más que pensar. Según un reciente artículo del Washington Post, los niños hispanos conforman ya el mayor grupo de pobreza infantil, lo que supone la primera vez en la historia de Estados Unidos que los niños blancos pobres han sido superados por los niños pobres de otra raza o etnia.
Puesto que se espera que el número de hispanos que vive en Estados Unidos se incremente en los próximos años y décadas, estas cifras revelan un problema sintomático no sólo de un grupo étnico, sino de todo el Estado a nivel colectivo.
Y aunque en las cuatro décadas desde que Johnson declaró la guerra contra la pobreza hemos visto una vertiginosa colección de avances tecnológicos que pocos podrían haber predicho, un viaje en el tiempo apenas habría hecho que nos sorprendiéramos al escuchar las recetas de la política federal sobre la mejor forma de reducir la pobreza. Los argumentos se pueden resumir de este modo: con el fin de reducir la pobreza, se incrementan el rol y el presupuesto del gobierno federal.
Con la excepción de la emblemática Ley de Reforma de la Asistencia Social de 1996, el Congreso y los sucesivos presidentes han adoptado el mismo mantra, esperando de forma desesperada poder desplegar algún día una pancarta que diga: “Misión cumplida” respecto a la “Guerra contra la Pobreza”, aunque no hayan tenido éxito hasta ahora.
Es por eso por lo que si hay alguna vez un momento oportuno para oír voces que disientan sobre cómo reducir de manera efectiva la pobreza, éste sería tan buen momento como cualquier otro.
Para empezar, reafirmemos lo que funciona. Por ejemplo, en cuanto a la perniciosa cantidad de niños hispanos que viven en la pobreza, la gran mayoría proviene de hogares monoparentales.
Mis colegas de la Fundación Heritage han pasado años estudiando estas cifras y publicaron un documento con un título muy oportuno: “Matrimonio, la mejor arma contra la pobreza infantil”. Entre los hallazgos del mismo destaca que, comparados con niños criados en familias intactas, los niños criados en hogares monoparentales tienen más probabilidades de sufrir problemas emocionales y de comportamiento.
Además, el actual sistema de asistencia social incentiva el que las personas vean los programas públicos de ayuda como permanentes, en lugar de temporales. Esto es exactamente lo opuesto al espíritu de la visión de Lyndon B. Johnson sobre cómo erradicar la pobreza: “Pues la guerra contra la pobreza no se ganará aquí en Washington… se debe ganar en cada uno de nuestros hogares”. Esos perversos incentivos están reflejados en un reciente informe que citaba que en la mayoría de los estados del país, vivir de la asistencia social resultaba más rentable que trabajar en un empleo por el salario mínimo.
Esta es la realidad que demasiado a menudo no se tiene en cuenta por culpa de la mezquindad de la política.
En vez de politizar la pobreza como hemos estado haciendo durante los últimos 40 años, pongamos el énfasis en la verdadera necesidad del rol que debe desempeñar la sociedad civil si queremos disminuir el número de americanos que vive en la pobreza. Y, por supuesto, eso no quiere decir que el gobierno federal no deba desempeñar ningún papel en esta honorable cruzada, sino que mejor resistámonos al deseo de delegar totalmente este verdadero problema en nuestros responsables públicos electos. El país nos lo agradecerá.
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