Economic Status – Now and the Future
“Correlation does not imply causation”. We often hear this from engineers. This may be true as well when it comes to economic analysis. Many economists do not have the exact idea of the difference between cause and effect. Their present method of analyzing the status of the economy only focuses on the relationship of the events happening, not on what happened that has caused the other to happen.
One good example of this is inflation analysis. Most of the reports regarding the economy are actually not factual, and the government analysts do not do anything about this issue. We tend to blame the leaders or capitalists in other countries, without even thinking that most of the blame should be against us. We all need to consider the fact that government’s action causes inflation. The prices of the products and services may increase or decrease without inflationary pressure, but as the time the overall US price level rises; it must be related to government’s actions.
By definition, Inflation is characterized by he reduced value of dollar due to the increased number of the same currency pursuing the same number of goods. More money printed doesn’t make the country any richer. A classroom experiment will represent a sample of inflation.
For example, a classroom has 20 people, and a chocolate bar costs $10. If you continue to increase the amount of money these 20 people already have, they are much willing to pay more then the actual price of the chocolate, thus increasing its price.
Increasing the amount of money produced will not produce any good. It has been tested and proven over the years, no matter how some contradicts it. Many countries are affected by this idea of increasing money supply; some Latin American countries, and the US itself.
Once you have observed that the value of dollar is decreasing compared to any other currencies in the market, it means there has been mismanagement on our currency. Many of the world currencies now are also experiencing inflation.
Still, we can only see price increase in some of the items. We do not feel yet inflation. This is actually due to the decrease in production cost which is faster that the fall of the dollar value. One good example is the production in China, the clothes are so affordable hat we don’t feel inflation impact yet. The idea here is that these increased productions will counter the effect of inflation in a lot of categories. The same will also happen to other volume-produced items such as electronic toys or appliances. But there are still other items that will not be affected like oil, metals and real estates.
These things mentioned, including packaged foods and books, will give you a picture of what inflation rate is. Prices have been rising moderately, and will give us the idea of what is really happening with regards to price level. It is more practical as compared with the statistics we get from CPI index. It is considered a political index since it only provides information controlled by the government, not the real score. Different thing is happening with oils and metals, the icreased prices of these commodities are mainly due to inflation. If the prices of raw material will increase, it will greatly affect the goods produced by China. Even so, it will have very little impact on the price. The price increases due to oil price hike like delivery cost actually is not related to inflation.
These things just make it more difficult to sort out the real cause of price increase. In an open market, it is really hard to manage the economy. Even analysts could not differentiate true inflation from just a normal law of supply and demand. .
We do not immediately feel the effect of this price increase, and we do not have enough idea on the actions taken by the government to resolve the issue; but we can be sure that if we increase money supply, inflation will happen again. If this can be prevented, we can be assured of a more stable economy.
These things would make us consider investing in manufacturing companies in developing countries like Mexico. The truth is, most of the cost worldwide decreases, not increases as what they want to inform us. Because of he demand in oil, it has increased in price. But this only encourages the mining companies to look for more resources.
Things do balance themselves naturally. As long as there is a low amount of interest rates, real estate may rise, but this will not last long. When prices become cheaper, we can then expect more moneys available for other purchases or investments. The government has lots to contribute on this price increase issue. The current administration is said to have spent more money than any other administration in our history, in spite of all the campaigns to reduce the burdens of taxpayers. This is also happening in other countries around the world and if not stopped, will prevent the growth of economy.
We may look at ourselves as negative thinker. According to Bear, Stearns’ chief economist David Malpass in last Monday’s Wall Street Journal, people are actually saving more on household goods, despite all the news to the contrary. He also noted that we have inaccurate ways to measure our household savings. It is not distinct when it comes to measuring purchases for consumption as compared with purchases for lasting value.
There ahs been a trend happening now. Investors only invests their assets in a way that even dollar is weakening, they will still benefit from it. It would be much better to hold foreign currencies once we saw a trend of decreasing value of other countries’ currencies and increasing value of dollar in our country.
There has been a small sign of weakness in the economy like the falling of rising markets though we see strong business results. There has been uncertainty and fear among investors. There is a question if these falling shares go along with the increase in US interest rates.
As much as possible we do not do much business with countries like China, or Venezuela because the risk of expropriation is low. There are also some countries that though seem not pure and perfect, but it offers practical opportunities with risk at fair levels. Some of these countries are New Zealand, Ireland, Switzerland, and even Colombia and Botswana.
Do not be affected by these economic issues, and the sudden increase in prices. Think of it as an opportunity to purchase. Invest in countries that know the rule of law, and buy. This is the reality. This is the kind of current that you need to let it wash you away, making you competitive.