Dismal January Rolls On For Now Total Global Trade
More bad news for the rest of the world, or at least the world’s economists, that has been anticipating the US economy as a means by which to expel negative economic forces. The idea of decoupling is not just something that suggests the US economy is moving contrary to all the rest, but also the sole source of hope for anything but a dramatic decline once again. Outside of the Establishment Survey and the unemployment rate, there has been nothing to suggest that any such divergence has existed. The most pertinent data, especially trade data, has been unambiguous in actually pegging the world’s declining fortunes to the lack of actual growth of the US economy.
While that was “good” enough to describe the rut that had befallen in 2012, most recent months, especially the dismal nature of January’s updates across a broad cross-section, increasingly suggest an end to even that nearly three-year furrow – but not in the direction that payrolls anticipate.
The latest trade data from the Census Bureau surpasses the ugliness we have come to expect of the elongated cycle. Both imports and exports fell year-over-year in January, as weakness, contraction even, is now universal in terms of US demand for foreign goods and foreign demand for US goods. Trade has ground to a startling halt.
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