US Economic Indicators – New Ones Required says Large Diamonds LA
Calabas CA (PRWEB) July 20, 2013 -- On Wednesday, the 17th of July, the Federal Reserve released a report painting a mixed picture of the US economy, the report detailed growth in housing and new car sales whilst acknowledging consumer confidence and retail spending remained in negative territory. Following the report, the Federal Treasury released a statement indicating a likely winding back of the stimulus package due to the impending recovery of the US Economy.
Since the release of these two statements, economists have pondered openly the accuracy of the economic indicators being referenced by the Federal reserve. Aren't consumer confidence and spending more accurate markers for depicting the true position of the US economy than house and car sales, which after 5 years in negative territory, only had one way they could go?
The issue of addressing conflicting economic indicators is not a problem unique to the US. Australia’s economy is viewed as one of the world’s strongest, yet consumer confidence and retail spending there is also flat with the Reserve Bank dropping interest rates by several percentage points over the last 12 months. Normally in a strong economy, interest rates would rise, or stay level at best. So, is the Australian economy truly in good shape or is their Federal Government also looking at different economic indicators than their central bank?
This week in Australia, Rob Barron of http://www.shedspot.com.au has been petitioning the Reserve Bank (equivalent of the US Federal Reserve) to start using shed sales as an economic indicator.
He argues:
• Business confidence growing? Look for sales of large sheds of plant and equipment storage to rise.
• Consumer confidence growing? Sales of large backyard and workshop shed increase.
• Consumer confidence decreasing? Overall sales drop but sales of smaller sheds increase.
• Large spike in sales? Most likely an adjustment for a seasonal anomaly required (Eg: Home renovator’s reality show season).
In the US, Gall Raiman from http://www.largediamondsla.com heard of this idea and went to work to see if diamond sale statistics could also be used as an economic indicator.
“It would have been great to see large and diamond prices included in the Federal Reserve’s economic data,” says Gall. “But as it turns out, large diamond prices seem to operate outside the boundaries of the economy. The economy heading down? Large Diamond prices go up. The economy on the rebound? Large Diamond prices go up."
“Small diamond prices tend to track largely with consumer confidence as they are a consumer item but trying to use large diamonds as an economic indicator would be a waste of time.”
Prior to publishing this press release, comment was sought from the chairman of the US Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke as to his opinion on whether the US should consider using new indicators to measure the economy's health but at the time of release, no official comment had been received from his office.
Gall Raiman is the Principle of Large Diamonds LA, one of the USA’s largest private diamond buying services.
Gall Raiman, Large Diamonds LA, http://www.largediamondsla.com, +1 (818) 591-1944, [email protected]
Share this article