Is A Crash Coming?

I am afraid things are going to get really bad. My grocery bill is running about 25% higher and gas remains too high. Fortunately I no longer live paycheck to paycheck but if I did it would be rough.

What scares me is the only solution that seems to come from DC right now is to give away more money.

Personal balance sheets are as strong as they’ve ever been for consumers. Rates are still near all time lows. People are tired of staying home To buy goods and once the weather warms up and covid fears abate, everyone will be looking to travel and buy more services instead of goods.

The only worry we have is if the transition of the feds monetary policy goes too fast. Markets expect t tightening, so as long as they’re not spooked by rapid rate increases the people and businesses wil continue to spend raising earnings. Any crash of 25-30% or more will be at least 2 years away, cause I’m the short term with all the cash sitting in middle to upper class pockets it will continue to fuel equities higher. Any downturn is just temporary and consider it a buying opportunity. If you can look ahead 5-10 years the markets will be twice as high as they are now, so anyone with time on their side should hope for a crash, but it won’t be anytime soon. Dow 60,000 by the time 2030 calendar year comes, but that is an easy prediction. The hard prediction is what route the markets take to get there in the short term, yet that’s always been a fools errand.

More $$ has been lost by people trying to protect themselves from market losses or by predicting them than the actual losses themselves, but if you ask broke ass sore losers like Icee and SJG they’ll tell you it’s a Ponzi scheme. Yeah right, capitalism is a scheme?

I’m not sure I’m seeing middle and upper middle pockets flush with cash. They were flush with cash before but I think for a lot of people that cash is spent. Their child tax credits ran out and they’re going to get hit on their tax returns this year. What’s helping them though is rock bottom interest rates and (at the moment) healthy portfolios - maybe it evens everything out.

In my world nobody is spending any money at the moment. What I can’t figure out is do they have money and are afraid to spend or are they just not interested in spending (due to habit changes during COVID) or do they simply not HAVE the money to spend.

I for example completely changed my spending habits during COVID as well as my routines, and well they’re probably not going back to preCOVID ways ever again, and I’m okay with that. I guess the constant reminder of mortality will make you appreciate more of what you have than what you do not have.

IMHO the housing and stock markets need to correct at some point. As much as we like seeing our home values and brokerage accounts look so good, the reality is that both markets are in bubble territory due to too much fiscal and Fed stimulus. The current valuations are completely divorced from historical norms and reality and are simply unsustainable over the long-term.

The only question is when and how. The stock market is already pricing in anticipated Fed rate bumps and obviously isn't particularly scared, which IMHO is actually a bad sign re: inflation.

If they were planning to do something serious enough to tame inflation, instead of continuing to assume that it will fix itself, then we'd already be taking big hits on both fronts along with a recession, but those hits would be temporary. The recession would likely be over in a year and the markets would catch back up within a few years once organic earnings and growth catch up.

Instead it looks like they're content to pussy foot around and see what happens. That's OK for markets in the short-term, but very bad once inflation grows deep roots. Remember the lost decade of the 70s, when inflation raged while stocks continued a slow but inexorable long-term decline? If someone doesn't do something to hit the brakes soon, we could be in for something like that, which is much worse than some short-term pain now.

The problem is that nobody wants to face the political consequences of doing what is necessary, partly because they would have to admit how badly they fucked up to get us here in the first place. So here we are.

I agree with RD on the Housing Market and the Stock Market and I'm amazed that the correction hasn't already occurred. I don't see a correction to Car pricing in the manner that Shailynn sees it, but there will certainly be a correction of 5 or 10% when there is availability in the dealership. As for the showy ticket items (purchased by the big spenders), there would have to be availability of big ticket items for the consumer to purchase.

The biggest issue I see is there are not enough people that want to work. I have been inside factories working at only 60% of capacity because they can't find enough labor. A shortage of truck drivers means we are paying double to ship a load to California compared to two years ago. The problem with car manufacturers is they cannot get chips and other materials. I heard on the radio the other day that it will probably be two years until car prices come down to where they should be.

We’ll see how it goes smart people have taken some profits, by now, and if you count on the market for your income, you should maintain 1-2 years income in cash, 5 years from now the market will be 25% higher than it is now, diversify people, maintain a smart portfolio don’t place all your eggs in one basket, and if you have enough money, some alternative investments are in order.

Rockie, you are absolutely right on big ticket items. As for autos, I read an article awhile back where analysts expected car prices to correct themselves, but the argument was WHEN. Some analysts predicted it will happen beginning to mid 2023. Others predicted it won’t happen until beginning of 2024. I guess I should reiterate my previous statement to say I was hopeful it will correct sinner than later not that I expect it to.

Man great comments from everyone so far.

Everything is too expensive. And prices may stabilize but won't go down. Meanwhile wages are stagnant and there aren't many good jobs out there. The majority are low wage part time with no benefits no childcare options.

The system is showing uts failures. You cant have a consumer society without sustainable development and without consumers who can afford shit

And businesses working with skeleton crews to maintain high profit margins it's just greed

Sinclair mentioned truck freight. And he’s correct. The average guy in the street sees prices going up but they don’t realize how much surging truck freight costs are a primary driver (no pun intended) of overall inflation.

There’s both a shortage of drivers and trucks and I really don’t see a solution in the near term. Some Large truck OEM’s have stopped taking new orders until 2023 primarily because they can’t get the microchips for the onboard electronics. This is only going to further exacerbate the truck shortage

Just two years ago a weekly full truck load shipment from a primary supplier was $700 and it’s now over $4000

How does a shortage of trucks affect higher lap dance prices?

shailynn said: "Man great comments from everyone so far."

Considering what came after this comment, it's a good thing you applied the caveat "so far."

From what I've seen it seems people are spending about the same amount they had been before the stimulus money train started. What has changed is they are spending it differently than they did before.

Some of the change is due to the way people's habits changed during covid. A lot of people are spending more money on upgrading things around the house ranging from furniture to appliances to home entertainment and less on things like clothing and jewelery due to the shift to work at home for a lot of businesses.

Some of the change, especially for middle and lower income households, is due to inflation. While people are spending as much as they did before they are getting less product for the same cost and have had to use part of their discretionary income to cover necessities like food and gas.

On the bright side a lot of companies are projected to offer bigger cost of living raises this year so that should help offset some of the inflation.

w.r.t. car-prices; I assume they would come down significantly from where they are now if we go into a recession in the near future.

Something else that can throw a monkey-wrench into car-prices is if China invades/takes-over Taiwan - it's my understanding Taiwan Semiconductor is the largest chip-producer especially when it comes to high-end/advanced chips.

Let's go Brandon!

I'm not too sophisticated when it comes to the markets/economics - but some are saying that the markets have been artificially inflated for years - AFAIK we've had pretty-much continuous QE/money-printing for over a decade which to me is a sign of a "fake good economy/market" - I've also heard mentioned that only a handful of stocks (mostly the big tech stocks) had been keeping the S&P at its recent high-levels and that most of the S&P stocks have been losers for a good-while now which is a troubling sign and another sign the economy and markets were not as "awesome' as they appeared.

"... Let's go Brandon ..."

That is my biggest concern personally - that the current administration is more focused on keeping permanent power and is willing to do anything to maintain power including tanking the economy (analogous to supporting the stupid "defund the police shit" that has had atrocious results but it seems they don't give a fuck nor take responsibility for it and all they emphasize is "using the right pronouns" or "it's all Trump's fault" or "it's because of white supremacy")

Facebook has been down ~25% most of the session today

The markets have been artificially inflated since 2008 or so. That is when the fed and treasury completely disconnected from reality. All of the free money they have been giving out to the airlines, the solar industry, the auto companies, the banks, and you and I has all been backed by nothing! By creative accounting. That is why our national debt has been exploding at an ever-increasing pace. We are at a point where inflation and increasing prices have those that could afford to spend, unwilling to spend. Product scarcity has those who wish to spend, unable to spend. Many of our biggest industries have been stifled by the lockdowns - movies, television, auto manufacturing, farming. Only pharmaceuticals and online-shopping/delivery has really boomed, while the majority of that manufacturing is done overseas. I would like to buy a new tablet, but prices are way up with the chip shortage and I would prefer to wait. I would like to buy a new truck, but even without the chip-shortage prices, too many production facilities have been idled. I cannot find the Ranger or Maverick that I want before mid-2023. I would like to refurbish my backyard pool and add a sauna, but all of the labor markets involved have a worker shortage fed by inflated UEB. UBI would really fuck things up (with more money caked by nothing).

Worst of all, no one is being held accountable. For all of the massive fuckups in international commerce and suply chains, defense, diplomacy, border security/illegal immigration, national health policy, cybersecurity. and on and on - noone is getting fired or even sternly reprimanded. It's all excuses and shoulder shrugging. I think that's why the admin is trying to have such a focus on Russia fucking with Ukraine - a wag the dog scenario to distract us from everything else (when Biden't own weakness and fecklessness also emboldened Putin).

I don't see anything improving before 2024. Even if the GOP does win the house and senate, so what? Did they repeal Obamacare like the promised? No. Did they prosecute Hilary for her egregious violations of national security laws? No. Did they uncover and file criminal charges where applicable for all the bullshit and wasted gov't money during the Obama admin, or during the false impeachment investigations against Trump? No (although they lost the House in 2018). It doesn't matter, the swamp protects its own. That is why Biden is getting away with murder, while Trump couldn't even open his second jacket button without it being a dog-whistle to the neo-Nazis or ordered by Putin.

The root cause is a criminally complicit mainstream media which prioritizes dividing and vilifying GOP voters, and refuses to report the truth about the admin, democrat pols, BLM, etc. as the truth runs counter to their chosen narrative and would blow up the credibility of their reporting from the past 15 years or more.

Government has gotten too-big and too-powerful - add to that a sold-out media, and politicians are free to act more like tyrants w/ little to no repercussions especially with rigged elections - the current administration seems little worried about how bad shit is and how terrible their poll-#s are and instead of changing-course they actually double and triple down; this gives me the impression they feel they have something in their back-pocket to win future elections no-matter how fucked-up things are.

It seems the Dems were counting on HR1 and taking over elections as their ticket to perpetual power no-matter how fucked-up the country is - I wouldn't doubt they continue to push this and get it passed somehow someway or something similar - rigging of upcoming elections is the only way I see they can stay in power and they'll do w/e they need to do/rig in order to maintain the power they IMO got illegitimately in the fist place.

I have news alerts from The New York Times, Washington Post, and Google, and I learned about the Facebook crash from Papi's post above. Just shows you need to keep up with TUSCL to stay up to date.

If you’re trying to figure out the market based on your political leanings you’re going to lose a lot of money.

Rabble rabble rabble!

Rabble, rabble, more rabble!

I just got notice my new couch is going to arrive in March, after ordering it January of 2021. 14 months from order to delivery. At least I locked into the price when I ordered. This is the biggest cause of inflation, the backlog and demand for goods. This will transition to services, and of course I nflation will moderate significantly when we no longer buy as many foods. Supply and demand is working like it always does. Be patient grasshopper!

don't believe everything you read on the internet. I sold my share of ford at $20 so that was double profit. But I doubt a CRASH is coming but more like a slow down. Don't time the market, just buy when you think it's low and sell when you think it's high based on your own research.

The so much going on in the economy that can easily be fixed. That means there’s a good chance the stock market will continue as a mild bull market for at least the next year.

Also JP Morgan did a study that showed there’s trillions of unspent stimulus money in the pockets/accounts of millions of Americans. That money will be spent on cars, durable goods, home improvement etc when the supply chain improves and prices come down a bit.

Some are saying the Fed can't really do much about inflation (in case it does not go away on its own) - w/ the massive federal-debt interest rates can't be raised high-enough to contain inflation if it continues to surge - also higher inflation is seen as a positive w.r.t. the value of the huge federal debt

I think the avg person is concerned about the economy and concerned about the near-future and I don't think there'll be spending and investing as if nothing was wrong - we'll just have to wait and see how it plays out - there could be a meltdown or it could be a temporary blip and things get back on track

Right now this inflation is world wide, blame whoever you want, it’s not a single country problem, the only way to stop inflation in the US would be to disengage from the world and y’all know that isn’t not going to happen , anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional and doesn’t understand what is happening.

I live in New England, I didn't go anywhere in all of January to avoid the covid spike. I'm planning on spending $3,000 on dumb stuff in February. Mostly casino/strip club but I will also probably buy some tickets for celtics games and shit like that.

^ nice - I think we just solved our economic issues 👍

===> "...the only way to stop inflation in the US would be to disengage from the world and y’all know that isn’t not going to happen , anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional and doesn’t understand what is happening."

Wrong 25. When a country raises its interest rate, it also makes its currency stronger in the foreign exchange markets, which pushes the price of foreign goods down. Pair this with less demand because borrowed money is more expensive and you get a nice 1-2 punch.

Pretty-interesting chart of home-prices vs income - it shows it skyrocketing in the 2000s doing the housing-bubble culminating in the 2008 GFC - interestingly, this ratio is currently higher than it was at its peak prior to the GFC:

https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-pric…

Right Rick but you’ve conveniently left out the supply issues and the fact that there’s a real worker shortage so if the goods ain’t available there’s nothing else to do but wait till the goods become available again
If you’re trying to get to the fed all they can do is increase the cost of money but it still won’t make the goods available

I think that Papi knows a lot more than he's letting on.

No doubt the Fed is feeling politically handcuffed right now. The federal government is definitely benefitting from increased inflation-driven tax receipts and a cheapening of their national debt. Inflation is an insidious hidden tax on any country's population.

Conversely, if/when the Fed is forced to act, the annual budget deficit will balloon from jacked up interest payments, trading partners will bitch and moan because they have to transact in more expensive US dollars, the central banks of other countries will get upset because their currency value would diminish so substantially against the dollar, housing and stock market bubbles will burst, the economy slows...I could go on. Almost nobody is happy when the Fed has to administer a strong does of interest rate medicine.

For many politicians, an inflation trap is a domestic political nightmare. People are upset when prices are rising too fast and they also hate you when their homes/investments devalue and the economy slows down. The only way to win is by never getting there in the first place. But here we are. The feds fucked up by pouring too much gasoline on the economy and now someone needs to be the adult in the room and administer the medicine. I won't hold my breath that this will happen anytime soon.

That I agree with but the fact is every administration has spent way more than they had a right to, one side of the aisle gives easy money to corporate interests and the other side wants to make everything available free of charge to people that don’t want to work for it, it’s past the point of any real solution, the only way this gets fixed is with a tremendous amount of pain and suffering, my kids will be fine, but there’s a whole world of hurt coming down the road hope I’ve made the right moves.

25, we only have supply issues, including worker shortages, because we are suffering from an excess of demand. Make money dramatically more expensive and demand decreases by a lot, both because some people don't want to pay the cost of borrowing while others find it profitable to once again increase their savings and fixed income investments. The ideal spot is that point at which demand is in equilibrium with what an economy can optimally produce.

Truth be told, I suspect that nothing short of a recession will pull us out of this inflation trap. What will also help is when state and local governments finally stop spending relief funds like sailors on shore leave and when Obamacare subsidies reduce back to normal at the end of this year, which may force some people back into the workforce.

I don’t really know what to do. Normally I’d just hold on to some cash and wait for something to happen. Shit is wobbly right now. But with inflation so crazy going on you want to do something with your money.

"... I think that Papi knows a lot more than he's letting on ..."

I'd say I know a bit more than the avg person that doesn't take the time to look into this - when I say I'm not sophisticated w.r.t. these topics it's b/c it's not something I have studied/researched/read-about - I just have a certain curiosity about it and listen to what others say (YouTube vids; etc) but I don't have enough of a foundation to know if what they are saying it absolutely true or if I'm just drinking the Koolaid they are serving - i.e. the things I've posted it's not b/c I deduced them myself by seeing what's going-on, I mention them b/c it's what others "that seem knowledgeable" are saying.

My area of expertise is big-booty-clubs.

@25, we see a lot of things differently, but your last post I agree with 100%.

What we need are price controls. Punish businesses that price gouge. Increase production. Raise wages. Invest in community development.

Let prices go up exponentially. As tough as it will be for me ....lol. I love watching my enemies suffer. Lower wages, end welfare and watch those who elected Biden pay the price. If prices quintuple I will tighten the belt and lol, nothing will change for me.

Quote of the thread: 'My area of expertise is big-booty-clubs.'

And of course the biggest loser is saying the words price controls, anyone remember the WIN, whip inflation now, during the Nixon Ford years, price controls are a failure, one thing Biden could do is ditch Trumps tariffs that would actually help.

We are already in a crash.

We had been in a very thinly stretched bubble. It was ready to blow at any time. But the COVID response did it.

Crashes are always caused by booms, by the over production and over consumption. Booms are fueled by lies.

No one can know what will happen tomorrow. If they could, then that would already be reflected today in hiring, in purchasing, and in securities prices. As it is, things are uncertain. And then there is still uncertainty about COVID and the hysterical response. And there is the threat of war over Ukraine and Taiwan.

Our economic system stopped working in the 1870's. Ever since it has taken war and oppression to give the illusion that it still works.

The worst thing we could do now is to keep pretending that our economic system works, and to keep on fueling the Ponzi scheme and to keep on blaming immigrants, minorities, and displaced workers, and to keep going along with the Supply Side Voodoo.

SJG

Joni Mitchell Amelia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N7gPcCg…

TJ Street
https://tuscl.net/photo.php?id=1132
https://tuscl.net/photo.php?id=2305

Martinism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0octoNH…

I think the housing market casts a long shadow. It feels very Have and Have Not right now. If you owned a home in 2021 you could cash out refi for a lower rate and more money in your pocket. Meanwhile rents are sky high.

Covid is still a thing. Hospitality is still recovering. Big festivals are coming back this year. Supply chain still sucks. Oh and Russia is saber rattling.

Wages are rising though. The labor market is likely to stay tight for a while. Most middle class Americans probably won't get laid off anytime soon.

I guess it feels like the Covid recovery has flattened and we are reaching a "what's next?" inflection point.

Wages are rising, but that is because they measure it in dollars, and not in loaves of bread.

SJG

OMS Martinism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0octoNH…

TJ Street
https://tuscl.net/photo.php?id=1132
https://tuscl.net/photo.php?id=2305

FB closed-down 26% and Amazon almost 8% - can you imagine the millions Zuckerberg and Bezos lost today; not that it makes much of a difference to them

These severe market gyrations over the last few days feel like the tremors before the big one - let's hope not - in Brandon we trust - not

===> "Wages are rising though. The labor market is likely to stay tight for a while. Most middle class Americans probably won't get laid off anytime soon."

Sure, they'll just have their purchasing power further eroded each day that the Fed sits on its ass and lets this continue. Wage increases are nothing to cheer when they happen in the backdrop of high inflation because, as history has amply taught us both here and abroad, they NEVER keep up when inflation gets out of hand.

You know if you read through everyone’s post - just about everyone has an opinion or advice that can make sense to the topic at hand. You may not agree with what they are saying but they have a case.

Then there is SJG, who says completely incoherent nonsense, making zero sense at all. What a god damned idiot.

The best thing our elected officials could do right now is pass Biden's Build Back Better Budget. It will get our economy going again and make it stronger than it had been.

Bill Clinton's budget was loved by the financial sector, and its %2 extra tax was part of the reason for this.

Biden's tax hike only effects the top 0.7%. That money is what keeps us from going over a cliff, and it provides jobs and business opportunities.

SJG

^^^ PLEASE JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP.

This is what that Kevlar and vulcanized rubber jock strap does to Shailynn, gets him so cranky that he spams his own thread.

SJG

Pretty long thread. Lots of talk about inflation and how the Fed won't be willing to act forcefully enough to stop it.

"A correction... at some point": a very weak statement since the only way it can be false is if there will never a correction at any point in the future.

How are folks positioned now? I seem some mention of taking some profits. Which again is a pretty weak statement since it doesn't specify how much people have moved out of stocks (and to where?) and it is only false if everyone has held 100% until now.

Is anyone actually short or positioned for the market to go down via puts?

There doesn't look to be a safe haven.

Stock market has been artificially pumped up for some time.
Real estate ditto with low interest rates. I bought a house in 2021 expecting inflation, apartments comparable to my last are now 30% higher than what I paid.
TIPS are expensive.
Precious metals have been a dud.
Cash is getting eaten by inflation.

I'm picking stocks but more or less standing pat. Tech, as untethered to valuations as it's become, is coming back to earth. Biotech is what I know, plus it's been beaten down for a while. It marches to the beat of its own drummer, namely clinical trial results.

I've moved my $$$ into hard assets - mainly lap-dances that get me hard

I think we should do what SJG suggests - pass the Biden's Build Back Better Budget. then everything will be fixed.

No wonder this asshole is homeless and can’t get steady internet access.

Even though he is just a junior in high school, Shailynn has got this down perfectly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unhqk-sA…

Juice is to be his right hand and he wants Shailynn to skip out on Bob Jones University and skip out on the rest of high school and start the ministry and get the money rolling in.

But Shailynn's mother worked so hard driving Shailynn back and forth across Texas to sing for the West Texas Christian Glee Club to get that scholarship, so she insists that he graduate from high school and Bob Jones. And she does not like Juice. "Shailynn, if I have told you once I've told you a 1000 times that you are forbidden from mentioning that man's name in my presence. He consorts with women of ill repute."

Shailynn doesn't know what to do now.


SJG

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joni_Mitch…

The 40 Best Joni Mitchell Songs: A Beginner's Guide
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsWVRN8D…

Steely Dan - Can't Buy a Thrill (1972) - full album
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmdiKePV…

^^ you know making up fantasy stories about me just makes you come off more creepy than. You already do on your own. Next time I get a lapdance from a stripper I’ll ask her for her thong and I’ll mail it to you so you can sniff it. Loser.

^^ I’ll give you his mailing address. It’s on Beaumont Canyon Drive in San Jose! Lmfao

Shailynn's mom drives him on long stints, like from Longview to El Paso or from Beaumont to Amarillo. These take 14 hours. So this gives Shailynn a lot of time for texting.

And then, his mom pulled him out of high school.

"
Those girls in your school, they wore high neck sweaters in the cold weather, but they still paraded around pushing their breasts out. They were immodest.

And besides this way, home schooling, you can finish off your last year and a half with the Glee Club with a big bang.
"

SJG

^^ I know yiu won’t answer this until tomorrow when the library opens up again, but aren’t you the most me who’s starting a sex cult? Why is your cult so much more morally superior than anyone else’s? Why lick on the Christian cult if you’re participating in creating your own cult of aging strippers who join your organization?

^^ don’t forget the heard of goats to go along with the aging strippers

Keep an eye on theCanadian trucker revolt. If it spreads to the US, food and energy supplies could disappear. It could get real ugly real fast. I’m talking Weimar Republic ugly.

One of the unknowns right now is the millions of workers who have chosen to not return to full time employment. There are lots of theories on why they haven’t returned. If they start running out of money, and returning to full time work, we might get back to normal. As long as they stay away, the supply chain and inflation will get worse.

The last time we hit an economic mess with high inflation and slowing growth, the only asset that outperformed inflation was farm land but the stock market was a reasonable hedge. If you buy and hold, you’ll be fine in 5 years, but it will be a scary ride.

Exactly - real estate’s a great hedge against inflation and the stock market is really where the bulk of your money should be - it’s a a wealth builder over time.

Instead of making excuses let's just admit capitalism as is. Is not sustainable. Our economy can't expand. It's a culmination of a consumer based society massive credit card debt ie people can't afford life without credit and speculation. Our economic system is the emperors new clothes.

^ American capitalism isn't perfect. But worldwide it's brought billions out of extreme poverty. "Growth" needs to bring up the lower classes, reward entrepreneurship rather than big business. And it can.

As Ronald Reagan once said - "government is not the solution to your problems - government *is* the problem"

Having the government solve most/all your problems basically just turns you into the government's bitch and you often end up having little say in how you live your life.

"... The last time we hit an economic mess with high inflation and slowing growth, the only asset that outperformed inflation was farm land ..."

Supposedly Bill Gates is the single biggest owner of farm-land in the U.S. - but I wonder if it's just about it being a good investment, or if he has ulterior motives - he's kinda out there w.r.t. climate-change shit and AFAIK he wants to do away w/ cattle-production and is into that artificial meat shit and wants that to be the future "to save the planet".

The highest growth rate in the US economy was during the Eisenhauer Kennedy years, with a top federal income tax bracket of 90%.

The high point in purchasing power for the working man came between 1969 and 1972, and with a top federal income tax bracket of 70%. After that it has been down hill.

Our economy was overly dependent on non-renewable carbon producing energy, petroleum. The oil producing nations decided they wanted a fair return, so they collaborated. And then with advanced industrial and information technology productive capacity in every sector far exceeded demand. In the Carter years we did have a stagnant economy and high inflation.

Reagan came in and began the offshoring of US industry. And then Donald Rumsfeld was in Sadaam Hussein's office when he was consolidating his power, giving orders to make helicopter poison gas attacks on Kurdish civilians. As the US gave him the green light, the last meeting of OPEC ended with delegates scurrying home because Iraq had attacked Iran.

And then the big cars started coming back.

But then after the 1986 stock market crash, people doubted whether or not the DOW would ever again exceed 4000.

When Clinton presented his first budget, with the 2% extra tax on high incomes, wall street was exuberant.

Government taxation and spending are what keep the money circulating instead of inflating the stock and real estate markets.

The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed, David Stockman
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BSE…

Tetradon says American Capitalism needs to "reward entrepreneurship rather than big business."

On this we are in agreement. But it has worked exactly the opposite way. To fix this support Biden's Build Back Better Budget and a move to full Single Payer Universal Health Care. This gives small business and entrepreneurship a fighting chance.

"We're all Keynesians now"
Richard M. Nixon

"We reward work, not wealth"
Joseph Biden

SJG

BULLETIN FROM DR. ANTHONY FAUCI
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/bull…

Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter - Live '95 Amsterdam w/ Lisa Fischer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoCCSh1F…

War - Low Rider
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7asO_d_m…

"On this we are in agreement. But it has worked exactly the opposite way. To fix this support Biden's Build Back Better Budget and a move to full Single Payer Universal Health Care. This gives small business and entrepreneurship a fighting chance."

That's your solution to everything.

Pouring more money into the economy leads to inflation, which penalizes the working class.

Well the COVID paycheck protection and bailout payments were really stupid.

Pelosi and Trump darn near broke the printing press.

“The Lords of Easy Money”: How the Federal Reserve Enriched Wall Street & Broke the U.S. Economy
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/1/27/f…

All it did was subsidize the stock and real estate markets by mortgaging our currency, while bleeding down the reserves of working people.

If you are going to suspend the Work Ethic Squirrel Cage, then it has to be felt in the stock and real estate markets.

Capitalism has not worked in 150 years. We have just been able to use war to create the illusion that it works, and then racism to justify its abject failures.

The solution is collective, and that means by our democratic processes.

We needed to have gone to:

1. Universal Basic Income, invented by Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense
2. Strong Public Housing offering
3. ...


SJG

^ Work ethic is what brought us out from hunter gatherer society and gave us an objectively better standard of living.

Elon Musk was right, you aren't going to change the world working 40 hours a week. If you don't want to, that's fine, we need to do better by the lower and middle classes, but nothing great was accomplished without sacrifice.

There are some solid ideas in here.

https://www.newsweek.com/we-must-refranc…

We needed to have gone to:

1. Universal Basic Income, invented by Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense
2. Strong Public Housing offering
3. Medicare for all
4. Free College and College Debt Forgiveness.

Our politics still remain stagnant because immigrants, minorities, and displaced workers still listen to Martin Luther King. King did not understand Gandhi. King thought it was about being able to claim moral superiority.

I like the way Cornell West explains that for Gandhi, "non-violence was a tactic, not a strategy".

As long as the poor conduct themselves as Uncle Tom's, then they will always be seen as deficient. Immigrants, Minorities, and Displaced Workers need to learn from the Irish Republican Army. They have to start taking scalps.

SJG

^ The minorities who have succeeded in this country, regardless of skin color, prioritized hard work and education.

The ones who haven't, focus on getting patronage from liberal politicians and adopt self-defeating attitudes.

If it becomes about race, the racial majority will win.

But minorities are oppressed. The situation is unfair.

This idea of patronage, in the midst of a completely unfair system, is patent non-sense.

Some minorities have been able to advance themselves, and this is good. But there are often things which helped this, like service in a war and the GI Bill, and low cost college. Also some minorities grew up in environments where their life story was not nullified.

When you can nullify someone's life story, there isn't going to be much that they can do.

And this is why The Black Panthers and Black Lives Matter are some of the best that we have. They give people a chance of rebuilding their life story.

SJG

^ Except that the Panthers have been around forever and not gotten results. BLM has seen racial harmony plummet in their ten years, and their founders got rich behind dodgy finances. They've been good for themselves, no one else.

The results speak for themselves. Rather than look for governmental patrons, underrepresented minorities need to take on the values of Ashkenazi Jews, Ghanaians, and Koreans, to name a few. They have worked in many societies.

You can't eat diversity, equity, and inclusion.

@SJG well, you've thrown out a real mix of good and bad points. I am 100% with you that money printing has been a complete disaster in terms of the extent it has exacerbated wealth inequality. I fail to see what the IRA accomplished, however.

Black Americans are largely a beaten people. It comes from the years of slavery and of jim crow.

Given a chance though, some can really shine.

And no one is looking for this so called patronage. Just for a working economic system.

The Black Panthers only lasted for a while, peaking in the immediate aftermath of the King assasination.

BLM is very exciting because it is focused on structural injustice, as perpetrated by the police. The only racial disharmony they have caused is just in the reaction of white reactionaries.

And rdig, the IRA has shown that there is only so much an oppressed people will take, beyond that point they will do what is necessary to fight back.

SJG

@SJG I think very early on: after the Burntollet Bridge, through the Falls Road, Divis Flats incident and into the Battle of Bogside you are right, the IRA did provide some self-defense that Catholics would not have had otherwise. The terms they were offered in the early 1970s were as good as they ever got, however, and violence after that ultimately did not further their aims. Just a bunch of senseless killing.

A lot of their later efforts were a response to the racism stirred up by Ian Paisley.

In that era they were calling themselves the Provisional IRA.

https://tuscl.net/discussion.php?id=6969…

SJG

@SJG as for black people in America. They are seriously outnumbered. They have only made progress through assimilationists like King and Fredrick Douglass. Black nationalism has never got them anywhere in the history of the USA. BLM might have looked good for a the first week or so after George Floyd was killed but the violence went on too long and ultimately hurt BLM's cause. Their popularity has dropped like a stone.

@SJG well it was escalating tit-for-tat between Loyalist and Republican paramilitaries. Not at all clear who was worse. Totally senseless and lead nowhere.

But it showed that the oppressed, the Irish, would not just be walked on. Military gain is not always the objective. Often showing that you are not going to be an Uncle Tom, an object of systemic derision, is what is most important.

SJG

"Black Americans are largely a beaten people. It comes from the years of slavery and of jim crow."

You can't simultaneously say "what you're doing hasn't worked" and "keep doing it." Focusing on gaining political power hasn't worked in the inner cities. Why would it work writ large?

Thanks to BLM, we have traded a grossly overblown problem (unarmed black people killed by police) for a much larger one. They're grifters who play on the sympathies of progressive white celebrities.

@SJG the IRA had showed that by the early 1970's and, at that point, got as good of peace terms as they were ever going to get. After that continued violence promoted hatred toward Catholics.

The same thing is true of BLM. If BLM's violence had stopped after they burned the police station in Minneapolis folks probably would have thought "well, that seems like a proportionate response" and they would have had a strong negotiating position. Which is the other problem with BLM: they don't have realistic demands at all. Abolish the police? Yeah, right! They go too and just build up bad will against them. At this point they have very little support. It has dropped across all groups including black people.

If there is an upsurge in black nationalism there will be a backlash bigger than black people can handle. They are only 13% of the population. Even including sympathizers, they are not the majority.

Resistance isn't always successful but giving your enemy a pyrrhic victory can pit you on a winning team.

rdig, I agree that the black leaders have been assimilationists, and that blacks are a small minority, and this is why the colonization of black Americans will not be ended as the British colonization of East India was.

If you don't what to be an Uncle Tom, you have to do what the fictional Tom would not do. You have to make corpses.

BLM is for the most part a peaceful group.

But individual blacks have to show that they are not a conquered and subjugated people. And they do need to set up an underground organization to do this. Nat Turner should be the example.

And Tetradon you are making a horrible play, saying that political advocacy is some kind of a character disorder.

Again, you are proving why Black Americans have to follow Frantz Fannon, who always explained that there is real power at stake in colonialism and so it can rarely be ended without lethal violence.

And in India it was ended without killing British, only because Indians had such a super majority that they could have sent the last of the British dismembered and floating down the rivers in 72 hours.

SJG

"If you don't what to be an Uncle Tom, you have to do what the fictional Tom would not do. You have to make corpses."

How has that worked out for them? Nat Turner and John Brown didn't end slavery, Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant did.

"And Tetradon you are making a horrible play, saying that political advocacy is some kind of a character disorder."

No, I am not saying it's a character disorder, I'm saying it has not worked. You contradicted yourself by admitting it hasn't worked for them (you called them a "beaten people," if that's not calling it a character disorder, nothing is), but saying it's what they have to do.

If I wanted to subjugate a people, I would tell them they have no power and are reliant on us to provide them with anything. Who does that sound like?

Advocating violence feels empowering--anger usually does, in a ball-scratching chest-puffing kind of way. But if you're 13 percent of the population, it's suicide.

Underground organizations? That's crazy talk. Three men can keep a secret if two of them are dead. Besides, if the system is as arrayed against them as you say, they'll get infiltrated and taken down, lickety split.

Nat Turner is what put the fear of God into white Southerners and promoted them to organize militias and start demanding the fugitive slave act and to start demanding that slavery be expanded into the west. and talking about secession.

Lincoln wanted to restore the republic as changed. And he was looking at expatriating former slaves to some sort of a colony. When Lincoln first learned what Brown had done he said that Brown was "misguided". But as Brown approached execution he came to be seen as a Holy Martyr.

Lots of Northern White troops wrote things showing that what they really wanted was to be John Brown. And when Lincoln was facing defeat in 1864, he summoned Frederick Douglass and wanted send him with troops into the upper Confederacy to try and liberate as many slaves as possible. He wanted Douglass to become John Brown.

As a President Grant was a disaster. But as generals, both Grant and Lee were phenomenal. Lee was in favor of slavery, but opposed to secession. Lincoln had offered him the union command.

The reason slavery was not reinstated after the war was simple, 180,000 black men trained with rifles and bayonets and served in federal uniform.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097441/

And at only 13% of the population, violence has to be more than just a potential threat.

Why does California have gun control laws?

Because the authorities were terrified of armed negros:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Ac….

And still to this day Nat Turner is the reason that white southerners follow Strom Thurmond and support the Republican Party, and it is the reason that throughout the country there is so much support for the National Rifle Association.

I have listened to every video at least 5 times, well wroth it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXXp1bHd…

and this is new
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-AXog9w…

Short of violence, the power oppressed people's have is in political organizing, and this is how they can best advance themselves.

SJG

"Short of violence, the power oppressed people's have is in political organizing, and this is how they can best advance themselves."

How has either worked out? Again, you're contradicting yourself. Insanity is doing the same thing twice and expecting different results.
Violence? 13% of the population isn't a threat to 66%, particularly if the latter control everything. That's absurd.

Presidents don't have the luxury of moral purity. If Lincoln had freed the slaves, he would have lost the slave states that remained in the Union, and the Confederacy would have outlasted it. At least until the plantation economy tanked.

"Why does California have gun control laws? Because the authorities were terrified of armed negros:"

Yet elsewhere you've supported gun control laws. How do you support violence and gun control at the same time?
You keep contradicting yourself.

@SJG it was a counter reaction to growing abolitionism in the north that caused most of the things you suggest. Nat Turner's rebellion certainly lead to a strong crackdown on the terrible way blacks were already treated but, no, it was not the cause of increasing talk of secession or the desire to expand slavery westward. Overall black people were treated much worse after Turner's rebellion than before. Could not have church services with only black people present, could not gather in groups, could not associate with free blacks, could not receive enough education for basic literacy.

Northern troops did not even support an end to slavery until the last years of the war, overall. Far from wanting to be John Brown's initially they thought they were just fighting to preserve the union. Lincoln had to play it carefully.

I am not sure what you mean by the 180,000 armed black troops being the reason slavery was not re-instated. In some sense this is true: Northerners had gained sympathy for black people because black troops performed excellently in the war. They were also appalled by the attack on the black people, especially an orphanage during the NYC draft riots. Those were the key reason, but any threat of an uprising of black people. Indeed, black people were attacked after the Civil War in South often because of fear that they were armed and would attack whites.

As for Grant. He was doing okay until the depression. Clamping down on the KKK, for instance. Unfortunately the depression meant he would not have the political support to keep pressing things in the South.

Well if there are armed negros in other places, they will enact gun control laws. I do support gun restrictions. For revolutionary violence, gun control laws don't make any differnce.

Tremendous gains have been made in the political process, and throughout the country. But there is still an active backlash.

Lincoln made the emancipation proclamation because England and France were going to give diplomatic recognition to the confederacy and then they could have used their sea power to break the Union blockade and they could have supplied the Confederacy through out Southern border.

The Proclamation only applied in place which were in "active revolt against the authority of the United States. So in Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri the slaves were not freed at that time.

But slaves were running off the plantation in KY and enlisting in the Union army and no one at that point cared to try and stop them.

Place were allowed to opt out by electing federal legislators. Remember that Andrew Johnson was the only southerner who had not walked out. But this option is why WV was separated. THey did not have much slavery. Only time an admitted state was broken up.

After the war though southerners did challenge the legality of the emancipation.

But the issue was solved with the 13 amendment. To get their state governance back and end reconstruction they all had to support the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.

SJG

Do Mclean
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngDJIjbA…

^ With gun control, they won't get guns in the first place. You think a leftist militia is going to raid a fortress or something? Look up the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club's antics. Only ended up with one of them getting shot.

Yep, Lincoln was a pragmatist, like he had to be.

You say elsewhere that the political system has been bought out by corporations. Maybe that's where they need to go, is to make economic rather than political gains.

You you think the Nazi and Vichy regime allowed guns in occupied France, or that someone found with one would not not be shot?

And Bobby Sands was serving a long prison term for the second offense of being found with the pieces of a gun. It was then that he began his hunger strike to death and others followed him.

Yes, Lincoln was a pragmatist. He also said reluctantly that the error of allowing slavery in the Constitution was something which had to be atoned for in blood.

Well, we still are not beyond that completely.

Well if someone is holding you as less than human, you don't submit to their system.

Within the first year that Uncle Tom's Cabin was published between two covers, free blacks were petitioning the Massachusetts legislature to be allowed to serve in the militia. And they invoke the offence of the character Uncle Tom in their speech. And they said that if they didn't show that they were otherwise then even in heaven they would be "relegated to the colored pew".

The legislature denied them, so they bought their own uniforms and started drilling and training.

And then in the war MA supplied two regiments and RI supplied one.

SJG

^ They did that in Massachusetts, not Georgia. How would they get their guns in this day and age?

You can't advocate for armed revolt when they can't get guns, and are outnumbered 5 to 1.

Slavery was repaid in blood. There are no former slaves in this country. To say that still holds them back is to deny them agency.

Well Brown had tried to start a slave revolt. Wealthy backers were going to supply him with Sharps Rifles. I think these were early breach loaders. But that fell though. So Harper's Ferry was the largest cache of weapons on the continent, like 100,000.

But that failed badly.

Eventually though Brown ended up being seen as a holy martyr.

Claude Berr
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zdzf5aQ…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hgU3wvQ…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BPWoYzp…

@SJG: "Lincoln made the emancipation proclamation because England and France were going to give diplomatic recognition to the confederacy and then they could have used their sea power to break the Union blockade and they could have supplied the Confederacy through out Southern border."

Where did you read this? Britain and France were never close recognizing the confederacy. The closest they came was to wait and see if the Confederacy looked like it had a good chance of winning. But it certainly hadn't at the time of the Emancipation Proclamation. (Just before the 1864 election was the closest the Confederacy came in the sense the war was dragging on and becoming unpopular.)

Ive been listening to one youtuber or tech analyst since before christmas that forecasted a drop to 4000to 4100then new all time highs later this year then a 40 percent dump. So far forecasts seem amazingly accurate. I keep thinking no one is that good.

^^ in case you haven’t figured it out yet, SJG is our resident blowhard who spews shit on here like his word is gospel. Once you read enough of his hypocrisies you’ll know he throws shit up against the wall to see what sticks. FYI: SJG has been saying since he joined the site 8 years ago that he is creating an organization of stripper grade hotties to drain members balls 24/7, but whenever asked where he is on that progress he deflects to his persona matters and private affairs preventing him from getting it off the ground. Pretty much every member on here has learned that everything he writes is a piece of fiction.

@orionsmith: The Fed and the markets are going to play chicken with each other over rate hikes. Market will rally to test to see if the Fed is really willing to hike rates enough to fight inflation. When they do the market will go into a panic sell off to see if the Fed is really willing to stick to its guns in face of steep market declines.

It's going to be one fuck of a volatile year!

rdig, Britain and France were moving to give diplomatic recognition to the Confederacy and this is why Lincoln made his Emancipation Proclamation. This made in unfeasible for these outside powers to recognize the Confederacy. They were always the pivotal matter in the US Civil War.

Best info source well worth repeated careful listenings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXXp1bHd…

And meat, my F2f life and the details of the development of My Organization are private, firewalled off from my online life, and they are always very well protected.

SJG

Is the NFL Run Like a Plantation? Ex-Player Donté Stallworth Responds to Bombshell Racism Lawsuit
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/2/7/ra…

TJ Street
https://tuscl.net/photo.php?id=2305

M Davis Bitches Brew 1970
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50fB5L1v…

Herbie Hancock Maiden Voyage (Full Album)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6NRfitS…

Dion — Runaround Sue
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyHAZFdI…

Dion - The Wanderer - 1961
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP1z0dQV…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dion_DiMuc…

https://dangerousminds.net/content/uploa…

Native Americans are respected.

Why are they respected?

Its because they took scalps.

In the early era of slavery in the US, some negro slaves escaped and joined Native American tribes.

But they had to be people who were just abducted from Africa, or that would not have worked.

Slavery and Jim Crow broke Afro-Americans.

When they were starting to emerged, they had the misfortune of listening to one MLK. He did not understand Gandhi, and he was looking for approval from Whites. His main theme was an upen ended unconditional commitment to non-violence.

During the last year of his life his might have softened on this some, but the damage was done.

Afro-Americans must repudiate this!

Otherwise people will always be saying that they need to prove something or try to win approval.

SJG

^ Crazy talk

@SJG black nationalists have gained nothing for black people and they are wise to reject them. MLK, by contrast, did win much. Why on earth should they turn to violence? They have full rights as citizens now and legislation which is very harsh against anyone who discriminates. What more, exactly, do they hope to gain? If it's "abolishing the police" that's a completely idiotic idea that will, obviously and correctly never happen. If BLM pushes non-sense like that it just makes them look stop. And if they riot it just makes them look violent.

The system has already crashed.

WE still have people who think that blacks need to prove something, and that because of them we should not have Universal Health Care or Free College.

These people are racists. But they get away with it because blacks have followed the Uncle Tom leadership of MLK.

SJG

Sounds made up. Nobody thinks we shouldn't have universal health care or free college because of black people. People think we shouldn't have those things because they are socialist.

The reason though that we don't have them is because they would also benefit blacks. Racism is the reason we are behind the other industrialized countries.

SJG

@SJG what is the test to distinguish between the two hypotheses:

Don't have the free stuff due to not wanting black people to have them

vs

Don't have the free stuff due to not wanting socialism?

Well your first option is what is being used to justify your second option.

"We have the ability to take care of every single person better than even royalty lived in past centuries. They only reason we don't see this is because we still demand that everyone prove that they can earn a living."

R. Buckminster Fuller talking about our industrial technology. It was advanced for war, finding ever more advanced and efficient ways to kill ever more numbers of people. But if we convert it from Killingry to Livingry, we have a material paradise.

It costs our society far more to provide paying employment, than it would to provide comprehensive benefits.

SJG

70s Electric Miles Davis Mix (Jazz, Jazz Funk, Jazz Rock, Fusion..)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBTQzsxf…

I agree with some of what you say. Racism has definitely been a huge economic drag on the country. This was known by abolitionists in the North even before the Civil War and was a key argument against it. Today there is little left in the way of racism in the United States, but residual effects continue to cause that economic drag.

You are also right that the time is coming fast when not everybody will have to work: the machines and AI will do it all. How does wealth get distributed at that point?

According to Jordan Peterson the military is already at the point where the amount of useful work someone with an IQ below 80 can do is not sufficient to justify having them on the payroll. As technology advances that IQ bar is going to climb. What will happen when it reaches 100 and half the population cannot justify being paid versus replaced by machine + AI?

It is not just an economic drag, it is complete injustice.

Racism, covert, is still the dominant factor in our politics today.

We already need seriously to reduce our labor force. All it is doing is costing your society while fattening the financializes.

That one I disagree with you on. I think racism, other than left wing racism such as affirmative action and race baiting, as having almost no impact on politics today. At least not toward the supposedly most victimized groups: black people and Latinos. White people, Asians and Jews are the primary targets of racism now.

More on the shakedown and grift organization that is BLM.

"But revelations about her personal finances, including the purchase of four homes totaling more than $3 million, were more likely the reasons for her sudden retreat from the spotlight. This news prompted criticism from local black activists, such as one black mother whose son was killed by Los Angeles police: “Black lives don’t matter. Your pockets matter,” she declared. “Y’all come into our lives and act like y’all got our back and y’all want to say, ‘Black Lives Matter.’ But after we bury our children, we don’t see B, L or M, but y’all out here buying properties.”"

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articl…

^ Either someone who's been awake and productive for a couple hours already, or a serial strip club board troll on daddy's computer before 1st period pre-algebra.

Go away, Cacaplop.

Long term rates are suppressed and will be capped on upward movement. Why is this relevant? Too much debt is financed by government and the gap between long term rates and short term has usually been an indicator of recessions and market crash. Not so reliable this time as an indicator. The gap between 10 and 2 yr has narrowed, but 50 basis point separates them. Still a ways away before it inverts.

Anyway, the market probably tops higher in March and continues slow growth ahead. Too many people still have a lot of cash sitting in their bank accounts, and these people will continue to spend increasing cash flows to services for summer travel. A big difference between the poor and those that are well off. The poor buy basic needs and the middle class and up buy everything. It will be another 1-2 years before we see any hints of a recession.

Today's stats and securities prices are just a reflection of how it now is, or appears to be.

They do not actually have any predictive power. If someone could predict that tomorrow would be different from today, it would all ready the that way now.

So we just have to wait and see what happens.

SJG

Absolutely true all that cash siting in the bank will be in there to buy the dips (though it will ultimately get annihilated. The amount of it also means banks will not inclined to increase their own rates: what do they need more cash in deposits for? They already have enough. But that means inflation will get worse. That will put pressure on the lower and lower middle classes in our already polarized environment. Which will be even more polarized once Trump returns to the scene. How y'all are preparing for SHTF scenarios!

rdig (prophet of doom)

^ Vodka and center-fire rifles

===> "It will be another 1-2 years before we see any hints of a recession."

Let's bookmark this thread so that we can come back to it a year from now. Understood that the yield curve has not inverted yet, but Consumer Sentiment is approaching that normally seen in recessionary times and the Fed will eventually have to do something more dramatic to slow inflation.

Now maybe those incompetent scumbags wait until the mid-term elections are over to get serious about fighting inflation, but I am skeptical that we will make it a year before recessionary pressures kick in. If the 70s are any teacher, rampant inflation can kill demand as effectively as a moderate interest rate hike. The only difference is that the economy recovers much quicker when the recession is a response to rate hikes rather than entrenched inflation.

Our reality

https://youtu.be/aNghg1Y-WIc

Inflation is the hot-button issue right now for the avg person - I would not be surprised if the White House puts pressure on The Fed to (try to) deal with it b/f the midterms - but that can cause the Markets to take a serious hit.

^ It's a lose/lose situation for the Democrats. But in many ways, they're just the ones left holding the grenade.

The money spigot has been opened full blast since 2008 ("too much money")

Supply issues aren't doing us any favor on the ("chasing too few goods")

Republicans want to cut taxes, Democrats want to deficit-spend, both of which are stimulative.

And the US is going to have to keep issuing debt, this time at a higher interest rate.

I'm far from a doomsayer but we're going to swallow some bitter medicine for a bit.

^ Both side’s deficit spend the difference is who gets the money, Republicans give lit away to the corporate interests, the Democrats want to give it away to people that don’t want to pay for anything, what we really need is for some fiscal sanity, hasn’t been any since Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich figured how to work together

^ I half-jokingly call myself the last Republican deficit hawk.

When we have to issue short term debt at 5%, there will be a lot more of us.

===> "I would not be surprised if the White House puts pressure on The Fed to (try to) deal with it b/f the midterms - but that can cause the Markets to take a serious hit."

Here's another prediction. There is not a chance that the White House is going to pressure the Fed to do anything serious about inflation before the midterms. The fallout would go far beyond the securities markets. Nothing short of a recession is going to tame this now, which also involves steep declines in housing prices, job losses, etc.

Sure they might make some noise to try to dodge some of the blame, but behind closed doors they'll be imploring Powell to go easy until the midterms. So the Fed will inevitably nibble around the edges until then. I wouldn't be shocked if they clamp down immediately after, pushing us into recession for a year so, and then Uncle Joe tries to take credit for the recovery as he heads towards his re-election campaign, lol.

We will see...but I will throw in my prediction. The Fed will keep interest rates artulificially lower than inflation for some time (they will go up but not in a commensurate way). This is the the least worst option in dealing with the massively accumulated debt that has reached a point we have not seen since WW2.

It was handled in this same way back then but we also were an industrial giant and major exporter. That gave the US a bigger shovel to dig ourselves out of the hole faster.

I think inflation will be with us for the forseeable future.

A crash maybe. A civil war yes.

...and no I don't see a crash but a slow burn unless we get a Black Swan such as a major European war.

The White House is in a dilemma regarding what to do about inflation. Far from there being "no chance" that they pressure the Fed to raise rates they very well may. Either way they are fucked, so it's 50/50:

Raise rates and the market bubble pops. Not good for the midterms. Don't raise rates and the Dems lose a good share of lower and lower-middle class votes. Hell, unchecked inflation could rightfully be called systemically racist.

The COVID bail out policy was idiotic. We needed instead to go to Universal Basic Income and let the real estate and securities markets eat shit.

But what was done was done.

For today, higher progressive income tax and a wealth tax will undo the damage and expand the economy.

SJG

^ Your solution to everything, along with universal healthcare. Get some new material.

Blah blah blah, boomer bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit!

Financial Pro Tip- Inflation decreases if less money is circulated, but that caused recessions unless the same amount of goods are consumed. This means the soundest economic policy is to shoplift.

What we need most is Universal Health Care and higher taxes on large incomes and large portfolios.

Its about converting our 19th Century Guild Age Monopoly Game into an economy which actually works in the 21 Century.

SJG

OMS - Martinism part 4/5 - St. Martin the Unknown Philosopher
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaZ1Uqvd…

The White House midterm message is going to be Jobs. They also are gonna Hope the supply chain and covid both settle down enough that "are you better off now than 2 years ago?" will be an easy yes for most voters.

Well we are better of now than we were two years ago.

The Build Back Better would be a Big further improvement too. But we need now to do more than just that.

And war drums can still be heard.

SJG

Good luck with that jobs message. Biden is already sitting at about 60% disapproval rating without the effects of what a war in Ukraine is going to do to energy prices. The US evacuated the Embassy in Ukraine today and suggested all US citizens leave the country immediately. Gas is already pretty high and heading higher. Germany sold their energy soul to Russia for natural gas and Europe getting hit pretty hard will affect the US in some way.

^^^ You underestimate the American people.

SJG

OMS Martinism 4 of 5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaZ1Uqvd…

"... The University of Michigan consumer sentiment for the US fell sharply for a second straight month to 61.7 in February of 2022, the lowest since October of 2011 and well below market forecasts of 67.5, preliminary estimates showed ..."

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-stat…

Broken 19th Century economic system.

Need now to move to Social Democracy.


SJG

OMS 4 of 5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaZ1Uqvd…

I read an article that part of the "great resignation" is people who decided they wanted to retire early and had enough due to stock market gains. If you retire early and are sitting on big gains I can see you staying put at first to see much how further the market continues up. What happens once it starts to look like it's in trouble? Are you going to fine with riding out a possible dip or are you going to protect your retirement and sell? I think it's safe to say these folks will be "weak hands" who will contribute to the selling.

rdig (prophet of doom)

===> "They also are gonna Hope the supply chain and covid both settle down enough that "are you better off now than 2 years ago?" will be an easy yes for most voters."

If you still believe that this inflation is simply due to supply chain issues then I'm guessing you've never had an Econ class. We pumped gobs of money into the economy and fired up the Fed printing presses and now we are seeing the result. Utterly predictable.

As Milton Friedman famously said, “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.”

There is no way that most voters are going to believe that they are better off now than they were pre-Biden. The Dems are going to get slaughtered in the elections and rightfully so.

My personal opinion is that it wasn’t so much a great resignation more likely a great change jobs for more money, the folks that quit are still not working.

Several categories represent people who have left the workforce
-Early retirees
-Mothers who left the workforce to care for young kids
- younger workers using government benefits to temporarily stop working

This has caused supply chain issues and wage inflation