OT: Your opinion on the economy

C) I fear the worst is yet to come

I fear freight prices will still be a primary driver of inflation.

The price of used tractor-trailer trucks have doubled since 2019. There is still a significant driver shortage and demand is higher than pre-pandemic levels.

I don’t think the worst is behind us.

^ Here in Florida if you're working it's going to like Christmas with all the insurance money that's going to be heading into this state from those storms.

Hit send too soon, overall inflation is losing it's grip, gas prices are down, and employment is still strong, I think it'll start to get better soon, but it's going to take a bit of time this didn't happen overnight, the money spigot has been flowing through the last two administrations, my own hunch is that the tide is turning , slowly but improving.

C the worst is yet to come. Right now it's a money grab during end stage capitalism. The more desperatebthe rich become the worst it will be for us.

C It won't get better until Biden is gone and The Republicans control congress.

B) while theres plenty of driver shortages, theres more of us young people picking up the slack creating whole new trucking companies which means bigger pay for them and their team. Inflation is lowering home prices and the market is slowing its downslope steadily to a stop. There's hope for the future.

Btw, we always donate overseas. Is any country donating to us for hurricane Ida?

For 15 years, Central banks around the world kept interest rates near zero which
- let governments accumulate trillions in debt
- kept money losing corporations in business long after they should have died
- kept unemployment low
- funded ridiculous green energy subsidies

For 70 years, the American military enforced safe global trade and reduced the regional border conflicts. The US has decided it is no longer in its interest to do this. This is already affecting the energy and food global markets.

For 20 years, corporations sent all their manufacturing work to China, shutting down domestic manufacturing.

This is all ending. It will take 5 years to transition to a new economic model. In the US , it will be painful and chaotic. In China, they will return to a pre-industrial economy and millions will starve.

C. We're nowhere near controlling inflation at current interest rates.

Then when we do, debt service costs are going to spike, forcing us to cut back on government spending, including defense, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

The left is going to realize how little we give a shit about green this and that and LGBTQKFCDDT!@?+ when we don't have basic needs met.

B I think. The historic threats to the macroeconomy have been flight to a store of value, or when governments create, encourage or tolerate monopolization. Gold and gold-backed currency ceased to be a store of value with a degree of stability around 1970. There's still no currency that's reliably more stable than the US dollar to flee into. The people in the US who want to create or tolerate monopolies are fringe minorities on the left and right.

Maybe the biggest threat is politicians whose main talking points are things like MTF transexual school teachers in another country who don't wear bras. Their real agenda is policies that will pauperize more and more people, and the pauperized people may turn one or the other fringe minority into a majority.

For 30 - 40% of people, the worst came and stayed many decades ago. But it probably won't get bad enough for them that they'll decide to burn it all down.

Obviously horrible. Complete collapse coming.

The only reason people don't seem bothered by the disastrous economy is post-Covid euphoria. They are so happy to be back to normal they aren't yet noticing how big a disaster we're in. They will.

B). It does depend on what part of the country you are in. But I don't think the economy is as bad as people are making it out to be. People have jobs. There are still labor shortages in certain fields. Prices are going up because of supply problems. Contractors have 6 month wait times to be able to start a project. These are normal conditions for a recession.

The problem is that someone let the inflation genie out of the bottle. So things are costing more. I dont' think that is gonna change under the current administration.

The most glaring question will be will this thread die before the economy recovers and all those permanent doomsayers will hide from their boisterous claims why the sky is falling never materialized?

B, will reign since most of the downturn already took place and near markets generally run 9-16 months, and we are already 9 months into this down market engineered by the fed. Globally if we want to do business with other countries our currency has to float downward so other can afford to do business with us=monetary loosening (decreased rates) by the end of next year 2023. Shipping containers for freight have dropped and demand for goods has slowed considerably. The fed engineered slowdown has reduced demand, slowing inflation at a remarkable pace which won’t show in the lagging reports until later this year, but slowly starting this month on October 13th. By the way, the inflation numbers have been declining for last 3 months with shelter making up nearly 1/3rd of the inflation index those numbers will start to show the reduction soon. Summarize, the market has really started to balance itself and once certainty starts to shine then the economic market will be off to the races by early 2023, maybe even later this fall. People forget that whatever they are hearing or reading in the news are coming from journalists, not business minded people so the news you’re hearing is overhyped in order to attract eyeballs so they can sell advertising.

By the way, the original question gives no reference to time frame and since most people can barely look ahead
To what they’re going to do today let alone see far enough into the future, then the answers will depend on a persons mindset.

Within the next year or by the end of 2023 we will see good progress in equity markets, but they tend to be future indicators so the job market will slow beginning next year. Those who have jobs will be OK.

Keep telling yourself that. The "west" will never be "back to normal" like it was a few generations ago. The very rich criminal elite class will get richer while the middle class will continue to disappear. This trend has been going on for generations now. Look at "prosperous" California. People now are either rich or struggling to make ends meet. The middle class has shrunk and is vanishing.

Short-term economic trends miss the overall point. The US sucks today whether the brainwashed sheep realize it or not. This is not our grandparents USA. The sheep want to be happy so they don't want to see it. This country sucks now. Neither party can save it.

Take away people's EBT, welfare, and credit cards and the US would collapse into Summer 2020 type anarchy.

Worst is yet to come. Supply chain issues still unresolved and fertilizer costs resulting in less supply and higher food costs. Until we get a handle on energy independence and some type of security at the border we are screwed.

Although true in your statements it does leave out the fact that there is plenty of fertilizer already applied on our crops, yet since they are petro chemicals they end up stuck in the ground being underutilized. New farming techniques apply bio friendly organisms to their crops that bring health back to the soil after years of over applications of fertilizer. Once the bacteria gets placed into the soil they act on the already available food source from petro chemicals(fertilizer) saving farmers time and money with higher yields. There is an upfront cost for farmers to introduce bacteria by spreading it, but the savings for years after it’s applied with higher yields it’s huge! The technique is gaining momentum around large farms here in the southwest due to our clay soil.

TLDR, the ingenuity of our economy is missing from most people’s doom and gloom scenarios, such as the one I just provided.

Just had to buy anew car - that sucked from a customer point of view but who doesn’t love a new car?

I think the worst is to come. Inflation may slow down, but prices and interest rates won’t go down. The economy and stock market will be stagnant for a while and unemployment will increase. The only hope is a big change in D.C. to give optimism to businesses.

B for a while but eventually C.

The recent inflation readings were not encouraging, which is not surprising. Our labor market is still way too tight, which continues to put upward pressure on wages, and electricity is expected to continue to rise in price due to natural gas shortages. Labor costs and energy bills are both universal expenses that feed into the prices of all of our goods and services and until we get those core expenses under control, we will not get inflation under control.

Right now the Fed is doing just enough to keep things from spiraling out of control, but not enough to make things materially better. What we need now is more Paul Volker but what we are getting is Arthur Burns. I fully expect the disingenuous pussy currently running the Fed to continue with the same tip toe playbook where he makes hawk like noises for the rubes who don't know better, but continues to be dovish in practice.

Until the Fed grows a pair hikes interest rates up enough to seriously quash demand for goods and services, our labor markets won't rebalance and demand for energy will continue to be high. So we can expect death by 1,000 cuts for some time to come, probably until Biden's re-election campaign is over. Then someone will finally administer the medicine needed, at great cost.

C) worst is yet to come. I work in supply chain in the food industry, and the number of products that are either completely out of stock or only being shipped sporadically are still at near all time highs. Workforce participation rates are substantially down from before Covid, if we had the same percentage of the labor force participation, unemployment would be closer to 10% and what it is now

C for sure. Gilded age part 2: Gildeder

C

C. The worst is yet to come. But this has to be qualified, the worst in terms of non-negotiable economic structure changes is yet to come. We have had a broken economic system since the 1870's, when productive capacity far outstripped demand for labor. This has been advancing every decade, only covered over by major wars.

The Trump bubble was just hype, just like the 1920's, and the Reagan bubble was brought about by breaking OPEC by encouraging Iraq to attack Iran.

So the worst is yet to come, but I do not mean busts instead of the next bubble. That kind of stuff after all is not very important. I mean we have to learn to live with market demand never creating anything like full employment, but yet everyone needing to eat and be housed. And we cannot turn into a society which uses racism, classism, or the idea of mental illness, to write of a large portion of the population.

So big changes have to be made or there will just be incredible strife.

SJG

I think C for at least the next year - future unknown.

I went out to eat Friday night - restaurant packed.

I’ve been to 3 college football games this season in 3 different states, all sold out - each place at least 60,000 people tailgating beforehand.

I was out of the country twice this summer on vacation, crowdest I’ve ever seen it (including preCOVID) and that wasn’t COVID stimulus money funding these trips like it was last year.

Every single business I deal with is still “desperate” to hire new workers. I say “desperate” because they are in dire need, even as many anticipate a weak holiday season and/or slowed growth in the future.

I’d be a little nervous if I was working in real estate right now, but I read recently that lumber has gone back to pre COVID levels on pricing, maybe that will help new construction a little.

People are flipping out about interest rates, but right now they are the same as when I bought my first home back in the early 2000s and I was ecstatic to get that rate back then and people are flipping out today. People need to realize those sub 4% rates were a once in a lifetime opportunity, and even at 6% today historically that’s still a damn good rate compared to the last 40-50 years.

B thorough 2023, and then A when pro-business politicians regain control in '24. (Hopefully leaving all the Q wack-a-doos behind.)

I think the problem with so many in this forum is that it's too easy for people who define human relationships as monetary interactions. To view groups of people as disposable. The commodification of basic human needs like sex is the ultimate right wing brainwashing

Pro-business posturing does not create demand that is non-existent. Rather it is just away of making another boom and bust cycle, and after each of these we are in worse shape than we were in before.

SJG

I'd guess C for a year or 2. After that, it will depend on whether there is the political will to increase domestic energy production and dump the green pipe dream. If we open up production and become a net energy exporter again, that will ease inflationary pressure and bring in trade currency. Couple that with significant homeshoring of manufacturing and things will be better. I don't know if the political will to do so exists. If not, think a rerun of the 70s

I think C. The stock market just had the worst September since 2008. That was the beginning of a financial crisis and we are headed into an even worse one. Great Britain just caved on its fight against inflation and when things get really bad here Powell may do the same. People think we can't have hyperinflation like a third world banana republic but it happened in Germany, an advanced European country, in the nineteen twenties. It could possibly happen here.

I'm visiting Seattle right now. It's quite a contrast between the wealthy tech culture and third world urban poverty.

Much of the worst of the encampments were cleaned up with a new more conservative mayor, but it's still around if you look.

What's new is seeing armed guards in the super markets and big box retailers. That's developing world tier shit when you need men with guns in daily life to fend off chaos.

The Powers That Be don't like the current arrangement of the world. We are in the Great Reset. People are very good at composing stories of how something happened based on some random facts.

TPTB can't just pull the rug on everyone and make their changes, that would be risky and upsetting. They cant really do it because the real people in charge are not generally known.

So now they're breaking the old system to give us a new system. They're funny money is breaking. The new system they're aiming for will break middle class wealth, family allegiances, and religious allegiances. These things create power outside of their control.

Their only problem is that a fair amount of people have noticed their schemes and some of them aren't going as planned.

I'm going with C. They need to wipe out structural problems in the current financial system. The net effect will be a drastic reduction of the middle class. The rich will be better off than ever

No one has a clue what will happen next week or next month and you all look ridiculous for stating that you have a clue. You tell me with certainty if Putin will nuke Kiev and with certainty what the response of the west will be and then I can make an educated guess what the future might be. Until those things are known everything is simply a wild ass guess by the uninformed.

So from me it’s an E, probably none of the above.

I'm wondering if Putin is a real player or just another puppet in the show. I'm leaning towards him being authentic in his "multi-polar world" rhetoric in which case things are up in the air.

However we do know that German industry is going to hobbled for years with the loss of the Nordstreams and that is going to have a serious affect on the global economy.

The economic collapse of Europe may save the US from economic collapse as money and manufacturing is relocated there.

as long as Biden is in office and the democrat party controls congress, it will only get worse. Anyone who says it is getting better is lying. Anyone who believes it is getting better is fucking demented.

Gut feel, C then B.

My considered answer is that it beats the hell outta me, and I'm investing accordingly

A little C then mostly B

ThatX - last time I was in Seattle there were encampments right next to shopping areas and on the freeways. Now it's all around, but better hidden.

The real shock was seeing how young the Aurora street walkers were. It wasn't broken down old junkies out, it was very young girls with thousand yard stares. Sad scene.

Housing prices are going to crash at least 7-15%, which will be worse than the last housing downturn. Inflation will stay high and job losses will increase. Gas and oil will skyrocket and when we need the reserve, it will have been used up by stupid senile Biden. market falls another 40% next year. This will remind people of the 1930's except back then we were all Americans, not Americans left wing traitors and millions upon millions of foreign fucks who are here for the money of others.

The good news is that are a few policy changes that could turn this all around. Dramatically cut the level of government spending by eliminating green energy subsidies, eliminate the department of education, pull our troops back from Europe and Asia, fire a couple layers of bureaucracy in all federal agencies. Establish a large import tariff on any country that doesn’t have a trade agreement with us and use those monies to pay off our debt. Clear the red tape to allow investment in new manufacturing facilities and nuclear plants. Amend all welfare programs to require any able bodied person to work. Stop forgiving student debt, lower the size of loan the government will fund to encourage more efficiency in colleges, and put more funds into STEM and less into everything else. Modify the Federal Reserve to return to its original mission of stabilizing the dollar. Increase immigration quotas for young, skilled workers, secure the borders, use federal databases to flag illegal workers, and send illegals back to their home country. Authorize oil pipelines, new refineries, and oil leases.

^ You’re going to get government workers to do all that
Right LOL

Everyone guessinf what billions of people will do on a macro scale is so hilarious, but entertaining. The equity markets are up over 5% this week because it has been oversold. Housing has been overbought and each of those markets are coming back to balance which may unwind faster than yiu realize. When has anyone ever said the economy they are on is great? In my experience everyone always claims it is bad. However the upward progression of better economics generally rules from the past and will be better for us over the next 5-10 years. Technology will come to the rescue continuing to make is more productive keeping inflation in check. I laugh at all the pessimistic views from the curmudgeons!!

The economy is entirely manipulated by the fiat master central banks, most importantly the Fed. While the Fed can still pump the dollar anything can happen. What happens can only be predicted by insiders who prefer to keep it that way.

PMs are the real world currency. Clown world only lasts as long as they can control the price of gold and silver. It looks like that is getting closer.

@Mate, I'm a solid pessimist, but I don't time the market with my 401(k). That's automatic and not fucked with. But two good days don't make a recovery.

I also said the economy was good under the late Clinton years (i.e. tech bubble) and later Trump years because unlike Obama he got out of the way of recovery.

But interest rates are going to keep increasing, and with it debt service costs crimp government spending. To say nothing of geopolitical risks and unfucking our supply chains.

We're sick and need to take our bitter medicine. Then we get well.

^ The market is the market, the economy is the economy, folks make money in all kinds of markets, folks lose money when the market is doing well, it is what you make of it.
The economy on the other hand is pretty strong, been to a restaurant or a club lately plenty of folks are spending on dinner and drinks, even the stores as much as they bellyache about not having enough help, they’re selling goods, sure some stuff has gotten crazy expensive but even that stuff is being purchased, my feeling is there’s a shift going on and expectations are somewhat different due to being locked down for two years, things just aren’t as bad as you think they are.

@25, I have made money off countercyclical plays, unlike my "fire and forget" retirement funds.

Interest rate hikes are going to hit that restaurant and club spending. That's what they're intended to do.

^ haven’t yet curbed a lot of spending , and as long as you’re working you should be just fine, just don’t get caught having to sell into a downturn and the world won’t come to an end, as young as you are you should expect several of these cycles before you need to really worry, if your nest egg is big enough than no worries

C. The "experts" on the business channels say the bottom might not be hit until 2023 or 2024.

The economy is in a tug of war and the problem is that what is considered a “good” economy very much depends on balancing people’s competing views. The opinions on whether things like home prices, corporate profits, etc going up or down would be a good thing or a bad thing are too stark. And there is also the problems with taxes and entitlements, and attempting to keep taxes low and entitlements high simultaneously.( And that is going to be unfortunate for whatever politicians will be forced to announce taxes will be higher AND entitlements will be getting major cuts simultaneously because something will make it that it won’t be easy to just keep raising the debt ceiling anymore but oh well and hopefully they have a thick skin. )

I believe the answer (like most on here do) is C, because it will be impossible for there to be a decision change that most people will find at least acceptable until everyone is in the same crappy boat together and nobody is in a situation to be doing well at the expense of another party.

The tug of war is, and always has been, between two views of the role of government
1. Protect the country from external threats while enforcing a basic rule of law internally, or
2. Assure fairness and equity in all aspects of life

The country was founded, in reaction to an all-powerful monarchy, under the first theory. It has been trending, in fits and starts, toward the second theory. Half the country has now decided that government determined fairness is really tyranny by a false name. They’d like to return to the first view. Those in power are fighting like hell to keep the status quo.

I think it’s going to remain stuck while the democrats have control. I think everyone knows that Biden isn’t in charge. It’s the far left that’s in control - in the Biden administration - and they aren’t looking to move the capitalist machine forward (and out of this recession).

My thought is the November elections could give the markets some momentum - and indirectly boost economic output - if republicans gain a majority. If the left picks up seats, it’s a flat or downward turn until 2024.