"It's the economy, stupid!"... All sincere comments will be appreciated.

People understand, their house and retirement are not worth more. Their

Re: "It's the economy, stupid!"... All sincere comments will be appreciated.

Tiggity®

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Not buying the cause, so can't really comment much on everything else

Apr 26, 2024, 3:10 PM

But yeah, we have chosen metrics which we use to define a good economy, and when the economy sucks but those metrics remain "good", there's a disconnect. The Dimon dude who runs JP Morgan recently said the economy was amazingly strong. This is a guy, mind you, who judges a good economy on charging people interest their debt. So naturally he'd think the economy is great.

Let's go back a while. What preceded the 2022 inflation spike? What gave away the fact that it was coming? What factors marked it starting?

First clue came with the "labor shortage" headlines. We saw them in the US, but they were worldwide. EVERYONE has labor shortages since the pandemic. Even to this day, there remain worldwide labor shortages in just about every "developed" country. Then what was the next thing to happen? GDP fell, sharply, MASSIVELY, for no apparent reason. From growth to a -2% decrease, in a month or two. And we had another month with negative GDP, only for it to slowly climb back positive, and then get good again. And like the "labor shortage" headlines, inflation spiked, worldwide. The Federal Reserve and Biden/Trump spending didn't shoot inflation up 33% in a 3 month period in Sri Lanka, causing a revolution and overthrow of the government there. Nope. But they blamed their government. UK, the entire EU, Russia, India, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Japan even, eventually, all saw inflation.

Biden's border policy was specifically to address inflation. Forget Congress' ceremonial Inflation Reduction Act. Importing more goods, and importing illegals is the solution. Trade deficits and illegals have been deflating American labor and goods for decades now, and we needed that to continue several times larger than in the past. We're down to something like 8.8 MILLION unfilled jobs, which is down from 12.whatever at the peak of inflation. And yet we have 3.8% unemployment, which is statistically FULL EMPLOYMENT. So with full employment we have a labor shortage? YES.

Our labor participation rate currently matches the labor participation rates of the late 1970's. That's not good. Our unemployment numbers are so low because PEOPLE ARE NOT LOOKING FOR JOBS. Either they can't work, or don't need to work, or whatever else. This doesn't fill those 8.8 million remaining jobs. They won't be filled by the way, and will slowly disappear as the economy declines, which is what will happen. Inflation will remain because we're leveraged in cheap debt. Stagflation is our future for several years, at least. And honestly, stagflation is the preferable path forward, as the alternative is much worse.

So anyway, just look at Japan for our future. We will have a lost decade, as they did. And for much the same reasons, coupled with a pandemic that actually impacted labor worldwide. The pandemic crippled the deflators America relies on to run well. We have more wealth, money, and demand than we could ever satisfy with domestic, American citizen labor. That's just a fact that's been true for a long time, far more than a decade now. Probably several decades now.

First the wealth runs out due to inflation, then the demand falls due to no more money. THEN the economy declines into a recession. THEN we have the "landing" that we have yet to have with the economy. We run a great scheme, and it works well. But it does have weaknesses. I always thought a major war would shine a light on the weakness, but evidently a pandemic does just as much, if not more really.

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Re: Not buying the cause, so can't really comment much on everything else

Help me here.

Why, in the face of a labor shortage, did the federal govt of 2021 and 2022, massively (continue what Yrump of 2020 had started) he money supply in order to create jobs?

Why did hiring of federal govt jobs (one of the key sectors which have created job growth) burgeon starting 2021?

Maybe, possibly, these activities contributed to the shortage of labor and thus contributed to the inflationary spike?

Also, bear in mind that coercive measures such as ESG / DEI compliance and economically unfriendly / environmentally excessive domestic policies contributed to inefficiencies in the manufacturing sector (with the concurrent restraints on productivity & quality improvement … re Boeing) as contributing to inflation?

I’m not disputing the underlying factors that you’ve described as being an unavoidable root of inflation. Don’t tell me, though, that Biden’s handlers domestic policies haven’t made things worse.

"It's the economy, stupid!"... All sincere comments will be appreciated.

People understand, their house and retirement are not worth more. Their

Blackrock et al will make that 25% 'bank'-owned mortgage number double.

Re: "It's the economy, stupid!"... All sincere comments will be appreciated.

Not buying the cause, so can't really comment much on everything else

Re: Not buying the cause, so can't really comment much on everything else

So, let me correct at least one - among many - glaring error....

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