"We are not overbuilt, we are under demolished"
The cockroaches are starting to come out.
"The only safe asset is actually human capital itself, and the best investment you can make is in the skills of your children."
“There's no living soul who believes we've only been through 23% inflation over four years. It's absurd…Once you take out government spending and take out government debt and then adjust those figures by a realistic measure of inflation…it looks to me as if we have not ever recovered from March 2020, that we might be in the equivalent of a Great Depression now. ”
This is how distorted our goofy economists' and their stenographers' thinking is:
"Consumer prices rose 0.2 per cent year on year in June...a retreat from an 0.3 per cent rise in May...The risk of deflation has not faded..."
Nobody in normal person world fears lower prices. The FT set me off last year with a similar article:
"Falling pork prices threaten to push China back into deflation”
As I noted at the time, notice the subtle assumptions in the article: “Deflation” (lower food prices) “would UNDERCUT officials’ efforts to restore CONFIDENCE in China’s economy.”
Therefore, higher food prices must make people confident!
It's insane thinking, and it's everywhere in the MSM.
Gallup Poll Results On Economic Confidence – Notable Excerpts
“Twenty-five percent of Americans describe current U.S. economic conditions as “excellent” or “good,” up three points from May. However, the percentage rating conditions “poor,” now 48%, also increased slightly, blunting positive movement in the index. The high proportion of Americans rating the economy as poor continues the dominance of this response in the trend since early 2022…
Americans have also been consistently more negative than positive since May 2021 in their assessments of the economy’s trajectory. The June 2024 survey finds that about seven in 10 Americans (69%) believe the economy is “getting worse,” while 26% say it is “getting better.” This is essentially unchanged from last month.”
CPI first hit about 5% in May 2021.
The stock market is off the charts (literally), but half of America owns none of it, and as for the rest of the little people:
“Over the last few years, as a result of the COVID pandemic and high inflation, small business sentiment closely resembles that of the Great Recession and its aftermath.”
”We compare the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index with the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index. Again, we've plotted each index on a separate axis, however in this chart, we can see that the business measure is more volatile of the two. Despite the volatility though, we can see that these two measures of mood (business and consumer) have been highly correlated, falling and rising together for the most part.”
Everyone and their mother now really expects a rate cut (this time they mean it!) Be careful what you wish for.
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