10 Comments
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Emmette Pilgreen's avatar

Your observations and musings should be mandatory reading. Most people are oblivious to the war being waged on their standard of living by the unelected elite who think they know it all, yet they know nothing other than fanning the flames of social and economic discontent by making most people poorer. Thank you Rudy for putting this out.

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Kristi O'Sullivan's avatar

“When everything’s going up”. Went to cash and carry to stock up - had to ask a shop worker if the price of the beef was per unit or by weight. He said per unit - said everything doubled since last week. This is Ireland. Ag is our biggest industry. 5 fillet steaks now cost 79 euro wholesale (European portions not US!). The items I expect to really rise in price are torches and pitchforks.

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lighthill's avatar

You've got it all wrong about Australia. We aren't going to the camps again, instead we're just going to shut the boarders so everyone has to stay and pay their mortgage.

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Rudy Havenstein's avatar

I kid you Aussies.

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Invisible Sun's avatar

Three questions for 2nd half 2022: What do people expect to happen?. What will happen? Do investors / speculators care?

Between now and November what could happen ranges from the stupid to the insane. After November and hopefully Congress switches majorities, the outlook for the country greatly improves . Everyone will be using 1995/1996 as a comparison. I think we are on the wrong end of the "peace dividend" but the notion of a divided federal government will be appealing.

All the whole the inflation / stagflation problem will persist. Stupidity has a cost and now we are paying it.

The greatest insanity is the discounting of a recession that hasn't happened as justification that now is the time to go long the market. If the Fed can cause a recession soon then we could see rates drop. But if not, then we have stagflation and the sadness continues.

And to that uncertainty we have the unknown of WWIII. But hey! War is good for stocks, so buy, buy, buy!

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Rudy Havenstein's avatar

Godspeed.

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chico's avatar

"How did we all become colonized by unelected, unaccountable wankers?"

Perhaps the most important question of our time.

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Jimbob's avatar

I'm old enough to remember when the Fed was called "the lender of last resort" and not "the buyer of every crap instrument issued by its owners and their pals".

Good on ya for using Adam Smith in context. He gets a bum rap from all sides.

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Bob Grayson's avatar

Still waiting for Taleb to re-brand his "Harvard-Kremlin Economic Model" to "Harvard-Kremlin-Berkeley Model" in his next book whenever that is. Janet needs to be acknowledged

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