I told you last week that there were strange things going on in the labor market but I had no idea how much of an understatement that really was. Much of last week's economic focus was on the inflation report but I think the JOLTS report may turn out to be more significant. Inflation was indeed pretty hot year over [...]
We got another disappointing employment report last week. Well, that's what everyone said anyway, that the complete WAG by the BLS that the US economy added 559,000 jobs in May was below expectations and disappointing. I suppose it is a tad disappointing but I find it hard to lament the fact that a half-million Americans found jobs last month. There [...]
The US economy is still stuck in the stall it's been in since early spring. Sometime in mid-March everything just seems to have gone into suspended animation. Interest rates and the copper/gold ratio stopped rising. Real interest rates (TIPS) stopped rising. The US dollar started falling. But nothing has fallen so far as to warrant concern about a double-dip recession. [...]
77.2 So, Not Money Printing———Ep 77.2 Summary——— QE has been uniformly aligned with the idea of money printing because it sounds like it and there is a central bank doing it. We have to take central bankers' word that there is a pot of bank reserves at the other end of the QE rainbow. While that part is true, bank [...]
77.1 Which Was Bigger, April CPI or Reaction To It?———Ep 77.1 Summary——— Finding ourselves in uncomfortable agreement with Jay Powell and many mainstream Economists who have been utterly wrong about inflation rising for too many years to count, this doesn't discount at least their more grounded view as to inflation not rising based on conditions right now. There's every reason [...]
It was hard not to hear about cryptocurrencies last week what with the bear market and all. Actually, you can make the case that bitcoin has had two bear markets since mid-April. There was a 27% decline followed by a 27% rally, followed by last week's rout. From its intraday peak in April to its intraday low last week, bitcoin [...]
75.2 Fed 'admits' Negligence, Monetary Malpractice ———Ep 75.2 Summary——— It's never what they say, it's what they do. For months before March 2020's collateral-centered blowup, GFC2, we regularly chastised Jay Powell's not-QE(5) program for doing the opposite of what would've been helpful. They bought T-bills and only T-bills. But then, right in the thick of the meltdown, the Fed stopped [...]
75a A Rise in Prices or a Rise in Dictators or Both ———Ep 75.1 Summary——— FDR claimed, correctly, he maintained a balanced budget throughout his years in office. With the exception of "emergency" items, that is. Influenced by several famed economists, Roosevelt entered the Presidency a fiscal hawk only to have his mind changed by the gravity of the situation. [...]
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