Post-pandemic US GDP rate compared to G20 countries

[BigHornRam]

Yeah, I noticed that. Rick loves to name-drop on Milton. Milton, if alive, couldn’t pick Rick out of a lineup of two other people.

That's your standard play SAJ-99. If you can't debate the issue, try to marginalize the opposition. The clip has over 2 million views in a couple weeks. It's okay that it doesn't resonate with you, however. That is entirely predictable.

 

[SAJ-99]

That's your standard play SAJ-99. If you can't debate the issue, try to marginalize the opposition. The clip has over 2 million views in a couple weeks. It's okay that it doesn't resonate with you, however. That is entirely predictable.

1) I know Santelli so he is more than just a face on the screen to me. I'm not marginalizing him or the message. Just saying he has had his view for decades.
2) I question his ability to analyze a chart, hence why he is now a talking head and not a trader.
3) nothing wrong about what he said. Just pointing out that none of it is new information to the market and it has his political tilt- anti big government - which is probably why he has fans.
4) 10yr is down 35bps in two days. If you trade political views you will end up broke.

 

[BigHornRam]

1) I know Santelli so he is more than just a face on the screen to me. I'm not marginalizing him or the message. Just saying he has had his view for decades.
2) I question his ability to analyze a chart, hence why he is now a talking head and not a trader.
3) nothing wrong about what he said. Just pointing out that none of it is new information to the market and it has his political tilt- anti big government - which is probably why he has fans.
4) 10yr is down 35bps in two days. If you trade political views you will end up broke.

1)Santelli pays more in taxes in a year than you make in a year.
2)Talking heads on CNBC make good money. Talking heads on Hunt Talk make squat.
3)Your political views are predictable and dictate your trading philosophies.
4) You're probably not broke inspite of #3

 

[SAJ-99]

1)Santelli pays more in taxes in a year than you make in a year.
2)Talking heads on CNBC make good money. Talking heads on Hunt Talk make squat.
3)Your political views are predictable and dictate your trading philosophies.
4) You're probably not broke inspite of #3

1 & 2 are definitely true. 3 is definitely not true, making 4 irrelevant.

I don't have a problem with Rick. From what I remember he is a nice guy, but it has been a long time. My issue is more general, and one he would probably agree with. His opinion doesn't mean anything to me because he doesn't put his money behind it. He doesn't have to endure the consequences of being wrong. Gundlach had the same opinion yesterday regarding deficits (Hell, I have the same opinion regarding deficits), but Gundlach's view was bonds could rally, and they have (I'm long bonds, so that is why I'm not broke more so than my political views). I respect Gundlach's opinion more because he has something to lose in stating it. Santelli doesn't. That is my main issue, and it isn't specific to him. Be it economics or hunting or home improvement or whatever, people are following media and being influenced by what they say. A lot of times it is just bullshit. Santelli hasn't traded a bond future in almost 25yrs and people keep inviting him to be a speaker at some economic event. Bad, uniformed opinions are rampant these days and people can't separate their politics from real information that might not align with their views.

 

[BigHornRam]

1 & 2 are definitely true. 3 is definitely not true, making 4 irrelevant.

I don't have a problem with Rick. From what I remember he is a nice guy, but it has been a long time. My issue is more general, and one he would probably agree with. His opinion doesn't mean anything to me because he doesn't put his money behind it. He doesn't have to endure the consequences of being wrong. Gundlach had the same opinion yesterday regarding deficits (Hell, I have the same opinion regarding deficits), but Gundlach's view was bonds could rally, and they have (I'm long bonds, so that is why I'm not broke more so than my political views). I respect Gundlach's opinion more because he has something to lose in stating it. Santelli doesn't. That is my main issue, and it isn't specific to him. Be it economics or hunting or home improvement or whatever, people are following media and being influenced by what they say. A lot of times it is just bullshit. Santelli hasn't traded a bond future in almost 25yrs and people keep inviting him to be a speaker at some economic event. Bad, uniformed opinions are rampant these days and people can't separate their politics from real information that might not align with their views.

Well, at least you aren't this foolish Danish company.

Danish wind giant, reeling from $4 billion write-off in New Jersey, calls America 'the most painful part of our portfolio'

Southern New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew exulted in the defeated offshore projects as Orsted's stock lost over 25%: “David defeated Goliath!”

fortune.com

 

[AlaskaHunter]

He's been doing that same rant for 20yrs. Maybe he will eventually be right, but if you traded with his view you would be broke. He makes good points, but the market is aware of all of this. I hate the emphasis on anniversaries, particularly going back to 1981. I don't believe the market doesn't has memory back that far. I also strongly disagree with the use of log charts for yields, but that is a different discussion.

I don't pay attention to rants, opinions, debates, etc.
Looking at data, it appears that the US post-pandemic recovery has been stronger than the other G-20 countries.

Looking at data, it appears the rate of inflation in the US has declined from the
2022 peak of 9.1%, but it trended lower at a somewhat steady pace in the first half of 2023.
Year-over-year CPI growth dropped to a two-year low of just 3% in June before ticking slightly higher in July and August.
So the inflation rate has not hit the Fed's target of 2%.

Looking at at data, inflation is global, not just a US problem and there are many G-20 countries that have
an inflation rate higher than the U.S.

 

[SAJ-99]

Well, at least you aren't this foolish Danish company.

Dependent on tax subsides and cheap money, sounds like every other industry.

@AlaskaHunter
Yep. The US looks like it came through this in the best shape. Not surprising given how dynamic our economy is. I often wonder if the biggest long term risk is this all worked too well, but I worried that after the GFC. Time will tell.

 

[more_cowbell]

Anecdotally, while inflation has slowed, it still resulted in a lot of goods being “stuck” at a materially higher price than a few years ago. True, things like eggs are going back down in price.

But i think for a lot of people including me, its still a shock to go to a store and see “high” prices on other things that in our “good ol days opinion”, shouldn't be anywhere near that expensive.

Recently in an interview Target’s CEO said that for discretionary goods, for the last several (17?) quarters, theres been a decline in consumer purchasing of discretionary goods. He also said for the last two or three quarters, theres been a decline in food and beverage purchases, both in dollar amount and units.

Is this why retailers have already started their Black Friday sales both in stores and online? Trying to book sales any way they can?

As an aside, car loan delinquencies are up (though it may not help that the average car payment is relatively high, esp when people are also paying for other “necessities” like Starbucks, cell phone plans, and a jumbled collection of streaming services).

Now we have the latest jobs hiring report (150k) being called a sharp slowdown. I wonder if due to early Black Friday “sales”, etc., retailers have already hired for the holiday season.

 

[SAJ-99]

Anecdotally, while inflation has slowed, it still resulted in a lot of goods being “stuck” at a materially higher price than a few years ago. True, things like eggs are going back down in price.

But i think for a lot of people including me, its still a shock to go to a store and see “high” prices on other things that in our “good ol days opinion”, shouldn't be anywhere near that expensive.

Recently in an interview Target’s CEO said that for discretionary goods, for the last several (17?) quarters, theres been a decline in consumer purchasing of discretionary goods. He also said for the last two or three quarters, theres been a decline in food and beverage purchases, both in dollar amount and units.

Is this why retailers have already started their Black Friday sales both in stores and online? Trying to book sales any way they can?

As an aside, car loan delinquencies are up (though it may not help that the average car payment is relatively high, esp when people are also paying for other “necessities” like Starbucks, cell phone plans, and a jumbled collection of streaming services).

Now we have the latest jobs hiring report (150k) being called a sharp slowdown. I wonder if due to early Black Friday “sales”, etc., retailers have already hired for the holiday season.

I think people confuse disinflation (a reduction in the rate of inflation) with deflation (a reduction in prices). Those prices are not going down until we get an economic downturn, and even then I doubt they will much.

Funny part was that Target said people were buying less staples (food and such) and Starbucks said people were buying more expensive fancy coffee drinks. It all just mind-numbing listening to CEOs talk about their businesses. The cynic in me wonders if they talk the stock price up or down depending on if they are selling old option comp or getting new options.

 

[more_cowbell]

Funny part was that Target said people were buying less staples (food and such) and Starbucks said people were buying more expensive fancy coffee drinks.

And this quarter Starbucks sales could be even higher as a result of the "pumpkin spice" effect -- although, McDonalds was pitching the $2.00 any size pumpkin spice coffee, which may or may not chip away at Starbucks' sales.

Now on the horizon is the peppermint mocha and candycane coffee season. Sorry little Bobby, no brand name school lunch snacks for you this week -- mommy and daddy need these starbucks drinks to just make it through a day.

Edit to add: McDonalds says Q3 had fewer visits from customers in lower income brackets, and for this entire year, McD's prices will have gone up 10%.

 

[more_cowbell]

In October consumer prices rose 3.2%, down from last year.

Qtr 3 Home Depot consumer sales are down.

Holiday job also hiring down — down as much as 40% from the 2021 high. Holiday sales growth this year is projected to be 3-4%. Last year growth was 5.4%, and in 2021 was 12.7%.

In unrelated news, after the UAW strike, Stellantis will cut about 6400 white collar jobs, which is half of all such positions in the US.

And small business owners are putting off capital investments due to interest rates.

 

[noharleyyet]

Post-pandemic US GDP rate compared to G20 countries​

@SAJ-99

Why shouldn't we being doing better than anyone?

I guess my question is how much better could we be were it not for gotcha politics. Acknowledgeable prosperity is something both parties abhors for each other.

 

[SAJ-99]

Post-pandemic US GDP rate compared to G20 countries​

@SAJ-99

Why shouldn't we being doing better than anyone?

I guess my question is how much better could we be were it not for gotcha politics. Acknowledgeable prosperity is something both parties abhors for each other.

Tough question. The first question is hard to answer and probably will earn people PhD's in economics for the next decade or more when they study it. Responses for individual countries were similar but slightly different. US printed money and handed in out to workers in the form of stimulus checks, and gave conditional loans to some businesses. UK and Japan paid companies to keep people on the payrolls. China just told companies what to do and they did it. I'm not sure which is best. Time will tell I guess. I like the UK, Japan version better on paper, but they had the same inflation problems as the rest of the world.

Part of the GDP question is that our inflation rate is coming down faster than a lot of other places so the inflation rate we subtract to get the Real GDP of 4.9% is lower. Part of this is because places like UK have floating mortgages. When interest rates increase there, everyone feels the pain eventually when the mortgage resets. Here it takes a while because mortgages are fixed, but our housing market locks up.

Politics is the main problem for solving anything. Democrats won't acknowledge the problem handling the influx of people seeking asylum, Republicans won't acknowledge the economic benefit we get from immigrants and the basic economic need for more of them. Republicans won't acknowledge that the 2017 corporate tax decreases were probably too large and caused corporate tax income collections to drop by over 30%. Democrats won't acknowledge that there are too many people on Medicaid and the program is not working properly. Neither side wants to acknowledge that a balanced budget is still impossible even if we reduced discretionary spending to zero because SS, Medicare are too expensive. So we just keep borrowing. In the mean time, they keep trying to scare voters with whatever boogie man they think will get them to the polls.

 

[SAJ-99]

This is an interesting blog post on inflation. I probably like it given it supports a lot of what I believe. Good ole confirmation bias at play.

For TLDR, some interesting views:
Looking back in 5 years, conclusion will be high inflation was transitory, nominal price increases were not. People now seem to want deflation.

Everyone thinks they deserve their wage increase, but inflation is the government's fault.

Inflation is the Lesser of Two Evils - A Wealth of Common Sense

Inflation is the lesser of two evils.

awealthofcommonsense.com

There is also a podcast that some might enjoy, at least the first 20min are entertaining. Although you may find yourself yelling at the speaker. It is not super technical, just a couple of guys arguing data, surveys, and media articles.

https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2023/11/animal-spirits-people-love-to-complain/