Category Archive: 5.) The United States

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Where are Europe’s Fault Lines?

2017-11-14

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2017-11-14

Map
Beneath the surface of modern maps, numerous old fault lines still exist. A political earthquake or two might reveal the fractures for all to see. Correspondent Mark G. and I have long discussed the potential relevancy of old boundaries, alliances and structures in Europe's future alignments.Examples include the Holy Roman Empire and the Hanseatic League, among others.

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Consumer Credit Both Accelerating and Decelerating Toward The Same Thing

2017-11-14

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2017-11-14

Consumer Credit Monthly Flow, Jan 2012 - Jul 2017
Federal Reserve revisions to the Consumer Credit series have created some discontinuities in the data. Changes were applied cumulatively to December 2015 alone, rather than revising downward the whole data series prior to that month. The Fed therefore estimates $3.531 trillion in outstanding consumer credit (seasonally-adjusted) in November 2015, and then just $3.417 trillion the following month.

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Our Culture of Rape

2017-11-13

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2017-11-13

Global Wealth Pyramid
These are the poisoned fruits of a neofeudal system in which power, wealth and political influence are concentrated in the apex of the wealth-power pyramid. Stripped of pretense, ours is a culture of rape. Apologists for the system that spawned this culture of rape claim that this violence is the work of a few scattered sociopaths. The apologists are wrong: The system generates a culture of rape.

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Aligning Politics To economics

2017-11-12

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2017-11-12

Real Final Sales to Domestic Purchasers, Jan 1983 - 2016
There is no argument that the New Deal of the 1930’s completely changed the political situation in America, including the fundamental relationship of the government to its people. The way it came about was entirely familiar, a sense from among a large (enough) portion of the general population that the paradigm of the time no longer worked. It was only for whichever political party that spoke honestly to that predicament to obtain long-term...

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Synchronized Global Not Quite Growth

2017-11-10

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2017-11-10

US Exports, Jan 1989 - 2017
Going back to 2014, it was common for whenever whatever economic data point disappointed that whomever optimistic economist or policymaker would overrule it by pointing to “global growth.” It was the equivalent of shutting down an uncomfortable debate with ad hominem attacks. You can’t falsify “global growth” because you can’t really define what it is.

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Four Point One

2017-11-09

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2017-11-09

US Establishment Survey Payrolls, Jan 2010 - Jul 2017
The payroll report for October 2017 was still affected by the summer storms in Texas and Florida. That was expected. The Establishment Survey estimates for August and September were revised higher, the latter from a -33k to +18k. Most economists were expecting a huge gain in October to snapback from that hurricane number, but the latest headline was just +261k.

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Let’s Clear Up One Confusion About Bitcoin

2017-11-09

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2017-11-09

Bitcoin One-year Chart, Jan - Oct 2017
If bitcoin can be converted into fiat currencies at a lower transaction cost than the fiat-to-fiat conversions made by banks and credit card companies, it's a superior means of exchange. One of the most common comments I hear from bitcoin skeptics goes something like this: Bitcoin isn't real money until I can buy a cup of coffee with it. In other words, bitcoin fails the first of the two core tests of "money": that it is a means of exchange and a...

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Bi-Weekly Economic Review: Gridlock & The Status Quo

2017-11-08

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2017-11-08

The good news is that the economy just printed its second consecutive quarter of 3% growth, a feat not accomplished since Q2 and Q3 2014. The bad news is that the growth spurt in 2014 was better, quantitatively and qualitatively. Those two quarters produced gains of 4.6% and 5.2% (annualized) in GDP, much better than the most recent 3.1% and 3% prints of Q2 and Q3 2017.

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Global Asset Allocation Update

2017-11-05

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2017-11-05

Moderate Allocation
The risk budget this month shifts slightly as we add cash to the portfolio. For the moderate risk investor the allocation to bonds is unchanged at 50%, risk assets are reduced to 45% and cash is raised to 5%. The changes this month are modest and may prove temporary but I felt a move to reduce risk was prudent given signs of exuberance – rational, irrational or otherwise.

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What’s Driving Social Discord: Russian Social Media Meddling or Soaring Wealth/Power Inequality?

2017-11-05

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2017-11-05

Boris Natasha
The nation's elites are desperate to misdirect us from the financial and power dividethat has enriched and empowered them at the expense of the unprotected many. There are two competing explanatory narratives battling for mind-share in the U.S.: 1. The nation's social discord is the direct result of Russian social media meddling-- what I call the Boris and Natasha Narrative of evil Russian masterminds controlling a vast conspiracy of social media...

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What the Kennedy Assassination Records Reveal: Uncontrollable Incompetence

2017-11-04

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2017-11-04

Propaganda Ministry 2017
One way to interpret the intelligence community's reluctance to let all the Kennedy assassination archives become public is that the archives contain evidence of a "smoking gun": that is, evidence that the intelligence agencies of the United States of America were complicit in the assassination of the President.

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The (Economic) Difference Between Stocks and Bonds

2017-11-04

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2017-11-04

US Disposable Personal Income, Jan 1985 - 2017
Real Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) rose 0.6% in September 2017 above August. That was the largest monthly increase (SAAR) in almost three years. Given that Real PCE declined month-over-month in August, it is reasonable to assume hurricane effects for both. Across the two months, Real PCE rose by a far more modest 0.5% total, or an annual rate of just 3.4%, only slightly greater the prevailing average.

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Strong Growth? Q3 GDP Only Shows How Weak 2017 Has Been

2017-11-03

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2017-11-03

US Gross Domestic Product, April 2011 - March 2017
Baseball Hall of Famer Frank Robinson also had a long career as a manager after his playing days were done. He once said in that latter capacity that you have to have a short memory as a closer. Simple wisdom where it’s true, all that matters for that style of pitching is the very next out. You can forget about what just happened so as to give your full energy and concentration to the batter at the plate.

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Observations on Wealth-Income Inequality (from Federal Reserve Reports)

2017-11-03

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2017-11-03

Percent of Families with business equity, 1989 - 2016
There's a profound difference between assets that produce no income and those that produce net income. To those of us nutty enough to pore over dozens of pages of data on wealth and income in the U.S., the Federal Reserve's quarterly Z.1 reports and annual Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) are treasure troves, as are I.R.S. tax and income reports.

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Where To Invest When (Almost) Everything’s in a Bubble

2017-11-02

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2017-11-02

S&P 500 and US Home Price Index, 1980 - 2017
Many things that are scarce and thus valuable cannot be bought on the global marketplace. Now that almost every asset class is in a bubble, the question of where to invest one's capital has become particularly vexing. The ashes of wealth consumed by the 2008-09 Global Financial Meltdown are still warm, at least to those who never recovered, and so buying assets at nosebleed valuations in the hopes of earning another 5% aren't very compelling to...

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What Could Pop The Everything Bubble?

2017-11-01

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2017-11-01

Selected Consumer Goods and Services Price Changes, 1996 - 2016
As central bank policies are increasingly fingered by the mainstream as the source of soaring wealth-income inequality, policies supporting credit/asset bubbles will either be limited or cut off, and at that point all the credit/asset bubbles will pop.

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Subject To Gradation

2017-10-31

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2017-10-31

US Durable Goods Shipments, Jan 2010 - Jul 2017
Economic growth is subject to gradation. There is almost no purpose in making such a declaration, for anyone with common sense knows intuitively that there is a difference between robust growth and just positive numbers. Yet, the biggest mistake economists and policymakers made in 2014 was to forget that differences exist between even statistics all residing on the plus side.

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Stagnation Nation: Middle Class Wealth Is Locked Up in Housing and Retirement Funds

2017-10-30

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2017-10-30

Percent of Total Assets and Liabilities
The majority of middle class wealth is locked up in unproductive assets or assets that only become available upon retirement or death. One of my points in Why Governments Will Not Ban Bitcoin was to highlight how few families had the financial wherewithal to invest in bitcoin or an alternative hedge such as precious metals.

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Political Economics

2017-10-28

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2017-10-28

US Real Gross Domestic Product, Jan 1993 - 2017
Who President Trump ultimately picks as the next Federal Reserve Chairman doesn’t really matter. Unless he goes really far afield to someone totally unexpected, whoever that person will be will be largely more of the same. It won’t be a categorical change, a different philosophical direction that is badly needed. Still, politically, it does matter to some significant degree. It’s just that the political division isn’t the usual R vs. D, left vs....

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Housing Isn’t Just About Real Estate

2017-10-27

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2017-10-27

US Existing Home Sales, Jan 2011 - Jul 2017
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported today that sales of existing homes (resales) were up slightly in September 2017 on a monthly basis. At a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 5.39 million last month, that was practically unchanged from the 5.35 million estimate for August that was the lowest in a year.

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