I live in the USA and I am concerned about the future. I created this blog to share my thoughts on the economy and anything else that might catch my attention.
Monday, February 8, 2021
Nonstore Retailer Gain
The following chart shows the natural log of the sales of nonstore retailers. Constant exponential growth is seen as a straight line.
What the Great Recession taketh away, the pandemic (temporarily?) giveth back.
The Great Recession caused most people to have less money, even with the modest (by comparison) stimulus.
The pandemic caused most people to have more money. If you could work remotely and benefited from the two, soon to be three, generous stimuli. Business grants, gig worker payments, extended jacked unemployment checks (many made more on unemployment than working full time), direct payments, ETF and bond purchases by the Fed. You get a stimulus, and you get a stimulus...
Costco’s currently having a sale on giant packs of Marathon toilet paper. Limit 3.
I’m all in on that investment, after battling with my conscience. I assume they wouldn’t be willing to sell us 3 at a discount if they anticipated more shortages.
Rumors of high inflation and rapidly rising interest rates may have been greatly exaggerated.
Larry Summers warned that the new stim package was too big and would cause inflation bigly. I agree with you that high interest rates would break many important things, like indebted corps and the US Treasury.
The Fed argued today that the "real" unemployment rates was closer to 10% instead of the 6.3% reported by the BLS. Sounds like a conspiracy theory. How can you not trust the government numbers? Either way, high unemployment is not usually a pre-condition of high inflation.
For what it is worth, I definitely expect to see bigly inflated bank deposits.
Most seem to think it will cause rates to rise. The fact that bank deposits have been bigly inflating for 40 years as interest rates have been falling seems lost on them.
Something happening consistently for one year might be a fluke. Something happening consistently for 40 years might be a plan.
The Great Recession caused most people to have less money, even with the modest (by comparison) stimulus.
ReplyDeleteThe pandemic caused most people to have more money. If you could work remotely and benefited from the two, soon to be three, generous stimuli. Business grants, gig worker payments, extended jacked unemployment checks (many made more on unemployment than working full time), direct payments, ETF and bond purchases by the Fed. You get a stimulus, and you get a stimulus...
Gotta keep up the pace to fend off deflation.
ReplyDeleteCostco’s currently having a sale on giant packs of Marathon toilet paper. Limit 3.
I’m all in on that investment, after battling with my conscience. I assume they wouldn’t be willing to sell us 3 at a discount if they anticipated more shortages.
Rumors of high inflation and rapidly rising interest rates may have been greatly exaggerated.
Larry Summers warned that the new stim package was too big and would cause inflation bigly. I agree with you that high interest rates would break many important things, like indebted corps and the US Treasury.
ReplyDeleteThe Fed argued today that the "real" unemployment rates was closer to 10% instead of the 6.3% reported by the BLS. Sounds like a conspiracy theory. How can you not trust the government numbers? Either way, high unemployment is not usually a pre-condition of high inflation.
For what it is worth, I definitely expect to see bigly inflated bank deposits.
ReplyDeleteMost seem to think it will cause rates to rise. The fact that bank deposits have been bigly inflating for 40 years as interest rates have been falling seems lost on them.
Something happening consistently for one year might be a fluke. Something happening consistently for 40 years might be a plan.