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Joe Weisenthal Profile picture
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10 Nov, 5 tweets, 4 min read
THE US WORKER HAS OFFICIALLY COME OUT AHEAD

For CPI day in today's @markets newsletter, I wrote about how basically no matter how you slice it, the last 18 months have been a big W for workers and economic policymakers.

Get the newsletter here:

bloomberg.com/account/newsle… ImageImageImageImage
@markets As I note at the end, the best months for "real" take home pay (income minus inflation) have been the months where we sent out more checks to people. So if you're worried about declining real incomes, then you should support more stimulus and UI.
@markets There are nearly 20 million Americans who have gone from unemployed to employed since the depths of the pandemic. Their hourly wage growth, therefore, is infinity% over that time. If you're talking about negative real wage growth, you're ignoring the labor market's biggest story.
Phenomenal piece from @vebaccount on the incoherence of people talking about falling real wages employamerica.org/researchreport…
@vebaccount Brilliant metaphor here that I had never seen expressed this clearly employamerica.org/researchreport… Image

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More from @TheStalwart

Joe Weisenthal Profile picture
12 Nov
I know we're never supposed to admit when we're wrong or that we've changed our minds. But I agree now, after much twitter banter, that asset holders have been among the huge winners over the last year. So I agree it's time to start taxing capital gains the same as normal income.
We should also seriously consider getting rid of 401Ks, 529 and related plans. If you're fortunate enough to have money to spare and invest in the stock market, why should you be then further rewarded with a reduction of your tax bill?
Obviously, none of this will solve the problem entirely. The wealthy can still generate income by borrowing against assets (as opposed to selling them) so in those instances, we should go with @interfluidity plan of taxing such loans as normal income.
Read 4 tweets
Joe Weisenthal Profile picture
11 Nov
TRANSCRIPT:

The full text of our discussion with @GoddessofGrain is out.

Just a crazy amount of insight into what's driving the surge in grain prices, and therefore meat, dairy and all kinds of other stuff we eat.

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
@GoddessofGrain Angie knows this stuff so well, and is a fount of insight.

I hadn't thought about, for example, how the booming housing market makes it harder for farmers to acquire land, driving up their costs, and therefore the price of food bloomberg.com/news/articles/… Image
@GoddessofGrain Also just like everyone else right now, farmers are worried about the future availability of part supplies (like a belt for their tractor) so are attempting to build up their buffers. Image
Read 4 tweets
Joe Weisenthal Profile picture
11 Nov
THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION POLICIES THAT PREVENTED INFLATION FROM GETTING EVEN WORSE THAN IT IS

For today's @markets newsletter, I wrote about the spending boom that started under Trump, and how certain elements of it were likely disinflationary.

bloomberg.com/account/newsle… ImageImageImageImage
@markets Trump bailed out the airline industry and now airfares are subdued.

Trump didn't bail out the rental car industry and now rental car prices are soaring.

Bailouts work and are good if you don't like inflation. Image
And of course the entire PPP program helped untold number of small businesses from going out of business by "winterizing" their operations. That's crucial supply side capacity we have today, with demand having returned in such a robust manner.
Read 4 tweets
Joe Weisenthal Profile picture
27 Oct
HOW DOGECOIN BECAME THE BOOMER MEMECOIN

For the @markets newsletter, I wrote about how Doge is boring old dead money, and why other dog-tokens like Shiba Inu are what's cool right now.

With thoughts from @Lauren_invests and @ericspiegelman

bloomberg.com/account/newsle… $SHIB $DOGE
@markets @Lauren_invests @ericspiegelman Everyone talks about $SHIB like it's just some joke derivative of a joke.

But unlike $DOGE, it has a fast moving development roadmap, its own decentralized exchange, NFTs, and advanced smart contracting capabilities.

And of course it's WAY cheaper nominally.
Of course, nominal cheapness was for awhile $DOGE's big selling point over Bitcoin and Ethereum.

But it's hard to maintain a cheapness as a sustainable edge, when it's trivially simple for any new project to just add a few zeroes to the total supply.
Read 9 tweets
Joe Weisenthal Profile picture
26 Oct
LET'S TALK ABOUT THE ECONOMIC BOOM

People are talking these days like we did some huge MMT experiment and now we're stuck in a stagflationary quagmire.

In today's @markets newsletter I wrote about how that's nonsense. For one thing, we're seeing a boom.
bloomberg.com/account/newsle…
@markets Somehow we're in a situation in which a record S&P 500, a rapid labor market recovery, a surge in household wealth, surging demand for consumer goods, rapid wage gains (particularly at the low end), manufacturers working non-stop is being depicted as evidence of a policy mistake.
@markets Anyway, it's not like MMTers designed the fiscal response. And in retrospect, you can always come up with some things that could have been better. But the economy is booming, despite the pandemic. Robust fiscal policy looks to have been more than vindicated.
Read 4 tweets
Joe Weisenthal Profile picture
25 Oct
NOW IS THE PERFECT TIME TO RETHINK 'FISCAL SUSTAINABILITY'

For the Odd Lots blog, I wrote how trying to match spending and taxes on a dollar-for-dollar basis is a very poor way for Democrats to think about paying for their infrastructure bill. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Included a bunch of thoughts from @typesfast @StephanieKelton @JWMason1 and others.

Even if our current inflation does prove to be, in fact, "transitory" it's still sending us a warning that our infrastructure lacks the capacity for fast growth.
Taxing billionaires unrealized capital gains isn't going to create any more berths at the Port of Los Angeles.
Read 5 tweets

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