Jim Bianco Profile picture
Dec 3, 2021 7 tweets 3 min read Read on X
1/7

What is the issue with inflation/the economy?

3 three charts to detail.

* Record consumption of durables (or "stuff").

Restated, the US economy has record demand. Not good demand, but record demand (bottom panel, distance above the trendline).

@kofinas @mercoglianos
2/7

To meet this demand Pacific rim countries are running factors as fast as they can.

The area in this chart is the trade deficit five years BEFORE COVID (2015 to 2019). Red is 2021.

Asian countries are sending us a record amount of stuff, way ahead of pre-covid levels.
3/7

40% of these shipments go to the LA and Long Beach ports.

They are also running at record rates, way above the five years before COVID.

We call it a bottleneck, and while that is technically true, "running at the limits of capacity" might be a better term.
4/7

When record demand meets the limits of production and the supply chain, how do you fix it?

Simple jack prices, which also cools demand

Aka inflation
5/7

How do you fix it without inflation? Get everyone back to work, now!!

But COVID cases in Europe is at a record and the world is at a two-month high and rising rapidly.
6/7

Omicron came a bad time.

When we need people to get together in large groups (aka, go back to work), we now have a reason to slow this process down.

Results, more "bottlenecks" and higher inflation.
7/7

Fed apologists like to say, "the Fed cannot print more ships."

True.

But they can slow record demand that is contributing to higher inflation.

This is why, I believe the market is pricing far more aggressive Fed hikes that the consensus expects.

Cool demand Jay!

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Jim Bianco

Jim Bianco Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @biancoresearch

Nov 16
It turns out that the biggest soap opera in Trump's nominations is the Treasury Secretary. As the graphic below shows, it is as close to 50/50 as it gets.
---

My Take

The Treasury Secretary gets to sit in the room and opine on policy. And their voice will be taken seriously.

But they do not set the policy; the President does. When the president says what they will do, they expect the Treasury Secretary to sell that policy as if it were theirs.

The second part, selling something they don't believe in but are told to do, is something Jamie Dimon will never do, so he will never be the Treasury Secretary. (Dimon wants to tell everyone else what they should sell).

Lutnick will sell whatever you tell him and do it with gusto! Bessert will do so too, but he does not command the room like Lutnick.

In other words, the Treasury Secretary is the administration's chief spokesman. This is a sales job, and it needs a salesperson.

The problem with Yellen was that she needed to be a better salesperson. Yes, she is an outstanding economist, but she was never a good spokesperson for the Biden Agenda.

She would have been a better National Economic Council head, the "smart person in the shadows advising the President."

If I had to guess ....

Lutnick = Treasury Secretary
Bessert = National Economic Council headImage
Read 4 tweets
Nov 7
1/6

Six questions I would ask Powell (which, of course, he will not answer).

1. Why did this happen? Image
2/6

2. Question 1 caused this. How is this helping? Image
3/6

3. I know you think inflation has either been defeated or is about to be defeated. So, why did the market react this way after you cut in September? Image
Read 6 tweets
Nov 4
1/6

An update 🧵

We manage a fixed-income total return index. It is based on our discretion.

It is called The Bianco Research Total Return Fixed-Income Index.

On Bloomberg, it is BTRINDX <index>, or at its website biancoadvisors.com
2/6

As of Friday, November 1st, our Index outperformed the Bloomberg US Aggregate Index by 107 basis points. Image
3/6

The WisdomTree Bianco Fund (symbol: $WTBN) tracks our Index.

This is set up similarly to $SPY. The S&P Index Committee manages the S&P 500, and the ETF $SPY tracks it.

We operate our Index, and $WTBN tracks it.
Read 6 tweets
Nov 2
1/3

The Sahm Rule was Triggered in July, red bars. This means a recession has ALREADY STARTED. (The definition is on the chart).

It was "un-triggered" with the October unemployment rate.

@Claudia_Sahm Image
2/3

The Sahm Rule works because once it is triggered, the unemployment rate soars.

The last time it was triggered and then un-triggered a few months later was in 1959 when the recession was still 2 1/2 years away. Image
3/3

This unusual action underscores the idea that the Labor market is very different post-pandemic. Even Claudia has argued this.

What has changed?

See the black line below; the country's population is exploding—blue and red detail where it is coming from.Image
Read 4 tweets
Nov 2
1/6

Like you, I see the regular posts about the Spot BTC inflow records. Running out of superlatives.

They are correct. We have never seen anything like it.

@JSeyff @EricBalchunas @Matt_Hougan @dotkrueger @btcjvs @fejau_inc @qthomp @Tyler_Neville_ @MikeIppolito_ @NateGeraci
2/6

Why isn't the price going up? (orange)

Since the BTC ATH on March 13 ($74.3k):
* Spot BTC ETFs flows >$12B (blue)
* The halving (April 19)
* Trump endorsement (July)
* Tech/SPX mania
* Fed Cut (Sept)

The price should have hit $100k months ago.

Instead, it's down 4%. Image
3/6

At the same time, money has been pouring into gold ETFs, >$6B since March 13.

And Gold's price is screaming higher, up 25%.

Why is gold soaring when BTC cannot go up despite an almost never-ending stream of bullish news? Image
Read 6 tweets
Oct 31
1/5

My Favorite Anecdote About The Economy

A good way to measure the perceived health of the US economy is to measure the public's ability to spend on things they want but do not need, aka discretionary spending.

🧵
2/5

The Conference Board's survey of 3,000 Households asking whether they are planning a foreign vacation in the next six months.

This month, the survey hit another all-time high: 22% of US households say they will vacation overseas in the next six months. Image
3/5

A foreign vacation is something that absolutely nobody needs but absolutely everybody wants.

You only agree to potentially spend several thousand dollars if you are confident about your job,
investments, and the overall state of the economy.

Couple this with: Image
Read 5 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(