Short and sweet today, but I hope it was of some interest. The notes I put together ahead of time will follow in this thread...
1/x
First of all, it's #ValentinesDay and SOMEONE is going to get massacred today when the #CPI is released, so naturally:-
2/x
Roses are red, violets are blue,
JayPow doesn't know
And neither do you.
#inflation's effects are not as universal as they were, but does that mean we can all now relax?
3/x
The #jobs market, meanwhile, is still smokin' hot (at least, it is if that last #NFP print is to be believed). Certainly not enough signs of distress to derail the #Fed's loudly declared intent.
4/x
Not hard to find signs of weakness but also (partial explanations) and offsets. Falling #energy prices cast a long shadow on some of the macro numbers.
Ironically, in a world supposedly plagued by weakening industry and where finance is both dearer and more pickily extended, those at the higher, capital intensive end of the productive chain are breaking a lot more ground than those at the lower.
Adding to the confusion, we are potentially suffering from some serious misapprehensions about just how tight are money & #credit. In these circumstances, the widely-noted lack of #moneysupply growth may well be deceptive.
7/x
Furthermore, we may have come up a long way from the bottom in fairly short order, but its still too early to say we're risking the bends, much less altitude sickness, when it comes to real #yields
8/x
Heads or Tails? Kopf oder Zahl?
Both market & #FOMC have managed to talk themselves into a corner regarding today's #CPI release. What we REALLY need for direction is a brief rally/sell-off on a weak/strong number which gets instantly rejected & sucks in volume on the move 9/x
The wider import is that such reversals -of policy, positioning, of data and direction- may be here to stay. #Multiflation, we call it and it's a doozy! 10/x
Larger divergences from expectations. Wider ranges of outcomes. Lesser predictability. Shortened horizons (and hence higher natural rates). Time to get the flared jeans and the Adidas T-shirts out of the wardrobe & start doing the Tiger Feet dance.
11/x
Oh, and 60/40 RIP. Risk parity, too, probably - a well as a host of other mechanical correlation strategies.
It's a world of rigorous Auftragstaktik up at the sharp end, not Chateau generalship and sandbox Schlieffen Plans.
Were I the self-publicising type (viz., distaff-side economists "COUGH!"), my *Cantillon Consulting Rule* would be: Everytime NAPM/#ISM less the 50 break-even loses a cumulative 20+ points in a year, we get a recession. Only false reading in 70 yrs, the '96 auto strike.
#PMI
Yet, even as the sector languishes, as per the #PMI, #manufacturing #construction contines to set new records.
And, this time, we can't even blame super low interest rates or the kind of laxity in providing funding to whcih we've become accustomed of late.
🤔
For illustration, #manufacturing #construction spending versus revenues (shipments).
The point YOU miss is that the US govt (Fed+ State/Local) commandeers $10 trillions' worth of scarce resources each year (BEA Govt GFS), more than HALF of Private Net National Product (BEA 1.7.5 & 1.1.5).
The deficit amounts to $1.8tln pa; 2 1/2 x net private biz investment. 1/x
Of course, to you Double-#MMT Heads, the State's voracity, waste & corruption are doing a vast service to the poor souls whose "savings" are thereby eaten up & whose income & capital formation, both, are diverted to cost-plus mandates, subsidies, nest-feathering & boondoggles 2/x
And how do you justify this utter perversion of economic sense? By pointing to the static accounting tautology that what Leviathan scoffs & issues IOUs against is an equal & opposite boon to the Granny who gets to stack them in place of food in her now emptied cupboard! 3/x #MMT
If there is ONE lesson to be drawn from the past two years of conflict reporting in both the #Ukraine & now #Gaza it is that, even with countless mobile device cameras at hand, it is still impossible to penetrate the lies, deception & propaganda to reach the verity of what-
-is actually taking place; of who is doing what to whom and why. The old, Napoleonic simile, "to lie like a bulletin", still holds true - "citizen journalists", or no.
If there is a second lesson, it is that this proves no impediment to the generation of MSM red-top rage or-
-to the unthinking, onward propagation of fabrications, misinterpretations & rushed judgements by the credulous, the prejudiced & the sensation junkies, here on social media.
A third lesson, perhaps, is that this sad reality extends to all of what we think of as "history"-
A disparate cluster of interests -some venal, some ideological, some quasi-religious- have found common expression in the issue of #Climate™️. Too much, intellectually, financially, emotionally, politically has been sunk into it to allow for honest discussion. 1/x
Even minor scepticism or attempts at technical or economic discussion start by begging the question of whether ANY of this game is worth the candle; all include the Insh’allah of “...while climate change is accelerated and we must (!) address the problem at once...”
2/x
If we start from the false premise that the threat is both pressing and existential, then obviously we narrow the choice to a menu of ‘solutions’ which involve vast expenditure, radical social upheaval, and severe limitations on personal liberty.
3/x
Smith, for all his virtues, here begs the question of what determines prices. If it were always simply at the whim of the producer why would such individuals and firms limit themselves to (1.05)^n? Why not 1.1? 1.2? 2? 200? 2000?
...would each not strive to acquire all those identifiably up- and downstream of it, collapsing the very division of labour Smith so correctly lauded?
And what of the VALUE of these so easily dictated profits? If the final price rises exponentially, the entrepreneur’s return...
...turns to dust in his hands: his 5% surplus buys only 1/(1.05)^[n-1] finished goods in the worst case, so who benefits? And where does the money come from to pay such a pyramid of rising purchase and sale prices if not from the REAL #inflation determinant - expanding credit!?
Now, children, ask yourselves what the Treasury will do with that $1.4tln.
(Hint: it will not be locked in a vault in Iron Mountain)
Next, ask what the successive orders of recipients of that $1.4tln will do with their booty.
(Hint 2: no mattresses will be stuffed) ....
So, class, you can see that -to the extent the banks do *not* create extra credit to accommodate the USTs- we will DIVERT ‘liquidity’, not destroy it - and some of the very same Co.s you’re buying today will see revenues increase even as others’ will fall....
Not saying such a shift will be free of consequences -nor denying that some of those outcomes may aggravate unsuspected vulnerabilities- but prima facie doom is to be avoided...