This headline makes absolutely no sense unless you read our twice-weekly Peoplenomics.com reports. Over there, I occasionally will discuss trading in non-dollar terms.
For example, a trade I have on now (which may produce at least the fries when the market opens down a bit) may pay off upwards of 194 Quarter Pounders next week if we’ve lined up on the decline just right.
People – by and large – are stuck when it comes to Money. They don’t eat money, turn on the smart phone to read money. On average, people don’t wear money, either.
The point of confusion is Money is merely the handy screwdriver we use to trade in useful things.
As I’ve told you many times before: You know a society is crazy when a shopkeeper will trade a jug of perfectly good rum for used pieces of paper.
But that’s how the American Delusion has rolled.
Seebohm Rowntree (flipping to Wikipedia here)…
“…was an English sociological researcher, social reformer and industrialist. He is known in particular for his three York studies of poverty conducted in 1899, 1935, and 1951.”
Caused quite an uproar with that 1935 report because he said not including rent, a British family during the interwar period needed about 43 s. 11 d. to survive.
He generously included a few ciggies and some provision for commuting in his estimate.
Understanding money – as we attempt to around here – is made almost impossible when going back into history because of changes that governments bring along.
For example, you may have forgotten that prior to 1971, there were 20-schillings ( s.) to the Pound Sterling and 12 pennies ( .d) to the shilling.
Point is, Rowntree figured during the British side of the Great Depression (which was global, remember, due to the trade wars), it was costing what would be (in 1935 just about 3 Pounds per week to live.
Of course, like the U.S. the Brits have been making up money – a kind of globalist disease – so in order to figure an idea of what poverty levels were like then, we could apply the U.S. inflation from 1935 to present (which we’d estimate at 17.89 times).
And eventually, Rowntree reduces to a middle-of-the-British Depression family of four basic eating cost of $67 (YSD) per week in modern times.
That was then and this is now.
But you might tuck that away for future reference: When our bloated, insanely overprice/over-valued markets finally return to reasonable levels (like a yield of dividends in the 5% range( implies a market price of about 25% of what it is today.
Except, it will be worse, of course.
That’s because the dollars chasing stocks are not coming from primary goods producing jobs.
Instead they come from mostly savings of people working in the Service sector.
Which (you’re thinking “Thank God!”) gets us to the first real data point of the morning: That delightful fiction called Personal Income and Outlays.
The press release, if you please?
“Personal income increased $57.7 billion (0.4 percent) in February according to estimates released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Disposable personal income (DPI) increased $44.6 billion (0.3 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $7.4 billion (0.1 percent). Real DPI increased 0.2 percent in February and Real PCE decreased 0.1 percent. The PCE price index increased 0.1 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased 0.2 percent.
Here’s the knee-slapper part:
Personal outlays increased $7.5 billion in February (table 3). Personal saving was $808.0 billion in February and the personal saving rate, personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income, was 5.6 percent (table 1).
Send us comments in response to “Do YOU know anyone who saved 5.6%?”
We all need to go huff some whipping cream, know what I mean? It’s one of those whipping cream and ViseGrips mornings…
OK, how does the market initially digest this?
Futures are down only 13 for the Dow…
Just don’t forget, your long-term savings goal, family of four, is $100 per week for good for the 8-10 years a Second Depression could last.
$52,000 in checking ought to about cover meals. Assuming a bunch of asterisks: No bank collapse, no bail-in, no limits on cash assets, no institution of digital money, no government taxing of savings…it’s a terrible list.
You’re almost better off going down to the gambling boats at Shreveport, LA. or taking a junket to Las Vegas, when you plan this far out.
Or, you can follow our lead and start denominating everything in your life by Quarter Pounders….which unlike paper money, actually do have some intrinsic value. At least for their first 3-minutes of existence.
A few weeks on, paper makes a comeback.
Troubles of Trump
NY Times today: “Michael Flynn Offers to Testify Before Congress in Exchange for Immunity…”
Attention State Department Wanks
“Tyrannosaurus rex was a sensitive lover, scientists find.,..”
Ooops…wrong T. Rex file…
I mean t to grab the WaPo report how “Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spends his first weeks isolated from an anxious bureaucracy…”
Oh, the embeds and nasty nest of neocons who can’t spell the word TEAM? And mostly installed by which former president?
Arrogant Pricks of Europe
Who me? P:issed? You bet’cha.
I told you when the State Department (neocons) were off baking cookies in Ukraine that Vladimir Putin was seriously pissed – (if not driven to grab Eastern Ukraine as fast as he could( – when the Megalomaniacs of Brussels announced their vision of a “Trade Block spanning from Portugal to Vladivostok.”
We referred to the EUJJ as a den of arrogant pricks because it is customary, polite, and may avoid wars, if you talk to people whose country you plan to steal (or hornswoggle) in advance and don’t drop it on them in a press conference.
So: Did the Arrogant Pricks learn anything from that gaff?
Hell no, of course not: Temporary and Convenient Remorse. Their stripes show again as now they’re back as:
“EU could BREAK UP the US: Juncker in jaw-dropping threat to Trump over support for Brexit.”
If you’re not keeping up with class, this repackaged Hitlerian mindset is why the Brits have the good sense to trigger Article 50. It’s why a lot of other countries are – at the regular peeps level – wanting to get out from the madness while they can.
Meantime, the megalomaniacs are still pretending to “be in charge” as outlined in “EU offers Brexit trade talks, sets tough transition terms.”
Fools! This is a damn DIVORCE. The EU doesn’t get to continue spousal abuse (of the UK) once their mate has quit the union, so to speak. Who are these EU people?
Well, now that you ask…The European Union is a collection of bankrupt countries in serious denial about their plight.
What they’re doing is similar to the US federal crime called “check kiting” (explanatory note in a sec). The E.U. is still trying to “gobble up new countries before the old and existing liabilities and commitments catch up…”
Which is how Turkey ends up in the E.U. Turkey is 97% in Asia. EU really means globalist power grabbers.
[Related (*in my flimsy and simple mind): Checking kiting from the U.S. Attorney’s Manual: “If a bank insider is involved, a check kite can be prosecuted as a misapplication under 18 U.S.C. § 656, see United States v. Wolfswinkel, 44 F.3d 782, 786-87 (9th Cir. 1995); United States v. Ness, 665 F.2d 248 (8th Cir. 1981)(defendant bank officer arranged for insufficient funds checks to be paid out of the bank’s funds in violation of bank procedure); United States v. Cades, 495 F.2d 1166 (3d Cir. 1974), or possibly under 18 U.S.C. § 1005. A check kite may also be prosecuted as a bank fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1344. See Wolfswinkel, 44 F.3d at 784-85; United States v. Giordano, 489 F.2d 327 (2d Cir. 1973).
The distinction we would offer regarding behavior of the EU is that what they are doing is similar because there is an insider’s representation via the G20, you see?
Replace the word “check” and call it Country Kiting and you’re back caught up with the class…]
Is it proper for me to speak so harshly of the economic war machine in Brussels?
The E.U. is living proof that the farther government gets from direct election, the worse it becomes.
You’ll see that the E.U. has encouraged the Muslim Reconquista of Europe for crazy reasons.
The business logic goes like this: Since we can’t rope in a bunch more dopes by expanding, let’s rope in more victims through wars and waves of refugee inflows.
In the immortal words of Monte Burns (from the Simpsons) “Excellent!”
Say, you don’t think the EU seriously wants TEXAS and OHIO do you?
Vitamin C is Great
Seems to increase effectiveness of cancer treatments.
Note to Peoplenomics Subscribers
Remember many months back when we focused on the upcoming major warfare expected between Amazon and Walmart?
Well, check out the article at Recode: “Amazon and Walmart are in an all-out price war that is terrifying America’s biggest brands…”
This weekend, our three 24” monitors plus a 32” will ALL be replaced with a UHD 55” which set us back a mere $325 including shipping and taxes.
We love to help the casualties of war and encourage you to do the same.
Don’t forget: When you read something that feels anti-Trump in the WaPo, it’s owned by the rich Amazonian and Trump is an anchor retail tenant real estater in MallWorld who mentioned anti-trust for etailers that get to big for their britches during the campaign…
Chess is played on many levels. Might we commend the Sicilian defense about now?
Maybe the savings rate in February appeared to be high because of some folks getting their incentive bonus from last year.
Linus Pauling was curing lung cancer in the 1970’s with mega doses (10,000 units) of I.V. vitamin C and NO chemotherapy.
The idea of lawn mowing came from the same evil genius that gave us mulch. Where the **** did mulch come from? When I was growing up in the 50’s-60’s, there wasn’t any mulch. Then some time in the 70’s, someone decided that every flower bed and lawn border had to be mulched! Maybe it’s the South’s revenge on the North for Sherman.
Plant clover, at least you can eat them, smoke’em too.
“Mulch” is cut grass and pulverized leaves. The stuff they sell in those 40 pound bags is, well, beats me, but it’s a total waste of money.
A fellow who lived up the street from me, years ago, had the only yard in the area which was nicer-looking than mine. Between the concierge chemical trucks and his full-time gardener, he spent more on his grass and shrubs than my annual income at that time. BTW, I spent nothing, but raised my cut-depth from 3″ to 5″ once summer arrived, so as to not allow the Sun to burn the lawn.
I positively LOVE to see the idiots in suburbia, with their lawn sweepers or grass-bagged mowers, sucking up free fertilizer so they can pay the lawn chemical company to put back the stuff they just paid someone else to haul off. That, and folks who mow with an open chute, but aim it at the area they have yet to mow, are things I’ve preached against to my kids, ever since they were old enough to push a mower or drive a tractor. I’m a firm believer in General Patton’s methodology, and utterly detest “paying for the same real estate twice.” This translates in lawn mowing to: “Cutting the same grass over and over.”
Yard care is common sense and 5th grade science — ‘Problem is, too many kids slept through 5th grade and common sense, ain’t. Now folks like me get to derive karmic pleasure watching the snoozers pay the kids who didn’t…
The original, fully functioning mulch we used as kids in the 60’s was pine straw. We put it between garden rows thick, and it reduced the weeding substantially. Therefore, Mom made us mulch her roses and flowers the same way.
We didn’t gripe, because raking it and spreading the needles was lots easier than kneeling and weeding the 1/2 acre garden.
What passes for mulch these days isn’t – it’s the ground up limbs and leaves of trees from your same city, composted. It grows great – the weeds love it… Or you buy the wood chips from a sawmill that are bagged and sold for $3-5 a bag. Doesn’t block much sun unless you buy a lot of it. When it decomposes, it REMOVES NITROGEN from your soil. Great deal, eh?
I still use pine straw – you just need to be heavy with it and it will work.
Because in the future of the internet will be severely restricted and all knowledge will be replaced and kept off the internet also that’s what you’re good at George at retaining those things keeping them on your drives and your terabytes and things of that nature so that will be like the black market is the things that you will have that no one else will have because the going to erase the memory in the future in the future people will not have any memory of a lot of things that have happened now because it’ll be like Google’s doing right now another thing I don’t allow certain advertising but it’s going to get worse before it gets better and so what I’m saying is Rumor Mill News had a thing about a hundred different alternative sites and that’s where the gold is is you know and information the gold isn’t what people have put and catback and didn’t allowed to get deleted because the future will have deleted to pass for knowledge other words it will not be in the library is no more
George,
Your comments only underscore the grim reality that today in America there is no middle class, but rather just the haves and have-nots.
Repeatedly we hear reports that the “average” American [whatever that means] lives paycheck-to-paycheck with absolutely no money left to put into a savings account. Increasingly, folks are being forced to cash in insurance policies, CD’s and IRA’s [if they even HAVE them!] they spent years accumulating just to keep those Quarter-Pounders on the dinner table. In one report it was stated that over 1/2 of the U.S. populace couldn’t even cover a $1,000 emergency… yet you blithely suggest a weekly $100 should magically go into savings so eventually that family of four would have $52,000 cushion against an 8-10 year 2nd Great Depression. Great idea, but it’s a dream from a pipe loaded with something other than Prince Albert.
Because, the exact same conditions apply now as they did way back then: during the 1st time around, people didn’t have a spare penny to save, either. They either struggled endlessly or helped the suicide rates soar off the charts. The BIG difference is that today we have so many federal subsidies that the soon-to-be starving masses have been left with the false sense of security that their personal cash Cow will never run dry.
But then again… they aren’t the ones reading your columns, are they? These are the exact same people who are worrying about how to pay for today’s quarter-pounder and not a luxury combo meal sometime in the not-so-distant future. Because that’s precisely what their luxuries will be like – a super-sized order of fries.
They already know it’s too late for them to “score” – they lost that fiduciary game some time ago. Which is why they gobble up every anti-depressant they can get their hands on [more panaceas thoughtfully provided free by the feds]… pills that only provide fantasies like the false security of having X number of dollars in a bank until your list of asterisks start to level the playing field even more and the have-nots become the majority – and that gap is narrowing daily.
“Do YOU know anyone who saved 5.6%?”
That’s easy, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, etc.
This is just another version of the “Bill Gates walks into a bar” joke. None of us shomoes are saving anything much, but at the top the money is coming in so fast they are buying up mattress companies to make places to put it. Average it out and you get 5.6%
I have been telling George for years that the savings rate he keeps choking on represents the increase in net wealth by the 2% every month. Just like when a company over pays for an acquisition they dump the overpayment amount into goodwill. When the money creation occurs, that which cannot be put into some seemingly legit category, they dump it into the savings number. It is a dual entry accounting system, and it’s on someone’s books somewhere.
George, First, the “waves of refugee inflow” was triggered by W’s/Cheney’s/the Conservatives’ war in Iraq. Freedom Fries. Support the Troops.
Second, Now that the Conservatives are OK with increasing the National Debt for “more jobs!”, the question becomes where do we spend that unfunded stimulus money to get the most jobs (and the most future tax revenues from the stimulus)?
Recall, it wasn’t Reagan’s tax cuts that triggered more jobs; rather it was the continued deficit spending everywhere else!
Let me triple the national debt, and I’ll create so many jobs, you’ll get tired of jobs. Ha ha. Have a great weekend. Best, Mike.
wHAT cONSERVATIVES? yOU mISSED OUR labels of convenience DISCUSSION!
Vitamin C has been known for decades to have anti-aging and anti-cancer properties, usually in far larger doses than are commonly recommended.
Most animals make endogenous vitamin C, but primates seem to have lost that gene, or it’s not expressed for some reason.
By losing that gene (or having it bred out of us) we get to “not live forever” when we figure out how NAD+ and NMN work and can be activated
Try Golden Paste with whole ground black pepper.
And, no George, your not harsh enough. No more tip toeing.
Crap – that’s what I screwed up. Partied first 30, learned next 30 and now totally useless at peak earning time, lol
If you do not live on the island that you own , , ,, THEN there will be chaosespecially before this s*** hits the fan because those people will not be able to pay the bills and you as the landlord will go like what am I gonna do are you going to sell cheap or are you going to hold on what would you do especially since you don’t live there do you have some good
You’re quite right there but there’s always exceptions to the rules where people don’t learn until their almost dead and then we have the exceptions to the rules for those people young people when they’re first born they know what they have to do and where they’re going to go in what to do but yeah as a general rule what you say is kind of pretty much true you got to go to school and you got to get some experience and then after that you get to teach other people your experiences
so if you had a question about anything that you’re uncertain about what would it be
George you might be interested in “Liposomal Vitamin C”. With this technique you can get vitamin C levels in the blood equivalent to intravenous orally. You use a ultrasonic cleaner to break the vitamin C into nano particles and then encapsulate it with Lecithin. Can be done at home easily.