Paradigm Rollovers: 8.3% Inflation and the Future Fed

Economics today is not the simple sport it may have been at the peak of the Industrialization of the West.  Anymore, it’s a multivariate kluge (or stew, if you like) and ongoing battles for supremacy of power.

You can skip ahead to the CPI and other data, but hear me out:

Part of looking into the Future involves understanding the relative ascension of different paradigms.  Some that hold current fascination include:

  • The Build-Back Better notion.  With the U.S. in a recession which can’t be admitted, this paradigm is in trouble.  So is the Slow Joe plan – now shoveled out of the press – to add lots more housing to the national production.  Clearly, the Bilkem administration is spending money we do not have, on “economic projects” that won’t work, to raise our taxes that we can’t afford.
  • Woke (the Joke):  This paradigm is a particularly dangerous (*not to mention unconstitutional) drive to bring back racial and gender discrimination.  But only the “right” end of equality.  Marxist bullshit tightly coupled to smearing the line between “equality” and “equity.”
  • The West War-Making Paradigm:  In this, everyone is “out to get us.”  Which is why the U.S. is STILL the world leader in arms production and sales.  It keeps people working who otherwise might relax and do more productive things.
  • The Famine Meme is growing:  As a fraction of disposable income, food is going up.  Figures in a sec.  As it does so, the whole spending dynamic changes character.  Supply and demand rules.  So, when energy and fertilizer are the major victims of the UKR war – promoted by limited-thinking skill bunglers in D.C. – the result is inflation.
  • It’s the same with Energy supplies as well:  Buy’ed ’em erred in a nearly traitorous way by selling AMERICAN strategic energy reserves to China.  Because just like fertilizer causing transient inflation, energy caused a big PITA over Summer.
  • Europe is falling under Russia’s energy grip which clouds the future not just of NATO but all of Europe.  EU readies energy package, countries split over gas price cap.

All of these things may be ready for Change now.

The Fed will look at this morning’s inflation results but regardless of how good or bad, its likely to keep on with plans to raise at least another 3/4’s of one percent next Wednesday.

But the multivariates are on the move.

Energy prices are coming down. U.S. Gas Prices Have Fallen for 91 Straight Days, Relieving Inflationary Pressure in the NY Times leads to speculation that we could have under $3-dollar gas shortly.

At the same time, however, goods from China aren’t getting cheaper and if anything, they’re becoming more dear.  China is going through a patch of mass Covid lockdowns (*China’s zero-covid policy is notoriously strict – When will it end?).  This imperils the future of America’s biggest retailers: Amazon and Wal-Mart.

The Food prices are also going up:  You may remember that late in 2021, our ShopTalk Sunday columns featured building a lean-to greenhouse on the side of our double-wide in the woods.  Today, we’re reading stories like Soaring Food Prices in Brazil Lead Many to Take Up Urban Farming.  The U.S. must follow.

When I was born, the population of the world was 2.5 billion.  Today, compounded out 73 point some years we are kissing 8-billion.  More than 3-times as many humans and yet, at the same time, there has been an actual decrease is arable land.  There’s a dandy backgrounder on the USDA website here.  20-pages and a quick read.  Sure, lots of historical info.

Arable land in the US today is 389.8M acres. Not much over an acre per person.  What we find when the data of population and arable land is mashed-up, is that arable land on a per capita basis peaked in 1961.  My friend Howard (a genius financial engineer) and I have kicked-around the idea that 1960-1970 was probably Peak Prosperity.

That was when one fulltime working person in a household could support a family of four or five.  That was when the stay-at-home spouse handled chores like teaching about “birds and bees” as well as doing home gardening.  Fruit trees, canning, and berry-picking to make jelly were enjoyable parts of my own inner-city youth.  Too much of which has been taken over by bureaucratic government expansion bent of equity not equality. (One is a value, one is a stick-up.)  Yes, paper rules life – a laughable mental disease, but media doesn’t offer the cure.

The longish and rambling point of this?  Just that we are likely to see another economic collapse withing two-years.  Despite financializations (and government asset-stripping – our topic tomorrow on the Peoplenomics side) the hardcore reality of too many people approaching the edges of the Petri dish will not go well. Which is why we downscaled early, got debt-free, and volunteered for a lower-income lifestyle in the woods where we can grow things and find game.

Banker’s look are baselines as semi-stable and make judgments on paper.  Thereby remaining semi-detached from Reality and prone to policy errors.  We expect that “right policy” will remain missing on the legislative side, leaving the Fed only paper games to play.  America needs a serious green-vamp. But only climate extremists get the press because in the f*cked up world of today, it’s the monetization of problems – not their solutions that matter.

If you don’t believe me, look at Steve Bannon’s case or the democrat party still running Trump and abortion as issues.  Ya’ll have fun.

Americans can’t even solve yesterday’s problems which therefore creates tomorrow’s additional crises.  We try to think a little more proactively, than that.

The CPI Report

Hot off the BLS press site:

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) rose 0.1 percent in August on a seasonally adjusted basis after being unchanged in July, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all-items index increased 8.3 percent before seasonal adjustment.

Drilling down into the details: Energy moderated but look what rose:

Year-on-year food at home was up almost 12% and that’s the kind of rotating paradigm problem the Fed has.  That as the inflation less food and energty being up 6.3%.  Futures were up 200 after the numbers, but let’s see if this – being a Gann day – falls apart towards the close if not earlier.

This will all weigh on the Fed next Wednesday.  But, given the s0-called dual mandate, they can’t treat socially transmitted insanity; only issue economic pills to swallow.

The NFIB Data

Another one of those press releases we look forward to sharing:

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Sept. 13, 2022) – The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index rose 1.9 points in August to 91.8, marking the eighth consecutive month below the 48-year average of 98 but reversing some of the declines in the first half of the year. Twenty-nine percent of owners reported that inflation was their single most important problem in operating their business, a decrease of eight points from July’s highest reading since the fourth quarter of 1979.

Here’s the guts of it:

  • Small business owners expecting better business conditions over the next six months improved 10 points from July to a net negative 42%, the highest level since February 2022, but a dismal outlook.
  • The net percent of owners raising average selling prices decreased three points to a net 53% (seasonally adjusted), still a very inflationary outcome.
  • The net percent of owners who expect real sales to be higher increased 10 points from July to a net negative 19%, but owners still want to hire.
  • The Uncertainty Index increased seven points to 74.

Oh, and as of this morning the USA is $30,894,094,123,383.54.  But, when you put compound interest into it, the real debt is closer to $100 trillion.

Various and Nefarious

(Or Dumb and Dumber…)

Monetizing Hunter Biden:  We rather expect the Miranda Devine stories in the NY Post and her book “Laptop from Hell” did good things for circulation.  We have to wonder if New York magazine has now picked up the scent rolling with The Sordid Saga of Hunter Biden’s Laptop (nymag.com)

The Robots are coming!  The Robots are coming!  (Aye, robotics…):  AI creator warns of ‘apocalyptic’ artificial intelligence that will replace need for humans. Conveniently for class this morning a case study as Uber Eats ditches delivery drivers as it rolls out self-driving cars in weeks in 2 states – is it coming to your city?  And they are not alone: Robot-run SF restaurant Mezli opens near Chase Center.  Homeless outside and robots inside.  What could possibly go wrong?

The Good News behind flooding:  It might kill the fire season?  Satellite photo shows Tropical Storm Kay over California – Los Angeles Times.  It’s getting hard to figure the worst parts of life in SoCal:  The fires, the mudslides, or Gavin Gruesome.  Admittedly, it’s a tough call and seems to depend on whether you drive an EV… So far, the rains haven’t put the kibosh on the Mosquito fire up the Sierra a way.

Paranoid?  Yes, THEY are tracking you:  NSA secretly collecting Americans’ phone call records.

Does anyone really care?  2022 Emmy Winners List – Variety

A more useful data set to look over: The Tax Foundation‘s Tax Map Tuesday feature today is property taxes by state. New Joisey is the highest followed by Illinois and then New Hampshire and Vermont up in Bernie Lands.  Texas is #6 and the lowest three include Hawaii, Alabama, and Louisiana.

Remember in the Great Depression, stories about bankers throwing themselves out of building windows?  Well, every Depression is different, and the users of gravity are different this time:  Russian Executive Falls Off Boat in Latest Mystery Businessman Death. Falling off things is hot couture in Russia now.

And here’s that Nation of Peace, hard at work with your tax dollars:  U.S. Nuclear Missiles Are Outdated. Fixing Them Is Risky. We may have overcrowded prisons, rotting bridges and roads, hungry people, and extremely high taxes.  But doesn’t it make you proud that in addition to gender-peddlers, we’re getting the most up-to-date nukes?  Yessir, warms the heart in a flash…

Write when you get rich,

George@Ure.net

35 thoughts on “Paradigm Rollovers: 8.3% Inflation and the Future Fed”

  1. “Yes, THEY are tracking you:”

    You’re right. I know most people order online and no longer use stores. I still use mostly cash and go with stores. But I noticed returns on card purchases no longer need receipts, just the card used for the purchase.

    Bog Box scans the card then scans the item(s) querying the CC database for the claimed purchase. If the purchase isn’t in the database, no refund/exchange. Most everything is digital.

    Of course .gov doesn’t have enough women/men to look at all of the database reports so…. they use a neural network. That’s why iron and ammo got a special code. The database will never go away.

    This is not to say cash is anonymous. A year or two back we saw Big Box was stealing people images at self-checkout.

    • “Big Box was stealing people images at self-checkout.”

      Self-checkout hell! Pick up an item and one of the bazillion overhead cams will zoom in on the shelf bar-code, another will zoom yer face. Both pieces of “metadata” are fed to a facial-recognition system, which then logs your interest in said item, whether you purchase it or not.

      The next time you’re in Wally-World, go examine a bunch of saucepans, shoes, or something else you don’t intend to buy… ;-)

  2. S&P500 is down 2.3%., The Dow is down 1.9%., The NASDAQ is down 3%., but the Russell 2000 futures are UP 1.2%. Someone, a whole bunch of “someones” likes the small cap stocks this morning. I didn’t see that shift coming.., wish I had.

  3. Correction.., that changed rather fast.., in just ten minutes the Russell2000 went from up 1.2% to down 2.4%.

    • I think g’s call for a high on Sept 9 could be ‘terribly right’!! (Aug 17 Peoplenomics). Only 2 days off, close enough for me.

      congrats g, you earned you prescient glow stars today!

      • Thank you – and I hope you enjoy a beer on the money, C. We have our ideological differences and all but we do share the bond of good cash flows, lol

        A nod to my consigliere for the date, though. I just got the chart right enough to call it a “secondary high.” Seat belts, tray tables and blue barfy bags at the ready for what’s next? Sept 19 looms ugly and beyond.

  4. Hey G thanks for all you and your commenters do!

    Psst – don’t forget to register your garden!! /sarc

    https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/national/newsroom/releases/?cid=NRCSEPRD1952625
    Excerpt begins: “… be recognized as a “People’s Garden” if they register on the USDA website and meet criteria including benefitting the community, working collaboratively, incorporating conservation practices and educating the public. Affiliate People’s Garden locations will be indicated on a map on the USDA website, featured in USDA communications, and provided with a People’s Garden sign.”

  5. Hahaha – rat wallstreet bastard bankers Ure R!

    I know you materialistic low freqs really enjoyed squeezing my nutz so hard yesterday..heard d’lynns nutz were feeling it too – fckrs
    Well low and behold the bite from the nastiest TAX on the planet is starting to injure the peeps most in need of assistance is coming to light.
    How low will she go ? – here is hoping for a big dip – cause I be long da SPY out of the money Puts (Sept26th exp.) and I mean long like doubled down/cost avg down yesterday as we squeezed higher. Out the WAZOO long puts.

    * Take Ure profits Now, dont wait, dont get greedy -lick that ice cream while you still can.

    Case in point -coot wins PSU parlay Saturday. Roll winnings ($80) plus original weekend “entertainment” budget”=$100, into Sunday Eagles/Lions parlay.
    – (Eagles -4.5 and the Over 48.5)

    At half time, 80% in the bag with score Eagles 24 – Lions 14, FD was offering $483 cashout. Eagles score early on in 3rd and cash out goes to $550..Yes! thankyou – that was a delish lick of icecream.
    Eagles’ failed to cover the spread at the end..Whew! Might be a lesson in there..somewhere.

    G once said..starvation leads to what ?

    Always the same game – to move the unwashed masses – into deeper servitude.

    The materialistic spirit of the “zionists” = OUR slavery .

    Welcome to Shadowland – where bringing the Light gets you “Bikoed”. -The last right U got before zio’s try to extinguish..

    • Maybe 0% if you don’t have a value on your time or care and feeding of plants. I know I waste lots of time, but many don’t and have to decide to spend time on one task or another, including any care or feeding you do for the vines. So you are paid 20$ an hour for productive activities, then your productive time is worth ~20$ an hour. Anyway, if a person is very time constrained spending a few hours picking berries can be very expensive and might be cheaper to pay a teenager to pick for you, though their rates have probably climbed with inflation. If you consume the 3 gallons of berries directly then you don’t have any follow on items, but if you intend to sell some jellies or jam, then you would have to come up with some value for your time and other materials like sugar, fertilizer and jars and those are certainly is being impacted by inflation.

      • Time spent in the garden is not measured by hours., or even dollars.., but rather by whether you have breakfast – lunch – or dinner. Monetizing this love/labor is futile.

      • I agree with the second half of your comment, but disagree with the idea of “my time is worth $x, based on my income”.

        My employer considers my time to be valuable, and I am happy to agree with that. However, assessing my non-work hours at that rate is a pleasant delusion.

        I would like to think that, with some effort, I could arrange some kind of contracting for some outfit at a similar rate — but I have never made the attempt, so I could be wrong. It would be rather ego-deflating to discover that other people figure I’m worth about a dime over minimum (which just might be the case when I’m outside my special niche).

        I do agree with your other comments, about time-constrained people and inputs and their costs when making things to sell.

    • Rusty,

      That’s a lot of berries, enjoy!

      As we now know from the msm reports of last month, the late Queen enjoyed a daily teatime repast of a jam sandwich on white bread. Known as a “jam buttie” to the downstairs classes, it’s been a staple of the poor since olden days. Yes, the “jam penny” is going on my list of getting to 96 hale and hearty!

  6. Computers are a marvel of the world.

    Last week I was speculating the Keystone Beef would be going up in value. Back then I cleared the shelf and thought the cans would reprice at replenishment.

    Today I was perusing the $WMT inventory and noticed the cans are going up in value in the adjacent community. The price is jumping 10% over there @ replenishment. The cans are still $9.98 each at the local $WMTs by me and they have inventory.

    I’m being compelled to clear the shelf.

    Old price

    https://ibb.co/M8q6TkY

    New price

    https://ibb.co/KmB9jMK

  7. “NSA secretly collecting Americans’ phone call records.”
    Who’d a thunk it? look surprised. And what exactly is the reason for this intrusion into our privacy?????

    • Because they can.

      When the entity in power acquires a technology or a new information stream, they will never give it up, ever, at any time, for any reason — even if they say they have/did/will…

      When Iran gets a nuke, we won’t know, until they have enough to destroy both Israel and CONUS. Irrespective any negotiated bullcrap, their centrifuges are spinning at warp speed, have been for 25 years, and will continue to do so until they have, not just a bomb, but a stockpile.

      NSA records every word that’s typed or spoken on a networked device. Every single word. They’ve done so for nearly 30 years now, and will never stop, because they have the ability and the backdoor, and the storage space, and no reason to ever stop. The folks who do this have such a high security clearance that no one can ever even discover it’s happening.

  8. Property Taxes: “…the lowest three include Hawaii, Alabama, and Louisiana.”

    Now that shocked me. Hawaii is not business friendly, and considered high tax with that general excise tax on EVERYTHING that is a transaction. But I suppose I should not be surprised about property taxes. My ‘Senior Homestead’ tax is only $200/yr.

    • “My ‘Senior Homestead’ tax is only $200/yr.”

      MY GOODNESS.. I need to move to Hawaii or Texas… LOL what you guys pay a year we pay a month give or take a few bucks..
      I know people that live in the rich boy neighborhoods that pay less taxes.. than the wage earner bend over and grab your ankles we have a big surprise for you neighborhoods.. LOL LOL

  9. Out of the 500 stocks listed in the S&P500, only six are trading higher this morning. Very broad base sell-off. Pricing in the 3/4 pt rise by the Fed ?

  10. 5 stocks on the NASDAQ lost $890 billion dollars in market value today – ouch !
    The S&P500 climbed yesterday and just kissed the 30 Day MA.., damn near stopped me out.., so I doubled down on my put options. Happy Happy – Joy Joy.., it tried so hard this morning to stay above the magical, psychological 4,000 mark., but couldn’t do it. Now down 4% and also dropped below it’s 85 Day MA. I am just about to pull the trigger and get out of three of the puts options.

  11. I’m looking for that section of the constitution that allows the goobermint to get involved with peoples gardens. And remember , what you can comply with and join into today at your own discretion could very easily become a matter of forced compliance in the future. (of course this would be a first , right???)

    • The government will likely never broach the 3rd Amendment.

      The rest of the Constitution exists in name only and Washington routinely violates any of its body or its Amendments, whenever the socialists in-charge feel the need to do so.

  12. “the democrat party still running Trump and abortion as issues.”

    I can say the abortion political issue is a dead horse issue that will still be debated long after our grandkids are grown and voting. even though I do understand WHY the present administration went wishy washy on his support of that political issue that he wasn’t in support of earlier in his political career…. one look and its obvious why there are more than a few regrets that he didn’t support abortion before in his political career…
    https://youtu.be/eozjtyf_cuw

  13. “Arable land in the US today is 389.8M acres. Not much over an acre per person.”

    So, how much is that after millions of acres are planted in solar panels…?

  14. “ConAgra, ADM, Tysons, P&G, etc might view this elsewise…”

    George,
    I have very little to do with any of those giants. 75% of my garden is heirloom, planted via last year’s, or previous years seeds. The other 25% is usually saved for seeds from like-minded friends. I make my own fertilizer and aphid/bug killer.., etc.
    I have used a hormone spray occasionally as I can find no home-made formula for such a thing.
    Though I probably spend more time then needed in the garden.., it has been great therapy for me. So., I stand by my statement.

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