Not an especially hard call to make in advance. Since the latest consumer debt numbers from the Feral Reserve (sic) showed in their most recent window, credit card sales going up at an 11% annualized rate. Despite what is being talked about on the left as an “ever-pending recession” (it’s what happens when the left can’t find proof of collusion), the economy keeps elevating. Or, real or not, since stock buy-backs artificially inflate things, people ACT like the good times are here.
Enough foreplay? Well, here’s the Retail Sales snapshot:
And now the blah-blah:
Advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for August 2019, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $526.1 billion, an increase of 0.4 percent (±0.5 percent)* from the previous month, and 4.1 percent (±0.7 percent) above August 2018. Total sales for the June 2019 through August 2019 period were up 3.7 percent (±0.5 percent) from the same period a year ago. The June 2019 to July 2019 percent change was revised from up 0.7 percent (±0.5 percent) to up 0.8 percent (±0.1 percent). Retail trade sales were up 0.6 percent (±0.5 percent) from June 2019, and 4.6 percent (±0.7 percent) above last year. Nonstore retailers were up 16.0 percent (±1.4 percent) from August 2018, and motor vehicles and parts dealers were up 6.8 percent (±1.9 percent) from last year. (blah-blah-blah…)
Here’s something to ponder: The morning of September 5th, what was our headline? (Hint: Synthetic Blow-Off? Impacts of a GCCD_. The S&P the previous day had closed at 2,937.78. Based on early futures this morning, we wouldn’t be surprised to see the market trade through 3,024. That’s 7 trading days. Almost 3%, but let’s use 2.9%.
At this rate, and assuming only 250 trading days in a year, that would be a 270% annualized rate. (My head spins…) That’s what a blow-off “ditto cam” of 1929 would look like – until a month-in, people sobered up.
Speaking of “Sobering”
Fed money creation data for the week.
If you own a home, and are still paying on a mortgage, put “Send Love Note to Fed” on your Friday list: This kind of money-creation is sure to keep real estate prices high, until the “moment of sobriety.”
Also try to remember: In alcoholism and drug abuse, people hit bottom. In economics, the problems become clear when people hit the top.
The Growth Dart
The nation’s addiction to “making up money” (MUM economics) thus becomes clear. While the Wall St. Journal headlines “Economists Don’t See Path to 3% Growth in 2019 Forecasters in survey expect GDP will increase 2.2%, falling short of Trump’s goal.”
We’d suggest the “economists surveryed” list be changed up to include a few of us who understand “making up money” more clearly. Because if you make up enough money, you can card any growth rate imaginable – on up to 20 percent, or more. As long as the nation’s contract law holds together so that leveraged borrowers can pay off their debts with vastly cheaper money, anything is possible.
‘dem Crats Trolling Sucka’s
Ure’s truly managed to sleep through the crat that was on the prez-dented “:debate” last night. I’d been up since 1 AM working on PN, and then got the tractor running and a full 16-hour day.
Last thing on my (somewhat) rational mind was watching American Cullinary Cons – Free Lunch Finals – which from the reviews is what it came down to.
Major Learning Points:
- Yang is an idiot. (So we’re clear: Idiotism is a processor issue, not an IQ or Income issue).Every revolutionary economist in the world (myself included) that Finland axes the much-touted universal income tst run for two years. Did people on the receiving end like free money? HELL YEAH. (Who wouldn’t, see idiotism def.) But did it table results? I mean, if you’re running for president, you would look at the dfamn data, right? Fer-zample: “Heikki Hiilamo, Professor of Social Policy at the University of Helsinki, comments on the preliminary results of Finland’s basic income experiment: Effects on the labour market were minimal, and survey results demonstrating that basic income recipients had better subjective well-being can be questioned.”
- Speedo Uncorked is an idiot. He wants to impound “assault weapons” The problem is with soft-soaping communists (which is what socilists are) is that if you want to throw out one sentence in a contract (The Constitution is a contract, right?) what will he axe next? Just one clause? No, the left has been systematically dismembering “The Contract” for a long time and anyone who wants to keep up the attack should renounce their citizenship because they’re obviously in the wrong country. We’ll go to far as to buy Speedo a one-way ticket to Venezuela – ah, the worker’s paradise – where I’m sure he’d be more comfortable among his comrades. When one “right goes” the rest are in trouble. “Just this once…” is one of the biggest lies in the world.
There was more. ABC as a talk-aways piece over here. Me? Glad I slept through it. My take-away? Idiocy may be the missing “weak force” in quantum mechanics.
Hmmm.
NHTSA probing reports that Nissan Rogue’s automatic emergency braking system is faulty. Can the investigation be stopped?
A Ban on Flavored E-Cigarettes Would Sharply Cut Sales. Did they figure this out by themselves or did they have help?
Potential Tropical Cyclone Nine continues to form path similar to Hurricane Dorian. Hide the Sharpies.
Newfound Comet Likely an ‘Interstellar Visitor,’ Russian Scientists Say. Finally, something for the Biburu crowd – which is a crowd very much like the “We know there’s collusion, but we just haven’t found it yet” crowd.
Breathtaking: Houston
Our favorite Houston reader (there are three) sent us a wonderful story – edited to remove personally identifying info:
“Many years ago I was picking up a dear friend who had flown into Hobby for a huge IT conference being held at the Hyatt downtown. She wrinkled up her nose as we were loading her luggage into my car asking me what was that ghastly smell. I looked at her, smiled, and replied, “Money.” She knew nothing about Oil Patch; when she left to fly back to L.A. she knew a whole lot more. “
Included was a (terribly link-laden) story in the Houston Chronical here which has ghastly pictures of pollution.
Thing is, the story has been around for almost six-months. See the coverage on Quartz back in Apil. What we find so curious (other than the lists not maching among all the versions of this one the web). And, depending on which version of the story you read, the data c an either be from the EPA data tools page (you can look this stuff up directly) OR you you can visit the American Lung Association page.
Here’s the thing: Depending on which metric, timeframe, and so forth, our erstwhile stringer in Houston may be living in the 24th worst air pollution or the 9th.
What we therefore find so interesting is not the data so much as it’s the emergence of a new kind of media: Linkfotainment.
25 Best Citiues to Retire, 30 Best Bikinis…stories (including this air quality compilation) that aren’t really useful (unless you plan to retire and move, buy a bikini (not on my list today), or move to a better airshed.
Linkfotainment deserves to be recognized as an art form, much as propagand…which is mostly what it is, when all the pop-ups are blocked.
OK…moron the morrow..write when you…whatever…
george@ure.net
I had a deja vu do-over experience this morning at 6:30 AM and again at 6:45 AM. I cleaned up a piece of debris wedged in chair slats outside my back door. 15 minutes later, I had to clean the same piece of debris again, wedged in the same place, on a calm morning. Congratulations G_____, now you got me seeing temporal ghosts in the bushes.
You’re just beginning to NOTICE them, is all…
Somehow you went back in time 15 minutes. Sherlock Holmes said, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
It is impossible to travel back 15 minutes in time. Conditions wouldn’t allow it to be rewedged. What is probable is, you thought about removing the wedged debris 15 minutes earlier, but In fact, you didn’t remove it.
No time travel. I looked at my clock as I left the house the first time. I walked over and removed the debris the first time because it looked kinda strange in the dim light, and I wanted to see what it was. When I returned and saw what looked like the same debris wedged in exactly the same place, I made a note of the time. No one else was there. Deja vu all over again. While there may be a scientific explanation, the one you came up with isn’t it.
Andy- Are you sure that wasn’t Confucianism?
Also note, first observation at 6:30 AM, second observation at 6:45 AM. I wasn’t implying my clock ran backward.
Trip the light fantastic! You are now experiencing what the Himalayan Masters call, “I dont know.”
;)
Hi Nancy, per your other comment a while back. You could never offend me. :)
Hahahhahahaha! Yeah, thats what we call asphalt in the construction trucking buisness.
Smell that? The other black gold. :)
An unusually angry post today George…Fox seems to have dialed up the mind control frequencies today. Since we are always being told to read between the lines on every idiotic thing Trump says…Read between the lines for what Yang says. Will his free money ever be a reality? No…but listen to his back story about how Amazon pays no taxes. Isn’t that corporate socialism? How many other companies underpay? The national debt, is up 13% at $22.5 trillion since 2016 when the Trump tax plan took affect. Yet…interestingly the deficit as a percentage of GDP has contracted from a peak in 2009 of 9.8% to about 5% today. GDP is up…deficit is up…
In post debate interviews Yang stressed the Corporations like Amazon need to start paying their share or share it with the American consumer. I would take it a step further. For every purchase I make at Amazon I personally would like a Amazon gift card equivalent to the taxes they don’t pay on it. I spend a lot on Amazon…so it would be significant I would assume.
Other than his free money idea…a talking point differentiator…I really like Yang. I have seen him speak at local conferences and have supported his idea of establishing a technology minor league system in struggling midwestern cities to boost their economies. He is brilliant and a proven job creator.
Does Amazon pay taxes? Amazon employs about 575,000 people around the world & has untold numbers of businesses that sell on Amazon (the biggest are in Brooklyn & Jewish). Most of these people pay taxes & Sales Taxes are collected & remitted. The fault is not Amazon’s, but the tax laws. This is nothing new, it has been going on for decades & the repubs & dems are equally to blame. WHY…They need Corporate America to pay for their election campaigns. Like winning the drug war, the government just doesn’t care. They Ying & Yang depending on the wind direction.
Read between the lines, Yang is a scammer & will say anything to look like he cares. Sensationalism is what we deplorables call it. Yang is just grabbing for headlines. Amazon, Bezos, & The Washington Post are the darlings of the liberal left, but they will sacrifice anyone to get ahead.
Yang is far from a scammer. He is one of the most brilliant minds America has today! One of the richest too. He gets how to make a real buck using real honest math. Not made up money like Trump. His MATH initiative..Make America Think Again is really what we need…because Trump has just made this country the opposite. His election is proof of that. Yang WILL show you his tax returns.
“The national debt, is up 13% at $22.5 trillion since 2016 when the Trump tax plan took affect. ”
I am surprised mark that its up only 13% with the compounding interest on the deficit I had suspected it would be much higher than that by now.
So either I miscalculated the assertion of the compounding interest….or what little bit DJT has been able to get done with a the adverse publicity and lack of support from the clowns that are being pimped off as public servants…is actually making a dent in the assention of the national debt.
Then I figured the economy was going to tank two years ago and have us paying a million dollars for a loaf of bread.
The way I figure it is the day I win the lottery . ( I know the odds ) that is when the payout will be just enough to buy a ham sandwich lol
I believe until it tanks…it will be like a tree falling..you see the slow movement..then wham.
It will be a night and day change over the period of a few hours.
You’ll go to bed secure thinking tomorrow will be a great day and wake up to find your penniless..
Assets seized for govt use..in the restabilizion of the nation.
Oh hey…
Didnt the clown patrol vote in a bill just for that purpose a while back…lol lol lol
I guess they might have to go back and reread them to see if they did by mistake…lol lol
NO CORPORATION PAYS TAXES!
It is a pass-through tax which principally burdens the poor.
“Corporate tax” is always added to by the compliance department every corporation is forced to fund, then passed through to the next-level consumer, and becomes an asset-recovery tax on that part of the population which otherwise pays no income tax, or receives a tax-credit check like Earned Income Credit.
Corporate tax should be ZERO, which would, BTW, financially justify a 5%-8% reduction in the wholesale cost of every product or subassembly manufactured in the USA, and in many cases a greater than 20% reduction in retail price to the consumer, NOT COUNTING the cost of the TAX, itself. Maybe you have no interest in buying a new Ford Focus or Chevy Malibu for $12,000, but a lot of other folks would.
UBI is a great idea, as long as it’s only doled to a small segment of a population. If given to everyone, its effect would zero out within a few months, and that $12k on the AGI line of IRS Form 1040 would bump a huge sector of “below poverty” Americans into “working poor and owing taxes” status — ‘Same as “minimum wage” does. These folks would become both monetarily poorer, and they would feel the decrease in buying power more acutely.
“© 1997-2018 George A. Ure…”
It might be time to update your copyright notice to include 2019.
Just sayin’…
I am glad you brought up that experiment…….
“The experiment analyzed two different interlinked mechanisms in the Finnish public social services system.
Currently, those who have been classified as “long-term unemployed” are required to participate in active labor market programs. ”
https://money.cnn.com/2013/06/10/news/economy/outsourced-federal-government/index.html
take all of that money that is being outsourced.. and put it into the unemployed.. most of the work is on the job training.. colleges just show you have the tenacity to stick with it..and the basic principles with a very good percentage that receive those pieces of paper should have them signed in crayon.. you don’t really learn the job till your in it and experience it..
just for the funds designated for foreign aide is someplace between fifty and sixty billion.. the total monies outsourced is closer to two hundred billion if you take into account the funds that are not listed.. so why not do what they did.. take that money close to six hundred billion and put it into the working Americans that could use the funds that are dependent on these social programs for survival.
George,
-Honestly not get your attack on the D’s right out of the box today. I mean, for maybe the past 10 years, you yourself have been calling for the Big Crash, ever pushed out another 6 months, and now the Libtards are the Negative Nabobs bringing the economy down? Really? Isn’t this what we heard when the conservatives’ dumb ass Iraq war was going south? That it was the Libtards’ fault because they weren’t rah-rah enough (in the face of bad facts)?
-Moreover, why rewrite history, when all that needs to be done is to remain silent. Trump may have skated by on ‘conspiracy’s narrow legal definition, but there were certainly buckets of ‘collusion’ (in the sense of it’s non-criminal, non-legal definition). And Trump clearly got tagged on criminal obstruction of justice, with only presidential immunity while in office saving his sorry ass.
-Sorry, but have to go with Mark today. Best, Mike.
“for maybe the past 10 years, you yourself have been calling for the Big Crash, ever pushed out another 6 months”
Mike… I think we all can credit our president for delaying the inevitable…
When the daily chant was
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s8hEtI9AI0U
And all the clowns were saying every day on the evening news… we need to go to another war someplace..
our president was elected a business man and a successful one at that.
he’s stopped us from being drawn into so many false flag wars where the bought and paid for being.pimped off would have us deep in another battle kill for peace and prosperity..
before he took office the talk was we need to secure our borders then he pushed to stop those invading our country and he’s criticized for being to harsh let them in. Even though they openly told everyone that that’s how they would gain entrance..the trojan horse..
those fleeing the very religion they worship will have the war machine hiding among them that will try to bring our nation to its knees.
Donald Trump will go down in history as one of the greatest presidents of all time. If our country can withstand the puppet the deep state wishes to put in place.
I see war..possible nuclear war.. a depression that will make the weimar depression look like a cake walk. Internal strife..we’ve sent our army to everywhere else that can gain the.puppeteers more power and resources.. money is or will be worthless during that time. We cannot fight a war internally and the second they take the guns away we are nothing more than sheep ready for the slaughter from the illegal immigrant forces that are allowed to set up camp with in our nation’s borders..
I give our president a lot of credit for stopping the fall that’s coming.
Putin and Ping they aren’t stupid they know that our president is being played. I think they haven’t gone to the extreme just because they know that’s what deep state wants. Even though they may suspect that they to are being sued by the same groups.
It’s coming it has to..we’ve crossed the tipping point with compounding interest on the deficit. Right now the only thing holding it up is credit.
Remember one out of two are dependent on social programs for their daily living. San fran should be a good Indicator.. a quarter mil is a poverty food stamp area income.
Retirement and 30 Best Bikinis ..that is some marketing genius, if in it were 30 Best Places to see Bikinis! Sign this deplorable up for that list..30 Best Places to Retire and See Bikinis, on Women.
Now that hurricane draino is kaput, any reports on extraordinary/out of place damage ..demo,deep water ports destroyed ?.. rumors of some of those fine creatures (SEALS) were “hunting” in and around the Bahamas prior to and during the “STORM”
Retail buyers of silver may need a parachute.
Glancing at the SLV chart it looks like this fund recently met 09/18/2016 resistance. If this is the case, look out below?
iShares Silver Trust
https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/fund/slv
“I’d been up since 1 AM working on PN, and then got the tractor running and a full 16-hour day.
Last thing on my (somewhat) rational mind was watching American Cullinary Cons – Free Lunch Finals – which from the reviews is what it came down to.”
A) You call this a “rational mind” ? (I understand that you have to make a living ;-), but I couldn’t help it.
B) It is simply amazing that people are lead to believe (and they believe!) that life will be easy if we just let government handle it.
A middle class family needs to make $350,000 a year in major cities like SF.
Where I live, the top wage-earners, by profession, are city/county employees and teachers. @~$42k to start, they begin the race in the top 3%. Skilled tradesmen make between $99 and $128 per hour, but when they’re only working 600hrs/yr, it takes a while for that journeyman master plumber or electrician to hang their own shingle. One of my neighbors drives a boat in Oakland, then DRIVES his Chevy pickup back to the Midwest, because it is thousands of dollars per month cheaper to do so than it is to live in the Bay Area.
10 years ago, it cost $129k to achieve “middle class status” in NYC. I can’t even imagine the amount of buckage required to live in Greater NYC, DC, or the upscale cities on the left coast, today. I believe if I had to work in one of those bastions of “culture,” I’d buy an RV and live in a Wal-Mart parking lot…
I lived in one of those “bastions of culture” for entirely too many years. Yes, I made serious money, yet I hated it. I’d rather live in a redneck area where the word “freedom” is religiously applied.
The only good thing about big cities is that they have many available and willing females, though that was back when Craigslist was available. Today there’s really nothing to recommend them.
In the right area, if you own your car(s) and residence free and clear, you can still live on 10K net a year, though twice that makes it fun. Then there’s what to do with the excess….
Dear Sir,
Cheer up! Not everyone is making money in retail. Has everyone seen those public service ads on tv warning the unsuspecting of “this is your brain on drugs”? Well, sad to say, here is a business model on drugs: the ceo of the government monopoly Ontario Cannibis Store has left for…greener pastures. Roll with me on this, but regrettably the corporation has lost roughly $4 on every $10 of revenue in the past year or so if my vision is not deceiving me. The eyes of the finance minister must be watering at the pall of smoke emanating from such a cash burn.
Seriously, people, what could possess criminal elements to remotely consider the cultivation, harvesting, marketing, and sales of such an unprofitable field of endeavor as restricted substances for user ingestion. Goodness knows what will happen to the public purse once edibles are soon-to-be legalized. At this pace, jails will have to be canvassed for expertise to jumpstart the cannibis industry back to profitability. Either that or inmates of institutions of higher learning will require revamped courses on business in public policy.
Light a candle or combustible of your choice…
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-cannabis-loss-1.5282994
The heathen devil weed is easier to grow than it is to kill off. When the Midwestern hemp farmers had to kill off their crops and go back to growing corn and soybeans back in the 1960s, it took years to successfully purge the pot. [Many, many] folks used to come to NW Indiana, some from thousands of miles away, to harvest “Indiana Ditch Weed” — the marijuana that grew in the roadside ditches alongside (apparently) every county/country road in Lake County (which is essentially a Chicago suburb.) Indiana Ditch Weed was a standing joke from Nebraska to Pennsylvania when I was a kid, and before the “good stuff” started rolling in from Mexico. That “ditch weed” grew until the DEA got ahold of some crop dusters in the 1990s, and dropped (whatever superseded Agent Orange as a) broad-spectrum defoliant on every roadway in The Calumet (Indiana’s portion of Greater Chicago) Region.
The reason the Ontarianistas can’t make it pay is they’ve front- and back-loaded both its production and sale with so many regulations and money-grabs that there’s no profit left to realize. The right way is to have no governmental regulation, just a monitor of quality and THC content. Let the market decide, and the gummint, like any good Mafia Don, can just sit back and let the profits roll in. Those folks in Northern California, illegally growing high-potency boutique dope in hundreds of different flavors, aren’t doing it because the USDA is telling them to. They’re doing it from a sense of personal pride and accomplishment, and because the American alphabet agents have specifically told them they can’t…
Oh, and while you are at it, also read the old posts from August 31 and Sept 7, 2019. Also wiki Occam’s razor. G___ and I have been exchanging barbs on this and related practical tests of Occam’s razor for two weeks. You are late to the party, but welcome aboard. I included the time stamps to allow cross referencing with other crackpot observations from otherwise trained professional observers.