Investing

[Tigeraholic1]

37 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

This particular thread tries to stay away from political trolling.  Take it to the election threads.  

They did create the Inflation Reduction Act. 

In November 2022, Credit Suisse forecast that the IRA's fiscal cost to the federal budget would amount to more than $800 billion over 10 years. In March of 2023, researchers at the Brookings Institution estimated the IRA fiscal cost to be $780 billion through 2031.

[gehringer_2]

4 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

They did create the Inflation Reduction Act. 

In November 2022, Credit Suisse forecast that the IRA's fiscal cost to the federal budget would amount to more than $800 billion over 10 years. In March of 2023, researchers at the Brookings Institution estimated the IRA fiscal cost to be $780 billion through 2031.

meh - real stuff that people use is what the gov should spend money one. Not to mention that the bulk of the IRA infrastructure spending ends up in the pockets of middle class construction workers. But in terms fiscal impact, IRA spending will start trending downward further out and be a decreasing economic effect.

FTM, a lot of defense spending also ends up with middle class workers also, but a bridge or internet backbone project leaves something more useful behind that a weapon system that hopefully ends up someplace like that Arizona airplane graveyard (I say 'hopefully' because that means it didn't have to be used in a war....)

[Screwball]

24 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

We are in a weird place. Everyone complaining about the economy being so terrible but as a whole the American Consumer is spending like a drunken sailor - that's going to make it harder to push inflation lower - and just more so if the Fed keeps easing.  I think the Fed is still taking some money out of circulation with 'QT'

Credit card debt hits record $1.17 trillion, New York Fed research shows - from CNBC about a month ago

HOUSEHOLD DEBT AND CREDIT REPORT - Household Debt Ticks Up to $17.94 Trillion; Delinquency Rates Remain Elevated - From the NY Fed

[Screwball]

1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

This particular thread tries to stay away from political trolling.  Take it to the election threads.  

That has been lost quite some time ago. Because some just can't resist. But it would be nice to have one thread void of a bunch of stupid BS because of political ****wads.

[gehringer_2]

4 minutes ago, Screwball said:

Credit card debt hits record $1.17 trillion, New York Fed research shows - from CNBC about a month ago

HOUSEHOLD DEBT AND CREDIT REPORT - Household Debt Ticks Up to $17.94 Trillion; Delinquency Rates Remain Elevated - From the NY Fed

precisely

[Screwball]

Speaking of debt, this isn't pretty; Monthly Treasury Statement - from the Treasury Dept.

40 page PDF. The first chart is quite interesting. If dig deeper, the rate of increase is not good. For the warmongers, we are spending more on interest on our debt than we are national defense. Exponents are a bitch.

[Tigeraholic1]

6 minutes ago, Screwball said:

Credit card debt hits record $1.17 trillion, New York Fed research shows - from CNBC about a month ago

HOUSEHOLD DEBT AND CREDIT REPORT - Household Debt Ticks Up to $17.94 Trillion; Delinquency Rates Remain Elevated - From the NY Fed

Yeah I don't see folks spending like sailors.

Mortg rates still at 6.73% 

New home builds are still stagnant and cost to build is at an all time high.

Auto Prime Rate 6.7-9.73%

No one is buying and EV sales have fallen off a cliff.

As you say CC debt throught the roof. 

 

 

[gehringer_2]

6 minutes ago, Screwball said:

Speaking of debt, this isn't pretty; Monthly Treasury Statement - from the Treasury Dept.

40 page PDF. The first chart is quite interesting. If dig deeper, the rate of increase is not good. For the warmongers, we are spending more on interest on our debt than we are national defense. Exponents are a bitch.

that's the double edge sword of inflation and interest rates. Drive rates down, the debt is cheaper to finance, and if low rates cause more inflation, the real value of the debt falls - win/win, amirite?

There are so many incentives to bad management. Don't seem to be many to good -- well there is always avoiding potential disaster, but as long as it doesn't happen until someone else's watch.....

Edited December 12, 2024 by gehringer_2

[Screwball]

13 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

Yeah I don't see folks spending like sailors.

Mortg rates still at 6.73% 

New home builds are still stagnant and cost to build is at an all time high.

Auto Prime Rate 6.7-9.73%

No one is buying and EV sales have fallen off a cliff.

As you say CC debt throught the roof. 

 

 

Those who shop for electric rates are in for a rude awakening as well. I have been shopping and going forward our electric bills are going nowhere but up. I don't know how it scales, but my electric usage runs about 27% of my bill. What a friken ripoff. But it's going higher.

I'm paying .0582 per KwH right now. Best I can find is .07 something. So for ever 400 Kw the bill will go up $8 bucks, which is only the electric.

[gehringer_2]

11 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

Yeah I don't see folks spending like sailors.

Mortg rates still at 6.73% 

New home builds are still stagnant and cost to build is at an all time high.

Auto Prime Rate 6.7-9.73%

No one is buying and EV sales have fallen off a cliff.

As you say CC debt throught the roof. 

 

 

car sales likely to end at 16M. Retailers mostly showing gains. Travel is pedal to the metal. You couldn't get into a national park this year and Americans traveling to Europe this summer had the Italians and Greeks looking at quotas to manage the overflows at the popular sites.

the thing is, it's uneven; too much of the country is either struggling or feels like it is and the other half is buying Faberge collars for their Poms.  When you look at aggregates, everything looks hunky-dory. But as the averages increase, the medians keep falling behind.

[Hongbit]

1 hour ago, Screwball said:

Shelter is not part of the PPI. It is in the CPI. That said, the CPI report came out the other day and the index for shelter rose 0.3 percent. Rent of primary residence rose 0.2 percent and owners’ equivalent rent was up 0.2 percent.

Year over year (a few examples);

CPI: 2.7 percent

CPI Excluding Food and Energy: 3.3 percent

Rent: 4.4 percent

Shelter: 4.7 percent

Food and Beverages: 2.3 percent

Medical Care Services: 3.7 Percent

You are correct.  I smushed those together.  Still, shelter was inline with estimates on CPI if you take out the abnormality in hotels. Rent and owners equivalent coming in a bit better than expected.   That will help in the long run.

Take a look at eggs and fruit on PPI.  Those alone made up a big chunk of the inflation reading.  If those are closer to normal than the numbers are inline.  

Edited December 12, 2024 by Hongbit

[gehringer_2]

12 minutes ago, Hongbit said:

You are correct.  I smushed those together.  Still, shelter was inline with estimates on CPI if you take out the abnormality in hotels. Rent and owners equivalent coming in a bit better than expected.   That will help in the long run.

Take a look at eggs and fruit on PPI.  Those alone made up a big chunk of the inflation reading.  If those are closer to normal than the numbers are inline.  

If Bird flu keeps taking out chicken flocks volatility in egg prices could be around for a while.

Edited December 12, 2024 by gehringer_2

[Tigeraholic1]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

car sales likely to end at 16M. Retailers mostly showing gains. Travel is pedal to the metal. You couldn't get into a national park this year and Americans traveling to Europe this summer had the Italians and Greeks looking at quotas to manage the overflows at the popular sites.

the thing is, it's uneven; too much of the country is either struggling or feels like it is and the other half is buying Faberge collars for their Poms.  When you look at aggregates, everything looks hunky-dory. But as the averages increase, the medians keep falling behind.

Upper middle class might be doing ok but the rest of america is struggling. An arrogant person here said "Hey look at all the people shopping on black friday." Those people are trying to make their dollar go the farthest during sales and are probably putting it on a credit card so they can have a nice christmas for their kids hoping to pay it off by next christmas at 29% APR.

[oblong]

I was that “arrogant” person.  These folks either have no kids or the kids are grown adults.  They were indulging.  Nothing wrong with that on its own. Just cut the bull****.  

[Tiger337]

25 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

Upper middle class might be doing ok but the rest of america is struggling. 

Same as it's been for decades and the middle class keeps shrinking.  The economy is always good if you are wealthy.  It's never good if you're not.  

[gehringer_2]

46 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Same as it's been for decades and the middle class keeps shrinking.  The economy is always good if you are wealthy.  It's never good if you're not.  

I guess it's one more thing where the US media does such a disservice to the public. The national news is always full of reporting on the stock market indexes, GDP, employment numbers, but very little of that ever reflects the reality of where the majority of the country lives. It's not like more representative data isn't out there, but reporters are either too lazy or economically illiterate to present it. Instead, they fall back on doing 'human interest' bits, anecdotal pieces about how this person or that person is struggling. Makes everyone feel bad but tells you nothing useful or actionable. Politically, you have to have numbers where you can hold people to performance. If Americans all knew the % of national income earned by the lower 50% of the population from year to year as well as they knew the unemployment numbers or interest rates, then maybe voters might start holding administrations responsible for doing a better job. As it is, all they know is that they are getting screwed, so they make terrible decisions at the polls because they are just guessing or hoping that anything they hear about the economy is the truth.

Edited December 12, 2024 by gehringer_2

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

are probably putting it on a credit card

and expansion of credit increases the money supply -> inflationary.

[Screwball]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

I guess it's one more thing where the US media does such a disservice to the public. The national news is always full of reporting on the stock market indexes, GDP, employment numbers, but very little of that ever reflects the reality of where the majority of the country lives. It's not like more representative data isn't out there, but reporters are either too lazy or economically illiterate to present it. Instead, they fall back on doing 'human interest' bits, anecdotal pieces about how this person or that person is struggling. Makes everyone feel bad but tells you nothing useful or actionable. Politically, you have to have numbers where you can hold people to performance. If Americans all knew the % of national income earned by the lower 50% of the population from year to year as well as they knew the unemployment numbers or interest rates, then maybe voters might start holding administrations responsible for doing a better job. As it is, all they know is that they are getting screwed, so they make terrible decisions at the polls because they are just guessing or hoping that anything they hear about the economy is the truth.

The US media does what they do because that's what they are paid to do. Look at Bubblevision. How TF is Jim Cramer still on TV? Funny to see so many old CNBC anchors now doing political stuff. Experienced and trained liars. Cha-ching.

The CPI/PPI numbers provide a huge amount of data, which allows it to be narrated in certain ways. They can take this vast amount of data and make it sound however they want. And they do - it is an industry - both for the business TV news and the insiders on Wall Street. Billions of dollars change hands when reports come out - BREAKING NEWS!!!

At the end of the day, inflation is measured in many ways, and it depends on who is affected. Rule #1; inflation punishes the people who can't afford it the most. They tell us the 2.7% CPI print is good, but it's not to many many people.

I mentioned the electric bills above, but another example, locally. Cornhole, a few years ago spent I don't know how much money to do a sewer study, then put on a dog and pony show for city council telling them how the only thing they can do is raise rates - due to inflation. They told them to raise the rates 5% annually forever and ever. To thunderous applause. Passed unanimously.  Thank you very much. Nowhere, in this who knows how many thousands of dollar study did they talk about how to cut costs. But whatever...

Now we know our sewer bill will double in 14 1/2 years. Seems like a long time, but not really. And everything else does too. Things we need. House and car insurance, land taxes (don't get me started on that), utilities.

Edward Deming had a thing he called the quadrants of efficiency. Quad 1 was when everything was going good, no scrap and waste. Quad 2 showed some issues, so get right on that. Quad 3 was an oil leak, and it better not it get any worse. Quad 4 was called "state of chaos."

That's where we are economically, monetarily, and fiscally.

This place is a ****ing mess.

 

[chasfh]

19 hours ago, Screwball said:

That has been lost quite some time ago. Because some just can't resist. But it would be nice to have one thread void of a bunch of stupid BS because of political ****wads.

Shaming me about that very thing on the old board was pretty effective in getting me to vet my content more carefully before putting it in Investing.

[Tiger337]

12 hours ago, chasfh said:

Shaming me about that very thing on the old board was pretty effective in getting me to vet my content more carefully before putting it in Investing.

I have probably forgotten what board I am on at times and said political stuff in here, but I do try to avoid it.  The shaming is effective.  I mean nobody likes being scolded by screwball. 😃 Plus, we already have dozens of political threads.  It's nice to keep his one as politics free as possible.  

[Deleterious]

Why?

Trump Confirms Bitcoin Reserve Plans—$15 Trillion Price Boom Predicted

[gehringer_2]

49 minutes ago, Deleterious said:

Why?

Trump Confirms Bitcoin Reserve Plans—$15 Trillion Price Boom Predicted

because it is the ultimate grift and he is the ultimate grifter.

[Screwball]

Here's a WTFOT (way the **** out there); The big money people need somewhere to put their money before the everything bubble pops.

🙂

[gehringer_2]

15 minutes ago, Screwball said:

Here's a WTFOT (way the **** out there); The big money people need somewhere to put their money before the everything bubble pops.

🙂

or it's just a another take on 'pump and dump' - get the gov buying to tighten the market, the insiders sell high, new admin comes in and closes down the program, demand falls, prices fall,  and the tax payers and any schmucks that jumped in also get left holding the bag. Using the US gov as your pumper is a pure Wall Street grift nirvana scenario.

Edited December 15, 2024 by gehringer_2

[Screwball]

I probably should have said move "some" of their money. I don't know the math, but there is a bunch of money sloshing around out there (especially given leverage - and in who knows what - like crypto).

I don't think the government could buy crypto directly, unless they passed a law I guess. Not gonna happen. Spending still comes from the house, then monetized via the Fed. The crypto stuff isn't going to replace that. As said way above, if it was ever a threat, it will be shut down.

Wall Street makes money no matter what happens. They own the place, and when they **** it all up they get bailed out.