All in Economics
ADG consulted interest rate historians Sidney Homer and Richard Sylla who opined “nominal negative yielding debt had never been seen in material size in the 4,000 years of interest rate history prior to the current cycle.” Economist Ludwig von Mises never imagined such a thing,
“He wants to put his inheritance toward ending capitalism,” Zoë Beery wrote for the NYT, “and by that he means using his money to undo systems that accumulate money for those at the top, and that have played a large role in widening economic and racial inequality.” Wow, that is some self-loathing. If only Ludwig von Mises were able to counsel young Jacobs, whose grandfather founded Qualcomm, and is set to inherit $100 million. In his book Epistemological Problems of Economics, Mises wrote, “Through all the changes in the prevailing system of social stratification, moral philosophers continued to hold fast to the fundamental idea of Cicero’s doctrine that making money is degrading.”
The US economy is split into “the weirdest economy ever” when writing about The Trucking Boom and Online sales, and “the most distorted economy ever” when addressing the record low junk bond yields.
Libertarians who claim the government’s actions are worse than the disease, are giving the government too much credit. Consumers are driving the slow-down, not governments.
In investmentland, it’s “Bitcoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin,” again knocking on dollar door number 20,000, where it ventured in late 2017. Bloomberg’s November 21st edition features this flashy headline sure to inspire FOMO (fear of missing out) the predecessor of the more quaint Keynesian Animal Spirits
Meanwhile, the ever-unloved asset, gold, goes unnoticed by the stock trading debutantes. After a sprint upward in price above $2,000, the yellow metal hangs listlessly around $1,870 these days, while the aforementioned Bitcoin is repeating a parabolic move toward $20,000.
Trump’s lady in waiting for the Federal Reserve, Judy Shelton, is losing Republican support by the day. The Washington Post unleashed its comeliest columnist, Catherine Rampell, to finish off Ms. Shelton, who’s primary negative is her past support for the gold standard, and her questioning the need for the central bank at all.Adherents of the Austrian School of Economics have been cuckoo for Shelton for those very reasons, but, Ms. Rampell describes the Fed nominee as “a demonstrably unqualified partisan quack.”
Think about it; with Joe Biden in the White House, Janet Yellon at Treasury and Jerome Powell at the Eccles Building, do you own enough gold?
Maybe the economy wasn’t so hot. Dannielle DiMartino Booth, who once worked for Richard Fisher at the Dallas Fed, told Raoul Pal on Real Vision, “September the 16th [2019], when they launched Not QE. Because the inversion of the 2s 10s had passed the 30-day mark, and they're like, oh my god, history says that we're in recession.
This may be overblown. BYU-Idaho administrators might be clairvoyant and issuing warnings just to head off any bright ideas students might have to raise a little money. WRCBtv reports, “Mimi Taylor, spokeswoman for Eastern Idaho Public Health, told CNN that she believed the school put out the statement as a preemptive measure intended to keep students from getting any ideas.”
Benoit points out that the banks used a bit of financial hocus pocus to improve their earnings. “The results were boosted because the banks didn’t have to put aside as much money to cover future loan losses,”
Masks of all shapes and sizes are everywhere. But now, just in time for halloween, a company called 3wishes, the very morning after a fly landed and stayed on VP Mike Pence’s grey carefully coiffed hair during last night’s Vice Presidential debate has created the Debate Fly Wig. T
While speculators in London’s Exchange Alley furiously bid up the price of South Sea Company shares, word came that two dock workers unloading wool were overcome by dizziness.
“The trend could put more Americans on a path to greater wealth and financial security,” Krantz writes, presumably with a straight face. “But it remains to be seen if the beginning investors will stick around for the long haul — or if they'll have the investing skills to avoid losses when stocks take a tumble.”
Tom Blanchard, realtor and president of trade association Las Vegas Realtors, describes the Las Vegas housing market as being “on fire.” Mr. Segall reports, “All told, the market has gained speed as buyers snap up homes from builders and on the resale market, with sellers fetching multiple bids.” Blanchard says simply, “It’s craziness.”
What has cloaked the recession is government largesse in the form of the added $600 to weekly unemployment claims. While the juice from that lemon ran dry August 1st, it will be replaced by a $300 or $400 weekly bump once Treasury Secretary Mnunchin gets around to cutting the checks.
Right or wrong, the president, in this case, knows of what he tweets. Go to any city council meeting when a developer attempts to rezone property for high-density zoning and angry neighbors appear in mass, organized and vocal, not an apron in sight.
Ah yes, another new normal. “Speculation in the capitalist system performs a function which must be performed in any economic system however organized: it provides for the adjustment of supply and demand over time and space,” wrote Ludwig von Mises in his book “Socialism.”
One of my economics professors once told the class, “Freedom is a liability for those who can’t govern themselves,” which means this argument will be thrust into the courts. The rights infringement argument is heading towards, first, statute law, and second, possibly, into a common law brick wall.
So while Trump’s true believers require no convincing as to the President’s assertion that Covid-19 will magically go away, his administration is taking control of the information. “The Trump administration ordered hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all COVID-19 patient information to a central database in Washington,” reports USA Today.
