“No. I think EV is going to be something you're going to go to a museum with my kids and be like, wow, that was an evolutionary dead.”
All in Economics
How Does a Bank Collapse in 48 Hours?
If you watched the Fed Chair Jerome Powell testify before the senate and the house early last week you heard over and over that banks are well capitalized. The non-sequitur inspiring the Shakespearean quote “Methinks you protest too much.”
Retail Investors Positioned For Thrashing
Individual investors are fighting the Fed trading options that expire the same day they begin trading. “This week, volume for contracts that expire on the same day they’re traded hit a record 50% share of all the options transactions on the S&P 500, data from CBOE and Nomura show.”
L.A. Walk Away
CoStar News reports, “The loan defaults are another sign of struggle for office real estate owners in the nation's second-largest city as remote working policies enacted in the pandemic hamper demand. National office real estate demand has been curtailed since 2020, with vacancy at 12.8%, its highest since the Great Recession, according to CoStar data.”
White Collar Canary
Tech and other corporate layoffs are announced everyday, but closer to your local courthouse, law firms are feeling the pinch.
Increased Interest Rates Erode Bank Capital
Many banks bought mortgage-backed securities during the zero-rate days to “juice income,” but now, on a mark-to-market basis those MBS are trading for a fraction of purchase prices, creating losses of 50 to 60 percent of capital. “Regulators are not pleased.”
"Poison Ivy" Zelman's says "Stuck Factor" has Housing Market Stuck
Existing home sales are undergoing a historic sharp contraction in sales. And, what will keep the residential market sluggish is what Zelman calls the “Stuck Factor.”An incredible 92% of homeowners with mortgages have a 5% rate or lower.
The Fed's Thumb Prints
The dollar’s value is a symptom, and when it goes up, “what that tells you is that there’s tightening in the global monetary system for a variety of reasons, usually self-reinforcing reasons,” Snider explained. Money is tight, markets are risk averse, with the result being a recession is coming forthwith.
Too Good to be True, Too Good to Resist
Get rich quick schemes never go out of style. Robbing Peter to pay Paul excels in its simplicity. Forget gauging the winds of the markets or the bouncing ball on a roulette wheel. Phony promises work on a gullible public to this day. “We are all gamblers,” Ponzi believed. “We all crave easy money. And plenty of it. If we didn't, no get-rich-quick scheme could be successful.”
The NFL Draft: Grappling with Uncertainty
The draft seems dreadfully dull to watch for even the most ardent fans. But, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) figures the town will clean up hosting three nights of player picking on the water. It’s being compared to New Year's Eve with attendance of one million people (with some double-counting).
Erdoğan opens the FDR/John Law monetary playbook
Mr. Nebati figures there is three hundred million dollars worth of gold under the beds of the Turkish populous, and the government would like to trade more than ten percent of the hoarded yellow metal for their flimsy paper lira.
When Higher Prices are Not Inflation
“You have this huge imbalance of supply and demand which is causing the prices to skyrocket,” Sundaram told CNBC Make It. The question is, is this inflation? Austrians would say no. These price increases are the normal process of a market clearing when supply, for whatever reason, isn’t satisfying all of the demand. Consumers who can and most desire the product will pay more for the limited supply.
Will Artificial Intelligence Create a Socialist Paradise?
Victor Shvets believes computing power has caught up and “technology could soon create an environment where state planning might be able to deliver acceptable economic results while simultaneously suppressing societal and individual freedoms.”
Speculation, on Earth and the Metaverse
Mark Twain and Will Rogers are both credited with “Buy land, they're not making it anymore.” Both men have passed. But, has their land wisdom left us as well? Ms. Kamin writes, presumably with a straight face, “real estate investing in the metaverse still is highly speculative.”
The Public Drowns in Dollars, while Bitcoin is the Monetary Lifeboat
If Bitcoin is our lifeboat, indeed, as Ms. Demirors emphasizes, “Not owning Bitcoin is now irresponsible.”
Housing Hubris
Mari’s piece chronicles the trials and tribulations of millennials (who are now the largest generation) simply trying to buy a home. In some cases, the offers are made long distance on the basis of images from their computer screens. Nationwide home prices have soared nearly 25 percent. But, where the jobs are, in medium-size metropolitan areas such as Boise, Phoenix, Austin, and Salt Lake City, prices have soared 46 percent; 36 percent; 35 percent; and 33 percent, respectively.
Biden is Not at Fault for Higher Gas Prices...Yet
Gas prices increased considerably during the last few months of the Trump regime and have continued during Biden’s term. Why? That annoying economics thing, supply and demand. Americans are driving more since the pandemic has abated, like, for instance, to work. Vehicle miles driven has nearly doubled from a low of just over 160 billion miles in April 2020 to 290 billion in July of this year.
The Fed and Opioids
While the U.S. press harps on inequality, there is no mention of Marx’s 5th plank, i.e. The Federal Reserve. “The creation of money out of thin air, or legal counterfeiting, by central banks,” wrote Frank Hollenbeck for mises.org. creates “undesirable and unjustified source of income inequalities.” He continued, “It should be no surprise the growing gap in income inequalities has coincided with the adoption of fiat currencies worldwide.”
The Gray Lady Vs. Bitcoin
The who or they known as Satoshi published a white paper and Bitcoin was born, opening the floodgates to a Hayekian competitive currencypalooza. Let the best government, bank, or crypto developer win.
The Nightmare of Bureaucracy
the federal government makes the simple process of disposing of government properties into a kafkaesque nightmare. “The federal government has long owned more real estate than it knows what to do with — buildings that sit empty and sites that are underdeveloped — but it must jump through hoops before it can sell its holdings,”