Nice moment for an oil shock.
The Trump recession caused by the woke right catering to minority interests.
I seriously hope your comment is missing a /s tag!
Most of the US economy is in a recession
211–220 of 257 posts
Re: Most of the US economy is in a recession
#212> "Do we really need to continue focusing mostly on inflation when 89% of the private economy is in a recession and the 11% which is booming — new era pursuits — are by their very nature 'disinflationary'?" I've been thinking the same thing about Australia. The federal government has withdrawn power bill subsidies, which boosted inflation figures, causing the central bank to raise interest rates. Does it really make…
Interest rates are a blunt instrument but they do have an impact. The biggest problem is the pain isn't spread evenly. If you have just fixed your mortgage for five years then they don't impact you but if you are just about to renew then you will be bearing more of the cost. If you are a net saver then increases are generally a good thing.
Australia has fairly short fixed term mortgages. There are people who are barely recovering from covid effects on the interest rates. There are many who lost everything. Another bout of "high interest rates are a blunt instrument" could cause serious problems.
Note. This doesn't affect me, and I have strong opinions on the property market in Australia, but I'm pointing out that many people will go to the wall if interest rates are increased again,despite how much I think they may deserve it.
Re: Most of the US economy is in a recession
#213Re: Most of the US economy is in a recession
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
My understanding is that, until the hits on Tehrans oil storage sites yesterday, the oil infrastructure has been spared. Nothing that isn't easy to repair. Ie the price increase we've seen so far os mostly pricing the closing of the staits and the risk of reduced production production is halted due to running out of storage (ie akin to a cpu "pipeline stall". But Iran got hit badly yesterday, with tar raining on the…
The US is not acting rationally on Iran, this is on top of a history of acting irrationally with regards to past treaties. The game theorists would tell you that Iran should impose costs for this in one way or another, the main avenue of which is economic costs. Iran may extend this cost imposition to US aligned states throughout the Gulf. It's a mess with limited exit ramps, Iran can likely keep bombing their neighb…
There was no urgency in the invasion of Iran. It was done partly because Israel wanted it, and partly as a convenient distraction. Nothing material had changed from the last decade. The US embassy was given instructions to get people out of Israel the day before it happened, and anyone who was paying attention knew exactly what that meant.
Everything that is happening now was publicly predicted and modelled at least a decade ago. Look at Shimon Peres's continual warnings to the world regarding Netanyahu. This was expected and shouldn't be regarded as something novel. Just something abhorrent.
Re: Most of the US economy is in a recession
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
That it was a stupid operation with a predictably useless outcome. But we also said that about the whole invading Greenland stuff, and it ended like that. And about the war in Afghanistan. And I would presume, about the Vietnam war. Trump will say he won and move on.
> Trump will say he won and move on. Then Trump will move on and attack China maybe? Anyway, with Trump in office I expect to see more and more chaos coming.
Cuba is next
Re: Most of the US economy is in a recession
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
What specifically has changed?
Realizing that GDP growth can be achieved while average joe on Main Street is struggling. The billionaires doing well masks everyone else struggling to afford groceries. In general, people are kind of calling BS on what the definition should be because we are all collectively feeling that things are doing poorly but no one is quite willing to recognize it due to the definitional stuff.
I asked what specifically has changed and you answered something else.
Re: Most of the US economy is in a recession
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find the "K-shaped" recovery a very compelling narrative. Some companies are going stratospheric, some are decaying, the average is +1% growth or so. So depending on where you are, you will see the economy as either booming or floundering. There's plenty of little nuggets like this to point to. US 2025 GDP ex AI investment was in a recession. US equity market ex tech does not outperform e.g. Europe. And so on.
I'm not sure that means much. Absent AI investors would have put their money somewhere else.
Depends where the money came from. If it's debt / optimistic raises based on great faith in AI, not necessarily. But agreed overall.
The tech one is more compelling. The US equity market dominance has been driven by it's very successful tech business. Everything else is perhaps in a similar malaise to eg Europe.
Re: Most of the US economy is in a recession
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
I found this video pretty interesting, it talks about why Iran is going after its neighbors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIS2eB-rGv0
This guy is a well known conspiracy theorist. He's a high school teacher, not a university professor as "Professor Jiang" indicates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiang_Xueqin Some discussion on reddit about him: https://www.reddit.com/r/geopolitics/comments/1rnnq6p/though...
Breaking Bad may be fictional, but I don't think "high school teacher" is as discrediting as you think.
Re: Most of the US economy is in a recession
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interest rates are a blunt instrument but they do have an impact. The biggest problem is the pain isn't spread evenly. If you have just fixed your mortgage for five years then they don't impact you but if you are just about to renew then you will be bearing more of the cost. If you are a net saver then increases are generally a good thing.
Australia has fairly short fixed term mortgages. There are people who are barely recovering from covid effects on the interest rates. There are many who lost everything. Another bout of "high interest rates are a blunt instrument" could cause serious problems. Note. This doesn't affect me, and I have strong opinions on the property market in Australia, but I'm pointing out that many people will go to the wall if inte…
I think it’s well established in economic circles that unemployment goes up as inflation falls. We are seeing signs of this in the UK at the moment.
Letting it run away causes its own problems though. Take a look at South America to see what happens if you can’t manage inflation.