Inflation

[eskys]

gg's last sentence had me in stitches

 

[divs4ever]

Maybe each state is going through different difficulties.

Property prices in my state have not dropped. I sold one property in 2021 and purchased one in September 2022 after looking for several years in coastal areas. Still keen to get another but when I find one, by the time I've had a think it's 'under offer.'

In my state, Unemployment is extremely low, job numbers up. Small to medium businesses that I've visited in the city and regional areas are happy with sales, and customer numbers are still increasing.

The million-dollar question is how long this will last.

don't fall for unemployment figure trap

many jobs requires certificates and qualifications , now sure some of this paper has devolved into an outright scam , BUT still involves upfront costs and time expenditure

many unemployed are NOT job ready for even the most menial of jobs

 

[divs4ever]

There will be a return to very much lower real estate prices and rents in the large metropolitan cities and a concomitant rise in values in those centres where the real work of Australia is done, mining materials, oil and gas production and exploration and agriculture.

prices ? yes i can see that

rents? maybe not , i notice several retailers i hold,renegotiated rents in 2020 or 2021 , and would think some office space might have faced the same headwind

so what about accommodation rents some go up with the CPI , and i see some property investors stepping away from buying more , some even forced selling , so MAYBE even a decrease in rental space available

real work ? i see it slowly being strangled by paperwork and ESG

( buy a solar charging unit for your metal detector batteries , beach-combing looks like a growth profession )

 

[eskys]

....not wanting to be misunderstood for laughing at gg's last sentence............it wasn't about drop in property prices. It was about this:

This may be a good time to start a Godbothering Outfit, to open a Church, "repent and leave a cent, for the end is nigh" quote and unquote.

I've heard a pastor say when she must be on something......."my congregation are stingy. They give me loose change" Fair dinkum!

 

[frugal.rock]

I'm wondering where everyone is going to live?
International students enrolments considerably higher than pre pandemic levels and mass immigration.

I'm not sure we will see a much cheaper housing market, as what has been touted... probably more a consolidation moving into slightly rising again.

From where I'm sitting, we are going to see a population increase of at least 1.5% a year for the next 3 years, and that figure only includes immigration and international students. Hello...

Australia: 11% rise in new commencement predicted in 2023

Australia is set to see increased international enrolments in 2023, with expectations reckoning on overall growth of between 8% and 12%, according to marketing intelligence platform Studymove.

thepienews.com

 

[JohnDe]

I'm wondering where everyone is going to live?
International students enrolments considerably higher than pre pandemic levels and mass immigration.

I'm not sure we will see a much cheaper housing market, as what has been touted... probably more a consolidation moving into slightly rising again.

From where I'm sitting, we are going to see a population increase of at least 1.5% a year for the next 3 years, and that figure only includes immigration and international students. Hello...

Australia: 11% rise in new commencement predicted in 2023

Australia is set to see increased international enrolments in 2023, with expectations reckoning on overall growth of between 8% and 12%, according to marketing intelligence platform Studymove.

thepienews.com

How many empty bedrooms in your house?

 

[waterbottle]

Wow, can't believe inflation is still rising, I don't think Australia is the only one either. All eyes on JPowell though...

 

[moXJO]

Anyone mentioned China's public saving $2.6 trillion or so?

Remember how Australians went spaz after lockdowns with their money. I wonder if the Chinese will do the same

 

[frugal.rock]

Anyone mentioned China's public saving $2.6 trillion or so?

Was some discussion in the Economy at street level thread weeks ago. I quoted you over there.

The state of the economy at the street level

This thread was started over 8 years ago, very interesting to re-read the comments & gather the differing views. I’m still on holidays, sharing my time between home & our coastal retreat. I have inadvertently picked up conversations from many different people in different areas. While enjoying...

www.aussiestockforums.com

 

[divs4ever]

....not wanting to be misunderstood for laughing at gg's last sentence............it wasn't about drop in property prices. It was about this:

This may be a good time to start a Godbothering Outfit, to open a Church, "repent and leave a cent, for the end is nigh" quote and unquote.

I've heard a pastor say when she must be on something......."my congregation are stingy. They give me loose change" Fair dinkum!

what a lucky thing , many rely own phone-pay and such here

wait until they only have over-extended credit cards ( or CBDCs start cherry-picking charities you can donate to )

 

[divs4ever]

Wow, can't believe inflation is still rising, I don't think Australia is the only one either. All eyes on JPowell though...

i can , i was in my teens/20s during the 1970's

this inflation thing often has a bit of momentum ( bloody hard to tame )

AND i was lucky enough not to get my ass shot at in some crazy Asian war . ( a lot of my mates were being distracted by flying projectiles )

 

[waterbottle]

Bank of Canada has hiked 25bps to 4.5% and is now pausing.

 

[mullokintyre]

Yesterday I read two interesting, and in many ways contrasting articles.
The first, was in relation to the ritual debt ceiling debates and other stupidtiy in the US.
There has only ever been one president in the US history who paid down debt.
From NPR

On Jan. 8, 1835, all the big political names in Washington gathered to celebrate what President Andrew Jackson had just accomplished. A senator rose to make the big announcement: "Gentlemen ... the national debt ... is PAID."

That was the one time in U.S. history when the country was debt free. It lasted exactly one year.

By 1837, the country would be in panic and headed into a massive depression. We'll get to that, but first let's figure out how Andrew Jackson did the impossible.

It helps to remember that debt was always a choice for America. After the revolution, the founding fathers debated whether or not to just wipe clean all those financial promises made during the war.

Deciding to default "would have ruined our credit and would have left the economy on a very agricultural, subsistence basis," says Robert E. Wright, a professor at Augustana College in South Dakota.

So the U.S. agreed early on to consolidate the debts of all the states — $75 million.

During the good times, the country tried to pay down the debt. Then there would be another war, and the debt would go up again. The politicians never liked the debt.

"What the battle was really about was how quickly to pay off the national debt, not whether to pay it off or not," Wright says.

But, just like today, it wasn't easy for politicians to slash spending — until Andrew Jackson came along.

"For Andrew Jackson, politics was very personal," says H.W. Brands, an Andrew Jackson biographer at the University of Texas. "He hated not just the federal debt. He hated debt at all."

The us economy as well as the world have become addicted to debt, so it is impossible for the feat to be repeated.
The second was a note about the talks of resurrecting the idea of minting a USD1 trillion coin.
From Kitco

(Kitco News) As the debt ceiling debate takes over the headlines in the U.S., so is the idea of minting a $1 trillion platinum coin, which is a surprising option available to the Treasury Department to raise the debt ceiling without bipartisan support.

The #MintTheCoin plan is gaining traction in some circles again as a deeply divided Congress makes the debt ceiling debate extra difficult, with fierce arguments on both sides of the aisle around debt, inflation, and the path forward.

According to the Treasury Department, the U.S. is bumping up against the current borrowing limit of $31.4 trillion. And if the debt ceiling is not raised, the federal government could run out of money to pay all its bills by June.

The Treasury Department already began some extraordinary measures to keep paying the government's bills last week, including suspending investments for selected government accounts.

In a letter to Congress, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that there is "considerable uncertainty" around how long these extraordinary measures could be effective.

"I respectfully urge Congress to act promptly to protect the full faith and credit of the United States," Yellen said in the letter sent last week.

On the $1 trillion platinum coin loophole, which potentially allows the Treasury Department to mint platinum coins of any denomination and deposit them at the Federal Reserve in exchange for the U.S. federal debt, Yellen was very skeptical.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Yellen said that the Federal Reserve is unlikely to agree to such a plan, calling the scheme a "gimmick."

"It truly is not by any means to be taken as a given that the Fed would do it, and I think especially with something that's a gimmick," she said in an interview published Sunday. "The Fed is not required to accept it, there's no requirement on the part of the Fed. It's up to them what to do."

The minting of a $1 trillion platinum coin loophole is in the law that dictates the mintage of coins. The exact wording can be found in the subsection (k) of 31 USC 5112, which governs "Denominations, specifications, and design of coins."

The clause states: "The Secretary may mint and issue platinum bullion coins and proof platinum coins in accordance with such specifications, designs, varieties, quantities, denominations, and inscriptions as the Secretary, in the Secretary's discretion, may prescribe from time to time."

Theoretically, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen can order the platinum coin to be minted and avoid a government shutdown if the debt ceiling is not raised in time.

Important to keep in mind that the coin doesn't technically have to be made out of $1 trillion worth of platinum. It would require some platinum to be used, but it can be as small as a dime, with the U.S. Treasury assigning any value to it, including $1 trillion or even more.

Several Biden administration officials and Democrats once again started to talk about this option. The issue was also raised in the fall of 2021, the last time the debt ceiling had to be raised.

At the time, Yellen also spoke out, stating that she was against the idea. "I'm opposed to it, and I don't believe that we should consider it seriously. It's really a gimmick," Yellen told CNBC in 2021.

This time, the debate could prove even more divisive, with Republicans and Democrats still debating the consequences of inflation and spending following the aggressive monetary policy tightening by the Fed last year.

That this idea could even be floated highlights the absurdity of FIAT currencies, and reinforces my need for keeping a level of PM's.
But I guess its one way to solve the perrenial debt ceiling issue!
Mick

 

[over9k]

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

Big oil reporting earnings over the next few days, big things expected.

 

[over9k]

Solid runs for everything lately, futures deep into the red now however as a friday selloff looms.

 

[waterbottle]

US economy is resilient... GDP at 2.9% annualised. Unemployment claims continuing to fall ...

Did the US already go through recession in June 2022 and now we're in the recovery? Meanwhile bond yields remain inverted and inflation in nonUS countries continue to rise. Confusing.

 

[over9k]

US economy is resilient... GDP at 2.9% annualised. Unemployment claims continuing to fall ...

Did the US already go through recession in June 2022 and now we're in the recovery? Meanwhile bond yields remain inverted and inflation in nonUS countries continue to rise. Confusing.

See previous technical recession posts.

 

[JohnDe]

Sachs sacks. 3200 to be exact.

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

Interesting read -

Goldman Sachs secretly controls the world, if you believe conspiracy theorists. Even commentators without tinfoil hats sometimes get carried away when describing this titanic investment bank. Rolling Stone once accused it of having “engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression”, adding for good measure that it was “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money”. In our cover package this week we tell a different story. A firm famed for its swagger has started to sag. It has given up on a plan to build a big consumer bank; booked one of its worst quarterly results for a decade; and attracted a probe by the Federal Reserve. It is not yet in trouble, but under its short-fused boss, David Solomon, it has lagged behind its American peers half the time. Its pedestrian performance suggests several lessons. The real action in finance is now outside regulated banking, where new stars rule, such as Blackstone in private markets, BlackRock in index funds and Citadel in investing and trading. It is hard for old-style Wall Street firms to compete in winner-takes-all digital markets, where PayPal and Amazon have far more clients. And it is striking how the stagnation of globalisation has shrunk Wall Street’s horizons. Goldman gets much less of its growth from foreign revenues than it did when it listed in 1999. Indian and Chinese rivals have bulked up and are often stronger than any foreign firm on their home turf. Perhaps Goldman can recover its swagger, by managing assets better or pioneering new technology to cut its exorbitant labour costs. But there is something uniquely hard about reforming elite firms whose unwritten code is that they are smarter than everyone else. If the squid is to avoid becoming a squib, it needs to learn how to be self-critical.

​

Zanny Minton Beddoes Editor-in-chief

 

[waterbottle]

See previous technical recession posts.

Which ones? Where do you think we are currently though?

 

[waterbottle]

Worth listening to until the end

This guy is reminding of Dr Marc Faber in 08... Constant pessimism now :/