Friday, October 7, 2022

The rentier class at CNBC, FinTwit, Wall Street, is in a panic about Fed rate hikes and just lies this morning about the latest battle: Payrolls beat expectations but CNBC says payrolls slowed

 Well yeah, they slowed from 315k, but that was EXPECTED.

The parasites who derive their main livelihood from the returns on financials are in a panic over Fed rate hikes designed to reduce inflation. Whether those will do that or not is beside the point.

This is all about their carry trade. 

The Fed has been making cheap money available since December 2002 to restart the stock market and it has hardly stopped . . . until lately. The politics of inflation have finally caused the Fed to pivot on this long-standing policy, and they couldn't be more angry.

The top 10% borrow at cheap government rates and plow the money into private financial products which pay higher rates which the 90% have to pay. They prosper, gloriously, off the difference. But increase their cost of borrowing and you are diluting the gravy train.

Ever since the Fed started raising rates in earnest earlier this year, the rentiers have been trying everything they can to get them to pivot, without success.

This morning the hope was that a really poor employment report would get the Fed to back off, except the 263k figure beat expectations of 250k.

The Fed is likely to stay the course and keep raising rates.

CNBC paints this as slowing in keeping with the rentiers' rhetorical narrative aimed at the Fed, which has a dual mandate to maximize employment and maintain stable prices.

Never mind that the dual mandate is nuts since unstable prices exact a far greater cost on the people than unemployment ever does. Inflation doubling makes everyone pay 100% more for everything indefinitely, whereas unemployment affects fewer and is definitely cyclical.

And never mind the Fed has NO mandate to suppress interest rates, buy securities, and bail out the world.

But I digress.

You are being lied to and manipulated . . . constantly.

Because they can, and it works.

 





Joe Biden's nuclear war comments are completely irresponsible, but so is just about everything that comes out of his pie hole

 He's making matters worse, not better.

He's attributing statements to Putin which Putin did not make, which is the default practice for Democrats when speaking of their opponents.

A lot more is at stake than losing control of the US House and Senate in a few weeks.

Joe's irresponsible remarks risk real catastrophe from a deadly opponent.

Think what you will about Putin, Biden is a fool. 

Nobody fucks around with a Biden, he says, the day after Saudi Arabia does just that, telling him to go pound sand.

The whole world knows he's a fool, which is perilous for the rest of us.


 

Thursday, October 6, 2022

I don't know about you, but my natural gas and electric costs are up 71% from two years ago

 Why?

Basically a combination of demand for domestic electric power production, demand for LNG exports to Europe because of the Ukraine war, low inventories headed into the winter, and fear.

Prices have quadrupled.

And Biden is considering ending all offshore drilling.

We are so screwed by these Democrat clowns.

Why Have U.S. Natural Gas Prices Soared Since 2020?

. . . natural gas production levels are at record highs, so we can’t blame a lack of production on this issue. This is from soaring demand, led in the past two years by the fastest-growing LNG export market in the world.

59% still pay in cash because the drug dealers don't take credit cards

 

The cashless economy trend is not necessarily new, but it is gaining momentum, according to new research from the Pew Research Center.

The nonpartisan fact think tank found 41% of Americans say none of their purchases in a typical week are paid for in cash. That’s up from 29% in 2018 and 24% in 2015.

In contrast, 59% of respondents say they still pay for at least some of their typical weekly purchases in cash.

More

 

 



Despite 2015 Paris climate agreement, global reliance on coal grew by about 8%, looks to grow 23% more, shattering Greta's world, lol


 The NGOs report said there are currently more than 6,500 coal plant units globally with a combined capacity of 2,067 gigawatts. ...

Urgewald’s Schuecking told CNBC that since the 2015 Paris accord was signed, the global coal plant fleet had seen a net increase of roughly 157 gigawatts. That’s the equivalent of Germany, Russia, Japan and Poland’s coal fleet added up together.

The research found that 467 gigawatts of new coal-fired capacity were still in the pipeline worldwide. And, if realized, these projects would increase the world’s current coal power capacity by 23%. ...

China was found to be responsible for 61% of all planned coal power capacity additions and, perhaps unsurprisingly, the top four coal plant developers were found to be Chinese companies . . .. China Energy Investment Corporation was the world’s top thermal coal producer last year. This was closely followed by Coal India . . ..

I omitted Schuecking's temper tantrum parts of the story, here.

She is, predictably, a German environmentalist wacko who is also against nuclear power. Urgewald is full of crazy Karens just like her who agitate against corporations and try to get individuals like David Malpass of the World Bank fired because they don't mouth the right words like the Paris Climate Accord hypocrites do.

Urgewald is Exhibit A for the prospect of Germans freezing to death this winter.





Tuesday, October 4, 2022

Climate emergency: 2022 average temperature in Grand Rapids MI through September was 0.4 degrees F above the long-term average since 1892


Mean average temperature in Grand Rapids MI through September 2022: 51.5F.

Mean average temperature in Grand Rapids MI through September since 1892: 51.1F.

From the "it's ok when we do it" department: Berkeley Law goes judenrein

 

Denmark restarts two coal and one oil power station, Germany restarts three coal power stations


From the story:

Orsted said the order applied to “unit 3 at Esbjerg Power Station and unit 4 at Studstrup Power Station, which both use coal as their primary source of fuel, and unit 21 at Kyndby Peak Load Plant, which uses oil as fuel.” ...

A few days before Orsted’s announcement, another big European energy firm, Germany’s RWE, said three of its lignite, or brown coal, units would “temporarily return to [the] electricity market to strengthen security of supply and save gas in power generation.”

 

Monday, October 3, 2022

The libertarians are not conservatives' friends

 



Democrat Drudge posts hilarious self-own

 As TV doctor, Oz provided platform for questionable products and views...


 


Global fascists wrecked the US middle class, and now they want to wreck it some more

 UN Calls on Fed to Halt Rate Rises...

US COVID-19 Big Picture Through 9/30/22

 Deaths per day through September 2022 are down from 896 through August to 846 through September.

Cases per day through September 2022 are down from 163,178 through August to 151,878 through September. 

Drilling down, there were 441 deaths per day in September vs. 511 deaths per day in August. May, June, and July figures were all in the 300s.

Cases really fell off. There were 3.222 million new cases in August vs. 1.810 million in September, portending fewer deaths going forward.

The CDC ranked COVID-19 the 3rd leading cause of death in 2020:

~1,909 people per day died of heart disease in 2020;

~1,650 died of cancer everyday in 2020;

~1,146 died of COVID-19 everyday in 2020 measured from Feb 29 when the first death was announced.

The New York Times data I use shows about 4,742 fewer total deaths in 2020 than the CDC does.

But any which way you measure it, even over 365 days in 2020, 2021 deaths per day were much higher than in 2020 and deaths per day now in 2022 at 846 to date are much lower than in either of the previous two years.

 



Sunday, October 2, 2022

The traditional 60/40 portfolio is down 20.77% ytd

 VTSAX is down 24.89% through 9/30.

VBTLX is down 14.59% through 9/30.

And don't forget to subtract all-items inflation of 6.14% from Nov 2021 through Aug 2022!

Headlines are popping up advocating safe havens in cash and short-duration US Treasury securities, but you'll still lose in those relative to inflation, just not as much.

What a great job the Democrats have done this year! Destroying the bond market wasn't on my bingo card for 2022, even though the high and rising prices for bonds has been a deal-breaker for me for a long time.

The Democrats' green war on energy has consequences.

Is real war next?

Friday, September 30, 2022

Spiking interest payments on the national debt through 2Q2022 threaten to crowd out other current spending on Social Security, Medicare, and National Defense

 Wait until the second half is done. 

This is going to be ugly.




The long-term gains from a higher savings rate will trounce the gains from earning higher returns

 Charlie Bilello, here.

But I have problems:


If a household saved 1% of their disposable income per year and earned a 10% rate of return, they would have a balance of $99,272 after 30 years.

Alternatively, if they saved 10% of their disposable per year and earned only a 1% rate of return, they would have a balance of $209,927 after 30 years.

That’s a 111% higher ending balance for the 10% savers as compared to the 1% savers even though their annualized investment returns were 9% lower.

He doesn't mean the "returns were 9% lower" since he's already stated the returns were 111% higher. He means the return RATES were 9% lower. But that's not true. The difference between a 1% return rate and a 10% return rate is not 9%.

It's 90%.

He does it again here, twice:

For instance, if a household only saved 1% per year and earned a 5% return, after 30 years they would have $40,096. Earning a 6% return would bump that up to $47,712, a 19% increase.

By comparison, if their returns stayed at 5% but they were able to save 1% more per year (2% savings rate), they would be left with $80,192 after 30 years. That’s a 100% increase in the ending balance through saving 1% more versus a 19% increase from earning a 1% higher return.

But the difference between saving at 1% vs. 2% is not "to save 1% more" nor "saving 1% more". 

It's saving 100% more.

Aka double.

Furthermore, the difference between returns paying 6% and 5% is not "earning a 1% higher return". 

6% is a 20% higher rate of return than 5%.

He means 1 point of return.

This sort of confusion runs rampant in America, even with a guy who clearly knows how to do percentages and has a very consequential story to tell, and it has to do with imprecision of language. Increasing by one percentage point from 1 to 2 is an increase of 100%. Increasing a percentage by 9 points from 1 to 10 is an increase of 90%. 

It shouldn't be surprising that increasing savings RATES by 90% and 100% produces returns in the end which are also of the same magnitude higher, but for some reason it is.

The precision of the math he presents is extremely important, but the language isn't precise at all.

@charliebillelo has 475k followers on Twitter, lol.

A society which loses such precision is a confused society, and it's showing up in everything, everywhere.


 



 

Thursday, September 29, 2022