Operation Break Stuff

Stagflation, sinking labor productivity, severe levels of public and private debt, a splintered real estate market…  You name it.  The economy’s crashing and burning like an old Cutlass Supreme.

There’s nothing the central planners can do to fix it.  No plans or schemes will get the tired jalopy to fire on all cylinders.  A blown head gasket is replaced and the very next day the spark plugs are fried.  Replace those and a piston ring blows.

At some point, it’s beyond salvage.  The only sensible choice left is to scrap the old buggy at the junk yard.

Similarly, scrapping the central planners that are responsible for this economic mess is the right thing to do.  They’ve created a very disagreeable situation.  One that will take several generations – or more – to reconcile.

In this vein, the time has come to purge the rot.  To reckon the mistakes of the past.  To burn off the many distortions that have piled up like dead forest wood.  We’ll have more on this in just a moment.  But first some context is in order. Continue reading

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Debt Markets Get Trampled

Anyone with half a brain knew there would be hell to pay for locking down the economy and simultaneously printing and spewing out trillions of dollars of confetti money.  The bill has finally come due.

Did you see the latest consumer price index (CPI) report?

According to the government bean counters consumer price inflation, as measured by the CPI, increased in September at an annual rate of 8.2 percent.  While this is down slightly from several months ago, the year-over-year increase in prices is still near a 40-year high.

Stock market investors celebrated the news like mindless idiots.  On Thursday, after the CPI report was released, the S&P 500 rallied more than 2.5 percent.  Perhaps stock market investors were elated the CPI wasn’t even higher.

More important than the stock market is the debt market.  Following the CPI release, Treasury yields spiked up.  Bond investors know what’s coming.  Specifically, more rate hikes from the Federal Reserve.  They sold accordingly.

Because as interest rates rise, bond prices fall.  This inverse relationship, which has been in existence since financial markets were invented, is wreaking havoc on debt investors.  The value of the paper they’re holding is vaporizing in their hands. Continue reading

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Who Else Bought BlackRock’s LDI Swindle Products?

Finding and filling gaps in the market is one path for entrepreneurial success.  The first to tap into an unmet consumer demand can unlock massive profits.

But unless there’s some comparative advantage, competition will quickly commoditize the market.  Profit margins will decline to just above breakeven.

“You should either be first or be better than your competition.”

We don’t know who the original source of this often-repeated business advice is.  Like most advice on the subject, it sounds smart while not being all that useful.

From our experience, finding and filling gaps in the market, and being better than the competition, is extremely difficult.  Even the most successful entrepreneurs fail more than they succeed.  And success in one endeavor doesn’t guarantee success in another.

Anyone who has ever developed and marketed a new product from concept through sale knows how difficult it is to achieve profitability.  For every good idea there must be a hundred bad ones. Continue reading

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Why Bonds Are Behaving Like Risky Assets

“When the [credit] delusion breaks, people all with one impulse hoard their money, banks all with one impulse hoard credit, and debt becomes debt again, as it always was.  Credit is ruined.”

– Garet Garrett, 1932, A Bubble that Broke the World

Down, Down, Down

Third quarter 2022 ends today [Friday].  We’re entering the year’s home stretch.  Thus, we’ll take a moment to observe where money and markets have been, so we can conjecture as to where they’re going.

To begin, United States stock markets are in an epic battle between bulls and bears.  For most of the year, the bears have been delivering heavy blows.  But the bulls have not taken their punches lying down.  Here’s a quick review of the three major U.S. Indexes…

After peaking out on January 4, 2022, at 4,814.62 the S&P 500 declined 24.46 percent to an interim bottom of 3,636.87 on June 17, 2022.  The DJIA fell approximately 19.71 percent over this time.

The NASDAQ’s decline commenced on November 22, 2021, at a peak of 16,212.23.  It then cascaded to an interim bottom of 10,565.14 on June 16, 2022, for a top to bottom decline of 34.83 percent. Continue reading

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