Rolling US Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

I really do feel like the newspapers are in a cycle of "job growth is bad, unless there's not job growth, in which case lack of job growth is bad"

As I learned long ago from H. L. Mencken, newspaper editors view their job in regard to any events having a political dimension as either to 'point with alarm' or 'view with satisfaction'. On the whole, I find that 'point with alarm' outpaces 'view with satisfaction' at about a 10:1 ratio.

oof!

(except $TWTR haha)

looks like the rail strike discussed above is ... picking up steam again

Might be happening!

I had the same thought today. Hoping we are both wrong. Are you keeping notes for a sequel to your book? https://t.co/s4ftPFKP92

— David Wessel (@davidmwessel) September 24, 2022

lot of rumors that credit suisse might be going under this week

Traditionally October is the scariest month in financial markets.

Hedge funds:

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/427/549/b9d.gif

Or rather!

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/427/549/b9d.gif

This is pretty fascinating. People who bought GameStop for fun have now developed a whole economic belief system around it.

I've been digging into the communities surrounding meme stocks and, like, it's weird man. Somehow a short squeeze opportunity back in 2020 has mutated into a straight up apocalypse cult trying to trigger the end of the world.

— Dan Olson (@FoldableHuman) October 10, 2022

just feels like this has a Lehman Bros in 2007 flavor to it, idk. Monitoring.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Wednesday, 10 March 2021 06:54 (one year ago) link

The second biggest position in the Greenhill-backed Credit Suisse funds is a "smart window" company called View that's also a SoftBank company (surprise!). It just went public a couple days ago via a SPAC.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Wednesday, 10 March 2021 07:00 (one year ago) link

Course that was before the Archegos thing also blew up

(smart window company not really significant, just for context that it was CS-related)

this thread has been calling the next financial crisis as just around the corner for over a decade. one day it will be right

it’s here

wanna put some money on it?

Can I pay in Damian Hirst NFTs?

pay me in broken clocks ;)

Do you think the fed is slowing things down too much? That seems like the proximate danger at this point (along with whatever the fuck the uk does to the bond market)

As LA goes, the rest of the country follows.

The LA trucking market is a leading indicator of activity across the rest of the US, providing a 2+ week advanced look at the rest of the market. Vols out of LA have now dipped below 19 levels (note: this is “peak” season). pic.twitter.com/gAUV2e6cLU

— Craig Fuller 🛩🚛🚂⚓️ (@FreightAlley) October 11, 2022

Housing market seizing up because no one can afford to buy, and no one in their right mind would sell, also seems bad.

my stepmom was telling me that when she & her first husband bought their first house (late 60's?), the interest rates were like 15-18% for everybody

Of course, houses were $50K, but interest is interest

When my parents bought the house I largely grew up in, in 1980, interest rates were well into the double digits. Maybe 18%.

15% interest hurts a lot less if the loan is 2x your annual salary rather than 20x.

The housing market today is the worst of both worlds - high prices and high rates, and the high rates are not going to rapidly bring prices down, it's just going to crush inventory. If you're locked in at a low rate and you sell, you have to buy at a high price and high rate. There aren't a bunch of resetting ARMs to trigger a price crash like there were in 2008. The only way housing costs truly come down is if there are job losses, which also benefits no one. I don't really get what the fed thinks it's doing, tbh.

When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

this is in a British context but explains why mortgage interest rates now are about the same as the much higher mortgage interest rates back in the 90s, in terms of affordability

or what caek said

🧵RISING INTEREST RATES ARE A BIGGER DEAL THAN YOU MIGHT THINK🧵
This is important (hence the caps).
I’m a bit worried people are being WAY too complacent about rising interest rates.
They assume that because they’re so low now vs the 1990s, this’ll be a walk in the park.
NO.

— Ed Conway (@EdConwaySky) September 22, 2022

I don't really get what the fed thinks it's doing, tbh.

Congress has been unwilling to employ tax and fiscal policy in a sensible manner for approximately half a century. This leaves monetary policy struggling to do things that monetary policy does very poorly.

The only way housing costs truly come down is if there are job losses, which also benefits no one. I don't really get what the fed thinks it's doing, tbh.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Tuesday, October 11, 2022 7:56 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

the fed isn't trying to get house prices down, it's trying to get inflation down. houses aren't in cpi

house prices are never going down imo

weren't you arguing a month or two ago that low interest rates were what's driving inequality?

Congress has been unwilling to employ tax and fiscal policy in a sensible manner for approximately half a century. This leaves monetary policy struggling to do things that monetary policy does very poorly.

― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Tuesday, October 11, 2022 11:28 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

what tax and fiscal policy do you have in mind? most inflation right now is from fuel prices and past fiscal policy. other than miraculously getting sudden abundant cheap energy or austerity, there isn't that much to be done tbh

most inflation right now is from fuel prices and past fiscal policy

Those past failures are what I was referencing. I wasn't suggesting that half a century of crappy tax policy could be miraculously fixed this month after five decades of mismanagement, rather that monetary policy used as a standalone tool is a very inadequate tool to fix a badly regulated national economy and at times like these it shows.

U.S. economy grows 2.6% in third quarter, reversing a six-month slump

\_(ツ)_/¯

shh people are trying to speak a recession into existence

Perfect case study of how “Everyone feels like a genius in a bull market” pic.twitter.com/MNCVwr8hRZ

— Nick Maggiulli (@dollarsanddata) December 28, 2022

he seems nice

this thread has been calling the next financial crisis as just around the corner for over a decade. one day it will be right

― flopson, Tuesday, October 11, 2022 1:47 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

it’s here

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, October 11, 2022 3:05 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

two months pass...

Maybe we're a lobster who only slowly realizes he's in a shitbin.

yeah i mean we’re not doing so bad, exxonmobil and chevron will make an estimated 100bn in profit between them for instance

This ghoul

Larry Summers reclining on a tropical island and instructing the proles that "there's going to need to be increases in unemployment to contain inflation" ☠️pic.twitter.com/t1ONYePsUZ

— David Adler (@davidrkadler) January 6, 2023

everyone keeps saying this but it seems like inflation is easing and employment is still high, the big tech layoffs can be considered basically fake

Yeah, at the service-sector level at least the problem around here continues to be that nobody can get enough workers. I think Larry et al partly have this Biblical vengeance notion that somehow somebody has to suffer for the pandemic-era profligacy. (Somebody who isn't them or anyone they know, obv.)

the big tech layoffs are tiny relative to the economy. it's maybe 100k total, and most of those people have or will find new work quickly.

Hang on, I've just calculated the unemployment rate to extra decimal places, and December's rate of 3.468% is a new 50 YEAR LOW, the lowest rate since 1969.

— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) January 6, 2023

the big tech layoffs are tiny relative to the economy. it's maybe 100k total, and most of those people have or will find new work quickly.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Friday, January 6, 2023 2:13 PM (one minute ago)

as user lagoon pointed out it's not in a tech company's nature to shrink, these are PR layoffs

yup, otm. also this guy puts it well

Amazon joining Salesforce today in laying off staff. Every single tech company has the air cover for layoffs

Even if they’re not “needed” it’s a free pass to restructure and clear out bottom performers

Expect layoffs to accelerate

— Bucco Capital (@buccocapital) January 4, 2023

It's kind of like growth companies issuing stock in 2020-2021 - if you don't do a re-org/lay-off in 2023, investors are going to think you're stupid. You don't want to be stupid, do you?

— Bucco Capital (@buccocapital) January 6, 2023

my roth IRA, not big by any means anyway, lost more than 15% of its value this year lol

New coin coming.

I asked @rohangrey & @NathanTankus — 2 of the leading theorists behind the “Mint the $1 Trillion Coin” idea — about some of the concerns I’d been hearing from those close to the White House about their plan Their responses, shared w/ permission, are worth reading pic.twitter.com/7HijRiohXp

— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) January 20, 2023

More importantly, where are you going to find someone to break a trillion dollar coin on laundry day?

the economy will boom from all the heist movies made about stealing the coin

Starting today’s econChat with Walmart talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xrd3_JGR60s

Two Snoop Dogg snippets from Milken today. I was sitting up front, and the whole thing was bananas.

First, Snoop Dogg on streaming media pricing: "If you can get a billion streams, why can't you get a million dollars? Who the f**k run the streaming industry? Are you in here?" pic.twitter.com/e6czGzDS84

— Paul Kedrosky (@pkedrosky) May 4, 2023