I’m stupid.
I thought we were done with this shit.
But now it looks like we’re heading for more lockdowns and more restrictions...at least in the blue states.
I figure the red states will fight it like hell. And the media will lambast them. We saw this earlier in the year with Florida and DeSantis.
Even though covid cases in the US are pretty much static, around 70,000 a day, in Florida cases have gone way down, around 1,200 a day.
That’s why the media doesn’t talk about Florida anymore. It doesn’t fit their Big-Pharma-funded narrative.
I’m still baffled that for Dems, Big Pharma was a bad guy just a couple years ago. Now they’re the good guy?
Strange times.
I originally started writing this bit on Sunday, expecting a real interesting start to the market week on Wall Street. I couldn’t wait to see how the markets would react to this new variant.
Well, seems the markets don’t really care. After the big Friday sell-off, the Dow has reclaimed most of its losses. The market seems to be rip-roaring today.
Personally, I hope the whole shithouse goes up in flames. I’d love to see a few-thousand point drop.
Instead, by the time the week is over, the greedsters will probably send the Dow skyrocketing, wiping out Friday’s losses while aiming for a new, all-time high.
I’m very interested in the bond markets, with 10-year yields down to 1.4%.
With rates that low, why even invest? Most aren’t - they just keep plowing it into the markets, either stocks or cryptos.
And let’s not forget how hard the hedge funds got hit last week, losing anywhere from 1% to 1.5% of their value. Might not sound like a lot, until you realize that equals tons of money.
What happened? Moderna’s stock shot-up, effectively wiping-out all the short positions those hedge funds held. In other words, they were betting on that stock to go down.
It was a good bet. The stock was at an all time high of $450 in September, before falling to its current price of around $300. Before the pandemic started, the stock was worth $19.
Then omni came. Hedgies got hammered.
And let’s not forget the markets and the corporate media are completely ignoring the 125,000 Russian troops on Ukraine’s border, or half its army.
Nope, nothing to see here!
I thought we were done with this shit.
But now it looks like we’re heading for more lockdowns and more restrictions...at least in the blue states.
I figure the red states will fight it like hell. And the media will lambast them. We saw this earlier in the year with Florida and DeSantis.
Even though covid cases in the US are pretty much static, around 70,000 a day, in Florida cases have gone way down, around 1,200 a day.
That’s why the media doesn’t talk about Florida anymore. It doesn’t fit their Big-Pharma-funded narrative.
I’m still baffled that for Dems, Big Pharma was a bad guy just a couple years ago. Now they’re the good guy?
Strange times.
I originally started writing this bit on Sunday, expecting a real interesting start to the market week on Wall Street. I couldn’t wait to see how the markets would react to this new variant.
Well, seems the markets don’t really care. After the big Friday sell-off, the Dow has reclaimed most of its losses. The market seems to be rip-roaring today.
Personally, I hope the whole shithouse goes up in flames. I’d love to see a few-thousand point drop.
Instead, by the time the week is over, the greedsters will probably send the Dow skyrocketing, wiping out Friday’s losses while aiming for a new, all-time high.
I’m very interested in the bond markets, with 10-year yields down to 1.4%.
With rates that low, why even invest? Most aren’t - they just keep plowing it into the markets, either stocks or cryptos.
And let’s not forget how hard the hedge funds got hit last week, losing anywhere from 1% to 1.5% of their value. Might not sound like a lot, until you realize that equals tons of money.
What happened? Moderna’s stock shot-up, effectively wiping-out all the short positions those hedge funds held. In other words, they were betting on that stock to go down.
It was a good bet. The stock was at an all time high of $450 in September, before falling to its current price of around $300. Before the pandemic started, the stock was worth $19.
Then omni came. Hedgies got hammered.
And let’s not forget the markets and the corporate media are completely ignoring the 125,000 Russian troops on Ukraine’s border, or half its army.
Nope, nothing to see here!
God...what a house of cards our economy is!
My favorite is inflation, and this silly idea that it’s transitory. Even better is how the Biden regime blames average Americans for this problem, saying we’re buying too much.
At least Jerome Powell finally admitted the transitory idea was complete bullshit. I wonder what else the powerful elite are telling us is bullshit.
So how do we solve this inflationary problem? I’d suggest looking back at how they did so in the 70s.
Back then, interest rates were eventually raised to 22%.
I would love to see that, as I have lots of money in savings, and would like to earn that kind of interest.
Most homeowners would hate it, as they’d have to pay a lot more each month to service their mortgage. Same with car loans and credit cards - anyone holding those will be screwed. Governments would also hate it, as they’d pay more interest on their debt. State governments like Illinois and New Jersey would be wiped-out.
NBC tells us the huge interest rate hikes of the 70s and 80s “also crunched American manufacturing, farming and real estate but led the way to two decades of expansion.”
Common Missoulians desperately need a ‘real estate crunch.’ There’s nowhere to live right now, but a huge uptick in interest rates would cost many their homes, as they have no savings and huge loads of debt.
Just last night, I was looking at available rentals in Missoula. I was astounded to see this listing: $900 for a one-bedroom.
That sounds reasonable, considering our terrible market, but what caught my eye was that the potential renter's monthly income has to be 3.5x what the rent is...meaning $3,600 a month. They'd have to make over $20 an hour for the privilege of living in those 500-square-feet.
So the person living in this 1-bedroom has to make at least $43,000 a year to live in this small apartment...a place that was probably going to someone making half that or less just a year or two ago.
Clearly, this apartment is not meant for common workers in the service industry. I’m pretty sure a student can’t afford it. I guess it’s for young professionals from out-of-state, maybe some healthcare workers...I dunno.
I think it’s sad.
On one site, I saw just 10 listings for 1-bedroom apartments, the cheapest being $1,095.
Of course, any interest rate hike of even a few percent would crash our flimsy economy in days, everyone knows it.
It’s an interesting predicament: we’re afraid to change what we’re doing because we think it’ll kill us quickly, but our current way of doing things is killing us slowly.
But aside from raising interest rates into the double-digits...how else are we going to get rid of inflation? I'm all ears.
