That is precisely my point.
Andy
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Iâm going to go out on a short limb here and say holiday sales were excellent. Maybe not âto the moonâ terrific, but good, excellent, solid, and better than most should have expected given the incessant ârecessionâ talk.
Iâm going to go further and say trends of the last 10 years didnât change. Online grew faster, physical store sales grew, but only a little, with more wobble depending on local economies, store segment (mass vs dept stores vs other retail) but on average: âupâ.
Jobs went up (again) more than predicted; more people working means more people spending, and in many cases, spending more. Markdown sales, at least as I saw, were later and fewer, but that could be an artifact of where I shopped, which was not everywhere.
Anyway, the economy stubbornly refuses to go along with the common narrative of the money experts and their allies in financial media. It seems strong, at least for now.
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Sheâs dead wrong.
Sheâs been predicting deflation for a while now. Sheâll be right eventually, but not next year and not for the reasons she gives.
A basic economic principle says that deflation is incredibly rare in times of low unemployment, almost impossible even, because workers bid up wages. Wages go up, prices go up. Weâre experiencing the lowest unemployment in 54 years. No one is chopping jobs right now. Everyone is complaining they canât hire enough people. And wages indeed are increasing. Blockbuster job report last week too. The trend is completely in the wrong direction. Deflation in this economic environment is virtually impossible.
She points to the strong dollar as a drag on the economy because it makes our exports more expensive. Okay, but the dollar has been getting weaker in recent months. Again the trend is in the wrong direction. A weaker dollar makes imports more expensive. More expensive stuff is inflation, right?
Other things that can contribute to inflation include 1) low tax rates; check, got that one; and 2) large government deficit spending. Check, got that one too. Think Congress will change that this year? I donât either.
On top of all that, while interest rates are high compared to recent history, they actually arenât all that high. I say this because the Fed got on top of this little inflation bout weâve had, and has apparently beaten it without raising rates too much, and did so without cratering the economy, which is something most people thought would have to happen. Masterful job in my opinion.
So if we were to slide towards deflation, the Fed could act by cutting interest rates and other measures like QE and they seem to have some skill in this area. Remember though, Wood is predicting we will go from inflation to deflation this year. Woodâs model apparently says that deflation is baked in and thereâs nothing that Fed can do at this point.
That is wildly improbable. Even with the near collapse of the global financial system we saw barely any deflation and the Fed had much less room to cut interest rates back then. It would require a black swan event to get from inflation to deflation this year.
So why is Wood seemingly so far outside the mainstream thinking? I think it is because she is an Arthur Laffer acolyte, who himself resides far, far outside of objective reality. The guy is a loon. Sheâs using crackpot economic theories in her models, so of course she comes up with wild theories that donât make any sense.
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The huge economic upsides are with the millennials and zâs. At this point both generations are much larger than the boomers. I have seen somewhere that 20 million boomers have passed so far.
All the trends in the economy and business hinge on those two generations. Whether it is parenting or making decision with ancient grandparents.
We are an older group here mostly. For business purposes wise to reset your clocks.
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They got the numbers but we got the guns.
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I can get off my couch but I doubt many of the rest of you can. LOL
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Or maybe not. The last year with negative inflation in the US was 1954, 70 years ago
DB2
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To be fair, she didnât say it would be for the whole year.
A sample of Cathie Wood hype on my feed today.
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PATH uses SaaS subscriptions to sell apps that simplify code writing n software development.
That would seem a âpicks n shovelsâ type business that would benefit from the AI boom?
ralph donât own no PATH.
Has no plans to own it.
Just finds it interesting.
Based on what?
What limitations, statutory or otherwise, do you think they have on adjusting rates? Why canât inflation simply have gotten as high as it did because they were clearly wrong about it be transitory?
What if they were right about it being transitory but just wrong how long transitory was. Or. what if they were were right about how long transitory was but they just didnât raise rates fast enough? The problem is we will never know the answer but when the Fed saw the inflation was to high did they want it lower? Yes. So if they could adjust the rates to 2 percent right away they would have done that but this economy is to complex and there are to many variables and that is why they canât do it over night. It is like a barge going down the Mississippi. You do not turn it on a dime. Or an over weight person sitting on the couch, the do not lose all the weight tomorrow.
Andy
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âIn the long run, we are all transitory.â
- John Maynard Keynes
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Irrelevant.
Either you believe they have the ability and authority to change rates as they wish or you donât. Whether they are right or wrong about the future is irrelevant.
You claimed that they lacked the ability to adjust rates whenever they wanted. Do you have any data to substantiate that claim?
Maybe I wasnât clear enough Hawkwin. When I said rates I was talking inflation rate, not the interest rate. Of course they can adjust the interest rate but my argument is that they canât adjust the inflation rate that fast. I hope that is more clear.
Andy
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The daily Cathie Wood hype on my feed this morning. There was another article yesterday. What I donât know is who pays who. Does the media pay her for the content, or does she pay the media for the publicity?
Steve those are both MF articles. The only one getting paid is the person who wrote the article for the Fool because he is trying to entice you to join the Fool.
Andy
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So, the âreportsâ are advertising dressed up as ânewsâ?
Steve
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Sigh. No, they are not advertising. Advertising is when Cathie Woods calls the sales department and says âI want to take an ad.â
Those are news stories. They may be good or bad stories, they may be interesting or not, but they are âcontentâ, which the Fool provides to attract readers, and perhaps eventually buyers of their other âpremiumâ content, including subscriptions for stock tips, etc.
No. Not advertising. It appears you have a significant brick wall built against understanding the difference.
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Articles on TMF work very much like magazine articles. You probably sign a contract to participate. Anyone can submit an article. If they use yours you get paid.