August 11, 2023
By Steve Blumenthal
“Ultimately, if the deficit isn’t contained, taxes will be raised to the point that the engine of the US economy — the all-important consumer — will have considerably less discretionary income.
– Quincy Krosby, the chief global strategist for LPL Financial (Bloomberg)
A distortion of perception disguised as a cure.
Toes in the sand near the water’s edge near, I finished reading, The Price of Time by Edward Chancellor. It is a 500-year detailed study of interest rates and their impact on societies. Perhaps not the most relaxing book to read on vacation, but the afternoon skinny Mezcal margarita helped. 😎
Central to Chancellor’s conclusion lies one sole factor: unnaturally low-interest rates. As he points out, interest rates carry paramount significance within an economy driven by markets; they function as the fundamental pricing gauge that ripples through all other aspects. Essentially, interest embodies the value of time, which he calls “The Price of Time.” This value is the guiding light behind every pivotal financial choice—saving, spending, or investing. Depressing the interest rate emerges as a potent method to energize an economy that would otherwise be headed for a downturn, yet, after the fact, it has always proven to be a perilous maneuver.
“Tis not altogether improbable, that when the nation become heartily sick of their debts, and are cruelly oppressed by them, some daring projector may arise with visionary schemes for their discharge. And as public credit will begin, by that time, to be a little frail, the least touch will destroy it, as happened in France; and in this manner it will die of the doctor.” Wrote David Hume in 1752 in the book, ‘Of Public Credit.’
“Steve quit obsession over debt,” A reader wrote. Hi Steve, “I read your information often; however, your “incessant fretting” about the sovereign national debt is unwarranted, IMHO.
No doubt you have heard of MMT. The federal guys will “print” away that debt, absolutely no doubt…history has shown that (although I admit some incompetent practitioners, e.g. the Weimar guys, screwed up). Yes, inflation has to be managed with that MMT strategy. However, as you know, inflation is also the “friend” of sovereign debt. Moreover, as long as sovereign governments can fool the naive masses that their “worthless” fiat paper “crap” is worth something…then no problem keeping the B.S. going. So, in summary, I don’t lose any sleep over sovereign debt levels… Yours truly, Werner, a sound sleeper and gold investor…”
I replied,
Dear Werner,
Thanks for taking the time to write me. Following is my reply: First, I agree, which is the debt story’s central message. MMT is the path we will choose. It’s the easiest. My message is that because of the debt levels reached, the can-kicking is coming to an end. We will use MMT to inflate our way out of debt. So will Europe and Japan. I agree with your gold trade.
Further, inflation slows the economy, reduces individuals’ excess capital, and reduces corporate earnings. Inflationary periods see rising rates. Avoid buying and holding bonds. Trade them, yes. Avoid overvalued stocks. Risk manage them.
Overall, there are so many ways to make money. Just not where most of the money sits today (60-40 buy and hold index and bonds funds).
So my message is, don’t sit on the tracks and get run over by the oncoming train. That train is out of control because the debt and pension liabilities are too significant to pay back. A “Great Reset,” as Mauldin calls it, is near. Thus, look at debt and understand the next play. That is what you appear to be doing.
You understand debt and what will likely happen. Unfortunately, many don’t. Thus my debt messaging. Perhaps there is a better way for me to message this… appreciate your email because it helps me a lot.”
Let me try to paint the picture better.
I’ve shared this next story with you before… I was fishing in Maine a few years ago at Camp Kotok. Attendees include economists, fund managers, ex-Fed officials, and a few family offices. Hosted by the great David Kotok. Think of it as a brainstorming session with some of the best thinkers in the business. It’s been called “The Shadow Fed.” You’ll know many of the names.
I was seated at the dinner table with two ex-senior Fed officials. This was in August 2019; then, the government debt was ~ $19 trillion, and ~ $4 of it sat on the books of the Fed. Late in the conversation, I leaned forward and asked, “Ok, boys, what’s the plan?” The answer surprised me, “It’s an asset on one side of the government’s books (the Fed) and a liability on the other (the U.S. Treasury).” One of the gentlemen put his hands above his head and lightly clapped them together. Whoosh! Gone.
Today the national debt is $32.7 trillion. It is up $1 trillion since Congress voted to increase the debt ceiling on May 31st. That was just nine weeks ago. I believe we’ll be at $50 trillion in a blink. The current Federal deficit sits is $1.7 trillion. The government is spending far more than they are collecting in tax revenue. The excess funding comes from the Fed. The Treasury issues additional debt, and the Fed creates new money and buys the debt. Others also buy Treasury bills, notes, and bonds, but the Fed is increasingly buying more. Five hundred years of history tell us the problem likely grows worse. That new money is going into the system.
Milton Friedman famously claimed that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. Later he clarified that he was referring to episodes of persistent inflation. Note that this is different from short-term inflation, caused by supply shocks that impact the costs of goods.
Observing 500 years of interest rate history tells us that the consequence of this behavior is inflation. Persistent inflation. This history can also help us better understand the signs we need to look for.
“A sound sleeper and gold investor.” I concluded my note to Werner, “We are pretty much saying the same thing.” However, I’ll add that gold is not the only opportunity.
The takeaway is that inflation and interest rates will likely be higher in the latter half of the decade. It won’t be a straight line. The 10-year sits at 4.05% at the time of this writing. We could see 4.50% and then 3% by Q1 2024. That would make for an excellent trade. Not yet, according to the Zweig Bond Model. But to get to 3% requires a recession, and when we get a recession (and we will), the stock market may decline as much as 30% from current levels. If my thesis is correct, authorities will money machines will be turned back on then, and an even larger round of inflation will follow. A 10% yielding 10-year Treasury is a realistic possibility. How many are factoring “persistent inflation” into their thinking?
The problem is debt. Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. Creating trillions of new dollars is a distortion of perception disguised as a cure.
We had interest rates decline from 15% to 0% over the last forty years. The winds have shifted – we are in a different interest rate environment.
Game plan (for accredited investors). Here are three alternative investment ideas:
- A hedge fund that takes short-term, typically 90-day, risk exposure to insure the seller in a transaction against the buyer filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Cash flows to investors, paid quarterly, at approximately 14% per year.
- A floating rate first lean specialty lending fund yielding approximately 10.5%.
- Absolute return trading strategy funds with steady return profiles in the low to mid-teens with strong downside risk management processes.
Risk exists everywhere. However, there is much you can do. The above is simply food for thought. Talk with your advisor, or contact me if you have any questions.
Of course, I could be wrong. I think about probabilities, and my views are subject to change.
Grab your coffee and find your favorite chair. Let’s go deeper on this topic with the latest piece from Ray Dalio. Central to the challenges will be the steps governments will take to restructure their debts. Dalio writes about what is happening in the economy today and what he sees ahead. A great wealth transfer. You’ll also find a great chart courtesy of Ned Davis Research showing where we are in the “Presidential Cycle.” Worth your review.
Here are the sections in this week’s On My Radar:
- What’s Happening in the Economy? The Great Wealth Transfer
- Key Takeaways from The Price of Time
- The Presidential Election Cycle
- Personal Note: The Women’s World Cup and Lionel Messi!
- Trade Signals: Soft Landing Unlikely
(Reminder: This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. My views may change at any time. The information is for discussion purposes only.)
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What’s Happening in the Economy? The Great Wealth Transfer
By Ray Dalio via LinkedIn
The economy clearly isn’t reacting in the usual way to the Fed’s tightening; it is much stronger than normal and stronger than expected. Why is that? The answer is in the data that I will paint for you in this post’s charts. Before I do that, I will summarize.
There was a big government-engineered shift in wealth from 1) the public sector (the central government and central bank) and 2) holders of government bonds to 3) the private sector (i.e., households and businesses). This made the private sector relatively insensitive to the Fed’s very rapid tightening to a more normal monetary policy. As a result of this coordinated government maneuver, the household sector’s balance sheets and income statements are in good shape, while the government’s are in bad shape. In the US and globally, the central governments’ balance sheets and income statements are bad and getting worse because the governments ran and are still running large deficits. They also have big losses on the government bonds they bought to fund the government debts and, with their balance sheets where they are, are losing money where interest rates are. Said more simply, central governments took on a lot more debt (so their balance sheets deteriorated) and central banks printed a lot more money (which caused inflation to rise) and bought a lot of the debt to get money into the hands of the private sector which, as a result, is now in relatively good shape financially.
This took place in 2020 and 2021 when there were huge budget deficits (e.g., 10-14% of GDP in the US) and huge central bank purchases of bonds (e.g., Fed bond holdings jumped from 18% to 35% of GDP), holding rates down to zero or lower. You will recall the period of free money and nil or negative interest rates. The question I often got then was how one could make money owning bonds with negative interest rates. The answer was by borrowing at even more negative interest rates than the central banks were offering. Imagine that! That’s when cash was trash, so it was good to borrow and bad to own. That’s what a lot of banks did with the central banks’ encouragement. Also, when people and businesses got big piles of money from the governments, lots of money was deposited in banks, which had low loan demand, so they bought “safe” government bonds at that favorable interest rate spread.
Then in 2022, with inflation roaring and unemployment low, there was a move toward less insanely easy fiscal policies (e.g., a reduction in the US budget deficit from an enormous 12% of GDP to very large 5-6% of GDP), and there were rapid moves from central banks away from insanely easy monetary policies (e.g., -1.5% real bond rates with a huge balance sheet expansion to a more normal level of tightness with +1.5% real bond yields and a gradual shrinking of the balance sheet in the US). While this tightening sent bonds and stocks down and squeezed some areas of the capital markets and the economy (e.g., venture capital, private equity, and commercial real estate), the private sector’s net worth rose to high levels, unemployment rates fell to low levels, and compensation increased a lot, so the private sector was much better off while central governments got a lot more in debt and central banks and other government bond holders lost lots of money on those bonds.
Does it matter that the central governments and central banks have such bad balance sheets and income statements if the real economy is in pretty good shape? Of course it does! As with people and companies, governments that borrow have debt service payments and eventually have to pay back principal, which is painful. The only differences in their finances are that governments can confiscate wealth through taxes and print money via the central bank (so that’s what we should expect to happen). Will this be a big problem? The answer is probably not much over the near term but probably a lot later. That is for reasons I will explain briefly here and more comprehensively in a later writing.
Before I give you my brief synopsis, I want to point out that long-term history is a good guide. Though this big government maneuver hasn’t happened before in our lifetimes, it happened many times in history. In fact, I described this typical maneuver used at this stage in the long-term debt cycle in my book Principles for Navigating Big Debt Crises, which I published back in 2018. The book looks at the biggest debt crises over the last 100 years and explains how the classic big debt cycle works, including how big debt burdens get reduced, which is commonly through the approach governments are now using.
In the book, I called this approach Monetary Policy 3 (MP3) because, in the long-term debt cycle, it typically occurs after MP1, which is monetary policy via interest rate changes without big central bank balance sheet changes (i.e., without the “printing of money” and buying of financial assets), and after MP2, which is the central bank’s “printing of money” and buying of financial assets (also known as “quantitative easing,” or QE), which is done when the free market demand for the debt falls short of the free market supply of the debt and the central bank would like to stimulate the economy but can’t do it through interest rate cuts. The problem with MP2 that leads to MP3 is that while buying financial assets helps the holders of financial assets, it doesn’t help get the money and credit into the hands of the people who need it the most. Targeting getting the money to those who need it most can only be done by central governments because they have the authority to send money to those they want to send it to, so the symbiotic relationship that I described as MP3 occurs. Though I won’t delve into an explanation of this classic cycle and these types of monetary policy here, if you’re interested, you can read about them in this free PDF version of Principles for Navigating Big Debt Crises.
By the way, despite my seeing this dynamic happening and studying those cases, I failed to fully appreciate how much the improved financial condition of the private sector would soften the impact of the Fed’s tightening because I was too focused on how the last 12 tightening cycles (since 1945, when the new world and currency order began) worked. Now, I will give some brief thoughts about what my lessons from history and my projections tell me about the possible future. Then I will paint the picture with charts.
Briefly Looking Ahead
Over the near term, if there isn’t a big supply/demand imbalance in which the amount of government debt sold overwhelms the amount of demand for these debt assets, it appears that a period of tolerably slow growth and tolerably high inflation (a mild stagflation) is most likely. Of course, there is a significant range of uncertainty around that because what we don’t know is greater than what we do know about a lot of influences (e.g., politics, geopolitics, the environment, and technology’s impact). However, over the long term, from looking at history and penciling out what is likely, it is virtually certain that central governments’ deficits will be large, and it is highly probable that they will grow at an increasing rate as the increasing debt service costs plus increasing other budget costs compound upward, and, as they increase, governments will need to sell more debt, so there will be a self-reinforcing debt spiral that will lead to market-imposed debt limits while central banks will be forced to print more money and buy more debt as they experience losses and deteriorating balance sheets. While central banks have had significant losses, they are not yet at the point of these losses affecting monetary policy, but it is not inconceivable that they will follow the classic late big cycle dynamic, which is also consistent with not unreasonable projections that are deeply concerning as to what might happen. The concerning scenario that could occur if deficits compound so that there is more supply of government bonds than there is demand is that either interest rates will rise or central banks will have to buy more to try to hold them down, but in either case central banks’ losses and their negative net worths reach magnitudes that could have adverse effects on monetary policies directly (because they have to monetize their own and the central governments’ losses) and/or indirectly (because such losses could become political issues). Germany—which experienced this late debt cycle dynamic that destroyed the value of its money in the 1920s and the 1940s and so is wary of this dynamic and as a result is inclined to be more conservative monetarily—is now considering whether its central bank’s losses (i.e., Bundesbank losses) and its negative net worth positions should be handled in the classically proper way of having the central bank get capital from the central government, which hits the central bank’s budget and thus raises the budget deficit. In the UK, where central bank losses are handled this way, the Treasury will need to borrow another ~2% of UK GDP to cover the Bank of England’s negative equity position. A number of central banks are now considering what to do under this type of scenario. One could even imagine in the US that large central bank losses and negative central bank net worth could cause political reactions that would threaten the central bank’s independence and lead to more political controls over it.
To be clear, I’m not saying this will happen; I’m not sure about anything, and I’m getting ahead of where I intend to go in this report, so I will get back to painting the picture of what happened in charts.
Painting the Picture of What Happened in Charts
I will now show you a bunch of measures of the forces I described for the US. There are different versions of these that are broadly similar in most countries. These charts will come in pairs, with the one on top showing the measure(s) since 2018 so you can see it closely and the one below showing it since 1970 to help you put it into a longer-term perspective.
This first pair of charts shown on the left below shows the total income (which includes the money handed out via the government), employment income, and total spending. The second chart pair (on the right) shows the savings rate. As you can see from the one on the upper left, the amount of income from employment plunged but the total amount of income soared by a lot more, in two big waves, because of the big government handouts. The first big handout was under Trump, which was in response to COVID and was about $2.2 trillion, and the second was under Biden and amounted to $1.9 trillion to provide added social, financial, and infrastructure support. As you can also see in the top-left chart, spending plunged at first during COVID and then surged and recovered steadily. As has always proven to be the case, when you give people money and credit with incentives to spend it, they will find a way to spend it. The chart on the top right shows how there were two big surges in the savings rate as the money poured in and how it declined to new low levels as spending picked up. A lot of those savings were deposited into banks, which bought government bonds because loan demand was weak. Remember that the savings rate is the savings relative to the income and is not a reflection of the incomes and balance sheets of the household sector, so its current low level shouldn’t be misconstrued to mean that the household sector is in a cash-strapped position. It’s not, as we will soon see.
The next pair of charts on the left shows real household wealth along with the real asset and liability levels that make that up. As you can see, real debts were flat and real assets went up so net worths soared. They soared to new highs in response to the fiscal and monetary stimulations and declined a bit due to the Fed’s tightening but remain very high by historical measures. The charts on the right show the household sector’s borrowings, which, as you can see, picked up during the easings and declined during the tightenings.
The next two pairs of charts show the unemployment rate and the growth rate of compensation. As you can see, while the unemployment rate surged during COVID, it has now plunged to the lowest level since the late ‘60s. At the same time, compensation increases soared. As reflected in both the previous two pairs of charts and these two pairs, the balance sheets and the income statements have been strong.
The next two pairs of charts show the US budget deficit (on the left) and the Federal Reserve’s bond holdings (on the right). In them, you can see the massive deficits and the massive Fed bond purchases to fund these deficits in 2020 and 2021. In the ones on the left, you can see that these deficits are still large and tending toward worsening, and in the ones on the right you can see that, since the beginning of MP2 in 2008, the Fed accumulating bonds has been the norm, with two occasional and modest exceptions. I am watching this number closely because I believe the next significant increase in monetization will probably signal the last and probably biggest leg of the long-term debt cycle’s reduction in the values and burdens of debts.
The next two pairs of charts show nominal government interest rates (on the left) and real interest rates (on the right). As shown, they went to all-time low levels in 2020-21 and then were raised to more normal levels.
The next two pairs of charts show commercial bank bond holdings (on the left) and mark-to-market gains and losses of commercial banks and the Fed (on the right). As shown on the left, commercial banks made huge purchases of government bonds and, while they sold some, they still have near record levels of them. As shown in the pair of charts on the right, commercial bank and Fed losses in these bonds came fast and are big.
The next two pairs of charts show inflation and breakeven inflation as reflected in the bond markets. I won’t get into the different types of inflation and the different time frames to measure them over because I’m just trying to convey the big pictures that are in these charts. You can see the big surge and the coming off of that, but not to prior levels or central-bank-targeted levels (on the left) and the relatively modest rise in breakeven inflation (on the right). In fact, if you were to believe the breakeven inflation numbers (which I don’t), the future inflation rates will go to the targeted inflation rates.
While I can show you many more interesting charts that paint a much more detailed picture of how the economic machine has been working, I’m testing your patience, so I will instead just point out a few more interesting and important facts:
- The disparities in the developments and circumstances of different countries, different sectors, and different businesses are much greater than normal, so it is virtually impossible to understand and talk about the aggregates (e.g., the stock market, the economy, etc.) sensibly. We have to understand them at the granular detail level and add them up to make sense of the whole. I wish I could show and discuss these big differences, but that’s too much for me to do right now.
- There are other big structural changes that I haven’t touched on that are changing everything that we have gotten used to. You know what I think about the five big forces: 1) the financial economic force that we just explored; 2) the domestic conflict force that will be extraordinarily forceful over the next two to five years, especially via the upcoming US elections; 3) the international conflict force that will also be extraordinarily forceful over the next two to five years; 4) the acts of nature force, most importantly the enormous climate costs that are certain over the next several years in the form of abandoning brown energy for green energy, rebuilding infrastructure to better withstand the changes, and the costs of the changes themselves; and 5) the force of technologies, which will certainly be very disruptive in both good and bad ways.
- These will affect each other and add up to huge differences relative to the recent past. For example, the financial costs of “onshoring” and “friendshoring” and military spending in preparation for war (let alone the cost of war) and climate will affect the markets and the economy, which will affect the attitudes of stressed people who are on the brink of fighting each other, and this will affect politics and geopolitics.
Maybe I will write a piece about these big structural changes—including the good things and the good places—at another time, but I’m done for now.
I hope this was of some use. Please give me feedback because at my stage in life I’m passing this stuff along to be helpful and not as a job, so I’d like to know if my doing this is worthwhile for you.
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Key Takeaways from The Price of Time
Chancellor’s main argument, supported by extensive research, notably from Claudi Borio at the Bank for International Settlements, is that interest rates below the natural rate lead to various negative macroeconomic outcomes. These are referred to as the “Four Horsemen of Cheap Money.”
- The first issue is malinvestment. Rates below the natural rate drive funds into projects with below-average expected returns, lowering the investment hurdle. For instance, this has contributed to the overinvestment in unproductive sectors like real estate prior to the 2008 Great Financial Crisis.
- The second problem is inflated asset prices. This includes unaffordable housing and the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few, hindering economic growth due to low consumption propensity.
- The third concern is the financialization of developed economies, where finance, insurance, and real estate sectors surpass manufacturing. Cheap money leads to excessive debt-driven corporate share buybacks and industry concentration, harming consumers and paving the way for financial crises.
- The fourth challenge is the “zombification” of companies that would otherwise go bankrupt in a normal interest rate environment. Low rates artificially keep these weak companies afloat, hampering overall economic productivity. This can go on until interest rates inevitably rise.
The book also highlights the delayed recognition by the wealthy that their liabilities’ value has also been affected by low rates. Additionally, low rates encourage longer global supply chains, which might reverse when rates increase. For that and other geopolitical reasons, we are seeing a change in the global supply chains today. That, too, is inflationary.
Chancellor details 500 years of interest rate history, and while advocating for a robust social welfare system, he emphasizes the importance of Schumpeterian creative destruction. He quotes Tyler Cowen’s observation that ultralow savings rates without a strong safety net have been a risky social experiment.
I recommend the book!
(Reminder: This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. My views may change at any time. The information is for discussion purposes only.)
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The Presidential Cycle
This chart follows the trend in the Dow Jones Industrials over a four-year presidential cycle based on daily data starting in the year 1900.
- In this graph, the trend is more important than the actual level of the Dow.
- The chart shows that there has historically been a significant upward trend in the second half of an election year and the first half of the third year in a President’s term.
- The blue line plots the average trend in the Dow Industrials. The shaded zone highlights that we are in the 3rd year of the current Presidential Cycle.
- Bottom line: The historical data is saying the balance of the year should be lower for the Dow (and the stock market in general). Bumpy in the first half of next year and strong in the second half of next year. It most certainly could play out differently. If we do have a Q4 correction and stock market correction, it may be a good time to trade back into stocks.
(Reminder: This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. My views may change at any time. The information is for discussion purposes only.)
Personal Note: The Women’s World Cup and Lionel Messi!
It’s an exciting time for soccer in the U.S. This morning, I asked my wife, Susan (affectionately Coach Sue), if she’d be up for sharing her thoughts on the Woman’s World Cup. Last Sunday, after thirty minutes of extra time play, Switzerland eliminated the U.S. Woman’s team from the tournament. In that game, the U.S. did play better. The following is from Coach Sue.
Lessons I learned from Steve – be positive in a world enamored with the negative.
If you read Steve long enough, you know he’s a crazy sports fan with a penchant for soccer. Perfect match as I make a living coaching youth soccer and teaching soccer to aspiring coaches. We are “All In” on the beautiful game around here.
I’m sure you know this, but if not, the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team was eliminated from the FIFA Women’s Cup 2023 in the round of 16. Despite dominating play, the U.S. could not find the back of the net against Sweden. They played 90 minutes of regulation, and 30 minutes of O.T., outshooting Sweden 22-9 but ending in a 0-0 draw. The Swedish goalkeeper was a sight to behold. She was like the Bishop playing with Bill Murray in Caddyshack, who couldn’t miss a hole “the good Lord would never disrupt the best game of my life.” Ok – let’s leave out the lightning bolt scene. She was stupendous, stopping the unstoppable. And thus comes the cruel decider of the draw: penalty kicks. The favored U.S. lost 5-4.
What followed was a tsunami of criticism and opinions. Even the beloved Carli Lloyd jumps in, spewing the typical vitriol of this underachieving team. And to be fair, there are plenty of valid points. But solutions to this international challenge are complex. We are a big nation whose geographical mass doesn’t do us any favors. Galvanizing the top players and getting them to play together regularly is no easy task. And yes – our youth system has a formidable challenge that requires change. But this change is like turning an aircraft carrier at sea: slow but steady.
Back to Steve because, after all, this is his space… Steve is a positive soul. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t vent. But he spends little time in what is not possible and more time in what is possible. In that direction, the women’s team will be back. We’ll work to improve our youth system. And meanwhile, let’s step back and look at what women’s soccer in the United States had exported: inspiration for greater women’s soccer worldwide when there was very little before. That’s worth celebrating while we look to rally back!
Steve here: Well, I really think she likes me, and boy am I crazy about her. When I watch a game with Susan, she sees things I don’t. Former players really think they can walk right into coaching and be great. It isn’t that way at all. To play the game is one thing; to teach it is a different skill set. One point Susan made was about the overall lift in the high level of women’s soccer worldwide. Think about how great Title IX has been for women’s sports in the U.S. That likely gave the U.S. woman’s team an edge over the years. Soccer may be the world’s number one sport, but it is not #1 in the U.S. The women’s game, globally, is now excellent, and boy, is it fun to watch. And Susan made me smile with the Caddyshack reference. Do you remember this line from Bill Murray as he was caddying for the Bishop in the pouring rain? He said, “I’d keep playing, I don’t think the heavy stuff is going to come down for a while.” After the Bishop sunk his final put on the 18th hole for the best round of his life, he was struck by lighting.
Tonight, we’ll be watching our Philadephia Union MLS soccer team play in the Leagues Cup Quarterfinal. A win tonight and an Inter Miami win tonight will bring Lionel Messi and his Inter Miami team to Phila next Tuesday night. Messi is arguably the greatest soccer player ever to play. What a gift he is to American soccer. Think about the lift he is bringing.
Tomorrow morning at 6:30 am ET, England plays Colombia in the Woman’s World Cup quarterfinals. Susan and I will be watching with coffee in hand. Host country Australia plays France at 3 am E.T. tomorrow. And I see that Sweden beat Japan 2-1 to advance to the semifinals. They’ll play Spain next week.
Coach Sue’s boy’s high school team begins their Season on August 21. And the team is looking strong. I’ll be sharing a story or two with you as the season unfolds.
Thanks for indulging me. Keep an eye on Spain and England. They are the favorites to win the World Cup.
Trade Signals: Soft Landing Unlikely
“Extreme patience combined with extreme decisiveness. You may call that our investment process. Yes, it’s that simple.”
– Charlie Munger
I’ve backed off my Q3 2023 recession call and have bumped it to Q4. I remain far away from the soft-landing camp. Recessions are difficult to time, but frankly, I think my Q3 recession call is wrong.
In the face of Fed tightening, I think I underestimated the degree of liquidity provided by the government. Here’s a look at the amount of money the government has spent vs what they have taken in tax revenue. Over $1.6 trillion (about $4,900 per person in the US) in the current fiscal year and growing:
Source: https://bipartisanpolicy.org/report/deficit-tracker/
The Treasury issues debt, and it is largely being bought by the Fed. Print and spend. The consensus was calling for a “soft landing / mild recession.” They are now calling for no recession. Felix Zulauf believes the consensus is wrong, and a hard slowdown in the economy is near. It is tough to take the other side of a Felix Zulauf bet.
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