Bad Economic Predictions

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Leisher
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Bad Economic Predictions

Post by Leisher »

CNN says inflation is back.
In many ways, higher prices can be seen as evidence that President Joe Biden's economic and health policies are working. The successful rollout of vaccines is allowing companies to reopen and Americans to resume traveling, spending and working.
It's amazing how much credit a president gets for the economy based on the media outlet and the letter behind his or her name. I'd bet real money that somewhere on FOX is an article talking about Biden's admin skating thanks to Trump's policies.

The vaccine rollout numbers are something we've linked and discussed here previously and CNN is implying Biden is responsible, but giving the devil his due, Trump's admin was doing close to 1M vaccines daily the week before he left. I think the number was in the 900K range the week Biden took office, and on pace to hit 1M daily in a week or two, which made Biden's "100M vaccines in my first 100 days" promise pretty phony.

Media bullshit aside, I'm seeing tons of article from financial folks very concerned about rising prices and the Fed not doing anything. Catt, where do you stand on this? You think the Fed should be moving to stop stuff from getting crazy or continue standing pat?
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TheCatt
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Leisher wrote: Wed May 26, 2021 9:56 am but giving the devil his due, Trump's admin was doing close to 1M vaccines daily the week before he left. I think the number was in the 900K range the week Biden took office, and on pace to hit 1M daily in a week or two, which made Biden's "100M vaccines in my first 100 days" promise pretty phony.
Mr. Biden made the 100-day pledge in early December, before any vaccine had been authorized for use in the United States. At the time, experts called the goal “optimistic” given their concerns about manufacturing and distribution capacity.
Also, he upped it to 200M in 100 days after taking office.
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TheCatt
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Leisher wrote: Wed May 26, 2021 9:56 am Media bullshit aside, I'm seeing tons of article from financial folks very concerned about rising prices and the Fed not doing anything. Catt, where do you stand on this? You think the Fed should be moving to stop stuff from getting crazy or continue standing pat?
I think we're seeing a few different things. 1) Economy coming back as more people get back to work, 2) massive stimulus still working it's way through, 3) pent-up demand (think rich people who haven't been able to do all their rich people things; middle class people wanting to travel, etc), 4) supply chain disruptions causing situational inflation (lumber, anything that uses chips).

Overall, I think the Fed should start acting. They can start by reducing bond + mortgage purchases ($80 billion worth of Treasury securities and $40 billion worth of mortgage-backed securities). But, the Fed probably wants to see more employment gains since we're probably still about 5-6M jobs short of pre-pandemic levels til they do anything dramatic.

Part of what the news is reporting (panik) is due to the year over year inflation indicator, which is elevated due to comparing to right after the pandemic. Also, it's based on a consistent basket of goods, but that basket has been pretty altered due to coronavirus (less transportation, for instance).

Inflation is more likely than not, given everything right now. I wouldn't own any long term bonds right now.
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Leisher
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TheCatt wrote: Wed May 26, 2021 10:23 am Also, he upped it to 200M in 100 days after taking office.
Which we missed by a lot. (According to Google we're at 39% and around 130M+.)

The vaccine thing sticks with me because of his people's claims upon taking office that Trump's admin had no plan, nothing in place, and they were starting from scratch. That was clearly complete horseshit. Trump's a subhuman pile of shit, but we still have to give credit where it is due. Not doing so says more about us than the person we're trying to hurt.

As for the financial stuff, I think you're probably correct. The Fed needs to act on what it knows now, not on what it assumes based on prior years. Post covid is a new world and some jobs might be gone for good.
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“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
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Leisher wrote: Wed May 26, 2021 1:37 pm Which we missed by a lot. (According to Google we're at 39% and around 130M+.)
You're confused/mixing #s. He said 200M shots. We're at 130M vaccinated, and most of those vaccines were 2 shots per vaccinated.
Leisher wrote: Wed May 26, 2021 1:37 pm The vaccine thing sticks with me because of his people's claims upon taking office that Trump's admin had no plan, nothing in place, and they were starting from scratch. That was clearly complete horseshit. Trump's a subhuman pile of shit, but we still have to give credit where it is due. Not doing so says more about us than the person we're trying to hurt.
His plan was buy it and let the states figure it out.
Leisher wrote: Wed May 26, 2021 1:37 pm As for the financial stuff, I think you're probably correct. The Fed needs to act on what it knows now, not on what it assumes based on prior years. Post covid is a new world and some jobs might be gone for good.
I'm going to go ahead and wager that stocks won't be great for the next 4 years.
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TheCatt wrote: Wed May 26, 2021 1:47 pm You're confused/mixing #s. He said 200M shots. We're at 130M vaccinated, and most of those vaccines were 2 shots per vaccinated.
I was because why would anyone brag about giving out vaccines unless people were fully vaccinated as a result? That'd be like a waiter bragging that he got silverware delivered to every table despite not giving anyone food yet.
TheCatt wrote: Wed May 26, 2021 1:47 pm His plan was buy it and let the states figure it out.
Someone in his admin knew what they were doing because they were doing almost a million a day two weeks after starting to give them. Also, I'm not sure a president suggesting the feds get out of the way of states is the worst idea ever suggested.

Also, I'm not bashing Biden or pro-Trump here, but there's a reason the media outlets and Biden staffers had to retract and apologize for those early statements.
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Leisher wrote: Wed May 26, 2021 2:21 pm Someone in his admin knew what they were doing because they were doing almost a million a day two weeks after starting to give them.
5 weeks according to the CDC.
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Word.

This shit's boring. We need boobs around here again.
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Post by TheCatt »

Leisher wrote: Wed May 26, 2021 2:43 pm Word.

This shit's boring. We need boobs around here again.
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That's better.
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I saw that breaking this morning and thought, "Poorly written tax code is being blamed on the people living under it."

Are the villains the rich and the corporations or the government who allows for all of these loopholes that they KNOW exist?

Also, serious question: Should we really tax someone that is rich on paper? The president of Gamestop is technically a billionaire on paper right now thanks to the crazy shit on Wall St., but he can't cash out by law. There is something to be said for the fairness of taxes only being applied when income becomes realized. However, I'm sure a fix could be found for the loan loophole.
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Leisher wrote: Wed Jun 09, 2021 11:13 am Should we really tax someone that is rich on paper?
I don't know. I've always leaned towards no. But it's worth revisiting/debating. I'm not sure what the right answer is. But it makes me think that using a long term capital gains rate for the wealthy doesn't make sense when it's really their income.
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You should not be taxed on paper worth. Take our own houses for instances. We've all seen gains over the years. Should we be taxed annually on those gains? What about when the housing market crashed and we all lost value. Like, probably a LOT of value. We then write those losses off? What if the losses are greater than our taxable amount, do we get extra back or is it just lost. Then when we started gaining again as the market recovered, we start paying again (even though we already paid once during the initial increase in value)? Should Bill Gates be forced to sell 23% of his stock to pay the 23% tax people think he owes?

People shouldn't be taxed on "He's worth this much if he sold all of his stock right now at it's current value" because that world doesn't exist. I'd be looking at their 'investment losses' that cancel out all of their taxes. Investments in what? Is Bezos investing in some subsidiary of Amazon that owes Amazon a bunch of money and therefor it's operating at a loss but Amazon gains? Etc. All of the paper values are meaningless because they could NEVER cash out. They are billionaires living like millionaires.
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Post by Troy »

It would effectively crash the stock market, if we did.
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“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
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Man taught monkeys to have "money," monkey prostitution shortly followed
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Proving laws against prostitution are essentially laws against nature.
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Fed says they will act against inflation earlier than previously planned.
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday sharply raised its expectations for inflation this year and brought forward the time frame on when it will next raise interest rates.

However, the central bank gave no indication as to when it will begin cutting back on its aggressive bond-buying program, leaving investors to watch for Chairman Jerome Powell’s press conference on clues about when tapering will begin.

As expected, the policymaking Federal Open Market Committee left its benchmark short-term borrowing rate anchored near zero. But officials indicated that rate hikes could come as soon as 2023, after indicating in March that it saw no increases until at least 2024. The so-called dot plot of individual member expectations pointed to two hikes in 2023.

Though the Fed raised its headline inflation expectation to 3.4%, a full percentage point higher than the March projection, the post-meeting statement continued to say that inflation pressures are “transitory.”

Officials raised their GDP expectations for this year to 7% from 6.5% previously. The unemployment estimate remained unchanged at 4.5%.
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