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| BIDEN'S BIG WHALE OF A PROBLEM 2023 AD . |
Deliberate economic sabotage can be seen like a self inflicted wound , economic sabotage spiked by war and sanctions . .During the past months , high-profile figures from the head of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to American Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman have sounded the alarm about the (1)>>likelihood of a global downturn.Beyond the probability of some kind of recession no one really knows, or if someone does know about some deep, horrible and hidden fissure that would escalate a recession, it’s not me. Who predicted the 2008 global financial crash? (2)>>COVID? The war in Ukraine?Of course, some did. Hollywood gave us a taste of a global respiratory pandemic in the 2011 film, Contagion.Some economists saw the unraveling of the financial markets and the ensuing recession long before it happened.And we should all have seen Vladimir Putin's war coming. He had already annexed Crimea, he massed troops on the border for months and kept warning he would strike. But even if we should know, we often don't want to know. We certainly don't prepare.Biden insisted the economy is stronger than it was before the pandemic, highlighting the gulf between the public’s perception and the (3)>>Biden administration’s economic rhetoric. Meanwhile, Ned Davis Research, a Florida-based research firm known for its Global Recession Probability Model, raised the likelihood of a global recession next year to 98.1 percent, the highest since the COVID-19 pandemic-related downturn of 2020 and the global financial crisis of 2008-2009.The economy shrank 1.6% in the first quarter and 0.6% in the second. Consumer prices soared 8.2% in the 12 months through September. A global recession. The World Bank and the IMF are ringing the alarm bells.
Overspending not in America's Interests .
It would not be unexpected, a recession is hiding in plain sight. (4)>>President’s FY23 budget – which is a blueprint for the Biden Administration’s plans for the country and the policies Washington Democrats have been pursuing for the past two years – the Congressional Budget Office confirmed that the proposed levels of spending, debt, and taxes in the President’s Budget submission will be the highest sustained levels in U.S. history, with spending increasing 62% and taxes increasing 80% over that of the previous 10 years, making the crises that have defined the Biden Presidency and one-party Democrat rule in Washington even worse.It should surprise nobody that the Democrats would rather focus the weak-minded among the voting public on what the Republicans might do than upon what the Democrats actually did and how it is turning out just before a potentially disastrous mid-term election. What is perhaps a bit more surprising is that the only apparent difference between the “conservative” party and the “progressive” party seems to be what the GOP says it wants to do but won’t actually ever do. Both parties want to keep power for themselves but only the (5)>>Democrats ever enact their agenda. The poll numbers on women voters are disheartening and reflect a knee-jerk reaction. After all, these same voters saw through the falsehoods of Donald Trump. Maybe now they have not considered that the root of high inflation is the money we had to pump into our economy to keep it from stalling — after the endless pandemic. Or maybe they have not considered that the main reason for the high gas prices is Putin’s attack on Ukraine. What would they have had us do, let Putin overrun Europe? Without a loss of American lives our country has managed to clip Putin’s wings, and short enough that he would not be a world menace for a while. Finally, the war with Russia seems to be dragging out into what will almost certainly be a multi-year-long affair at minimum, causing supply chain economic havoc, with a possible end culminating in nuclear annihilation.Yes, we can now foresee a period of relative peace and tranquility in the world — all because of the valiant resistance of the Ukrainians — with our help and with the help of the Europeans. And it should be noted that the Europeans have sacrificed far more to help the Ukrainians and have done so while dealing with far higher gas prices and far higher inflation.
The biggest Problem by Thanksgiving is Diesel fuel shortage .
President Biden canceling the (6)>>Keystone XL pipeline on his first day in office, and made worse by the $45 billion in new tax increases on domestic energy producers proposed in his budget. The issue isn't just (7)>>diesel fuel for vehicles, it's that it is all distillate fuels, including home heating oil, which generally there would be a healthy reserve of right now since it gets used faster than produced in the winter. Already some suppliers in the northeast are out or critically low. Luckily, it was an above average temperature October, and hopefully it stays that way, otherwise this will become a major issue.When energy prices are volatile, markets choose to lower inventory to decrease risk of loss due to rapid changes in market prices. Currently, prices are high so naturally there is fewer reserves since that’s costly. It’s like many people don’t fill up their tank all the way when prices are high because they think next week it will be lower.
World Banks Meltdown ???
We are in a recession, by the standards accepted for years. (8)>>Biden admin redefined the terms of a recession. Im sure the libtards will change the definition again soon. And we will avoid a recession for eternity.Central banks around the world have been raising interest rates this year with a degree of synchronicity not seen over the past five decades—a trend that is likely to continue well into next year, according to the report. Yet the currently expected trajectory of interest-rate increases and other policy actions may not be sufficient to bring global inflation back down to levels seen before the pandemic. Investors expect central banks to raise global monetary-policy rates to almost 4 percent through 2023—an increase of more than 2 percentage points over their 2021 average.The Feds want the recession, but then political revisions of definition. Whatever the circus, just have to go with it. Good shorting opportunities in coming weeks, let the markets have their rallies.As rates rise, US interest payments will begin to skyrocket as older debt is rolled over into new bonds at the new higher rates.
Supply Chain disruption in December ?
NOW the conditions for a strike are extremely favorable. The time to start organizing is now. (9)>>Expect sympathy slowdowns right down the line. Yard jockeys at the railyards will take their sweet time offloading the piggyback containers coming in from China and then put them in the wrong slot so the drivers for the drayage companies can't find them. The forklift drivers won't be in a rush to unload the bulk shipments from the boxcars, and cross-docking those to waiting delivery drivers will cause endless delays and backups, so that warehouses will never be able to play catch up. That raises the risk of a strike, which could start as soon as 5 December. It wouldn’t take long for the effects of a rail strike to trickle through the economy. Many businesses have only a few days’ worth of raw materials and space for finished goods. Makers of food, fuel, cars and chemicals would all feel the squeeze, as would their customers. That’s not to mention the commuters who would be left stranded because many passenger railroads use tracks owned by the freight railroads.
NOT A NORMAL RECESSION !
You mean we are (10)>>NOT "getting back to normal," "building back better" or "making America great again?"As the bad numbers piled up, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen publicly admitted the obvious, saying the administration got it wrong on inflation. The statement, though true, was met with grimaces in the West Wing, where aides noted that most leading forecasters and the Federal Reserve got it wrong, too.All this coupled with the Administration reneging on their promises to at least give a shred of relief to tens of millions of student loan borrowers, covid relief for those unemployed expiring, housing prices continuing to soar and purchasing power continuing to decline, and tax credits for people with kids expiring next month, IMO they’re driving us into an economic disaster and things will continue to destabilize.In the meantime (speculation here) I think corporations are capitalizing on the FEDs loose money policy, low rates, and their current high profits to continue to do buybacks and they’re pumping the market. Im not fortune teller, but I think they’re gonna start to sell off Q1 ‘22 before the FED inevitably has to raise rates to slow inflation, and we’re gonna have another crash on our hands. It was clear the policy initiated by Trump spring last year, and continued by Biden and keeping the same FED chair, was to artificially pump the stock market, further consolidating wealth into hands of those with means (top 10% now owns 90% of wealth in the market), they’ve made a killing, but they know rate raises are coming and the peons are gonna have to sell to pay debt, higher rents, higher prices, etc. (11)>>So they’ll initiate a sell-off and crash the market, and make a killing off of it at the expense of the rest of us in economic disaster…NOTES AND COMMENTS:(1)>>likelihood of a global downturn. The Global Economy faces challenges , particularly the U.S. and Europe . The slowdown is most pronounced in the euro area, where the energy crisis caused by the war will continue to take a heavy toll, reducing growth to 0.5 percent in 2023.Almost everywhere, rapidly rising prices, especially of food and energy, are causing serious hardship for households, particularly for the poor.Despite the current slowdown in global growth, inflation has risen to multi-decade highs in many countries. To stem risks from persistently high inflation, and in a context of limited fiscal space, many countries are withdrawing monetary and fiscal support. As a result, the global economy is in the midst of one of the most internationally synchronous episodes of monetary and fiscal policy tightening of the past five decades. Just as the Federal Reserve has hiked interest rates in the U.S., many central banks around the world are tightening monetary policy.(2)>>COVID? The war in Ukraine? Economic activity will remain deeply depressed through next year, with minimal growth of 0.3% expected in 2023, as energy price shocks continue to impact the region. So far, however, the region has weathered the storm of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine better than previously forecast. Regional output is now expected to contract by 0.2% this year, reflecting above expectation growth in some of the region’s largest economies and the prudent extension of pandemic-era stimulus programs by some governments.The global economy continues to be weakened by the war through significant disruptions in trade and food and fuel price shocks, all of which are contributing to high inflation and subsequent tightening in global financing conditions.(3)>>Biden administration’s economic rhetoric. “During an inflation crisis, Biden’s budget spends $71 trillion over the next 10 years. After hiring an army of 87,000 new IRS agents to impose more audits and force working families to pay higher taxes, Biden’s budget levies $58 trillion in taxes. The budget also makes clear that the Biden Administrations’ bragging about deficit reduction is all talk and no action. Biden’s budget would produce the highest sustained annual deficits in U.S. history and deliver more inflation at a time Americans can least afford it.”Yet even as the president beamed, forces were stirring that would put the rescue plan at the center of a debate over whether he had blundered with his free-spending recipe for recovery, souring Americans on his stewardship of the economy and allowing Republicans to capitalize on the rising cost of living. The political and economic consequences of Biden’s first landmark law will be debated for years.(4)>> President’s FY23 budget –The budget, which lays out how much spending Biden is requesting for different federal agencies, is effectively a messaging tool for Democrats to showcase where they stand on key issues ahead of what’s expected to be a challenging midterm election cycle. Major sections of the $5.8 trillion plan are aimed at countering attacks Republicans have levied that frame Democrats as “soft on crime” and responsible for soaring household costs.The $5.8 trillion plan, which includes $1.6 trillion in discretionary spending, contains significant new tax proposals as well as increases in military funding as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues.(5)>>Democrats ever enact their agenda. The Biden White House will also face an onslaught of investigations on a wide range of issues. Top GOP members on the House Oversight and Judiciary committees have already said they plan to probe the business dealings of Biden's son, Hunter Biden, the president's border policies, the origins of the coronavirus and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. The potentially single-digit margin ushers in a new era of divided government in Washington. Going into the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats knew historic trends would favor that the party out of power gains seats. House Democrats' razor-thin five-seat majority, plus a significant number of retirements by veteran members, set up an uphill battle for them to retain power. Republicans picked up at least 218 seats, and will take over the chamber next year with GOP leaders facing blowback about failing to deliver in what many considered a favorable political environment for their party.A new House Republican majority will mean Biden's legislative agenda is essentially dead, unless he can find bipartisan support for some narrowly crafted proposals. Biden's focus during the next two years of his presidency will likely be spent defending his signature accomplishments, like a bill lowering prescription drug prices and investing hundreds of billions of dollars to tackle climate change. GOP lawmakers have already said they want to roll back some of Biden's programs, or defund many of them.(6)>>Keystone XL pipeline. Joe Biden caved to the radical environmentalists and stopped America’s Keystone pipeline, and dramatically increased Americans' dependence on Russian oil, endangering America's security and helping Russia fund their invasion." Biden on his first day in office canceled the permit for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have transported crude oil from Canada to Nebraska, where it would connect with another leg stretching to Gulf Coast refineries. It is completely fair to note that, had President Biden not cancelled the cross-border permit for Keystone XL on his first day in office, that pipeline system would likely be in service today, and would be bringing as much as 900,000 barrels of crude oil into the U.S. system. That’s more than enough to offset volumes of crude coming into the U.S. from Russia, and to eliminate a need to offset those now-banned Russian volumes by begging for more such heavy crude from Venezuela.(7)>>diesel fuel for vehicles. And ahead of the winter, the distillate fuel crunch is worsening. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that distillate inventories were at their lowest levels since 2008. (The primary distillates are diesel, jet fuel, and heating oil). However, in 2008 distillate levels were low coming out of spring. Currently, they are low going into fall. That’s far worse than the situation in 2008.U.S. refinery capacity has fallen in the past few years as several unprofitable refineries were closed. So, that’s a new factor that has appeared in the past couple of years.But the primary reason is the cutoff of Russian imports. Prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. was importing nearly 700,000 barrels per day (BPD) of petroleum and petroleum products. Most of those imports were finished products and refinery inputs that boosted distillate supplies in the U.S.The world is also scrambling for diesel supply also in view of the looming EU embargo on Russian fuel imports by sea, expected to kick in in early February. A diesel shortage and high diesel prices don’t bode well for the global economy, which is slowing down and could tip into recession at some point next year. Distillate fuels are used in transportation, agriculture, manufacturing, and heating .(8)>>Biden admin redefined the terms of a recession. Biden took office, In less than two years, bungling throughout the federal government has sent the economy into a tailspin.By printing trillions of dollars to fund equally large budget deficits, the government created an inflationary nightmare. Onerous regulations have simultaneously kept a choke collar around the neck of American producers, especially in the energy sector, while the expansion of welfare and removal of work requirements has decimated the labor market.Eighteen months after taking office, Biden had driven inflation so high that prices were rising about as fast in a single month as they rose in the entire year before he became president. Wholesale inflation, which measures the rise in prices which businesses pay, has set 13 new record highs under Biden and has been in double digits for seven months, more than a third of his presidency.Unlike inflation, job growth has slowed markedly under Biden, averaging less than half where it was during the recovery under Trump.The White House had initially believed that inflation, which began last year, would be transitory and potentially even clear by this summer as voters began to think about November. Then, after that assumption proved faulty, there was belief that it had peaked in April and would soon start declining. Instead it did the opposite .(9)>>Expect sympathy slowdowns right down the line. They furloughed thousands in the years prior to covid and the pandemic only made it worse. Years later when they economy turned up they expected all these employees to come back and were surprised when they didn't. I was furloughed in 2009 for the entire year and for the first months of 07 and 08. To me that's a little risk. But they don't see the flexibility they've had traditionally to increase and decrease headcount during the year as a risk I suppose.Historically, railroad strikes last anywhere between a matter of hours and a matter of days before the government either forces workers back to work and mandates more negotiating, or simply legislates an agreement both sides are required to accept. Republicans are already trying to legislate the PEB’s recommendations, but Bernie Sanders today filibustered their proposed bill. My guess is that the strike will happen on Friday, but as was already said it will most likely last a matter of hours.But, there's a trucker shortage right now that's already pressing that part of the supply chain. Dumping multiple industries worth of goods normally carried through freight onto truck logistics would be an expensive nightmare.(10)>>NOT "getting back to normal," "building back better". The nation already hit recession as traditionally defined with two quarters of negative growth in the first half of the year, and the third quarter only scored as positive thanks to a shrinking trade deficit driven by higher energy exports. Consumer spending actually slowed.The Bloomberg Economics forecast finds a 100% chance of deep recession next year; some two-thirds of business economists in the National Association of Business Economics survey say the same. What was once a transformative, multitrillion-dollar agenda to face numerous long-standing crises in domestic policy has narrowed to an exceptionally narrow drug price reform, the main part of which—price negotiation in Medicare—doesn’t kick in until 2026, two years after the next presidential election, and a two-year extension on ACA subsidies that were set to expire at the end of the year. Eighteen months of fruitless negotiation has come down to that.Build Back Better is yet another failure of the American political class to respond to the multiple global crises of our current moment - climate, pandemic, immigration, financial instability, global inequality and economic risk -As a reminder, the $2 trillion proposed BBB legislation came on the tail of an oversized $2 trillion third COVID-19 relief bill and a $1 trillion infrastructure bill. It was killed when Sens. Joe Manchin (D–W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D–Ariz.) joined all Republican senators in opposition.(11)>>So they’ll initiate a sell-off and crash the market. Biden brushed off the surprise economic slowdown in the first quarter of 2022 in response to a reporter’s question after he proposed a new $33 billion aid package for Ukraine. Many economic prognosticators and Wall Street stock pickers have made it clear where they stand on inflation and the Federal Reserve policy response: the economy and markets will get worse before they get better.I just love how the recession is Bidens fault. We’ve been living in a recession environment essentially since 2020 it’s just the slow bleed of economic collapse that was bound to happen when the worlds economy shuts down. The White House changed the definition a few weeks ago. Go on with life as usual knowing that your government, the one that believed inflation is transitory, that inflation is not so bad because it's worse elsewhere, has this under control.WE ARE ALREADY IN A RECESSION the media and all those who are lying about that we are not in a recession are doing everyone a disservice by not telling the truth. It would be better if everyone stated that we are in a recession, that way Powell can put the brakes on raising rates, thus helping the economy & markets. All these numbers we are seeing lately are backward data, not current. We’re in a regime change boys, welcome to fiscal policy hell where anything done on the monetary side is washed away by more fiscal spending/stimulus. Enjoy the seasonality into the end of this year and be prepared for turmoil 2023 and beyond. In a few years we’ll be told target inflation was 5% all along.
