This just in: Inflation comes in hotter than expected.... just as I predicted

Considering I don’t drink or do drugs, that sounds like a true blast.

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Another sign of cooling inflation, The Market’s up and VIX down. The trend remains up = risk/on

Following the report, traders priced in a strong chance of two interest rate cuts by the end of 2024.

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“The staggering runup of billionaire wealth since the passage of the Trump-GOP tax law is a sure indicator of who that law was meant to serve—and who it would go on serving if Republicans succeed in their plan to make its expiring provisions permanent,” said David Kass, ATF’s executive director. “Instead of extending tax breaks for billionaires, Congress should be working to better tax them through President Biden’s Billionaire Minimum Income Tax and other reforms in how we tax the super-wealthy.”

The only way to stay close to these pricks and not be robbed-blind by their machines and systems is to do what they do regarding risk management, you won’t get rich but you might survive.

More evidence that Inflation is receding on both a local and global basis. Here in Florida the spiraling cost to rent has cooled.

In Japan the weakening Dollar/Yen ratio caused the Japanese government to intervene in an effort to boost inflation in Japan.

I know that many of us banter back and forth regarding politics but please don’t allow your political bias to spill over into your investment strategy which should remain fairly consistent with the prevailing trend. Personally I have owned some of my investments since 2009 which mostly consist of broad market index funds. The power of compound interest is an amazing thing to experience as time in the market outweighs timing the market.

This market is a textbook example of Risk-On and if you are unable to recognize this prevailing trend then you should turn over your portfolio to a licensed expert.

Nothing to get too excited about, but at least a bit of good news.

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This is like when the government produces a budget and tell you they cut 200 billion. They still grew it by 500 billion more than the previous year, but it could have been 700 billion, so it’s a cut.

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No surprise… our living expenses increased significantly today.

Yes, I do understand your metaphor. If you think inflation is hard to slow (at least under control), try slowing government budget increases, lol.

We know we can halt inflation to zero very easily and quickly. We can even purposely cause deflation. But doing either of these two things will almost certainly send the economy into a tailspin which will take years (and even more gov spending) to recover from.

Slow and steady always wins the race, especially in macro-economics. :turtle:

There is a significant number of useless warm bodies in the government. They don’t produce anything of value, they don’t add or change or do anything useful. They simply consume government resources, i.e. our money.

If you’ve ever worked in a large corporation, and I have worked in two, both billion dollar corporations. There are just some people you don’t need and actually detract from the good work that some do. They throw up halts, complications and flags because again, they typically aren’t smart enough to understand whatever the process is.

I suspect that those type of people are in fact over-represented in government simply because once you are in, you become a lever for higher ups and they don’t want to lose their foot soldiers, even useless ones.

Remember how the news crowed that Twitter/X was done because they had fired 80% of their workforce? They’ve rolled out more innovations in the past year than they had done in the prior 10. All that deadwood has been shed.

Facebook’s motto was move fast, break things. I think FedGov needs the same. Move fast, fire 50% to start.

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No doubt. Government does one thing extremely well, and that is grow.

That said, I wouldn’t use X as an example of how less is more. The value of the platform has plummeted since Musk took over.

Elon paid $44 billion for it, and the company is now estimated to be worth about $12.5 billion. Of course most of that is probably due to Musk being such a polarizing figure, and not necessarily due to layoffs. I’m not sure what he was thinking. He basically told 3/4 of the advertisers to piss off, lol.

You’re conflating stock value with usefulness.

Twitter was the darling of the left in how they colluded with the US government to promote stories favorable to their cause and squash anything that didn’t fit the narrative.

In the past, to get a blue checkmark, you had to be “approved” by what amounted to a leftist purity test. It meant that what you said got the stamp of approval by Twitter. Stray off the reservation and the checkmark would go away.

That the stock dives after it falls out of favor with the left should surprise no one. It has probably found it’s actual value, not an inflated value of it’s own smug self satisfaction.

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I find it amazing how wrong economics is understood and then misapplied due to political bias?

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Inflation has cooled… prove me wrong. :grin:

$5 “value meals”… What happened to the dollar value menu?

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Uh oh!

Michael, that is a disingenuous response. You and I both know there is a difference. Here in America, the heavy hand of the government was pressuring/controlling media content using forces outside of the law. I can see why people do not like Musk if they enjoy the government behaving this way.

From the article you posted.

Musk said: “The rules in India for what can appear on social media are quite strict, and we can’t go beyond the laws of a country,” and in doing so put his staff at risk, he added. “If we have a choice of either our people going to prison or us complying with the laws, we will comply with the laws.”

“By ‘free speech,’ I simply mean that which matches the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people,” Musk wrote on Twitter in April 2022.

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