Main Street and the Fed

As I tell young people all the time, the single greatest threat to their financial well-being is the Fed because there is over $4,000,000,000,000.00 sitting on the Fed balance sheet.

They look at me like I just mentioned calculus.

Main Street was banged up in 2008.   The middle class had to stop using their homes as savings banks.  That was a good thing.

Today, the Fed does nothing for Main Street.  Here is Stanley Fischer of the Fed..........

FISCHER: Well, clearly there are different responses to negative rates. If you’re a saver, they’re very difficult to deal with and to accept, although typically they go along with quite decent equity prices. But we consider all that and we have to make trade-offs in economics all the time and the idea is the lower the interest rate the better it is for investors.

And there you have it: ignore the economy, it's all about "decent equity prices" and whatever is "better for investors." We point this bizarre justification for the central banks' latest failure, just in case there was still any confusion why they keep pushing the same failed policies day after day: it's all about keeping stocks artificially inflated.

Now remember this, in June 2011, Fischer applied for the post of IMF managing director to replace Dominique Strauss-Kahn, but was barred as the IMF stipulates that a new managing director must be no older than 65, and he was 67 at the time.

This is where we are today.  Tax reciepts are down at the corporate and personal level.  Productivity is down while GDP is under 2%.  

 Mr. Fischer said,  "employment is very close to full employment."

With that statement, Stanley Fischer may have just become the biggest liar in the history of the Federal Reserve Bank, which, in itself, has a history of pathologically lying Fed Governors. How does having the historically largest number and percentage of working age male Americans out of the workforce and having over 70% of new jobs created being part-time and/or minimum wage jobs equate to anything near "full employment"?

Deadliest Interstate in America is in Georgia

Dallas Fed

Having jumped miraculously from -18 to -1.3 in July, August's Dallas Fed plunged back to -6.2 - contracting for the 20th month in a row. The worse than expected headline data came despite a rise in new orders as the number of employees, average workweek, and capex all plunged into contraction. Hope also tumbled from 18.4 to 7.0 with inventories and new orders expected to slow.

Despite the surge in oil prices, the Dallas economy continues to contract...

With all the cranes and construction around the Dallas Fed building you would think the hipsters could have fabricated some better numbers! The truth is so 80's.

However, it wasn't the notoriously volatile data that attracted our attention, but rather the sampling of traditionally outspoken, well-formulated responses said as part of the survey. Here are some selected highlights:

• The global economies and the U.S. economy are very weak and uncertain.
• U.S. manufacturing is suffering because of the high dollar value.
• A good indication of business outlook is how many calls we get from truckers looking for freight business. On one day we received four calls. It was probably more calls than orders we received for the day.
• Refinery margins continue under pressure and the level of spending on equipment is being reduced significantly. I believe that the continued low level of spending will result in several providers going out of business. The market is getting very tough.
• Pricing has deteriorated to win bids, and many projects seem to be on hold. Owners are reevaluating capital expenditures priorities or deferring them all together.
• Despite some "hoopla" about construction metrics being strong, we seem to be on a plateau. Business is up and down some month to month, but no real growth year to year.
• Our increases are new product orders and not from existing products. Demand for existing products ranges from no change to worse.
• We are very busy right now, which is normal for this time of year. We are not sure how the next six months will pan out. We are very worried about persistent slowness of our customers, which does not bode well for us down the road unless things pick up soon for them.

The following analysis could have been penned by any econobserver who has not been captured by the system quite yet:

• Department of Labor rules and regulations are slowing growth and reducing hiring due to increased management time spent on compliance and higher costs of labor. Current efforts to bring foreign production to the U.S. are significantly reduced due to labor costs and because worker productivity remains low, especially for entry-level or unskilled workers. Taxes, costs and inefficiencies of exporting are reducing competitiveness in overseas markets. The lack of local support for foreign trade zones is causing our company to consider alternatives, including relocating and growing elsewhere that offers them. Growth and improvement for our company is primarily by product innovation overcoming a worsening business climate.

And finally, the punchline:

• Sometime after the election, historical data will show that in 2016 the U.S. was in recession.

The Entitlement Crowd!!!

Lochte, Gold Medalist, and fellow Olympians having everything going their way, endorsements, speaking engagements, idolized by children and the masses, find the need to vandalize convenience store restroom, urinate on walls, and then fabricate a bullshit story to cover their asses.  Just how stupid do you have to be.  

Arianna Huffington

She built one of the best liberal propaganda "news" outlets and is moving on.  LMFAO!

In all the years since Armstrong wasted shareholder money on that rag, I never once read an honest article.

From Simon Black, www.sovereignman.com

Long ago in the Land of the Free, if you wanted to start a saloon, you rented a space and started serving booze.

You didn’t have to go through years of petitioning a bunch of bureaucrats for permits and licenses.

If you weren’t qualified or good enough at your job, your reputation would suffer and you’d go out of business.

This is the way it used to be for just about every industry and profession.

It wasn’t until 1889 that the US Supreme Court ruled in Dent v. West Virginia that states had the right to impose “reasonable” certifications or licenses for various professions.

At first, most states only licensed physicians, dentists, and lawyers.

In fact, by 1920, only about 30 occupations in the US required any sort of licensing.

By the 1950s, about 5% of US workers required a license to perform his/her job.

Today that number has risen to 30%, and climbing.

Some of our modern examples are completely insane.

According to the Brookings Institute, the state of Nevada requires 733 days of training and a $1,500 fee for a license… just to become a tour guide.

Over in Michigan, it takes 1,460 days of education to become an athletic trainer.

45 other states have license or certification requirements for athletic trainers. All fifty states have licenses for barbers and cosmetologists.

36 states require licenses for make-up artists. 34 states license milk samplers. And a mere 33 states license auctioneers.

These license requirements continue to grow, along with the overall level of rules and regulations in the Land of the Free.

Just this morning the US government published an extra 227 pages of rules, regulations, and proposals.

This happens every single business day in America.

Last week the government published over 2,000 pages of new rules, many of which border on absurdity.

To give you an idea, USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service proposed a rule about minimum and maximum diameters of potatoes that are sold in the State of Colorado.

Yes I’m serious.

This is the sort of madness that government bureaucrats churn out on a daily basis: more rules, more licenses.

Needless to say, the more of these rules they create, the more difficult it becomes for people and businesses to produce.

So it wasn’t exactly a big surprise when the US Labor Department released statistics a few days ago showing that, for the third straight quarter in a row, productivity in the Land of the Free declined.

In other words, US workers are producing less than they did before.

We haven’t seen this trend since 1979. And it’s the exact opposite of what’s supposed to happen.

As workers get more experienced and technologically advanced, productivity should grow.

But it’s not. US production is buried under countless pages of regulations and licensing requirements. And the trend has been negative for quite some time.

From 2000 through 2007, US productivity was about 2.6%.

Between 2007 and 2015, it shrank by half to about 1.3%, barely keeping up with population growth.

Now productivity is actually shrinking. America is going backward.

But there’s another side to this story.

Because while US economic growth has practically halted and productivity is shrinking, DEBT CONSUMPTION is up. Way up.

Americans are once again indebting themselves, often to buy useless things they don’t really need.

Auto loans and credit card debt are just two categories registering significant upticks.

(Not to be left out, the US government is leading with way with an absolute explosion in federal debt…)

So what we’re basically seeing now in the Land of the Free is people going into debt to consume more, while simultaneously producing less.

This is a pretty dangerous trend.

Human beings realized 10,000 years ago that if they wanted to survive, they had to produce more than they consumed.

During the Agricultural Revolution our early ancestors learned that, instead of constantly hunting for game, they could plant seeds in the ground and produce more food than they could possibly eat.

You and I wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t figured out this simple principle.

I call it the Universal Law of Prosperity, and it applies to governments, businesses, and individuals alike.

Any nation that fails to produce more than it consumes is in for serious trouble. And the government’s own data is showing that this is happening.

They create countless rules, regulations, and licensing requirements to make it more difficult to produce… and we can already see the results with (lack of) GDP growth.

Meanwhile they’ve slashed interest rates down to zero to incentivize people to consume.

It’s not hard to see where this trend is going.

So easy a 3rd grader could understand it....................

In the first episode of HBO's Hard Knocks, Rams coach Jeff Fisher stood before his team prior to training camp and explained the rules: Be on time and no visitors in the dorm rooms.

Smash cut to wide receiver Deon Long sitting in Fisher's office trying to explain why he had a woman in his room after curfew.

The explanation didn't fly.

"We're going to cut you," Fisher told Long, before adding: "What part of the rules, what part of 'no female guests in the room,' did you not understand?" The coach added: "Sorry, but this is our world, man. We have rules and we have to abide by them. Not the first time I've done this for this particular violation, but I thought I made myself really clear."

Jawga on a rainy day...............

On a rainy day in Georgia I wonder how many heads will roll down at the world headquarters of Don't  Ever Leave The Airport, DELTA?    What a crock of misinformation that bunch touts!   Almost as bad as every aspect of economic data from our own government offices.   Believe at your own financial peril.

Recently on a trip across America via our nations Interstate systems I was amazed at how many professional truckers are texting and driving.    It is only getting worse.

Why won't Trump give up on the "thumbs up"?  

The quagmire of debt that will be inherited from Obama for the next President is unfathomable.

Our lame worthless Congress and Senators sit idly by as more American boots hit the ground in the Middle East.   It must be time for campaign contributions to roll in for re-election.  Put the MIC to work and look what coffers get filled up.   Wars are about money boys and girls, don't ever forget it.

I said months ago that spraying for ZIKA infected mosquitoes in Florida will do zero good.   It appears to have done a few things, namely shutting down all of the outdoor eateries in the spray zone!

Thank our United States Air Force for keeping our nuclear capability at the ready, 24/7/365.   Can't imagine a more motivated bunch deterring harm to this great nation.   #forevergrateful