We saw some negative economic data this week:
- Auto/light truck sales: -6.8% m/m, -33.9% y/y. Auto sales continue to plunge. “Shortages”. The drop in auto sales is nothing short of spectacular: peak of 18m in early 2021, currently at 12m.
- GDP: +1.87% q/q, +8.78% y/y. That sounds good, but the expectation was for a vastly higher number.
- Durable Goods: orders -0.38% m/m, shipments +0.41% m/m. This hints at – at least – a slight decline into next month. (orders = future, shipments = this month).
- Personal Income: -1.06% m/m, +4.54% y/y. This also hints at a decline, coming soon.
The (trailing) economic releases hint of a recession in the offing. My guess: President Grandpa’s handlers see this too. Recessions are political disasters. Add inflation, and the disaster is magnified that much more. The desperation of the Grandpa-handlers to pass a multi-trillion-dollar debt-funded spending binge (“No Donor Left Behind”) is palpable.
Do we see any confirmation of this in commodity prices?
Well, “Doctor Copper” (so-called because it can “diagnose” economic problems ahead of time) is hinting at maybe trouble ahead. Dr Copper fell -2.89%, printed a bearish reversal, and is now in a downtrend in all 3 timeframes. It still remains above the 50 MA, so no collapse just yet. But the past two weeks look pretty negative. Maybe a double-top?
And how about lumber?
Well lumber was crushed this week, falling -13.99% and printing a strong bearish reversal pattern. It is in a near-term downtrend, and it is now back below all 3 moving averages. So that looks bearish too.
The master resource fell -1.42%, printed a mildly bearish weekly candle, and is now in a daily downtrend. It is back below the 9 MA. Call crude: very mildly bearish. It hasn’t really confirmed this possible-recession picture yet. Can we have oil shortages alongside a recession? That would certainly be bad if that happened.
The buck rallied strongly this week (+0.56%) with all the gains happening on Friday. Buck is back in a medium-term uptrend.
The 10-year rate plunged on the week, dropping -10 bp to 1.56%. This was a large move down. Looks like money is moving into the buck, and into the 10 year also. This could be the start of a safe-haven move.
So all that is – mostly – hinting at recession. Possibly. Except for crude. Recession-flation.
Gold fell -0.47%, moving back into a downtrend. Looks like gold ran into resistance at the 200 MA. Viewed in Euros, gold was unchanged – gold’s minor drop this week was just about the currency move. Call gold flat this week
And finally, silver fell -1.68%, printed a bearish reversal, but remains (more or less) in an uptrend. At least for now.
So this does support the recession-flation thesis. We’ll have to see how it plays out. Payrolls next week.
News That Caught My Eye
The phrase “Lets Go Brandon” has finally made it into the mainstream media, more than 30 days after it started trending. Here’s a representative piece:
How ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ became code for insulting Joe Biden
While the reporter lays out the facts, what she appears to miss is that the public’s delight in the phrase was entirely due to the MSM reporter who decided – as is now standard practice – to lie to the public, in real time, in the face of clear evidence to the contrary. Reporter: “Brandon, you also told me (nervous laugh – clearly heard, repeatedly: “Fuck Joe Biden”) as you can hear the chants from the crowd: ‘Lets go, Brandon’”.
Video here – in case you missed it:
https://odysee.com/@Sydewalkclosed:6/let’s-go-brandon-or-f*-joe-biden:3
I don’t blame the on-camera reporter. After all, the MSM has been able to get away with saying things like “mostly peaceful protests” right in front of video of burning buildings. For years now. So why not “Lets Go, Brandon!” Plus, I do think there was a quiet revolt occurring in the background – the shot kept switching back to the crowd, and the audio clearly picked up the chant. I don’t think that was accidental. Not everyone in MSM likes this state of affairs.
But in the MSM ex-post-facto explainer-article, the writer mentioned: “NASCAR and NBC have since taken steps to limit “ambient crowd noise” during interviews, but it was too late — the phrase already had taken off.” Gotta keep that “ambient crowd noise” down. Can’t have phrases taking off in this way. Otherwise a story might inadvertently leak through the censorship blockade, embarrassing the MSM once more. “Wait. So not everyone loves inflation, vaccine mandates, chaos at the border, the disaster in Afghanistan, and the ongoing Wealth Transfer to the Oligarchy?” Nope. Not everyone.
The popularity of “Lets Go Brandon” is as much about a big chunk of the public delighting in exposing the sustained and egregious media misinformation/propaganda campaign on just about every topic, as it is a statement telling President Grandpa’s handlers where they can stick their mandates.
But of course the MSM must pretend they don’t notice that part. What must it have been like to work for Joe Goebbels, back in the day? The MSM now knows exactly what it was like.
This week’s FLCCC weekly update is basically a home-care prepper instruction. They lay out which mouthwash to buy (and how to construct our own, from iodine), nasal sanitation, dosing for nigella sativa & honey, and curcumin – all designed for jurisdictions where Ivermectin has been declared Verboten by the local Oligarchy/Sickcare stooges who appear to prefer that we get hospitalized, and then possibly die, for reasons known only to themselves.
Given that “hospitalization” translates directly into “No Treatments For You” (other than dexamethasone 6mg and remdesivir-which-doesn’t-work), the quasi-revolutionary goal, obliquely stated by the FLCCC, is “How to Stay Out of the Hospital and Stay Well at Home.”
Left unsaid: “the Oligarchy’s Sickcare System” is absolutely to be avoided, if at all possible. Fourth Turning Medicine.
How to Stay Out of the Hospital and Stay Well at Home
Evergrande makes coupon payment before Friday deadline -sources
Reuters was not able to determine the source of the funds used to make the interest payments. Bloomberg News reported earlier this week that Chinese authorities had urged Evergrande’s founder, Hui Ka Yan, to pay the developer’s debts out of his personal wealth.
Any prospect of Evergrande’s demise raises questions over the fate of more than 1,300 real estate projects it has ongoing in some 280 cities.
A leaked 2020 document, branded fake by Evergrande but taken seriously by analysts, showed the developer’s liabilities extended to more than 128 banks and over 121 non-banking institutions.
Bwahaha. The CCP “urged” the founder to pony up the cash. Don Corleone: “I gave him a ‘suggestion’ that he couldn’t refuse.”
But – 1300 real estate projects ongoing in 280 cities? And liabilities at 128 banks? My goodness. It seems unavoidable that the chickens will eventually come home to roost. But between now and then, the founder’s bank account might just be depleted a bit more.
In a rare move, CNN accidentally uncovers what is really going on with the bigger picture:
Evergrande wants to build electric cars, not homes
A shift in strategy would also bring Evergrande into alignment with some of Beijing’s biggest priorities.
….earlier this month, the president of the electric vehicle unit, Liu Yongzhuo, said that the company would deliver its first car in early 2022, according to a statement.
As the government cracks down on the property sector, it’s also trying to boost the production of electric vehicles in the world’s largest car market. Beijing has offered subsidies to car manufacturers and buyers, and it wants new energy vehicles to make up 20% of overall new car sales by 2025, from the current level of about 5%.
Let’s leave aside for a moment the likelihood of property-developer Evergrande (which has never actually produced a car) somehow managing to produce, in volume, a functioning electric car by Q1 2022, the profits from which will allegedly allow it to fund those 1300 real estate projects. Just reading between the lines, we find that the CCP itself popped the property bubble, after doing everything to encourage it to inflate over the last 20 years, the better to inflate China’s GDP. And almost certainly, to make CCP members rich in the process.
Last year, the CCP woke up and suddenly decided: “property construction is out” (30% of GDP), while: “electric cars are in!” Should be interesting to see how that turns out. Did I mention property was 30% of GDP?
“And just like that – it was gone.”
I’m guessing the CCP members sold the top, dumping their “investment properties” for electric car manufacturers. Chinese Plebes? I’m guessing they’ll be the bagholders. Boy does that like a familiar playbook.
NYC: 40 Percent of Inspected Businesses Noncompliant With Vaccine Pass Mandate
NEW YORK CITY—Approximately two in five New York City restaurants, gyms, and entertainment venues weren’t fully abiding by the city’s COVID-19 vaccination pass mandate when first inspected.
Black Lives Matter. Unless you are black, unvaxxed, and want to go to eat at an NYC restaurant, in which case – “No Soup For You!” But it does seem as though compliance isn’t exactly 100%.
You know, I bet a “digital vax pass” would work a whole lot better. Electric shop door won’t open unless the pass is valid. Gee, I wonder if they’ve thought of that one yet? Because – Black Lives Matter!
Employers Forced to Raise Wages by Most in at Least 20 Years: Whole Power Balance Has Changed
Wolf goes into great detail about how – for a variety of reasons – labor now has the upper hand. Is this just about small biz getting crapped on again?
Starbucks was one of the big names with relatively low-wage service workers that came out with an announcement of “unprecedented investments in wages” – because calling it an “investment” sounds a lot better to investors and algos than calling it an “expense,” which is what wages are from an accounting point of view.
Even the banksters are having to pay more money to their bankster-factotums.
Goldman Sachs is in this category. In August, sources told the Wall Street Journal that the base pay for its entry-level first-year analysts in its investment banking division would jump by 29% to $110,000. For its second-year analysts, salaries would jump by 31% to $125,000. For first-year associates, salaries would jump by 20%, to $150,000.
Was this part of the Oligarchy’s Grand Plan? I don’t think so. Anything that doesn’t make the Oligarchy richer and more powerful would seem to fall into that pesky “unintended consequences” bucket.
Can we have labor market shortages during a recession? I think we may be about to find out.
FDA officials praised Pfizer for fighting a virus that is the leading killer of children after cancer, vehicular accidents, suicide, heart disease, drowning, suffocation, the flu, meteors from space, and slipping on a banana peel. Experts say the vaccine will probably kill more kids than it saves, but it’s ok because science. When asked about any safety concerns, an FDA official replied, “We’re excited to start giving it to them so we can find out.”
Babylon Bee has turned into a news site. When the actions of our captured “health” agencies are this absurdly sociopathic, how far must you go to ridicule them? Poor Babylon Bee can’t quite seem to do it. That’s probably why Oligarchy-controlled media feels the need to “fact-check” BB’s attempted-snarky pieces – they look way too much like real news.
The ability of ridicule to impel change reminds me of a fellow named Thomas Nast, who, back in the 1870s, was able – through his political cartoons – to expose and remove a corrupt New York City political figure named Boss Tweed through satire alone. Towards the end, Boss Tweed feared Nast so much, he offered him a $500,000 bribe in order to support him in “studying art in Europe.” That was real money back then (500k dollars = 25,000 oz of gold). Nast declined. Tweed ended up convicted of fraud. Nast was a universally-admired heroic figure at one point. But now?
How it started – election manipulation by Tweed:
How it is going – No Cartoons For You!
Does anyone remember the anti-war ballads from the 1960s? We are starting to see more of them springing up today. Dr. McCullough has showcased a number of them in his podcasts.
Eric Clapton with Van Morrison – This Has Gotta Stop
The whole “ballad” theme led me on a brief research-adventure – looking up the “antiwar” songs from the 1960s – which the media at the time, in an unsurprising example of history rhyming, was “somewhat averse to playing.” I imagine if they had YouTube back in the 1960s, these songs would all have been removed due to “Vietnam War Misinformation” due to the Trusted-War-Fighting Initiative.
Today, the “unvaxxed” appear to be playing the role of the initially-very-unpopular counter-culture hippie free-love “draft-dodgers” from the 1960s.
Buffalo Springfield – For What its Worth
Tom Paxton – Lyndon Johnson Told The Nation
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Ohio
But, for those who served – “the vaxxed” of their time; they did what they thought was the right thing, or what they felt they could not avoid – there are also songs too. It turns out my uncle served. Lost a third of his unit KIA/WIA over a 3 month period in 1968. Came back with PTSD – which we didn’t know about at the time. I was very young. But I remember.
Creedence Clearwater Revival – Fortunate Son
The Animals – We Gotta Get Out Of This Place
Both Vietnam-era “served” and “draft-dodger” groups shared more than they knew. The Oligarchy never had to dodge or serve – just the Plebes. Listen to “Fortunate Son”, above, as to how that felt to those who served.
As with Vietnam, the “shots in arms” campaign is just Oligarchy crapping on the Plebes once more, but this time, it isn’t just the military-age young men who are being coerced into taking life-and-death risks “just because.” It is all of us. And now our children, too.
Vaxxed and unvaxxed – we are all in this together. And our “antiwar” movement is beginning to take off. There will be songs for both groups by the end of this story. And who knows, it may be the songs that move the “emotional” needle to the place it needs to be.
Last: here is the vaccine “booster hamster wheel” in a single picture. It tells us that the vaxxed are more likely to be infected than the unvaxxed after about 240 days post-vax.
I am left with this question: is this a bug, or is it a feature?
To my vaxxed and unvaxxed friends alike: early treatment saves lives. FLCCC tells us how. The (above) chart says: after enough time passes, we really are all in this together.
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