GayPatriot

The Internet home for American gay conservatives.

Distracting Americans – from the economy?

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If it isn’t Michael Brown or Elizabeth Lauten, it’s Eric Garner(*) or Trayvon Martin or some other media frenzy. In other words, our media “treats” us to a series of frenzies; frenzies that are stupid because – apart from many of the media claims dissolving under scrutiny – there are more important things for the nation to notice.

I’m beginning to think it’s deliberate. For one thing, over the years I’ve seen how the frenzies get nourished (or prevented) by various political fixers, special interests and even government agencies. For another thing, it’s common sense: if the phrase “powerful people” means anything, then certain people have the power to promote (or block) certain media stories to suit their interests.

Finally, whenever you’re confronted with vicious nonsense, you should ask the question “Who benefits?” And again, the series of stupid frenzies does a job: it blots out public notice and discussion of nationally-important topics. It especially blots out discussion of the scandals/failures of the Obama administration.

And that could be Gruber, the IRS scandal, Obamacare, the NSA’s blanket/warrantless spying, Fast and Furious, vote fraud, unconstitutional rule-by-decree, or any number of failures (Iraq/ISIS) for which a Republican president would be crucified. But I think the most glaring problem where President Obama needs a distraction is: his terrible economy.

And now for a little news on the economy. Black Friday retail sales were a disaster by conventional measures. According to the National Retail Federation, sales during the four-day Thanksgiving holiday period plunged by 11% (from $57.4 billion a year ago, to $50.9 billion).

NRF’s CEO Matt Shay offered an absurd explanation – he claimed that sales were down because of (1) Teh Interwebs and (2) an improving economy:

He also attributed the declines to better online offerings and an improving economy where “people don’t feel the same psychological need to rush out and get the great deal that weekend, particularly if they expected to be more deals,” he said.

But Cyber Monday was also weak. And Shay implies that, if sales had not declined (or had even been up), that would have been a sign of a *bad* economy…Riiiiiiiight.

A more sensible explanation is that Americans have less money to spend, because they are struggling to cover basic necessities:

…the Journal analyzed Labor Department data on 2013 out-of-pocket spending for the middle 60% of the population by income — households earning between about $18,000 and $95,000 a year, before taxes.

The data show they are losing ground. Overall spending for the group rose by about 2.3% over the six-year period from 2007, even as inflation totaled about 12%. At the same time, income for the group stagnated, rising less than half a percent…

There it is. The WSJ analysis did not look at 2014, but I can assure you, trends continued in 2014 (aside from our very recent decline in oil/gas prices). In Obama’s bad economy, people struggle more than ever just to cover food, rent and health care: [Read more…]

The Big Mac Index

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Some people consider the price of a McDonald’s “Big Mac” to be a reality check for what is happening to consumer prices. Why?

  • Fast food is widely consumed, outside “the one percent”. A Big Mac may be a price that real people pay often.
  • The price reflects not only food costs, but also costs for hourly labor and benefits, commercial real estate, transportation, energy, manufacturing equipment and packaging.
  • Until a few years ago, changes in the price of a Big Mac tracked changes in the government CPI (Consumer Price Index) fairly well.

In recent years, Big Macs have gone up rather more than the CPI. Why? Several different explanations could be put forward. The least likely explanation is that McDonald’s has suddenly become inefficient at making Big Macs.

Another possible explanation is that the government keeps toying with how it calculates CPI, looking for ways to understate consumer price inflation. That is, to hide it. Which is in the government’s direct, financial interest: that way, the government can make smaller inflation adjustments to Social Security, income tax brackets, inflation-indexed bonds, etc. Plus the political optics are better.

Courtesy of Forbes, Big Mac Index Shows Official CPI Underreports Inflation:

What is the graph saying?

  • In 1996, the average Big Mac cost $2.36.
  • Going by the government CPI (and assuming Big Macs are still a good reality check), the average Big Mac in 2013 should have cost $3.49.
  • But it really cost $4.33, which is a lot more. (The price virtually doubled in 17 years; and of the increase, nearly half is “unexpected” by the CPI.)
  • The increase started in the early Naughties, but more of it is recent, in the last six years.

So, whom do you believe? Our noble government which always looks out for you? Or your lyin’ eyes, when you go to buy a Big Mac?

I believe my eyes. I’m more likely to to hit Starbucks or In-N-Out Burger than McDonald’s; but in all 3 cases, I’m always a little shocked at how their prices have gone up from 10, 5 or even just 1-2 years ago. Poor people, who may eat at fast-food restaurants often, must really feel it.

Bonus question: Why would things have changed in the last six years? Who has been in charge of the government – that is, both the CPI calculation, and our general economic policies?

Japan: Has it really been in deflation?

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In the comments to my recent post On Deflation (and “too-low inflation”), a commenter expressed a frequently-heard belief, that a negative “example of deflation is Japan from 1990 to the present.”

I appreciate all comments and, without picking on the person, I wanted to examine the claim. Is it true? Here is a chart (from tradingeconomics.com) that shows Japan’s consumer prices since 1990:


Points that stand out:

  • Japan’s CPI today is over 10% higher than it was in 1990.
  • It’s true that from 1998 to 2013, Japan had a slight CPI decline; perhaps 5% total, over the 15 years.
  • Japan’s CPI is now shooting up again.

Clearly, Japan has not had a large deflation. But perhaps the commenter’s (restated) point might be that Japan has had basically-stable prices since 1990, and the stable prices have done nothing to help Japan’s moribund economy. Here’s how I would answer that.

Japan has long had a relatively government-planned economy. And, over the period shown above, Japan has pursued inflationary, “stimulus” policies of government spending, deficits, expanded national debt, and money-printing. How has it worked out for them?

It hasn’t worked out well. As we see above, Japan’s inflationary policies may have prevented a large-scale deflation (not that that is necessarily good; see my other post). The inflationary policies also seem to have done nothing to fix Japan’s multi-decades of a debt-burdened economy.

In the midst of a 20-year lame economy, stable consumer prices have been a saving grace for Japanese households. But now that Japanese CPI inflation is on the rise in 2014, real living standards in Japan are dropping and “Abenomics” is gaining well-deserved unpopularity among the Japanese.

Japan is not an example of the failure of pro-freedom and sound-money policies, because Japan didn’t try them. Japan is an example, rather, of the failure of what they did try: Big Government, pro-debt, inflationary policies.

UPDATE: David Stockman tells the story of Japan, with charts. RTWT. They inflated massive stock, debt and real estate bubbles in the late 1980s; the bubbles burst; and ever since, they’ve piled up more debt and money-printing in trying to re-inflate their bubbles. Like we’re doing – with no better results.

Inflation: what is it?

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I have an “inflation update” post coming. Before that one, let’s review what inflation is.

Most people think it’s price increases. People have been trained to think that way (which I’ll address in a bit). But it’s not. Inflation is depreciation of the money, which may then result in price increases.

In olden times, money was physical metal. For example, the UK’s “pound sterling” was once an actual 12 ounces of 92.5% silver metal.

Over the centuries, they made it a paper note, and then they kept diluting the value of the note, until today it’s worth a tiny fraction of a pound of silver. A troy pound of sterling silver today would be worth about £126 (or about $210). In other words, they shaved off 125/126 of the pound’s value, over the centuries. That’s inflation.

Likewise, the U.S. dollar. It was once defined as about 1/20 ounce of gold. To say it another way, gold was fixed at $20.67/ounce until 1933, meaning that the U.S. Treasury would really give you near-an-ounce of gold, if you demanded it in exchange for a $20 paper note. But today, gold is around $1250/ounce. Today, (1) the dollar is NOT a fixed amount of gold, and (2) if you were to exchange it, on today’s date you would find that a dollar gets you about 1/1250 ounce of gold, or about 1/62 as much as before. That’s inflation.

When the money is depreciated like that, it takes more units to represent another value – a loaf of bread, a gallon of gas, a car you want to buy, medical services, etc. So, inflation tends to mean higher prices. People call the higher prices, inflation. Except it’s not; it’s only a symptom of inflation.

Think of it this way. When you have a flu, your temperature may be 102 degrees. That’s a symptom, not a disease. The flu virus is your disease. Likewise, when the government (or central bank) depreciates the money, prices may be seen at higher levels. That’s a symptom, not a disease. The depreciation is the disease.

Why do governments depreciate the money? Because it’s a hidden tax. It means the government can spend more, without having to openly raise taxes. The government is always the number one beneficiary of inflation; always the real reason it’s done.

The government gets the most benefit if people don’t understand inflation, or think clearly about it. If people understood inflation, then everybody would raise the prices of their labor, goods and services, the moment they saw the government (or central bank) depreciating the money. So the government’s added spending would not go as far. The government would still benefit from being able to repay its debts in depreciated money. But overall, the government would get that much less bang for its inflated/depreciated buck.

Thus, the government – and its acolytes in media, Wall Street and academia – have a vested interest in people NOT understanding inflation. And so they spew a lot of crap about it. They muddy the waters with false doctrines – including the one I’m correcting (that inflation-is-about-the-price-increases-and-we-have-not-had-any-price-increases-you-idiot).

Another false doctrine they spew is that we somehow *need* inflation, because deflation (opposite of inflation) is somehow bad for people and scary. Deflation is bad – to the beneficiaries of inflation, namely Big Banking and Big Government. But not to average Americans. I may address that one, in a future post.

This is who leads us

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Janet Yellen, who is President Obama’s new chair of the Federal Reserve Bank (Politburo that plans our economy), and who is thus the most powerful woman in the world, gave a speech yesterday where she bemoaned the fact that inflation isn’t high enough (in her view).

To humanize her speech, she told about three people who are long-term unemployed. If only there were enough inflation for these poor people to find jobs. It’s Yellen’s noble job to manipulate the economy until they can. But guess what? Two of the three have criminal records. Might that have anything to do with their unemployment?

One was Dorine Poole, who lost her job processing medical insurance claims when the recession hit.

“When employers started hiring again, two years of unemployment became a disqualification,” Yellen said in her speech yesterday to a community development conference in Chicago. “Even those needing her skills and employment preferred less-qualified workers without a long spell of unemployment.”

Poole was convicted of felony theft 20 years ago after she fell in with a “bad circle,” she said in a telephone interview…

Jermaine Brownlee, a skilled construction worker and apprentice plumber, “saw his wages drop sharply as he scrambled for odd jobs and temporary work,” Yellen said.

Brownlee said in a telephone interview that he was convicted of possession of heroin last year and currently is on parole.

OK, so was Yellen just caught by surprise? Did her speechwriter goof? Nope:

Yellen met personally with both people and knew about their records before the speech.

So basically, the most important person in our economy is determined to create inflation until she sees even the least employable people of all – namely, convicted criminals – in demand as employees. “Fasten your seatbelts; it’s going to be a bumpy night.”

CAVEAT: Lest the excitable accuse me of being a doomsday theorist (gasp!), I shall duly warn that in no way am I predicting instant hyperinflation as of tomorrow morning. In fact, for now, Yellen has officially adopted a less-inflationary stance as she “tapers” the Fed’s recent inflation-creating efforts. I have said “for now” and “officially”, because I think it’s Kabuki theater. As the Taper progresses over the next several months, it will cause markets to drop – whereupon Yellen will revert to full inflation-creating mode (gladly, under political cover). The point here, about her speech, is that it tips her hand.

Inflating the cost of retirement

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To retire, you need a regular income stream. For a lot of Americans, that’s Social Security. But many will tell you it’s not enough; plus you only get it in your 60s. What would it take for a person to retire on their own, today?

For that, you need investment income. Hopefully, you invest capital safely and live off the proceeds. Let’s take a lottery-ticket approach. Say you’re young (no Social Security for decades, and your principal needs to last, so no dipping into that). How much do you need to win in the lottery, to get $50,000/year of investment income?

This will be verrrry quick-and-dirty. Let’s simply assume that you keep your lottery winnings half in 5-year bank CDs, and half in a U.S. stock market index fund. I won’t bore you with the math. In brief, currently you’d get 1.55% from the 5-year CDs (per bankrate.com), and 1.88% from the S&P 500. It comes out to your needing roughly $2.9 million.

$2.9 million, just to yield $50,000/year. But what’s interesting is how this compares to times past.

  • 5 years ago (2009): the 5-year bank CD rate was around 3.5% (again per bankrate.com), and the S&P dividend yield was around 2.5%. You would have needed roughly $1.7 million.
  • 10 years ago (2004): the bank CD rate was around 3.5%, and the S&P dividend yield around 1.8%. You would have needed roughly $1.9 million.

Again, these numbers are just for a long-lived person to get themselves a $50,000 annual yield. A person in their 60s, collecting Social Security and/or dipping into their principal, would need rather less money. Especially if the stock market goes well (we know that always happens, right?) so they get some capital appreciation.

But here’s the point that applies to everyone: the kind of change we can see in the numbers.

  • Between 2004 and 2009, the cost of a $50,000 yield stayed roughly the same (going down 10% or so).
  • Between 2009 and today, the cost of a $50,000 yield has skyrocketed (up over 60%).

And that’s why tens of millions of Americans now feel like they can never retire. They can’t retire because the cost of getting X amount of retirement income (from bank CDs or stocks) has skyrocketed, in the last five years. Whatever their own “retirement number” was, big or small, suddenly they need much more. So they can’t retire, and keep working.

This is one dark side of market bubbles. The Federal Reserve’s ZIRP and “QE” policies are designed to make the financial markets go higher. A stock market bubble means, among other things, everyone paying more money for small (or nonexistent) yields. Higher bond markets mean lower bank CD yields. High real estate markets mean higher housing costs. The financial markets are roughly like your price tag for retirement. In the last few years, Obama/Bernanke/Yellen have pumped some giant inflation into them. It’s not a good thing.

And all of that is aside from the question of inflation in general: the fact that $50,000 today won’t buy you what it did 5 years ago. (Gasoline and medical costs, for example, are way up.) “Thanks, Obama!”

Christmas inflation update

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PNC Financial Services keeps a PNC Christmas Price Index® which “shows the current cost for one set of each of the gifts given in the song ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas.’”

ZH has just pointed out recent rises in the index:

Over the past 30 years, the rise in the price of Christmas according to PNC’s annual 12-days-of-Christmas price index has matched the CPI at around 2.9% YoY. However, in recent years, the reality is considerably worse…The price of Christmas in 2013 is up a stunning 7.7% over 2012 – the biggest jump since 2010′ 9.2% rise. The biggest driver of the increase were the dancing ladies…

This goes back to the question of whom we should believe about inflation: the government ‘hedonic’ (manipulated) statistics? Or the prices we would actually see, in buying stuff?

Lefties often say to me “But we’re not having inflation…where’s the inflation?” And I say, “Look at the stock market, which is like the price of your ever retiring. It has roughly doubled, since Obama took office. So has gasoline, or what you pay for college, medical insurance, etc. Even for consumer goods, packages are smaller and quality is down. The government counts only some of that, as inflation. But you know you’re struggling to make ends meet; your paycheck doesn’t go far. Why is that? Inflation is staring you in the face. Are you really not going to believe it, until the government says you can?”

Venezuela: America’s future?

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UPDATE: And a few days earlier, there was state-sanctioned looting:

Nov 9 – Thousands of Venezuelans lined up outside the country’s equivalent of Best Buy…President Nicolás Maduro ordered a military “occupation” of the company’s five stores…”I want a Sony plasma television for the house,” said Amanda Lisboa, 34, a business administrator, who had waited seven hours already outside one Caracas store. “It’s going to be so cheap!”

I’m shaking my head at the short-sightedness. If stores are going to be occupied and looted, then no, Amanda: TVs won’t be cheap.

I’m late getting to this, but from Reuters (via ZH):

Nov 15 – Venezuela’s socialist government has arrested more than 100 “bourgeois” businessmen in a crackdown on alleged price-gouging at hundreds of shops and companies since the weekend, President Nicolas Maduro said on Thursday.

“They are barbaric, these capitalist parasites!” Maduro thundered in the latest of his lengthy daily speeches. “We have more than 100 of the bourgeoisie behind bars at the moment.”

Inflation is the problem:

Officials say unscrupulous companies have been hiking prices of electronics and other goods more than 1,000 percent…

To spell it out for any lefties reading this: Companies only do what’s needed to stay afloat – and what the market will bear. It’s the Venezuelan currency that has been printed into oblivion. So yes, inflation.

Naturally, the government claims that its interventions help the poor: [Read more…]

Is this inflation?

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Via Zero Hedge, and from Intuit / mint.com, comes this darling infographic – click to get a bigger version:

inflation in various household expenses

We must stop to think about what it means. It’s not saying that, say, health insurance prices are up 111% in the last two years, or that housing prices are down 27%. No, it’s saying that household spending on health insurance is up 111% in the last two years; household spending on housing is down 27%.

Is this what ‘hidden’ inflation (inflation not noticeable in the government CPI figures) looks like? Because it could mean that people have less discretionary income: instead of spending on vacations or on nicer homes, perhaps they are forced to spend more on monthly basics like utilities, health insurance, education and kids’ expenses, etc.

I mean, I don’t think anything has happened in the last two years to make people want to spend more on health care, education or utilities. And I don’t think there are any important areas (even housing) that got much cheaper, in the same time.

What’s up with the economy?

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If the economy is getting better, why do so many people feel they’re struggling?

On the positive side: The official data say that we’ve had some growth in jobs. And, while the federal deficit is still high, it has begun to drop (due both to rising tax receipts, and the GOP’s insistence that we have at least some fiscal discipline). And the stock market is making new highs.

On the negative side: The growth in jobs is so anemic that if a Republican were president, the media would be screeching nonstop about the “jobless recovery”. And the stock market’s rise flies in the face of weakening fundamentals, suggesting that the rise is just a “bubble” process (or a process of inflation).

Moreover, as Peter Schiff writes, imports are dropping while real consumer costs rise, which fits a pattern of declining living standards (people having to spend more on necessities). His argument is long, but worth considering:

Tyson Foods…announced that although their top line sales revenue increased by almost 2% (roughly in line with U.S. GDP growth), operating margins collapsed by almost 50%, leading to a 43% decline in profit. Consumer shifts away from relatively higher priced/higher margin beef and pork products to lower cost/lower margin chicken products were to blame….

According to government statisticians, the Tyson announcement would reveal modest growth and low inflation. After all, revenue at the company grew and spending on their products had increased modestly. But rising prices were obscured by consumers purchasing lower quality products. Not only are consumers avoiding the beef and pork that they otherwise may have preferred, but they are opting out of the convenience of prepared foods…This is known as getting poorer.

The trend corresponds with the steady increase in the share of income that Americans devote to food and energy…in 2002 Americans spent about 17.8% of income on food and energy. In the first quarter of 2013 the share had risen…to 21.3% of income…In the poorest countries almost all of income is devoted to such things.

…[A sharp drop in imports has meant that] our trade deficit with China in March dropped by a whopping 23.6%…[but overall] personal spending [still rose] in March. If we are buying less stuff from abroad, where are Americans spending the extra money? …Americans are buying fewer Chinese products because they are spending more money on food, rent, utilities, healthcare, insurance, and other necessities that can’t be imported. Again, this is consistent with a falling standard of living…

The combination of these symptoms suggests that the extent to which people are being impoverished by accelerating inflation is not reflected in official government measurements. This explains why unemployment remains high even as GDP appears to rise…the unprecedented expansion of the money supply under the current Fed leadership is pushing up prices for stocks, bonds, real estate, and consumer goods. Market indices neatly capture the price increases for all of these categories except for the latter, which has been concealed by an overly adjusted CPI.

If consumer inflation data were reported more accurately, it would be revealed that much of the apparent growth is an illusion.