Friends, in the late summer and fall of 2021 CTH warned of massive waves of price increases that would push inflation to record highs. We watched as each wave arrived almost on schedule throughout 2022, and as a direct result of Joe Biden energy and economic policy, prices necessarily skyrocketed.
In essence in 2021 we were warning about the expenditure side of the ledger that all working-class and fixed income families would experience. We advised to take every proactive measure possible to avoid future price increases.
Now, unfortunately, we begin moving those same warnings to the other side of the ledger; because as a natural consequence of consumer checkbook pain, the financial pressure always transfers to the income and employment side of the economic dynamic.
Keep in mind, retail sales are calculated in dollars spent by consumers. November 2022 retail sales as reported by the commerce department today [DATA pdf], reflect a 0.6% decrease in spending vs October. November data includes Thanksgiving, Black Friday and the traditional early holiday shopping. 0.6% less dollars were spent, despite prices being double digits higher than the prior year.
When the prices you are charging for goods and/or services are 10, 20, even as high as 60 percent more than prior year, yet your sales are running flat to negative – that means consumer purchases of those goods/services are substantially lower.
If you were selling 100 widgets for $1 each in 2021, you gross $100. If your widgets now sell for $1.25 and you gross $94 in 2022 sales, you have sold 75 widgets.
In 2021 you sold 100 widgets, in 2022 you sold 75 widgets, a difference of 25 widgets.
Everything attached to the raw material, creation, manufacturing, distribution and sale of those 25 missing widgets is no longer part of the economic activity associated with your widget business. You are now telling your suppliers you don’t need as many widgets, because they are not selling. You have lost 25% of your business in this scenario.
Everything associated with the drop in consumer spending now begins to downsize. Downsizing means less labor needed. This process triggers the economic impact shifting from the consumer sales side of the ledger to the income side of the ledger for employers, employees and workers.
If this consumer spending trend continues, and there is absolutely no reason to think it will reverse, we are entering a phase of serious financial instability for the American worker, at a scale that will dwarf the 2006/’07 and ’08 recession.
I am not a doomsayer pundit on economic matters. I am a proactive planner on economic forecasts. With consumer credit costing more, with fed interest rates climbing, with import orders cancelled, with shipping costs dropping, with consumer spending contracting, with fewer units moving, with inventories climbing, all of the data only points in one direction.
Serious consumer defaults are looming.
Government policy has been hammering the demand side of the economy, proclaiming -falsely- that excessive consumer demand was the cause of inflation. This game of economic pretending is about to get very serious.
Consumer spending, as measured in actual units created and purchased in the economy, has been contracting since the third quarter of 2021 (started June, July, August ’21). Simultaneously, consumer spending as measured in actual dollars spent to purchase food, fuel and energy, has been skyrocketing. This is a supply side inflationary cycle with no soft landing.
(Wall Street Journal) – U.S. retail spending and manufacturing weakened in November, signs of a slowing economy as the Federal Reserve continues its battle against high inflation.
November retail sales fell 0.6% from the prior month for the biggest decline this year, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Budget-conscious shoppers pulled back sharply on holiday-related purchases, home projects and autos. Manufacturing output declined 0.6%, the first drop since June, the Fed said in a separate report.
The Fed on Wednesday raised its benchmark interest rate 0.5 percentage point to a 15-year high and signaled plans to continue lifting rates through the spring. Fed officials have increased rates at the fastest pace since the 1980s to cool the economy and bring down inflation, which is running near a 40-year high.
“Most households are acting strategically, planning for a road ahead that may be more difficult to traverse, with higher interest rates, the housing slump, and ongoing inflation—and the very real possibility of a recession,” said Craig Johnson, president of the retail consulting firm Customer Growth Partners. (read more)
Businesses are going to start cutting expenses in order to survive.
The number one expense for almost all businesses is the labor cost.
Non-essential and high wage labor is going to get removed first.
Who would have ever thought that elections have consequences? /s. President Trump warned the nation what was coming if Biden was elected president and, as Gomer Pyle used to say; “surprise, surprise, surprise!” Except it’s no surprise….it was a given.
Feature.
except we all know now that the “elections” are by done by rigged machines doing the voting and counting these days…
And stolen elections have catastrophic consequences.
Nobody actually voted for Jotato.
Nice nickname 🙂
Dow plummets 763 points as investors grow concerned about an overly aggressive Fed
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/stock-market-news-today-dow-falls-on-fed-hikes-ecb-2022-12
Triple witching tomorrow. And anyone playing the market deserve what happens.
Might be a blood bath on Friday, we will see.
Which means 401Ks are now in jeopardy if this trend continues.
Elections have consequences, even if the Idiot-in-Chief was fraudulently put in the White House!
“with import orders cancelled” I assume this will hurt the already struggling ChiComs? Will that lower our trade deficit somewhat to our benefit or is that too insignificant? “When America sneezes the world catches a cold!” An economic flu is about to hit the rest of the world!!
I sure hope it hurts them.
The problem is this Maladministration has floated so much M1 into the system China will not feel it directly for a long time if ever as the Uniparty is owned by them.
China is dumping more Treasuries. They learned a thing or two from Russia getting its assets seized.
They have secured deals for Saudi oil and Russian gold, on top of disclosing their massive gold hoarding success. Add in hoarding grains and rice.
Reads to me like they are mitigating the negative consequences of a CCP hostile military action, in advance.
Everyone has geared up for war. The Russians are just awaiting freezing weather for their Ukraine offensive, and Monkeywerx says our troops finished shipping over and the build up is complete in Germany, Poland, Romania.
Best be on our knees, praying to God for mercy.
I hope the Ukrainian civilians are able to get the heck out of Dodge before the last railway lines are cut.
On my knees here.
Actually When America catches a cold, the world sneezes. The dark matter traders are gleefully watching it all unravel.
Depends on how you look at it. 95% of the crap being sold to you really is just crap anyway. Much of it is toxic and it’s been a long time since many of you really evaluated the quality, or lack of quality in most of the stuff around you.
Maybe it’s time to go build things for yourselves again.. Best way to quit something unhealthy is cold turkey anyway.
That’s what I’d call the greatest of resets and for good
Agree. That is my approach. It creates purpose and perhaps the need to learn something new.
and buy only what you need and not what you want.
Own nothing and be happy?
When you make things for yourself you owe nothing.
Fixed your comment for you.. “Own the crap marketed to you and be owned by the oligarchs.”
wakie-wakie
And for the millions of people who don’t have the skills/access to the materials to make literally everything for themselves that they might ever need?
Sorry, still sounds a lot like “own nothing and be happy” to me.
Did you want a crash course in advanced microprocessors? That’s M/W/F from 7PM-10:30PM but it’s only 160 units. Or you can learn to grow your own food and hunt to feed your family.
you do you boyo…
Or maybe I can have my hands full providing for, teaching, raising, and protecting three small children by myself in a suburban setting? Sure, a rural bachelor or father might be able to traipse off into the woods and come back with a deer, but that’s not an option for all of us.
From my experience it takes two parents even for one kid to turn out half normal. Good luck on that with three. We have two pure blooded tweens we pulled out of the system back when all this first started. Raising them somewhere between the concrete jungles of SoKal and the Inland mountains, valleys and deserts. Teaching them more than they could ever learn in their old klass rooms taught by kucked kommunist kompromisers.
You are sounding pretty and small to me.
Not everyone has your identical situation and advantages.
My wife and I will be fine, as will our children.
We will use our preparation, advantages and blessings to hopefully bring more into the fold.
If I saw you hungry and had the means to feed you but did not, I’m not sure that I could pretend to be a Christian.
Petty
Been pointing all this out since the mid 90s.. Even back then the consumer slaves of the day hated when I pointed out the chains they wore willingly.
I’m just pointing out the obvious at this point but it’s all the same today.. Except now it’s even harder for people to admit it. Especially now that most of them have poisoned themselves their Children and Grandchildren.
There is an old movie you might like.. it’s very silly but it’s very applicable to the world you all live in. It’s called Josie and the Pussycats (2001).. you may not like being made fun of but it’s a fair representation of the world and the crap people surround themselves with.
I don’t expect you all to leave your jobs and become farmers and hunters.. I do expect you to stop slaving yourselves to your employers and the products you buy though. Otherwise I have zero sympathy for any of you. If that’s petty then so be it…
Yeah, but no more mean tweets.
Just vacuous ones.
Should be one of the playing cards.
The entirety of the Senate and Whitehouse are quislings.
McConnell & company are doing nothing to help the middle class. No defense of or appreciation for.
Their goal is to destroy the republic and the citizens thereof.
I think you need to read more treehouse.
Their goal is enrichment and aggrandizement of themselves, all of which destroys the republic and the citizens thereof. All the while posing as the people’s representatives. They all deserve the Mussolini treatment, and it needs to be soon.
I have been a bad consumer.
A number of years ago I decided to get out of debt. I put my efforts into it and have adjusted my life style to being frugal, take on no new debt, save, be more conscientious about health and healthy living, do much more with my own two hands and learn more about self reliance. The effort has allowed me to be in better shape for 2023 than I was for 2007/08/09 and then some.
Even if things don’t go down the drain, I wont change what I’m doing.
I will continue to be a bad consumer.
Yep, us too, we left the city and now live in a more frugal home but with no mortgage, old vehicle paid off, credit cards paid off, on 5 rural acres.
Bought a grass-fed steer (no hormones) from a small local farmer recently and today gave the butcher cutting instructions where it’s been hanging.
We believed Sundance’s warnings and have been preparing for the coming storm the last two years in earnest.
The retail stores hate what we are NOT DOING to their bottom line!
I think one of the features of the digital currency will be to totally wipe out savers. They want big time velocity of money. The quickness it moves. Savers stall that $1 and its doing nothing. I have read you will have 30 days to spend your digital money and then it is taken back from you.
And of course you have to spend it on approved stuff….and 2A stuff is not approved.
Debt free is one of the best types of free.
I purchase mostly pre owned home furnishings, most from the 60’s. I far prefer the quality and richness of the materials. I love the upscale, time capsule look. Most of the items I restored by hand (no power tools) and refinished. It’s my sanctuary. So I’m triple bad.
Bravo, I also love the retro, throwback warm vibes.
People just don’t understand why the minimum payment on their credit cards keeps up.
If I see one more credit card commercial for “get cash back on your purchases” I may throw up. And the people that vomit out of their mouth about how they’re getting cash back, AS THEY’RE PAYING 18% and up for their “What’s in your wallet” are really stupid. They need to take a basic math class! They value nothing.
Most of my family members are not in this situation, it’s they’re liberal relationships by marriage.
What happens when our interest on our debt equals our GNP?
That’s when the Treasury starts printing those million dollar bills like Rwanda.
We can all be billionaires!
Which will make current Billionaires Trillionaires. We all rise with this tide by a factor of ten.
The only difference with Trump’s growth is that you had something to show for it, with Biden its all just smoke and mirrors.
FJB!
And a loaf of bread will be half a million dollars
Well before that, printing is needed to pay interest and reduce the $ denominated debt by massive inflation.
Weimar like.
There gradually comes a point where some other world reserve currency happens by demand.
It won’t be as bad as you think, the US is still the largest economy, it’s not Zimbabwe or 1920 Germany.
For your next two generatios it’s actually their Big Short opportunity.
Curious on the breakdown of data per state or area demographic of the country.
Without seeing it…and after reviewing the real estate data…my assumption is Blue states are screwed and Red States will prosper…
Yes…agree that would be interesting
Beautifully explained! Thank you, Sundance!
Retired Magistrate here: Repurpose, fix and buy used made in America goods if you can.
You don’t need the newest cell phone; we have one that is really old and we purchase x amount of minutes for $80.00 a year; only use it for emergencies. We still have a land line and bundle it with our internet and tv. Our house is old, not updated but paid for. Cars are older but work. Just got new brakes for my 10 year old Jeep and it runs just fine. Shopped around for a new electricity provider and found that our township has a contract with Dynergy which saves us between $30 and $50 a month for electricity.
We heat with fuel oil and it is high; however, it has dropped from almost $6.00 a gallon down to $4.82-still high but better. Our pantry is stocked and I am still finding deals on food to freeze and further stock up our pantry with. Our house is decorated for Christmas, my brother is still alive (has ALS due to Agent Orange exposure in Viet Nam) and my husband is cooking dinner for me tonight; stuffed steak marinated in wine; really good.
So, today, as everyday, I am very thankful with what GOD has provided.
Your posts are always a blessing to read, Marcia. Thank you.
ALS can also result from being concussed and I imagine that being more than likely.
That fuel oil should continue to drop temporarily. The rain east of Rockies has opened up barge traffic and the backed up supplies are moving. Combined with lower demand, the diesel and oil prices are dropping. Diesel here is approaching $3.50 according to a wholesaler I know. When everything stabilizes, it will go back up. Quickly if there a long cold spell.
There are a lot of cell service resellers(they don’t own towers/radios) like Mint Mobile and Republic Wireless that give you a usable amount of data and unlimited minutes for anywhere as cheap as $10/mo to $20/mo. $80 is a good deal per year, but if it is just minutes it might not suit all.
Absolutely dead on about used phones. Go 2 generations back (about 2.5 years) and buy refurb from eBay, you can have a great phone for $100-150. I refuse to pay $80/mo on service and $800 for a phone ever again. I got suckered in once when I wasn’t paying close enough attention to life. Never. Again.
Another place to save is by buying computer upgrades used from Craigslist. Need a bigger screen? Save $150 on $250 by buying some college kid’s “old” gear. People just do not realize the minimal, of any, perceivable difference in performance between 3 years ago “cutting edge” and today’s “Costco special”. Because most of the time there is none!
A $750 laptop at Costco is worse than a $500 laptop that us 3 years old on Craigslist. But people just have to have their new shiney…
Mint’s coverage is terrible, no coverage on the road in most areas. The number of missed calls and texts drove us crazy. I would never recommend Mint. Walmart Family Mobile is pretty good.
Maybe we can get Olena Zelenska to shop here in the states .
She is spending our U.S. tax dollars, so the least she could do would be to spend some of them is the U.S. 🤬
Ground report as of this afternoon…CVS…Progresso Soup can. Three weeks ago…$2.99.
Today…$4.99
Publix. A dozen nothing special eggs $6
Turning point – It is now officially cheaper to get farmers market fresh eggs than mass produced supermarket eggs.
Sundance was also correct in his long ago prediction that organic produce would start being a better deal in general.
I could not even get organic chicken thighs for 6 months and all organic chicken was priced out of everyone’s price range so people all over stopped buying organic chicken,.
For the last 3 weeks they have been “dumping” organic chicken at my store. My thighs are plentiful and $1.50 per pound reduced price. So I am stocking up my freezers now with good organic chicken thighs. (white meat does not work as well for me).
I payed 9.19 for 18 pack of Greenwise organic eggs. I might have to start eating one every other day. I also bought ingredients for Christmas cookies to make this weekend cost me 80 bucks, probably cheaper just to buy store bought.
Get a couple chickens, you can actually hatch those free range eggs they sell at the grocery store.
My wife did it a few months ago.
Amen, I eat what I need and sell the rest roadside. People scoop them up at 3 bucks a dozen 🙂
I normally shop at Aldi but had to go to Publix yesterday for disposable pie pans. I know Aldi prices have increased but I was SHOCKED by how much prices have gone up at Publix.
Publix is a rip off right now.
Eggs here on sale for $1.50, regular $2. Depends on where you are it seems.
I understand that WalMart is selling off large discounts.
I went into the St Augustine WalMart and turned around and left, what a dump. The store looks like it was built 50 years ago and was a total mess, Walmart should be ashamed of themselves.
Many of their stores are poorly managed. I had a conversation with a recent hire about my age with a similar work ethic and many of their hires are simply underperforming drones who simply show up and sometimes just go through the motions.
And with the way things are, I can’t blame them. If you want to work, you can. I know I don’t want to for a currency that is virtually worthless.
This is what woke hiring practices will do to a formerly sound outfit. The company I worked for before (thankfully) retiring from it several years ago has now made “50% female employment” its hiring objective, and one can see the immediate deterioration of its productivity. Not that many females are not fully capable of running the organization, but when ones makes hiring goals based on sex instead of skill, the best personnel for the job may not, and probably will not, be selected.
Just sayin, but when the operational leadership was 90% male the per-unit productivity was over 100% better and per-unit cost (on equivalent basis) was 35-45% lower; the latter mainly because labor costs were lower. More was done with less people than it is today – the numbers don’t lie. Seems like productivity and low cost must take a back seat to wokeness – I dumped all of my company stock a year ago when I saw this coming and heard about it from friends still employed there – and looks like that decision was the right one – stock price for that corp. has dropped like a rock.
Where is here Vibe Man?
South central Kentucky, farming community with a town in the center of the county. Not big and not tiny. Like about 100 of Kentucky’s 120 counties.
Throughout all of the discussions on prices, it seems we always have lower prices on groceries, often much lower. It is unlikely that the groceries themselves have a big difference, so it must be something else. I suspect it is a combination of local taxes, price of labor, how hard the employees work, the reliability of labor, cost of land and buildings, cost of utilities, lower losses due to theft and a bunch of other things that are just less expensive in small town America.
The three main grocery stores in town are all small by today’s standard. The place where the eggs are cheap is a brand in the Kroger family of stores but it is their limited selection, low overhead style store. Another is a local owned store affiliated with IGA. The third is a small Food Lion. All are in older strip centers with shared parking. I sometimes go over to the bigger city down the road and shop for things on sale and discount at huge Kroger and Meijer stores. The stuff is always more expensive except for sale items. This is just 40 miles away.
Great point!
You want great egg prices go to Trader Joes.
Heard on the NPR report that prices for eggs in CO were going up as someone apparently thought it was a good time to mandate cage free eggs…. prices are forecast to only go up by another 1.00.
Good thing I don’t really get eggs often. Even less so after Jan 1 2023.
https://capitalhillnews.com/colorado-mandates-cage-free-eggs/
Today, I did my monthly shopping at Kroger’s. Almost everything from last time I went shopping, had doubled in price or was up $2.00. It was really a sticker shock. Most of the bread was $5.00 or more a loaf. I bought a sack of flour; going to make my bread.
I used to be in the dairy business. The next seven days are the biggest grocery days of the year for volume. Not much will be on markdown. My first Christmas on the route the other drivers we talking about it and I asked how much more should I put in the coolers. “All that you can. And it still won’t be enough.” The week after Christmas we could not give it away.
I wrote that down. Thanks, Vibe Man.
I will give you a tip about casinos. Always use the slot machines near the Women’s restroom. They have great turnover from the men using them.
That’s an interesting tip about the casinos, what’s the reasoning behind it?
Used to eat it. Something happened to the taste and it’s nasty, plus it owned by ConAgra.
In and around the Imperial Capitol, there are no such economic concerns – business has never been better as the printing press runs around the clock. As for those in ‘fly-over country’, they can eat cake.
That certainly helps explain the RNC “tchotchkes” kerfuffle.
The author of the article outing all the stupid expenditures was on the Charlie Kirk show today. She named the expensive stores from which the items were purchased, all in D.C. of course.
Helped explain the 17 million!
Mike Lindell was also on War Room this morning explaining how he would run the RNC finances.
I enjoyed both appearances very much!
$7.77 for 18 extra large eggs at Wal-Mart in Mooresville NC. Last year I got them for under 2.00
FJB!!!
Yea, a dozen Grade A at Aldi today was $3.67. I passed.
It’s $4.67 a dozen here in communist NYC!
We’ll do fine without eggs for the short term. Don’t need all those cakes and pies, anyway.
Gonna buy some laying hens later this winter, build a chicken coop, and go into “self-production” for eggs (and fryer chicken).
We are headed for economic disaster. Many people still believe no matter what happens the FED can indefinitely print money to finance government spending.
My favorite mostly American made clothing retailer, Fresh Produce, went out of business in 2020 but came back this year. I’m hoping they stick around but I’m not counting on ANY company to be here in a year or two. Any spending I do now is with that in mind – stocking up on clothes, home furnishings, even eating out to support restaurants. My money now goes only to the companies I want to be here on the other side of this mess.
Just looked them up. Thinking to buy cardigan. 👍🏼 Thx.
I hope you do and that you like it.
I think the math might be off a tad using the 0.6% decrease and the 100 items. Still a big drop in things sold though. 0.6% drop (is less than 1% or $1) in moneys is $99.40 of stuff sold. $99.40 ÷ the $1.25 per widget from inflation is 79.52 widgets. Still a 20% drop in widgets sold.
The 0.6% drop is from Oct 2022; there is a 6.5% gain from Nov 2021.
I am still paying the same price for many food items..because I only buy when on sale also I have switched to less expensive items.. and have kept my overall expenditures flat.
I went to a grade up from a chuck roast; I was tired of seeing a 4-pound roast go to a 2-pound roast when I cooked it. I braise the higher grade meat (I time this with cooking bacon/waste not-want not) and cook at a lower temperature. Also, a top blade roast makes wonderful flat iron steaks.
shop at 4 stores and circle those on sale stick to them like glue and our weekly menu is based on this except for basics shop at thrift stores and donate to them weekly one large bag when we splurge coupons for bk eg fill out form and get free whopper and mcd fill out form on back of receipt eg big mac buy one and one free take home and home drinks so 4.84 God bless treepers and CTH
I talked to this jerk – I mean man – I know who just got back from a 2 week trip to Germany and Austria. I asked him if he had heard anything about energy prices and other economic troubles when he talked to people there. This was the first time they had been there so he didn’t know if anything was different but Mr. Einstein asked me why he or anyone in the USA should care since their Christmas markets were still open and it wasn’t like WE would be affected. I can’t even…
Unfortunately, we were at a public charitable event providing cooked meals for people who are food insecure so it wasn’t the time or place to educate him but DUDE you’ve seen how many more people are asking this charity for help because they can’t afford to buy food after paying their mortgage/rent, utilities, etc. I believe that even if I tried to show him the issues and connections he would not pay attention/care/accept the info. Where is that head banging emoji?
The Oblivious American abroad.
I’ve seen more of them than I’ve had hot dinners.
I was at a luncheon yesterday and I sat next to a woman born and raised in East Germany and lived behind the Iron Curtain for more than 20 years. She had just returned from Germany and also had no sense of the state of the energy complex either.
I’ve noticed a rapid increase in the ‘self involved ‘, as of late.
And into the economic fray jumps Ron DeSantis who is enacting a toll rebate scheme to provide credit to reduce the cost of the heavy users of toll roads.
The roads themselves will still bear the cost. The businesses that use the toll road have already factored in that cost.
Half a billion dollars of toll relief to these special interests for 2023.
And the DeSantis supporters will scream in support.
The I-4 commute is worse than ever. DeSantis needs to work on affordable insurances like car and home for Floridians. He seems to be ignoring those.
It is alleged the home insurance market had been “fixed”. It has been “fixed” ever since the Panhandle Exemption (which was later rescinded) and the gutting of Citizens Insurance at the behest of the insurance companies who now get to “sell” policies that few will ever recover under.
For being such a “great” governor methinks the word has lost all meaning. In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king.
I didn’t realize there were tolls in florida?
If I cant eat it, drink it, shoot it, or Jeep it. I don’t buy it.
Stocked up yesterday for the snow storm and found my favorite beer was 25% more than last month.
Baby El: Shoot the empties.
I realy wish one of Powell’s after rate increases pressers would have him grab the mic and shout, “If the F**ing Sh** for brains government would quit F***ing firehose spending and show some F***ing restraint, then maybe we wouldn’t have to F***ing crash the F***ing economy and face stomp employees into the poorhouse!
But we’ll just get shrugs from the fed and the gov will continue to blame consumers and everyone will act perplexed with it all hits the fan.
A couple weeks ago that communist piece of human garbage Eric Holder drooled some trash about the nation being able to “absorb” the arrest of PDT. Leftist criminals like him should be thinking about where they’re going to hide when the masses who are unemployed, cold, hungry, homeless and angry after having “absorbed” all the communist bs they’re going to, start looking for the trash that caused all their hardships.
Yep Dems in charge
That’s not going to end well.
You know these idiots aren’t cutting the DIE grifters first. They’ll go to bankruptcy for that crap.
Every day more and more evidence comes out about the stolen elections, the manmade covid pandemic, the jab that’s really not a vaccine and the deliberate destruction of our economy.
What’s it gonna take to take for these criminals to be brought to justice?
J6 protest Jan 2024 in every county across this nation.
I can hardly wait for Sundance to comment on the “adjustment” to the the employment data!
Please bring it!
Should be eye opening…
to say the least, Sarasotosfan.
The FED battling this wave of inflation by raising interest rates is like the US Military fighting Japan in WW2 by bombing and invading Kenya.
They are attacking you and gaining SIGNIFICANT ground on our readiness and ability to survive the ending of this…
Survival is not assured regardless of the outcome.
I would say readiness matters less than determination in the long run.
We must not forget that their aim in all of these things is to break your will so that you will stop resisting them in all things.
Wrong, How wrong!
Interest rates can kill any economic activity on the face of the earth.
With a few keystrokes.
I don’t like to look at my investments much anymore.
That is a shame. I look at my home and property every day and enjoy it even with Ian’s damage.
Well, too many fear being in cash because of the near zero return.
That’s a mistake because your cash will allow you to avoid market crash and, crucially, buy back in at a huge discount.
If you are cashed up a market crash is your best friend….see 1931, see 1987, see 2008.
The analogy I use is I prefer to lose 10% than 30%.
Our current k-12 school system has eliminated instructing in logical economic theory (lol), real American history, personal finance, ethics and morality, reasoning and critical thinking skill development as to exactly accomplish the economic destruction of America, while the successfully gaslighted ignorant masses beg for “more cowbell”.
So what could go wrong as they have the gender studies thing down.
Philadelphia Fed Admits BLS jobs Overstated by 1.1 Million!
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/here-comes-job-shock-philadelphia-fed-admits-us-jobs-overstated-least-11-million
This has got to be the first Chritmas that i remember sales were down…Usually starting with Black Friday to the day after Christmas malls are ful with sales really start soring.
Have friends who live in some of he big cities & they say the malls area like Ghost Towns, even on Black Friday and the weekends.
My company has Christmas decorations already marked down 30%. I was in Walmart Tuesday and their artificial trees were all marked down 25%. The store was bare of foot traffic. The media and government rosy picture of our economy is pure gaslighting. Even Walmart said some locations may close because of a high percentage of theft.
Costco and Macys have marked Christmas decorations down 75% and Belk is marked down 65 to 85%.
On the night of the 2020 election, I first watched hopefully. As that night wore down to a close, my heart sank to a new low. I knew my world had changed in those overnight hours. I was new to CTH site at the time, but it quickly became my go to source for real info. I got busy after reading Sundance’s warnings on what was coming on the economic front. I was already a gardener, but stepped up my game in that arena. I learned to can and to pressure can my harvests. Now I am actively teaching anyone that is willing to learn. And more actively building relationships with my neighbors. One thing I’m sure of. We all live the life we build. And keeping your life optimistic is key right now. Any way you can.
Getting off my soap box now.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Most important….a positive mental attitude! And Merry Christmas to You and Yours!!
It was a welcomed soap box:) Thank you for posting words of inspiration.
I’ve always shopped groceries to the penny. I buy everything at the best price per unit I can find. Learned long ago in an urban setting major grocers rotate their sales. Don’t shop the same grocery stores. I also am a good cook. My wife and I eat good and cheap. Learned this 40 years ago when had no money.
Well done. You are an inspiration to all of us.
My experience in the corporate world tells me in bad times, the last thing to get cut is the expense account executive level. Non-execs are accused of slacking, taken off hourly and forced to work additional hours at tasks not related to their jobs. Supplies and housekeeping are reduced to short supply, or housekeeping is passed on to non-execs. At one of my jobs, ballpoint pens were rationed! But the executives enjoyed expense-paid memberships at an elite country club.
From my position in the corporate world, I have already been read in on the upcoming challenges for 2023 and the expectations for us to hold the line on costs (read that as headcount) and to find savings wherever we can. I got wind something was up and pushed my managers to fill our open positions asap before they freeze them all. For now, we’re making distinctions. Workers needed for production to meet customer demand get hired, but anything indirect labor needs approval and will likely need to be a temp. High cost positions go all the way up to the highest part of the food chain for approval.
I have also observed the sales are roughly flat, but with price increases, the real demand is about 4-8% down depending on the product line. So Sundance’s analysis certainly agrees with what I’m seeing. We do not sell direct to consumer, we’re more in the pharma/biotech market, but the observations still agree.
Uh, oh…
Wait until we see December’s numbers! And our representatives will still pretend if they can just pass…fill in the blank. Impeach the MoFo’s!
You are spot on as usual Sundance. I ask my coworkers if it is better for the US economy to sell 100 average washing machines or 3 really high end washing machines. They all get it right. We’re going to crash hard.
Buy you vegetable seeds now. I have ordered the rest of mine already.
Do you buy local or on line? I need to buy on line and I’m not sure where to go…..
Try Baker’s Heirloom Seeds, for home gardens. Good company
Thank you!!
seedsavers.org – all heirloom seeds. Last I checked they had preserved over 40k seed varieties in their seed vault.
If anyone knows where to find La Ratte seed potatoes I’d be obliged. My last two sources have gone out of business.
Thanks.
Thank you!!
It’s all about energy. Less energy, less activity, less stuff, lower lifestyle. All the rest is changing deck chairs on the Titanic.
Plus we ‘also’ have a headwind of the ever-growing parasite that is our illegitimate ‘government’ which is now consuming over 40% of real value with no net benefit.
In fact, some would say a negative net benefit at this point.
What energy you have should be primarily dedicated to surviving and thus being part of the solution in the spring cycle.
Hard times make great men (spring).
Great men make good times (summer).
Good times make weak men (fall).
Weak men make hard times (winter).
Fortunately, most of the worthless people we talk about will be long-dead and in Hell at this point. All the IOUs they stole turned into worthless vapor before the eyes. So biblical really.
I’ll never understand how one can trade their invaluable soul for something so worthless.
Gotta make people poor to end inflation… Recession hurts the middle class the most… damned shame.
Best way to end inflation is reduce taxes and reduce government spending… strengthen the dollar.
Not happening.
Nothing to worry about, Jerome Powell has this under control, his goal is to destroy America and he is doing just fine.
Follow this link to the full article
Here Comes The Job Shock: Philadelphia Fed Admits US Jobs “Overstated” By At Least 1.1 Million
This from Zerohedge and other sites now picking up on this.
This fake jobs reporting was done before to aid Obama and Hillary. This time for Dems and Biden regime.
It appears labor peaked in March and the consumers started pulling back soon after that.
Democrats know how to cook the books. Been doing it for decades!
And it is probably just coincidence that about that time the Maladministration began printing money ostensibly for “the Ukraine” and browbeat us to contribute to the “effort”.
Good story Sundance…. so easy to figure out whats going on when you spell it out like you do…
But My comment is this…after reading you story…I just remembered that i read a story where
The Canadian Liberal Government is actively DELETING 25 years worth of food inflation data from Stats Canada… as we speak…No such this as coincidences
Read this story- it’s a good read
https://spencerfernando.com/2022/12/06/why-did-the-federal-government-delete-25-years-of-food-inflation-data/
I suspect that number is lowballed … cooking the books is all they do
As normal, very prescient, SD!
The luciferians are asking “… and the problem is…?” Mission accomplished.
Sundance you are awesome at explaining the economics in a way that most can follow.
I am a high level finance leader at major consumer products company. Been trying to get employees to understand the inflation that was coming, pricing action we needed, cost contracts and the negative impact on production utilization. Your 100 to 75 widget should be easy for most to understand
Unfortunately, it is too late for the storm that is coming to my company (and many others i have talked to). They still think things are not too bad because 2022 results have been based on input costs that were locked in early Q1.
I think they might understand when our suppliers increase raw materials by 15-25%, that 6% finished goods price increase are not gonna cover all the variable and fix cost pressure of the JoeBama regime
Treepers, get ready for even higher price tags on everything in 2023 as all the major producers won’t be able to keep squeezing suppliers
Looks like you see leading indicators which are more than 2 quarters.
It is fun watching inflation when they slow down shipments knowing they can get a higher price later.
henry Chance: The problem is not a matter of suppliers holding back product to take price increases. The problem is lack of product availability, due to messed up supply chains.
In some industries, there is product stranded at higher than current costing because of the shipping costs inflated last year.
People who costed product at $500/widget and added $500 shipping/widget last year need to mark it to to $2000 to make a profit.
But they are competing against new goods coming in this year at $550/widget + $150 shipping/widget who only need to mark to $1400/widget.
There are going to be alot of writedowns and bankruptsies from that.
bkrg2: The input costs at our business (private health practice) have been rising steadily for more than a year and our major corporate suppliers have been ahead of the pack to raise prices, increase delivery costs and boost fuel surchages (in the case of supplier who deliver heavy products by deisel-fueled trucks (for example, our supplier of medical gases, which are supplied in steel cylinders).
Yep CPI is down stream of PPI. Logic 101.