For whatever it’s worth to you, participants in the latest installment of the New York Fed’s monthly consumer survey harbored a more benign view on near-term inflation in June versus the prior two months.
This isn’t top-tier data. In fact, it’s not even second-tier data. But it gets a mention because… well, because there’s a segue into the only thing anyone wants to talk about this week: Joe Biden’s age.
The NY Fed survey showed a moderation in year-ahead price growth expectations to 2.8%, the lowest since March. In April, on the heels of successive CPI overshoots, expectations at the one-year point rose to 3.3%, nowhere near the peak, obviously, but an unwelcome spike all the same.
Medium-term expectations ticked higher this month, to 2.9%, the same survey showed.
As the figure shows, it’s all converged on 3% at this juncture — the NY Fed poll, the year-ahead Michigan series and headline CPI itself.
I guess you could call that “stability,” but it’s 100bps above the Fed’s target. Critics (and the conspiracy crowd) might suggest that’s “according to plan” — that the Fed intends to countenance an inflation overshoot in order to keep the economy running hot and inflate away some of America’s “unsustainable” debt burden.
If that’s the plan, and it’s politically motivated, it’s a bad idea. Because inflation — and Father Time — is killing Joe Biden.
You’ve all seen the scatterplot above, from BofA. More times than you probably care to, even. But it really does drive home the point: The difference maker in Biden’s approval rating from 2021 to 2022 / 2023 / 2024, is inflation.
About that (and about a lot of things suddenly), Biden’s in denial. Inflation’s not his “fault,” but either the “buck stops here” or it doesn’t.
It’s unrealistic — in the extreme — to expect everyday people to blame Vladimir Putin or a pandemic that ended years ago for high prices, even if Putin and the pandemic are indeed the proximate cause(s).
Is that fair to Joe Biden? Well, no. But if anybody knows how unfair life can be, it’s him. He’s no stranger to injustice and tragedy.
Biden likes to begin sentences he can’t finish by saying “Fact is.” Well, Joe, “Fact is,” nobody thinks “Without Joe Biden, I might not have the job that I have.” Maybe people think that during their first week in a new position, but after that, it’s just a job. By contrast, people are reminded that prices are high every, single time they go grocery shopping. Maybe they don’t all blame Joe directly, but there’s no “kitchen table” issue more pressing than inflation. Indeed, it’s the kitchen table issue, figuratively and literally.
Inflation’s an enormous albatross for this reelection campaign. It’s ever present, for everyone. If you go out of the house, there it is: Inflation. It’s in your groceries, it’s in your haircut, it’s in your face. And it’s exhausting for voters living paycheck to paycheck which, let’s face it, is most voters in one way or another.
Everyday people aren’t feeling the deceleration in the rate of price increases. Everyday people are feeling this:
The buck stops right there. And so does this presidency. What’s the pitch, exactly? “If only you weren’t so stupid, you’d understand that this isn’t Joe Biden’s fault?” It’s true! But good luck selling it.
The idea that a president with a 36% approval rating who at one point presided over 9% inflation and who just stumbled through what was widely described as the single-worst debate performance in the history of televised presidential debates, is going to be reelected at 81 years old is delusional. Delusional. Or at least it seems that way to me.
But not to Joe Biden. “I am firmly committed to staying in this race,” he declared on Monday, in a letter to Democrats. “The question of how to move forward has been well-aired for over a week now. And it’s time for it to end.”
It’ll end, all right. In November. With a loss.
So what are the investment plays on Trump II?
I can think of a long list of industries and sectors to avoid. Any names that will be seen to benefit?
DJT, private prisons, arms manufacturers, oil, Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia.
My play book for a trump administration is to expect a post election spike up into Q1 2025, then short equities, long bonds.
I’m generally not all that bullish on 25-26. The sugar high will eventually turn into a headache. The economy and financial system is very fragile right now. The difference in my mind is a full out crash under trump vs middling GDP growth and a 20-30% correction followed by sideways action under Biden or Harris until we work our way through the economic soft patch.
Trump is a 1 trick pony (tax cuts) and that only works once usually for about 2-3 years. If it wasn’t for COVID liquidity and transfer payments we would have stayed in a recession in 20-21. Markets/economy were fragile in late 2019 as well. All that was needed was a catalyst to tip things into recession. The initial COVID impact was the catalyst then, but it was likely to be something else if COVID didn’t happen. A trump presidency could easily be the catalyst this time.
Heis, it is clear where you are on the subject of Biden, and you’ve even managed a great deal of humor in your several articles on the subject. I happen to disagree. Given we have almost four months until the election, I do think Biden could still win. I don’t think the United States wants a Trump presidency. They’d prefer a younger Biden, for sure, but, in the end, they’ll accept a worn-out Biden over the convicted felon, liar and insurrectionist. Just one person’s opinion.
I could be totally wrong, of course. Maybe he’ll be fine. But if the goal is to foster confidence among suspicious voters, I’m not sure “I’m only going to listen to God, and I don’t care what anybody else, including my own friends, has to say” is the best way to go about it. Is that going to be his attitude towards decision making in a second term? “God hasn’t told me no, so I’m going to do it”?
Two polls showing Biden has taken the lead in Wisconsin & Michigan and close on other swing states with the exception being Pennsylvania has to be his reasoning to continue on. I wonder if he has watch the debate? As of Friday’s interview he had not.
The narrative that could come out of all this is to make Biden a sympathetic character to low information voters (one of trump’s strongest appeals) and could either syphon off some of these votes or at least defuse the energy presently imbued to Trump rendering these low info voters (especially the anti-establishment cohort) as non-voters this election.
The reason the polls where so far off in 2016 is the prior non-voting low information voters were energized by trump for any number of manufactured reasons that made trump appear sympathetic in their eyes none of which were actually meritorious.
None of Biden’s decline is meritorious, but the energy and trajectory for his campaign wasn’t good. The recent events will be a game changer in one way or another. The result likely won’t generally makes sense to those of us who are high information voters. But outcomes (much like science) don’t care about our feelings.
The hermit needs to shrieve Biden of his one great sin…pride. Otherwise we will be left with the other guy who is comfortable committing the rest of the seven deadlies…
Ironic that rural US counties have added new jobs (including manufacturing) at fastest rate since 1990’s, according to a new study. (By the way, worst period since 90’s was under Trump). The article I read this in even points out that Biden will get no credit since inflation takes the stage.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/08/briefing/a-remarkable-comeback-for-left-behind-counties.html