“As with other inventions that spread from military to civilian life—for instance penicillin, microwaves, nylon—the next logical step would be to produce sleepless workers and sleepless consumers.”
“And yet, I almost feel like I’m being an iconoclast by choosing to take a sip from a glass half full.”
“Work is gradually emerging as the biggest hoax in the history of humankind.”
“We estimate that the net reduction of spending in Texas sliced 0.1-0.2pp from the monthly growth rate of total retail sales ex-autos in August.”
“Higher real rates, inflation and wage growth to pick up, and inequality going down. This is the opposite conclusion that almost all economists are subscribing to.”
So I guess the silver lining here is that if we just keep denying climate change and the disasters continue to get worse, we can “look forward” to more frequent and increasingly “bigly” GDP-boosting cleanup efforts.
“Within this universe, economic policies are designed primarily for political marketability; economic science exists largely to provide impressive diagrams and equations to sell them with. Phrases designed in think tanks and focus groups (e.g. free market, wealth creators, personal responsibility, shared sacrifice) are repeated like incantations until it all seems like such unthinking common sense that no one even asks what the resulting picture has to do with social reality.”
Perhaps the most amusing thing about it all is that it’s become so ubiquitous and reliable that it can now be summarized succinctly in the form of a bullet point (and apparently “bulletproof”) investment thesis…
Listen, there’s considerable debate out there about what the impact from two catastrophic hurricanes is likely to be on the U.S. economy. This comes at a decidedly bad time. I mean, there’s never a “good” time for horrific natural disasters, but the incoming data hasn’t been what one might call “robust” and the fiscal outlook…
“The truth is that letting the Dreamers work legally helps the U.S. economy; pushing them out or into the shadows is bad for everyone except racists. To understand why, you need to realize that America, like other advanced economies, is facing a double-barreled demographic challenge thanks to declining fertility.”
If you’re not in Texas or if you’re just a cold-hearted, trader cynic who only worries about your P&L, then that’s probably all you care about here, because the sooner the debt ceiling gets raised, the sooner you can cross “technical U.S. default” off your “tail risk” list.
Of course as is usually the case with catastrophic natural disasters, it’s not all good news.
If you were following along last week, you know that more than a few commentators believe rates and the dollar have simply priced in too much pessimism around the U.S. economy and the fiscal outlook. No, the incoming data hasn’t exactly been what one might call “gangbusters” and the prospects for tax reform and fiscal…
You want a reason to be dovish, you’ve got one now.
Reminder: We’ve been long RVs since day one…
“That’s it. Nothing more.”
