The Kapital News

Ep. 601 - Debt Distorts Reality

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With politicians and central bankers attempting to solve or alleviate the impact from the pandemic, they are in actuality making the problem worse. This is because one cannot expect to solve a global debt crisis by adding record amounts of debt onto the system. Furthermore, the massive printing press operation that is being conducted globally does not translate into productivity. Rather, it translates into inflation, which is an increase in the money supply. Sure, printing presses can print currency, but they cannot print productivity, jobs, or innovation. Yet, what will result from all of this, and it is already being felt across the world, are higher prices. Whether it is in energy, commodities, food, housing, transportation, medical expenses, or more, prices are moving up and will likely stay there for some time. The Kapital News believes that we will be entering a period of structural inflation – meaning that the effects of inflation, higher prices, will be sustained due to central bank and federal government policies, supply-chain disruptions, and geopolitical events.

In fact, much of this is already well underway and many smaller nations are suffering from high rates of inflation. This will lead, if it has not already, to political fallout, protests, riots, conflicts, and revolutions. These events will likely first take root in weaker economies, but will make their way to more developed and diversified economies as well. Inflationary policies can greatly distort reality whereby people think that rising asset prices means that there is a strong underlying economy causing such price movements. However, nothing could be further from the truth. It is not a growing economy that is leading to such price increases, but rather a growing money supply. Another way of looking at it, is to say that it is a weakening currency or a devaluing of the US dollar that is causing prices to rise. Meaning it takes more dollars to purchase the same amount of goods because those dollars have been devalued. This does not occur in a strong economy, but rather a weak one.

If one wants to look at some of the distortionary effects of these policies, then look no further than US retail sales. The trend line has been completely decimated. It can be understood when looking at this data series that there would be a downward deviation to retail sales during the GFC and during the pandemic. However, there is a notable difference when comparing these two time periods. In the former, during the GFC, retail sales peaked in late 2007 and did not recover to that peek until early 2011. This makes intuitive sense that it would take awhile to regain the previous trend. Yet, when we review the pandemic, we see a massive drop-off in retail sales, which makes sense given the lockdowns and restrictions. However, we see a huge V-shaped recovery back to where retail sales were prior to the pandemic in only a few short months, and beyond this, we now see retail sales well above the previous trend. In fact, even if we were to remove the GFC and pandemic deviations, we would likely still not be at the high levels we are currently witnessing. Peak sales prior to the pandemic were around $525 billion in early 2020. In March, the most recent data point, now stands at $620 billion. What this data series suggests is that a couple to a few years’ worth of spending has been pulled forward to today! This is all thanks to Uncle Sam spending money that we do not have and the Federal Reserve printing up the money out of thin air like some 3rd world banana republic. In essence, future growth and prosperity has been stolen from the future in order to make today look better than what it actually is. This is the moral of the story on how debt distorts reality. This is completely unsustainable and when the bottom falls out, it will cause tremendous amounts of damage across the spectrum and around the globe.

Initial jobless claims for the week ending 22 May came in at 406,000. This is the lowest figure since the pandemic began and is a continuation of trend with falling claims figures. The prior week saw no change, thus remaining at 466,000. The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program saw 93,000 filing, thus taking the total to just shy of 500,000. In aggregate, some 15.8 million Americans continue to claim some form of unemployment insurance. This gives us a de facto unemployment rate of 11.4 percent. The official unemployment rate stands at 6.1 percent. The May jobs report will be released on the first Friday in June. The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet came down by $19 billion and now stands at $7.903 trillion. The Fed remains committed to their QE policy whereby they are purchasing at least $120 billion per month in US Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities. Their balance sheet is likely to make new all-time highs on a near weekly basis. Stay diversified, stay vigilant, and stay with The Kapital News. #Economy #Inflation #Jobs #Gold #Silver #FoodPrices #Housing #Debt #Bailouts #Protests #Liberty #USA #Revolution #EndTheFed #bananarepublic #FireCongress #Spending #Commodities