Reacting to CNN coverage of inflation + the smart worker crisis
The media is covering inflation, here is a recent video by CNN on their website:
edition.cnn.com/vide...emic-king-ip-vpx.cnn
Workers: 2.1M left the workforce in April 2020, 3.95M in April 2021.
CNN calls it an anomaly and finds troll excuses like "covid concerns".
They didn't do their research.
I can affirm there are 2 major reasons:
- Boomers with no children.
- Stimulus checks.
Plus maybe migration being halted in 2020 is being felt now.
And also the borders are open, some migrants may not bother going through the legal path, easier to enter illegally, easier to get guns illegally, easier to pirate a video game than buy and play it legally, same old story.
And illegal/undocumented migrants, whatever they are called I can't keep up, well they often work without declaring it, especially with crippling taxes and minimum wages hikes...
Like all government created inflation countries, the black market will flourish...
People are not all idiots, they can be crafty and resourceful when they have to.
Even if everything collapses they'll be the survivors and they'll be the gene pools...
I don't know about the US but France had a brilliant policy of reducing the number of doctors. And so there are not enough of them. And so they import doctors from foreign countries with very low standards. And so the public hospitals are awful. More people die of mistakes than covid. Worldwide the OMS estimated recently that the number of deaths resulting from medical errors was 2.6 million.
And cherry on the cake, these brilliant minds have not foreseen AT ALL the very soon to come "boomer assault" on hospitals.
France president Macron with the covid crisis got mad "Oh ye it's easy to predict the future in hindsight".
Right now we are not in hindsight. I am predicting NOW, before it happens, there will be a major crisis with millions of boomers needing medical care. That can't be provided as we are not producing enough doctors and nurses.
They are really good at talking about sanitary passes, but none of these clowns are able to change their policies to answer the future boomer spike!
Remember how maths at school was going from bad to worse (my sister that's going for med school even had NO MATH AT ALL in high school)? Remember how IQ were declining 7 points a generation? Talking about intelligence hurts people feeling, but saving the lives of people with feelings takes intelligence. Just the way it is. We need more doctors but we have less smart people. And high tech needs smart people too, and so on. So there's that too. Weak men create hard times...
How hard is it to "predict" there are many boomers and once they reach 70-85 years old they will need medical attention? Maybe I should be giving instructions to governments since they have not a clue.
Another prediction that is not self-evident (unlike the previous one!) but had let's say 95% chances to come true:
Their answer to the shortage of doctors, nurses, pills, and so on is going to be more social "help", "because no one should be denied treatment and have to die in 2023".
Anyone with a brain figured out government spending (no matter if the money is taxed or printed or borrowed) does not magically spawn doctors.
Plus China has its own boomers to deal with...
So yes. More and more inflation. A decline in life expectancy. More anger. And so on.
The world economy will just decline. There is nothing really good to invest in.
Some people think it is ridiculous to think that EVERYTHING can go down.
They think "if USD goes down stocks go up" and "if stocks go down then gold goes up".
Wrong. Of course everything can go down if the whole pie shrinks!
I'm no investing expert, I would go for a few US stocks, and then look at countries that have no reason to do badly. I'd diversify to protect against risk and against ignorance. If I break even I'll be happy. Got to put the money somewhere or it'll vanish. But there is nowhere to put it. Even gold will stay the same amount, but the stuff it can buy will be less.
One good (great even) thing is even if our portfolios decline, well don't forget we have dividends. Losing 2% a year and making 2% in dividend all good.
But it won't be 2% a year...
At least on a monthly chart there is time to think!
Yes I know for most people it makes it worse lol.
They manage to hold losing trends for 3 years then go
"it didn't seem that bad but my losses kept growing".
The thing is, to speak clearly, we will produce less but:
- When old people die we will consume less
- And there will be more houses
Wages will go up, houses will be cheap. There will be an economic boom. In more than 30 years...
Actually with the administration's incompetence it might take less than 30 years.
Why does the US stock market have to crash everything else?
In reality I see no "easy money". Goodbye pa-ssive(-rasite) investing.
The only possible solution is active investing. At least volatility should go up.
It's obvious, there is no free ride if there is no growth.
And the labor force one way or another just has to share with all the boomers.
Production down, consumption stays the same (way up for medical services).
Until they die... Or build a time machine and not kill their babies.
The labor force peak was in 2019. It's all downhill from here. Go long term short some crappy leveraged long stock ETF maybe?
But don't worry, there is always a solution given enough motivation and enough thinking.
Japan did not have much inflation, currencies that are not being inflated by their government will probably stagnate.
Foreign-currencies are treated as property, and gain or loss is only recognized when the transaction is closed ;)
edition.cnn.com/vide...emic-king-ip-vpx.cnn
Workers: 2.1M left the workforce in April 2020, 3.95M in April 2021.
CNN calls it an anomaly and finds troll excuses like "covid concerns".
They didn't do their research.
I can affirm there are 2 major reasons:
- Boomers with no children.
- Stimulus checks.
Plus maybe migration being halted in 2020 is being felt now.
And also the borders are open, some migrants may not bother going through the legal path, easier to enter illegally, easier to get guns illegally, easier to pirate a video game than buy and play it legally, same old story.
And illegal/undocumented migrants, whatever they are called I can't keep up, well they often work without declaring it, especially with crippling taxes and minimum wages hikes...
Like all government created inflation countries, the black market will flourish...
People are not all idiots, they can be crafty and resourceful when they have to.
Even if everything collapses they'll be the survivors and they'll be the gene pools...
I don't know about the US but France had a brilliant policy of reducing the number of doctors. And so there are not enough of them. And so they import doctors from foreign countries with very low standards. And so the public hospitals are awful. More people die of mistakes than covid. Worldwide the OMS estimated recently that the number of deaths resulting from medical errors was 2.6 million.
And cherry on the cake, these brilliant minds have not foreseen AT ALL the very soon to come "boomer assault" on hospitals.
France president Macron with the covid crisis got mad "Oh ye it's easy to predict the future in hindsight".
Right now we are not in hindsight. I am predicting NOW, before it happens, there will be a major crisis with millions of boomers needing medical care. That can't be provided as we are not producing enough doctors and nurses.
They are really good at talking about sanitary passes, but none of these clowns are able to change their policies to answer the future boomer spike!
Remember how maths at school was going from bad to worse (my sister that's going for med school even had NO MATH AT ALL in high school)? Remember how IQ were declining 7 points a generation? Talking about intelligence hurts people feeling, but saving the lives of people with feelings takes intelligence. Just the way it is. We need more doctors but we have less smart people. And high tech needs smart people too, and so on. So there's that too. Weak men create hard times...
How hard is it to "predict" there are many boomers and once they reach 70-85 years old they will need medical attention? Maybe I should be giving instructions to governments since they have not a clue.
Another prediction that is not self-evident (unlike the previous one!) but had let's say 95% chances to come true:
Their answer to the shortage of doctors, nurses, pills, and so on is going to be more social "help", "because no one should be denied treatment and have to die in 2023".
Anyone with a brain figured out government spending (no matter if the money is taxed or printed or borrowed) does not magically spawn doctors.
Plus China has its own boomers to deal with...
So yes. More and more inflation. A decline in life expectancy. More anger. And so on.
The world economy will just decline. There is nothing really good to invest in.
Some people think it is ridiculous to think that EVERYTHING can go down.
They think "if USD goes down stocks go up" and "if stocks go down then gold goes up".
Wrong. Of course everything can go down if the whole pie shrinks!
I'm no investing expert, I would go for a few US stocks, and then look at countries that have no reason to do badly. I'd diversify to protect against risk and against ignorance. If I break even I'll be happy. Got to put the money somewhere or it'll vanish. But there is nowhere to put it. Even gold will stay the same amount, but the stuff it can buy will be less.
One good (great even) thing is even if our portfolios decline, well don't forget we have dividends. Losing 2% a year and making 2% in dividend all good.
But it won't be 2% a year...
At least on a monthly chart there is time to think!
Yes I know for most people it makes it worse lol.
They manage to hold losing trends for 3 years then go
"it didn't seem that bad but my losses kept growing".
The thing is, to speak clearly, we will produce less but:
- When old people die we will consume less
- And there will be more houses
Wages will go up, houses will be cheap. There will be an economic boom. In more than 30 years...
Actually with the administration's incompetence it might take less than 30 years.
Why does the US stock market have to crash everything else?
In reality I see no "easy money". Goodbye pa-ssive(-rasite) investing.
The only possible solution is active investing. At least volatility should go up.
It's obvious, there is no free ride if there is no growth.
And the labor force one way or another just has to share with all the boomers.
Production down, consumption stays the same (way up for medical services).
Until they die... Or build a time machine and not kill their babies.
The labor force peak was in 2019. It's all downhill from here. Go long term short some crappy leveraged long stock ETF maybe?
But don't worry, there is always a solution given enough motivation and enough thinking.
Japan did not have much inflation, currencies that are not being inflated by their government will probably stagnate.
Foreign-currencies are treated as property, and gain or loss is only recognized when the transaction is closed ;)
The Nikkei might be a good thing to compare the US stock market too (and more generally Japan to the USA) or maybe even Europe countries. Planning to write about it I'm looking into it.
After 2008 the US GDP only dropped 1.5% and it today 40% higher.
The UK, France, Italy, Greece (duh), they're all still below their 2008 GDP level.
Even Germany only did a triple top (within a 5% range).
The US look like some sort of pyramid scheme, and more than 100% of their GDP growth comes from debt and importing from China without paying (they pay in USD but not in "real stuff"). From memory I vaguely remember hearing years ago they create $1 of GDP with -$3 to -$4 of debt!
Also want to add a simple fact maybe overlooked, RE can only go down (in PPP), it's nasty but it's simple: the tens of millions of boomers that bought with 2 year salary when it was worth nothing are going to die. Demand will go down. Housing crisis solved. Unless Blackrock buys all houses and sells them at huge prices.
The Rothschild tried something similar in Germany I think, I heard it did not go so well.
One doesn't have to be a socialist to see that if there's plenty of empty houses, people (99.9%) should have houses! The 0.1% is because they'll always be mentally ill and drug addicted people.
Inflation might go up till the FED stops it, and pops the stock market like the BOJ did in 89. Japan did not have a "save da world" high spending government, so...
Houses will be afordable if businesses can run (and pay wages), otherwise it will be a desert like Venezuela and then houses are accessible to squatters it's survival mode at that point.
Just lots of ifs, lots of history repeating itself but with different details, all we can do is list the likely possibilities, then it depends on who gets elected in 2022 (if that's the right year for congress) and in 2024. Oh and also in Europe. And depends what the FED does. There is no such thing as an "all weather" mindless passive investment. There might have been in the XXth century when growth was just so ginormous any idiot would have been carried by the wave but sorry that's no longer the case (and some will learn the very hard way).