Credit deflation and the reflation cycle to come (part 2)

[JMD]

4 hours ago, jamtomorrow said:

I'm curious @JMD, how are you finding the process of selling the loans? We pulled the experimental chunk we had in Zopa October time last year, but I was left with the impression their loan market was struggling for liquidity.

I still get their monthly emails because you have to hang onto the bad loans, and they say they've been bringing in "institutional" investors of late. I wonder what that really means.

I'm in several p2p's, but mostly in AssetzCapitol. Its slow going, but I could speed things up by taking an optional say 10% haircut (actually you decide the level of discount depending on how quickly you want to shift the loan) when selling, but i haven't done that yet. The institutional money moving into this space is an interesting phenomena, and i'm hoping it is 'smart-money' as opposed to 'dumb-money', and will help stabilise the loan paltform market in the very short-term.

     

[sancho panza]

3 hours ago, Bricks & Mortar said:

Russell Napier.  Seems to be a 'straight to inflation' sort of guy.

https://themarket.ch/interview/russell-napier-central-banks-have-become-irrelevant-ld.2323?mktcid=smsh&mktcval=Twitter

Sorry for the full repost but this is too good to remain behind a link..Napier has a fan base on here.Either that or @Harley has a jock accent and a beard.More support for DB's inflation via the govt thesis(at times you'd think Napier has been reading it)

Also @MrXxxx and @jamtomorrow that he sees the main driver of infaltion as a return of velocity which has been discussed on here since the first pages.

In bold is the questions,underlines are my highlights.

 

 

 

'Mr. Napier, for more than two decades, you have said that investors need to position themselves for disinflation and deflation. Now you warn that we are in a big shift towards inflation. Why, and why now?

It’s a shift in the way that money is created that has changed the game fundamentally. Most investors just look at the narrow money aggregates and central bank balance sheets. But if you look at broad money, you notice that it has been growing very slowly by historical standards for the past 30 or so years. There were many factors pushing down the rate of inflation over that time, China being the most important, but I do believe that the low level of broad money growth was one of the factors that led to low inflation.

And now this has changed?

Yes, fundamentally. We are currently in the worst recession since World War II, and yet we observe the fastest growth in broad money in at least three decades. In the US, M2, the broadest aggregate available, is growing at more than 23%. You’d have to go back to at least the Civil War to find levels like that. In the Eurozone, M3 is currently growing at 8,9%. It will only be a matter of months before the previous peak of 11.5% which was reached in 2007 will be reached. So I’m not making a forecast, I just observe the data.

Why is this relevant?

This is the big question: Does the growth of broad money matter? Investors don’t think so, as breakeven inflation rates on inflation-linked bonds are at rock bottom. So clearly the market does not believe that this broad money growth matters. The market probably thinks this is just a short-term aberration due to the Covid-19 shock. But I do believe it matters. The key point is the realization who is responsible for this money creation.

In what way?

This broad money growth is created by governments intervening in the commercial banking system. Governments tell commercial banks to grant loans to companies, and they guarantee these loans to the banks. This is money creation in a way that is completely circumventing central banks. So I make two key calls: One, with broad money growth that high, we will get inflation. And more importantly, the control of money supply has moved from central bankers to politicians. Politicians have different goals and incentives than central bankers. They need inflation to get rid of high debt levels. They now have the mechanism to create it, so they will create it.

In the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis, central banks started their quantitative easing policies. They tried to create inflation, but did not succeed.

QE was a fiasco. All that central banks have achieved over the past ten years is creating a lot of non-bank debt. Their actions kept interest rates low, which inflated asset prices and allowed companies to borrow cheaply through the issuance of bonds. So not only did central banks fail to create money, but they created a lot of debt outside the banking system. This led to the worst of two worlds: No growth in broad money, low nominal GDP growth and high growth in debt. Most money in the world is not created by central banks, but by commercial banks. In the past ten years, central banks never succeeded in triggering commercial banks to create credit and therefore to create money.

If central banks did not succeed in pushing up nominal GDP growth, why will governments succeed?

Governments create broad money through the banking system. By exercising control over the commercial banking system, they can get money into the parts of the economy where central banks can’t get into. Banks are now under the control of the government. Politicians give credit guarantees, so of course the banks will freely give credit. They are now handing out the loans they did not give in the past ten years. This is the start.

What makes you think that this is not just a one-off extraordinary measure to fight the economic effects of the pandemic?

Politicians will realize that they have a very powerful tool in their hands. We saw a very nice example two weeks ago: The Spanish government increased their €100bn bank guarantee program to €150bn. Just like that. So there will be mission creep. There will be another one and another one, for example to finance all sorts of green projects. Also, these loans have a very long duration. The credit pulse is in the system, a pulse of money that doesn’t come back for years. And then there will be a new one, and another one. Companies won’t have any incentive to pay back these cheap loans prematurely.

So basically what you’re saying is that central banks in the past ten years never succeeded in getting commercial banks to lend. This is why governments are taking over, and they won’t let go of that tool anymore?

Exactly. Don’t forget: These are politicians. We know what mess most of the global economy is in today. Debt to GDP levels in most of the industrialized world are way too high, even before the effects of Covid-19. We know debt will have to go down. For a politician, inflation is the cheapest way out of this mess. They have found a way to gain control of the money supply and to create inflation. Remember, a credit guarantee is not fiscal spending, it’s not on the balance sheet of the state, as it’s only a contingent liability. So if you are an elected politician, you have found a cheap way of funding an economic recovery and then green projects. Politically, this is incredibly powerful.

A gift that will keep on giving?

Yes. Treason May made a famous speech a few years ago where she said there is no magic money tree. Well, they just found it. As an economic historian and investor, I absolutely know that this is a long-term disaster. But for a politician, this is the magic money tree.

But part of that magic money tree is that governments keep control over their commercial banking system, correct?

Yes. I wrote a big report in 2016 titled «Capital management in the age of financial repression». It said the final move into financial repression will be triggered by the next crisis. So Covid-19 is just the trigger to start an aggressive financial repression.

Are you expecting a repeat of the financial repression that dominated the decades after World War Two?

Yes. Look at the tools that were used in Europe back then. They were all in place for an emergency called World War II. And most countries just didn’t lift them until the 1980s. So it’s often an emergency that gives governments these extreme powers. Total debt to GDP levels were already way too high even before Covid-19. Our governments just know these debt levels have to come down.

And the best way to do that is through financial repression, i.e. achieving a higher nominal GDP growth than the growth in debt?

That’s what we have learned in the decades after World War II: Achieve higher nominal GDP growth through higher rates of inflation. The problem is just that most active investors today have had their formative years after 1980, so they don’t know how financial repression works.

Which countries will choose that path in the coming years?

Basically the entire developed world. The US, the UK, the Eurozone, Japan. I see very few exceptions. Switzerland probably won’t have to financially repress, but only because its banking system is not in the kind of mess it was in in 2008. Government debt to GDP in Switzerland is very low. Private sector debt is high, but that is mainly because of your unique treatment of taxation for debt on residential property. So Switzerland won’t have to repress, neither will Singapore. If Germany and Austria weren’t part of the Eurozone, they wouldn’t have to repress either. Of course there is one catch: If the Swiss are not going to financially repress, you will have the same problem you had for a long time, namely far too much money trying to get into the Swiss Franc.

So we will see more upward pressure on the Franc?

Yes. But financial repression has to include capital controls at some stage. Switzerland will have to do more to avoid getting all these capital inflows. At the same time, other countries would have to introduce capital controls to stop money from getting out.

The cornerstones of the last period of financial repression after World War II were capital controls and the forcing of domestic savings institutions to buy domestic government bonds. Do you expect both of these measures to be introduced again?

Yes. Domestic savings institutions like pension funds can easily be forced to buy domestic government bonds at low interest rates.

Are capital controls really feasible in today’s open financial world?

Sure. There are two countries in the Eurozone that have had capital controls in recent history: Greece and Cyprus. They were both rather successful. Iceland had capital controls after the financial crisis, many emerging economies use them. If you can do it in Greece and Cyprus, which are members of the European Monetary Union, you can do it anywhere. Whenever a financial institution transfers money from one currency to another, it is heavily regulated.

What’s the timeline for your call on rising inflation?

I see 4% inflation in the US and most of the developed world by 2021. This is primarily based on my expectation of a normalization of the velocity of money. Velocity in the US is probably at around 0.8 right now. The lowest recorded number before that was 1.4 in December 2019, which was at the end of a multi-year downward trend. Quantitative easing was an important factor in that shrinking velocity, because central banks handed money to savings institutions in return for their Treasury securities. And all the savings institutions could do was buy financial assets. They could’t buy goods and services, so that money couldn’t really affect nominal GDP.

What will cause velocity to rise?

The money banks are handing out today is going straight to businesses and consumers. They are not spending it right now, but as lockdowns lift, this will have an impact. My guess is that velocity will normalize back to around 1.4 some time next year. Given the money supply we have already seen, that would give you an inflation rate of 4%. Plus, there is no reason velocity should stop at 1.4, it could easily rise above 1.7 again. There is one additional issue, and that is China: For the last three decades, China was a major source of deflation. But I think we are at the beginning of a new Cold War with China, which will mean higher prices for many things.

Most economists say there is such a huge output gap, inflation won’t be an issue for the next three years or so.

I don’t get that at all. You can point to the 1970s, where we had high unemployment and high inflation. It’s a matter of historical record that you can create inflation with high unemployment. We have done it before.

The yield on ten year US Treasury Notes is currently at around 60 basis points. What will happen to bond yields once markets realize that we are heading into an inflationary world?

Bond yields will go up sharply. They will rise because markets start to realize who is controlling the supply of money now, i.e. not central banks, but politicians. That will be the big shock.

For a successful financial repression, governments and central banks will need to stop bond yields from rising, won’t they?

Yes, and they will. But let me be precise: It will be governments who will act to stop bond yields from going up. They will force their domestic savings institutions to buy government bonds to keep yields down. The bit of your statement I disagree with is that central banks will put a cap on bond yields. They won’t be able to.

Why not? Even the Fed is toying with the idea of Yield Curve Control, an instrument they successfully used between 1942 and 1951, when they capped yields at 2.5%.

I think this is a bad parallel, because from 1942 to 1951, we also had rationing, price controls and credit controls. With that in place, it was easy for the Fed to cap Treasury yields. Yield Curve Control is easy when everyone is expecting deflation, which the current policy of the Bank of Japan shows. But once market participants start to expect inflation, they will all want to sell their bonds. The balance sheet of the central banks will just balloon to the sky. They would be spreading fuel on the fire, given that their balance sheets would expand with rising inflation expectations. Yield Curve Control in an environment of rising inflation expectations is not going to happen.

You are saying that governments now control the supply of money, and it will be governments who will make sure policies of financial repression are successfully implemented. What will be the future role of central banks?

They will be sidelined. They will become more a regulatory than a monetary organization. The next few years will be fascinating. Imagine, you and I are running a central bank and we have a 2% inflation target. And we see our own government print money with a growth rate of 12%. What are we going to do to fulfill our mandate of price stability? We would have to threaten higher interest rates. We would have to ride a full-blown attack on our democratically elected government. Would we do that?

Paul Volcker did in the early 80s.

Yes. But Paul Volcker had courage. I don’t think any of today’s central bankers will have the guts to do that. After all, governments will argue that there is still an emergency given the shocks of Covid-19. There is a good parallel to the 1960s, when the Fed did nothing about rising inflation, because the US was fighting a war in Vietnam, and the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson had launched the Great Society Project to get America more equal. Against that background of massive fiscal spending, the Fed didn’t have the guts to run a tighter monetary policy. I can see that’s exactly where we are today.

So central banks will be mostly irrelevant?

Yes. It’s ironic: Most investors believe in the seemingly unlimited power of today’s central banks. But in fact, they are the least powerful they have ever been since 1977.

As an investor, how do I protect myself?

European inflation-linked bonds are pretty attractive now, because they are pricing in such low levels of inflation. Gold is obviously a go-to asset for the long term. In the next couple of years, equities will probably do well. A bit more inflation and more nominal growth is a good environment for equities. I particularly like Japanese equities. Obviously you wouldn’t buy government bonds under any condition.

How about commodities?

In a normal inflationary cycle, I’d recommend to buy commodities. There is just one complicating factor with China. If we really enter into a new Cold War with China, that will mean big disturbances in commodities markets.

You wrote in the past that there is a sweet spot for equities up to an inflation rate of 4%, before they tip over. Is this still valid?

Yes, this playbook is still in place. But once governments truly force their savings institutions to buy more government bonds, they will obviously have to sell something. And that something will be equities. Historically, inflation above 4% hasn’t been too good for equities.

How high do you see inflation going?

If we’re taking the next 10 years, I see inflation between 4 and 8%, somewhere around that. Compounded over ten years, combined with low interest rates, this will be hugely effective in bringing down debt to GDP levels.

In which country do you see it happening first? Who will lead?

The one I worry about the most is the UK. It has a significant current account deficit, it has to sell lots of government bonds to foreigners. I never really understood why foreigners buy them. I wouldn’t. Now we have Brexit coming up, which could still go badly. I don’t think it will, but it could. So we would see a spike in bond yields in the UK.

What will it take for an investor to successfully navigate the coming years?

First, we have to realize that this is a long term phenomenon. Everyone is so caught up in the current crisis, they miss the long term shift. This will be with us for decades, not just a couple of years. The financial system is a very different place now. And it’s a very dangerous place for savers. Most of the skills we have learned in the past 40 years are probably redundant, because we have lived through a 40 year disinflationary period. It was a period where markets became more important and governments less important. Now we are reversing that. That’s why I recommend to my clients that they promote the people from their emerging markets departments to run their developed world departments. Emerging markets investors know how to deal with higher levels of inflation, government interference and capital controls. This will be our future.

Russell Napier

 

[sancho panza]

1 hour ago, AWW said:

I just don't see a second wave happening.

1. We've had the BLM protests and the pubs have been open for getting on for two weeks. The first thing you'd expect to see to indicate a second wave is an increase in calls to NHS 111.  However, enquiries to NHS 111 haven't budged: https://digital.nhs.uk/dashboards/nhs-pathways
   
2. The original SARS pandemic was largely over within three months. Covid-19 is 70% the same virus:
    

   This isn't the Spanish Flu. It's not influenza. There won't be a second wave.

Good psot AWW

I'm not even sure there's been a pandemic.If we go a year out and look back at average excessdeath rates going back 20 years and adjsut for population,I think we might be surprised by lack of a big hike in 2020 compared to tohters.

Reasons for this are numerous,not least that many deaths have been certified as covid when they weren't.

Also that previous flu years have seen a lot more deaths-there are some that argue the main differnce between covid and a bad flu year is that the covid peak was march/April rather than the normal Dec/Jan.

Also that a large part of the increase in deaths currently(and likely going forward) is down to the rahter questionable policy of emptying hospitals of sick people who promptly were sent home and died.

I won't even start on the stopping of cancer treatments and testing.

Gotta go and start cooking kids dinner.Interesting turn of converstaion.

 

 

@kibuc, sold top ladder in NCM today and used the proceeds for some Fiore.Jsut a FOMO trade,I won't add any more unless they pull back big time.You did well there to be fair.

 

[Chewing Grass]

10th of August 6 a.m.

Its a Saturday to give people two days to straighten their knickers.

[Hardhat]

Interesting article there @sancho panza

Question: if I wanted to buy 2030 index linked bonds, what should I search for in AJ Bell?

[reformed nice guy]

1 hour ago, Chewing Grass said:

10th of August 6 a.m.

Its a Saturday to give people two days to straighten their knickers.

uh?

[Chewing Grass]

4 minutes ago, reformed nice guy said:

uh?

Was waiting for that, -20%.

[AQUAMAN]

netflix just tanked 10% apparently

[Errol]

6 hours ago, AWW said:

I just don't see a second wave happening.

We haven't dealt with the first wave yet. US cases totally out of control. India - totally out of control. Russia - barely controlled. Spain - reports steepest rise in cases in months (https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/jul/16/coronavirus-live-news-fauci-says-us-must-stop-nonsense-south-africa-cases-top-300000) etc etc.

UK will see a gradual and then large increase in cases as lock down eases. Health Secretary already admitted to dealing with 'hundreds' of outbreaks that they forgot to tell the media about.

2nd Wave will come in late October/November.

Covid also has horrendous long term impacts even for those who have had mild cases in may instances. You simply don't want to catch this.

[AWW]

7 minutes ago, Errol said:

UK will see a gradual and then large increase in cases as lock down eases.

But we've already eased lockdown and haven't seen any increase whatsoever, using the proxy of NHS 111 calls. Obviously, there is the possibility that deaths will start to tick up over the next fortnight or so. Do you think 111 calls are now a poor indicator, that people just won't bother calling and just assume they have Covid-19?

I'm not a virologist, so please point out any false assumptions I've made. It would also be good for people to share their own indicators. I'm only really interested in the UK picture.

[logana]

Every virus mutates, it is part of a virus life cycle. This means corona will become less deadly. So there will be a second wave but not as many serious cases or deaths.

That is what a doctor friend told me; his hospital have already prepared for the second wave, they are just waiting for the damn PPE

[Majorpain]

21 minutes ago, AWW said:

I'm not a virologist, so please point out any false assumptions I've made. It would also be good for people to share their own indicators. I'm only really interested in the UK picture.

Any person who tests positive for covid and dies is treated as a covid death in the statistics.  This will include things like Cancer and Car crashes, if its on the death certificate its good as far as ONS are concerned!

Lies, damn lies and statistics.

[Loki]

I am amused by people that go along with and help spread the incessant fear-mongering, and then wonder why the economy isn't starting back up again

 

[sancho panza]

14 minutes ago, Errol said:

We haven't dealt with the first wave yet. US cases totally out of control. India - totally out of control. Russia - barely controlled. Spain - reports steepest rise in cases in months (https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/jul/16/coronavirus-live-news-fauci-says-us-must-stop-nonsense-south-africa-cases-top-300000) etc etc.

UK will see a gradual and then large increase in cases as lock down eases. Health Secretary already admitted to dealing with 'hundreds' of outbreaks that they forgot to tell the media about.

2nd Wave will come in late October/November.

Covid also has horrendous long term impacts even for those who have had mild cases in may instances. You simply don't want to catch this.

Cases may be rising but death rates are levelling off.These viruses generally-as I understand it- mutate into weaker forms as they progress throuhg a population in terms of the old 'don't kill the host' theme.

How else do you expect a rises in positive test results and no corresponding rise in mortality in places like Leicester.

Reality is that something like 80% of infections are asymptomatic,data yet to be confirmed and won't be for some time.The coming OCt/Nov will be the coming flu season which will peak in Dec/Jan like it usually does.

The first is a piece from May 22 on the UK IFR,the piece following was posted on the Sceptics thread in early March and I think that Prof Ioannidis was far more accurate in his prediction than Prof Magoo at Imperial College.

https://www.healthwatch-uk.org/publications/covid-19/202-covid-19-13.html

What is the risk of dying from becoming infected (IFR)?

Considering how difficult it is even to establish the death rate per diagnosed case (CFR) in a consistent way, and knowing that many of those infected do not even show symptoms, you can see that estimating the risk of death from just becoming infected with the virus (IFR) is way more of a challenge. Antibody testing will help us understand how many people have been infected so far, and enable us to estimate the IFR more accurately. But until then, taking account of factors such as historical experience, trends in the data, and potential impact of misclassification of deaths, the COVID-19 IFR is currently estimated at somewhere between 0.1% and 0.41%.

Mandy Payne, 22^nd May 2020

 

 

'John Ioannidis Professor of Medicine,Epidemiology & Population Health at Stanford University,queries the lack of decent data.

17 March 2020

A fiasco in the making? As the coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data

https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/

The data collected so far on how many people are infected and how the epidemic is evolving are utterly unreliable. Given the limited testing to date, some deaths and probably the vast majority of infections due to SARS-CoV-2 are being missed.

The one situation where an entire, closed population was tested was the Diamond Princess cruise ship and its quarantine passengers. The case fatality rate there was 1.0%, but this was a largely elderly population, in which the death rate from Covid-19 is much higher.

Projecting the Diamond Princess mortality rate onto the age structure of the U.S. population, the death rate among people infected with Covid-19 would be 0.125%.

Projecting the Diamond Princess mortality rate onto the age structure of the U.S. population, the death rate among people infected with Covid-19 would be 0.125%. But since this estimate is based on extremely thin data — there were just seven deaths among the 700 infected passengers and crew — the real death rate could stretch from five times lower (0.025%) to five times higher (0.625%).

[sancho panza]

1 hour ago, AWW said:

But we've already eased lockdown and haven't seen any increase whatsoever, using the proxy of NHS 111 calls. Obviously, there is the possibility that deaths will start to tick up over the next fortnight or so. Do you think 111 calls are now a poor indicator, that people just won't bother calling and just assume they have Covid-19?

I'm not a virologist, so please point out any false assumptions I've made. It would also be good for people to share their own indicators. I'm only really interested in the UK picture.

I think the key indicator I've seen is that the people who understand the disease the most seem to be the least in fear of it.The other two main families I've seenand talked to whilst using the local park over the last three months are two Doctors,wives+kids.I'd seen them around but never talked and we only found out what we all did as we chatted.I don't have their education I jsut prioritize my kids mental health.

The otehr key indicator(and the only one that really matters) is the death rate.There have been statistical outliers but generally the young have been spared which to my unqualified opinion,is the defining element for a real pandemic ie all ages die.Death rate has been falling since early April.

Without boring on too much,I had a septic patient the other night,couldn't guess the source but alerted him in to the local resus unit.They bounced me to the local covid unit-even though the patient wasn't short of breath(which you'd expect with a septic covid pt). We were their only customer.Offered us coffee and all.

In the middle of covid there were some really sick people going into hospital-I heard off but didn't see pts with oxygen saturatiosn of 40% on air(under 88% is bad).Whilst I'm a sceptic in terms of the govt response,the final stages of life with covid are grim from what I've heard.Having said that,the hospitals have never been as quiet as over the last twelve weeks and staff have generally never had as much downtime across the NHS from what I've seen.

 

 

[sancho panza]

It's been an inflaitonistas day.Here's the revered Lyn Alden on Macro Voices

 

https://www.macrovoices.com/871-macrovoices-228-lyn-alden-the-road-to-inflation

MacroVoices #228 Lyn Alden: The Road to Inflation

[Errol]

54 minutes ago, logana said:

Every virus mutates, it is part of a virus life cycle. This means corona will become less deadly. So there will be a second wave but not as many serious cases or deaths.

That is what a doctor friend told me; his hospital have already prepared for the second wave, they are just waiting for the damn PPE

It's not the death that is the issue. It could become less deadly and still cause breathlessness, fatigue, brain damage and a range of other major issues. And these may well last for life - we simply don't know yet.

Less deadly and more infectious, yet still causing horrendous complications would be a very bad outcome indeed - leaving vast swathes of the population with life-long disabilities and illnesses.

[Loki]

There's a whole sub-forum for this

[Viceroy]

8 hours ago, AWW said:

I just don't see a second wave happening.

1. We've had the BLM protests and the pubs have been open for getting on for two weeks. The first thing you'd expect to see to indicate a second wave is an increase in calls to NHS 111.  However, enquiries to NHS 111 haven't budged: https://digital.nhs.uk/dashboards/nhs-pathways
   
2. The original SARS pandemic was largely over within three months. Covid-19 is 70% the same virus:
   
3. New research shows that T-cells, rather than antibodies, provide long-term protection from a number of coronaviruses, Covid-19 included. Early indications are that around half the population are already carrying immunity thanks to T-cells. From https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2550-z 

   This isn't the Spanish Flu. It's not influenza. There won't be a second wave.

I also don't see a 2nd wave coming.  But don't forget, it's election year in the US and I really believe this virus is being used as a tool to bring down the economy & create chaos in order to topple those currently in charge. As conspiracy theories abound, Gates+billionaires want to bring about the Great Reset, and the Far Left are doing anything to help.

 

[Bricks & Mortar]

17 minutes ago, Loki said:

There's a whole sub-forum for this

I've just been over there, looking for the Credit Deflation thread.

[Harley]

3 hours ago, Bricks & Mortar said:

I've just been over there, looking for the Credit Deflation thread.

The cheeky buggers upstairs even had the temerity to create a CGT thread when that is absolutely basement dwelling stuff.  We were put in the Basement for a reason.  The world has gone mad.

[Harley]

As with things finance these days, it seems more important whether people on mass think there will be a second wave and onwards rather than whether there is one or not!  Buy the rumour and sell the fact, or vice versa?!

Also big picture, as the financial macro guys we are, is covid a catalyst for new material lasting change or just at best an accelerator of trends already in place?  The end game, budget deficits, the death of the consumer, the move to inflation, increasing regulation, etc, etc. What's new versus what's become more concentrated?

Often useful to look through things rather than at them!

[Harley]

4 hours ago, Loki said:

There's a whole sub-forum for this

And yet none of them have talked about pizza!

[Harley]

4 hours ago, Bricks & Mortar said:

I've just been over there, looking for the Credit Deflation thread.

My worry has always been that when things kick off financially, covid or not, they'll all charge down here into the Basement looking for answers, knocking over tables, calling people names, and generally being very boorish and disruptive!  Best we remove the light bulb and talk softly.

[Harley]

7 hours ago, AQUAMAN said:

netflix just tanked 10% apparently

Any reason?  Been listening to some folk saying they are waiting for a fall on a no news day or even a good news day to signal a turn.