"Rising prices and collapsing confidence could portend that both inflation and slowing growth are looming, a sure recipe for stagflation."
Bloomberg, Markets Better Prepare For Stagflation
"Are you satisfied?"
James Butler Hickok, after the shootout with Davis Tutt
If the US does fall into stagflation then it is clearly a time for systemic change in our decision and policy making, and the mass turnover of the old leadership and their elites.
Stagflation is a policy error de luxe, when not precipitated by a major exogenous supply shock like the oil embargo of the 1970s. Up until that point most economists did not even believe that stagflation was possible.
It takes an extraordinary combination of almost purposefully bad decisions to create stagflation from within the policy choices of the economic system itself. Something like strangling economic demand by severely curbing income growth for the broad public while generously supplying easy money and selective asset inflation to the top one percent over a period of years might do it.
And it is a hell for the working public, that sees their income opportunities continue to stagnate while the prices of essentials continue to increase.
Alas, if there is stagflation I am sure the credibility trap will compel the propeller heads and their paymasters to find some scapegoat, or some elite friendly cause like a 'global trade war,' to carry the blame, rather than their own distorted, self-serving decision making.
I am posting the charts shortly after the close. I will most likely have to update them tomorrow.
Big cap tech is coming out after the bell, with Amazon, Microsoft, and Intel reporting their numbers. And the reaction so far in the stock futures has been 'enthusiastic' to say the least.
Gold and silver were off again today on further US Dollar strength. The lack of activity in the Comex gold warehouses, including Hong Kong, is remarkable.
Have a pleasant evening.
