Tuesday, January 12, 2021

Pork: No Pain All Gain

Biden is going to give them what they want.  More pork.  More money from heaven.  Infrastructure.  Probably even some student debt cancellation.  Looks like Kamala is the one in charge, Biden is just the puppet.  The moderate puppet, palatable for the masses, doing whatever Kamala wants.  Pork is now called stimulus.  In the old days, they would just call it deficit spending on whatever pet projects politicians wanted to fund.  The euphemism is stimulus. 


Why work in 2021 when you can just stay unemployed, collect unemployment checks,  and daytrade the latest hot stocks and bitcoin with the gov't handouts.  Where are they going to find the workers to do infrastructure? Mexico?  Guatemala?  El Salvador? Sure won't find them in the US.  I guess that's what the immigration bill will be for.  To find people who actually are looking to work.  

If the Fed doesn't increase QE, there will be a revolt in the bond market with how much issuance is coming down the pike.   I am sure the chirping dove Powell will find an excuse to ignore or deny the higher inflation and give the bond market what it wants.   At least until it's so obvious that economy is too hot and he'll announce a turtle taper, would probably take 20 years to get to zero purchases, and probably won't even get started before he caves to the market again in the coming taper tantrum.  
 
This taper tantrum will be so much worse than the one in 2013, when stocks were actually fairly valued on a historical basis.  I know the excuses about why this time is different, that bond yields were never this low when valuations were cheaper, and that the Fed has your back.  But that is a bogus excuse when Europe and Japan have even lower yields and their stock markets are still way below those in the US over the past year.  
 
In the end,  after Powell caves again, the Fed will be printing the money to pay for the stimulus.  US government doesn't need taxes when you have the Fed covering the tab.  No Pain All Gain.

No wonder bitcoin is going through the roof.  And stocks are surging higher.  And dollar is weak.  With this kind of profligate fiscal and monetary policy, the US is daring the market to selloff the dollar as much as it wants.  Of course, Yellen will repeat her strong dollar policy.  

The US has become an absolute joke.  And its not as if Republicans are any different than Democrats.  They spend almost as much and cut taxes as well.  And demand low rates from the Fed.  

The US fiscal and monetary policy has become a mix of Argentina and Zimbabwe.   Who knows where this will lead in the long run when the world's reserve currency turns to toilet paper.  It won't be pretty once the hangover kicks in.   Sure, everything will be higher in price, including stocks.   For the politicians, if the SPX keeps going up, its all ok. Zimbabwe's stock market is through the roof over the past 10 years as well.  

Bottom line, US is now an MMT country following in Zimbabwe's footsteps, with high inflation (will be denied by Fed) coming, and most of the population too dumb to realize it.  

A commodity bull market in the 2020s will make the 2000s bull market look like child's play.
 
Yesterday we got the big bitcoin correction , down over 20% to 32K, is that the buy of a lifetime?   LOL.  Still waiting to see more excitement and complacency showing up in put/call ratios and news flow.  Could come with Biden's big bazooka stimulus announcement on Thursday, or after the inauguration, when riot risk is over.   

On the individual stock front, the greed and froth is reaching astronomical levels.  The pumps are hardly dumping and retail investors are feeling invincible.  When it gets this hot, it doesn't last for long.

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