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Posted
1 hour ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I can't imagine most people are buying cars unless they have no choice.

I think you underestimate how catastrophically stupid most people are when it comes to money, cars, and debt.

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Posted
15 hours ago, ChickenSandwich said:

image.thumb.jpeg.c5622e44bd5374ced7f24ebad0c3a289.jpeg

I guess some credit is deserved. This is the closest you've ever come to making a substantive response when shown IDENTICAL conduct by the party you unwaveringly support

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Posted

Listening to an economics webinar hosted by UCLA, a few key take-aways

  1. hiring is down
  2. capex is on hold because of uncertainty
  3. inventory levels down before Christmas season
  4. 77% of companies have passed on tariffs to consumers
  5. domestically produced items are raising prices even if they aren't directly affected by tariffs

 

The word UNCERTAINTY over tariffs, interest rates, policy comes up over and over again.

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Posted

Should have mentioned, the webinar is more focused on small and mid-sized businesses.

Summary from the panelists:

  1. Shocks from policies - tariffs, immigration
  2. Concern and apprehension because policies keep changing, however, policy "pauses" have allowed small businesses to navigate
  3. Fewer regulations is helping businesses
  4. Job growth is significantly lower
  5. Recession is imminent, or already underway
  6. Slight disagreement by panelists on tariffs...
    1. 60% of tariffs is passed to consumers
    2. 20% of tariffs is absorbed by companies
    3. 15% of tariffs is absorbed by foreign manufacturers
  7. Inflation according to government sources is 2.6%
  8. Inflation forecasted to be 3.3% by 2026 Q1.
  9. Construction has jobs that aren't being filled (really?)
  10. Small business owners are being affected most by tariffs because cash flow doesn't allow for stocking up of inventory
  11. Surprisingly small business are mostly optimistic - small business owners are generally optimistic (or else they wouldn't open their own business)
  12. Small businesses have seen worse during 2008 financial crisis and covid.
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Posted
4 minutes ago, Superhero said:

Recession is imminent, or already underway

Talking head on CNBC was saying this AM that the US has been in a "rolling recession" for the last few years and that we are headed out of the rolling recessions into another bull market.  Who knows.

A lot of the bullets you have listed sync with my personal experience.   Pretty much been total chaos this year...will the tariffs really start to bite?  who knows.

Posted

Most recent podcast from Mark Zandi at Moodys went through they numbers of how it’s the top 20% of earners doing all the spending. Bottom 80% are negative. His group thinks the overall economy will muddle through, meaning low to no growth for a while but not “official” recession. But they also think the bottom 80% of earners are living a very real recession all the way. K shaped economy they call it. 

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Posted
14 minutes ago, tbone_ said:

Most recent podcast from Mark Zandi at Moodys went through they numbers of how it’s the top 20% of earners doing all the spending. Bottom 80% are negative. His group thinks the overall economy will muddle through, meaning low to no growth for a while but not “official” recession. But they also think the bottom 80% of earners are living a very real recession all the way. K shaped economy they call it. 

K shaped seems 100% accurate. living in two worlds side by side in more than just political ways, also economic ways. politics aside, it's a powder keg imo.

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Posted
44 minutes ago, scramblyn said:

K shaped seems 100% accurate. living in two worlds side by side in more than just political ways, also economic ways. politics aside, it's a powder keg imo.

We have a greater degree of wealth inequality right now in the US than the French did when they broke out the guillotines, so yeah I'd agree it's a bit of a powder keg situation.

What's wild is that around 75% of corporate profits have been funneled into stock buybacks (source) which I believe is STRONGLY motivating the K-shaped recession. After the 2017 TCJA that only worsened. There's money for the poors, it just hasn't seemed to trickle down yet 🤔

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Posted
On 9/25/2025 at 3:41 PM, tbone_ said:

Most recent podcast from Mark Zandi at Moodys went through they numbers of how it’s the top 20% of earners doing all the spending. Bottom 80% are negative. His group thinks the overall economy will muddle through, meaning low to no growth for a while but not “official” recession. But they also think the bottom 80% of earners are living a very real recession all the way. K shaped economy they call it. 

I love his podcast but I disagree with him some on this. I am a in the top 20% and I feel it a little imo but more importantly I have just stopped spending. I go home now for lunch instead of going out to eat. Little shit like that adds up and I think many more are doing the same thing. 

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Posted
13 hours ago, Clintonaldo said:

I love his podcast but I disagree with him some on this. I am a in the top 20% and I feel it a little imo but more importantly I have just stopped spending. I go home now for lunch instead of going out to eat. Little shit like that adds up and I think many more are doing the same thing. 

I listen to Moody's and their guest, Heather Cox or something like that, was very much in the mindset of no recession but the middle class is totally turbofucked.  I think all of Zandi's panelists were unanimous that if the stock market sneezes shit will hit the fan bigly.

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Posted
1 minute ago, Hefeweizen said:

I listen to Moody's and their guest, Heather Cox or something like that, was very much in the mindset of no recession but the middle class is totally turbofucked.  I think all of Zandi's panelists were unanimous that if the stock market sneezes shit will hit the fan bigly.

Yep. I love the podcast and they are all very smart and it’s obvious they aren’t a fan of the administration but they do a good job of trying not to bring it up. 

Posted
Just now, Clintonaldo said:

Yep. I love the podcast and they are all very smart and it’s obvious they aren’t a fan of the administration but they do a good job of trying not to bring it up. 

They are by and large excellent economists and eggheads.  They stay away from politics, but the stupidity of some of the policies can't be argued intelligently.  So it's pretty clear where they stand.  The H1B visa discussion was excellent and thought provoking.  I thin @Bozo_Casanovaput me on to this podcast and it's a Friday appointment to me now.  So much better than most of the shlock out there.

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Posted (edited)
On 9/27/2025 at 7:59 AM, Clintonaldo said:

love his podcast but I disagree with him some on this. I am a in the top 20% and I feel it a little imo but more importantly I have just stopped spending.

It’s a function of where the data comes from and who is in the top 20%.

First, a lot of these data come from reports organized into quintiles. So it’s no surprise that the people who are spending are in the top 20%, even if some or a lot of the top 20% isn’t spending much, like you.

Second- the top 20% contains a large number of baby boomers, who carry a lower debt load and pay less for housing than younger earners in the top quintile. The people who are spending at your income level may be older, life in a cheaper location, have a laid off house, etc.

Third, it matters a lot where you are in the top 20%, because spending is increasingly concentrated through the top of the top quintile. The top 20% does about 63% of the spendinG, but the top 10% accounts for 49% of the spending.

Those are both historic highs. 

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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Posted (edited)
18 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

It’s a function of where the data comes from and who is in the top 20%.

First, a lot of these data come from reports organized into quintiles. So it’s no surprise that the people who are spending are in the top 20%, even if some or a lot of the top 20% isn’t spending much, like you.

Second- the top 20% contains a large number of baby boomers, who carry a lower debt load and pay less for housing than younger earners in the top quintile. The people who are spending at your income level may be older, life in a cheaper location, have a laid off house, etc.

Third, it matters a lot where you are in the top 20%, because spending is increasingly concentrated through the top of the top quintile. The top 20% does about 63% of the spendinG, but the top 10% accounts for 49% of the spending.

Those are both historic highs. 

The other side of that coin in the business world is that nearly all of the corporate CapEx spending that's been keeping the markets happy has been on GenAI data centers and buying Nvidia chips. There's not a path to profitability with the genAI business model, openAI is losing money per chatGPT session, and every business consuming their models is losing money on their products built on the LLM's.

It's gonna be one hell of a hangover when there's no real revenue to offset the capex depreciation in a year or two

Edited by Captainant
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Posted
1 hour ago, Captainant said:

There's not a path to profitability with the genAI business model

Gonna have to go ahead and sort of disagree with you there Bob. But I do think is that it’s deflationary in the aggregate. 
Either way, however, none of that is really relevant to the point. 
Way back on the ca. 2020 Covid threads I said somewhere that I anticipated a rather rapid U shaped recovery,  driven by the same thing driving spending now,  despite everything: income inequality.
 

The top 3-4% of income earners have achieved exit velocity relative to the gravity that economic uncertainty and rising costs impacts everyone else. And that’s true for businesses as well. 

Posted
6 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

So give me your recipe to solve K shaped economy?

 


 

 

 

Be the top part of the K. I’m not sure there is another solution. 

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Posted
9 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

So give me your recipe to solve K shaped economy?

 


 

 

 

 

2 minutes ago, tbone_ said:

Be the top part of the K. I’m not sure there is another solution. 


only solutions are political. I avoid such conversations in polite company. 

Posted

Easy way to solve the k shape - quit letting equities be treated like cash equivalents or even non-volatile assets. 

Banks and other portfolios that collateralize this stuff are what are making a lot of this possible. Margin trading, derivatives, net asset value loans, stock account loans. 

All that's horseshit. If you wanna invest the only cash you get out is selling or a dividend. You know, like real investing. 

The issue right now is one of our own making, because the entire economic engine runs on the foundation of a massive debt cycle that is never going to end because if it does it'll ruin the top. This is why the circular economy is so important to monitor. 

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Posted

Pretty sure the top of the K in income is 175k, and in net worth around 1 million.  And the fix is a more progressive tax system, but that's blasphemy.  I love my capital gains being taxed lower than income.  That's only going to keep increasing the inequality between the owners and renters in the economy.

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Posted
31 minutes ago, immamac said:

The issue right now is one of our own making, because the entire economic engine runs on the foundation of a massive debt cycle that is never going to end because if it does it'll ruin the top. This is why the circular economy is so important to monitor. 

Buy, borrow, die.

Why get taxed on income when you can borrow against paper value?

Posted
5 hours ago, Incredulity said:

So give me your recipe to solve K shaped economy?

 


 

 

 

Two parts good gin, one part dry vermouth. pour over ice and shake vigorously. Strain into chilled cocktail glass and garnish with an olive, pearl onion, or lemon twist, 

drink 3-5 slowly. 

Posted
50 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Two parts good gin, one part dry vermouth. pour over ice and shake vigorously. Strain into chilled cocktail glass and garnish with an olive, pearl onion, or lemon twist, 

drink 3-5 slowly. 

I dunno, call me old fashion, but if I’m going down hard it’s gonna be with bourbon not gin and vermouth. 

Posted

I’ll answer my own question (keeping apolitical)

1.)  keep interest rates in a normal band commiserate with a nonzero return on cash and to price risk capital appropriately. ZIRP facilitated the above Buy, Borrow, Die along with numerous other market distortions.

2.) Rationalize/cut regulations. 

3.) raise top tax rates.  Move rate progressive levels upward.  $175k isn’t wiping  your ass with $100’s and shouldn’t suffer greater rates.  

4.) Federal infrastructure investment in roads, bridges, ports, energy specifically synced with #2 above.  Preempt legal challenges and get shit done.

 

 

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Posted
7 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

I’ll answer my own question (keeping apolitical)

1.)  keep interest rates in a normal band commiserate with a nonzero return on cash and to price risk capital appropriately. ZIRP facilitated the above Buy, Borrow, Die along with numerous other market distortions.

2.) Rationalize/cut regulations. 

3.) raise top tax rates.  Move rate progressive levels upward.  $175k isn’t wiping  your ass with $100’s and shouldn’t suffer greater rates.  

4.) Federal infrastructure investment in roads, bridges, ports, energy specifically synced with #2 above.  Preempt legal challenges and get shit done.

 

 

Agreed on all counts 

Posted
11 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Gonna have to go ahead and sort of disagree with you there Bob. But I do think is that it’s deflationary in the aggregate. 
Either way, however, none of that is really relevant to the point. 
Way back on the ca. 2020 Covid threads I said somewhere that I anticipated a rather rapid U shaped recovery,  driven by the same thing driving spending now,  despite everything: income inequality.
 

The top 3-4% of income earners have achieved exit velocity relative to the gravity that economic uncertainty and rising costs impacts everyone else. And that’s true for businesses as well. 

The real value of genAI is that it's giving businesses an excuse to cut headcount and fire workers domestically. Once it turns out whoopsie poopsie genAI cant do everything they said it could - because software engineering is a collaborative effort between technical and business stakeholders - it will be too late and those tech jobs will be offshored.

I've been watching it happen over the last few years with my customers - they have fewer and fewer engineers on staff to solve things, but a growing army of contract labor that doesn't know shit about fuck in their business, but can crank out cookie cutter solutions. Nevermind if any of that is actually solving the business problem or advancing on the desired outcome - that's all problems for the next crop of MBA's to handle. This crop will be long gone and counting their bonuses for cost savings before the chickens come home to roost

Posted
4 hours ago, Hefeweizen said:

Pretty sure the top of the K in income is 175k, and in net worth around 1 million.  And the fix is a more progressive tax system, but that's blasphemy.  I love my capital gains being taxed lower than income.  That's only going to keep increasing the inequality between the owners and renters in the economy.

Anecdotally,  I would adjust those numbers to 300k and around 5 million, as to the people who are "discretionary" spending without a care.  Their portfolios have done massively well the past 15 yrs and most have enough in safe liquid assets to keep their lifestyles going come the inevitable downturn.

Most everyone else feels their expenditures and significant portions of that lot are fucked.  

 

 

Posted
2 hours ago, Incredulity said:

I’ll answer my own question (keeping apolitical)

1.)  keep interest rates in a normal band commiserate with a nonzero return on cash and to price risk capital appropriately. ZIRP facilitated the above Buy, Borrow, Die along with numerous other market distortions.

2.) Rationalize/cut regulations. 

3.) raise top tax rates.  Move rate progressive levels upward.  $175k isn’t wiping  your ass with $100’s and shouldn’t suffer greater rates.  

4.) Federal infrastructure investment in roads, bridges, ports, energy specifically synced with #2 above.  Preempt legal challenges and get shit done.

 

I'd vote for you.

Posted
9 hours ago, Incredulity said:

I’ll answer my own question (keeping apolitical)

1.)  keep interest rates in a normal band commiserate with a nonzero return on cash and to price risk capital appropriately. ZIRP facilitated the above Buy, Borrow, Die along with numerous other market distortions.

2.) Rationalize/cut regulations. 

3.) raise top tax rates.  Move rate progressive levels upward.  $175k isn’t wiping  your ass with $100’s and shouldn’t suffer greater rates.  

4.) Federal infrastructure investment in roads, bridges, ports, energy specifically synced with #2 above.  Preempt legal challenges and get shit done.

 

 

All good points, but given the large share of Americans for whom housing is a significant portion of spending and the main driver of wealth via forced savings and appreciation, I think housing solutions must be a part of an effective approach. #2 could help with this but probably isn't sufficient on its own

Posted

Yeah I think everyone thinks about food and gas but shelter is completely off the rails when it’s approaching 50 percent of income in some places.  I think Vegas is a sub market like this and if there were a way to short a housing market that would be the one I would do right now.

Posted
10 hours ago, Captainant said:

The real value of genAI is that it's giving businesses an excuse to cut headcount and fire workers domestically. Once it turns out whoopsie poopsie genAI cant do everything they said it could - because software engineering is a collaborative effort between technical and business stakeholders - it will be too late and those tech jobs will be offshored.

I've been watching it happen over the last few years with my customers - they have fewer and fewer engineers on staff to solve things, but a growing army of contract labor that doesn't know shit about fuck in their business, but can crank out cookie cutter solutions. Nevermind if any of that is actually solving the business problem or advancing on the desired outcome - that's all problems for the next crop of MBA's to handle. This crop will be long gone and counting their bonuses for cost savings before the chickens come home to roost

frustrated office space GIF

Posted
3 hours ago, KYHorn said:

All good points, but given the large share of Americans for whom housing is a significant portion of spending and the main driver of wealth via forced savings and appreciation, I think housing solutions must be a part of an effective approach. #2 could help with this but probably isn't sufficient on its own

Yes I agree.  My list was not intended to be a comprehensive scheme, but more of an outline of key things I think would make a  significant difference.  Unfortunately none of the items I listed are -push button, receive bacon- in regards to immediate gratification.  So they won't happen for that and many, many other reasons.

 

   Housing is a huge issue and become completely absurd from a cost standpoint.  Besides #2, #1 and #4 would have impacts on housing.  

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Posted

I don't think housing is gonna come down ever because of how heavily financialized it is. A bunch of hedge funds and olds have bought up properties to act as "passive income" and they've already marked down that revenue. Therefore, they cannot adjust those numbers to reality without realizing a loss - which they will NEVER do. 

Line must go up. Line includes housing. Even IF more housing magically appeared, it would be snapped up as a place to put excess money by the already outrageously unbalanced top-end of wealth holders. 

 

THAT has to be unwound or changed before housing accessibility and pricing can be improved.

Posted

You have to start with major tax reform making taxes progressive not regressive. That does mean the billionaires and hundred millionaires and probably even the $50+ millionaires are going to scream bloody murder.

then you add tax policies to further assist the bottom 50%, credits, refunds, etc related to things that matter - childcare, college, home buying, etc.

then you have to do what every other civilized country does and provide health care for all. Having a healthcare system that leaves a family one illness from bankruptcy is shameful. 

SS will probably have to suffer significant reforms, increase retirement ages, decrease benefits and means test it but that will cause millions to scream bloody murder too.

tariffs are dumb, they are a hideously regressive tax. Those need to go immediately, but there is one massive problem for all of us. The debt. Truth be told, there’s no way the US is paying its way out of this mess, so expect inflation just below the pain threshold for upper incomes. But hopefully with tax increases and better support for the working class, we can raise more revenue, spend more yes but at a slower clip than increased revenue and then inflate our way out of the debt (and pay it off with future dollars worth 3-4x the current dollar). 
 

the debt piece tbqh is the most controversial but it’s just a reality we are going to have to confront.

Posted
14 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Therefore, they cannot adjust those numbers to reality without realizing a loss - which they will NEVER do. 

This is only correct through the lens of the last 25 years.  Housing as an investment has had periods of significant losses.  The same issue exists in all asset classes really.  Which is #1 on my list, ZIRP.  Which is the government backstop to economic realities that has been implemented over and over since Dotcom bust.

Posted
18 minutes ago, Captainant said:

I don't think housing is gonna come down ever because of how heavily financialized it is. A bunch of hedge funds and olds have bought up properties to act as "passive income" and they've already marked down that revenue. Therefore, they cannot adjust those numbers to reality without realizing a loss - which they will NEVER do. 

fredgraph.png?g=1MFJK&height=490

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Posted
6 minutes ago, scramblyn said:

You have to start with major tax reform making taxes progressive not regressive. That does mean the billionaires and hundred millionaires and probably even the $50+ millionaires are going to scream bloody murder.

The federal income tax is currently extremely progressive.  Are you referring to other taxes? 

Posted
1 minute ago, Incredulity said:

This is only correct through the lens of the last 25 years.  Housing as an investment has had periods of significant losses.  The same issue exists in all asset classes really.

IMO the bigger issue is that single family housing is considered an "asset class" for non-residents to invest in at scale. When a THIRD of the market is being used solely as investment vehicles to extract rents out of families and indivuals.... That's gonna really fuck shit up

1 minute ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

fredgraph.png?g=1MFJK&height=490

Cherry picking a short time frame is a choice

image.thumb.png.14b8e87215cc1fa8b806a1161c74766d.png

it's still nearly 40% elevated from pre-COVID, even if it's down from the absolute peak

Posted (edited)
6 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Cherry picking a short time frame is a choice

So you’re going back to 2017? Go ahead and post the all-time graph. If your point is that scarce, low elasticity , highly differentiated goods that are both produced slower than the population grows and also more slowly than the money supply expands tend to be good long term investments, I agree.

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
Posted
2 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

So you’re going back to 2017? Go ahead and post the all-time graph. If your point is that scarce, low elasticity , highly differentiated goods that are both produced slower than the population grows and also more slowly than the money supply expands tend to be good long term investments, I agree.

Truth be told, using a single metro area is not a very comprehensive analysis, but I'm just using the chart that you brought up and the data only goes back to 2016

image.thumb.png.10419bdb06e6aa0bb2bc50f47c532cf6.png

But I can feel that yall don't want to talk in good faith, so I'll let you have your hugbox

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