The Fed’s Medicine Makes the Economy Sicker – Ep 556

A Nonfarm Payroll Beat Today the labor department released the November jobs report -  Nonfarm Payroll -  of course Wall Street always highly anticipates this number; all the politicians, Donald Trump was ready to tweet as soon as the data was released.  The expectation was for 190,000 jobs and we beat, with 228,000 jobs. An Even Bigger Hoax The unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%, which prompted President Trump to tweet, "The unemployment rate remains at a 17-year low of 4.1%. Now remember, when Trump is running for office he called 5% unemployment "The biggest hoax in American history", claiming that the rate was really 30, 40, 50%.  Well if 5% was the biggest hoax in American history, what's 4.1?%? It's an even bigger hoax. Disappointing Numbers So THIS is the biggest hoax in American history, except that the difference is now Trump is the purveyor of that hoax.  He is no longer calling it out, he is now participating in the same hoax that he criticized in order to get elected.  The numbers that missed were the average hourly earnings, which, again, everybody keeps talking about how earnings are going to go up; they were looking for a .3% increase in average hourly earnings following flat earnings the previous month.  Not only did they not get .3%, they got +.2%, but they revised last month's 0% to -.1%. So really, very disappointing numbers on the wages. Labor Force Participation Labor Force Participation rate held steady at 62.7%; that's near the lowest it has been in this cycle.  And again, if you look at where the jobs were, we did manage to create 31,000 manufacturing jobs.  We have had a boost in manufacturing jobs, despite the fact that we are not seeing it in the trade balance, because we have the worst trade deficit in five years, so I don't really know what everybody's manufacturing, if we're not exporting it, or if it is not reducing our imports. Our Sponsors: * Check out Aeropress and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://aeropress.com * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Infinite Epigenetics: https://infiniteepigenetics.com/GOLD * Check out Justin Wine and use my code SCHIFF20 for a great deal: https://www.justinwine.com Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

9 Joulu 201740min

Trade Deficit Moving Higher as Economy Slows Down Yesterday we got the release of the October monthly Trade Deficit and we got a trade deficit of $48.7 billion dollars.  That was a little bit North of the $47.4 billion expected in the consensus forecast.  In fact, the prior month, which was $43.5 billion was revised upwards to $44.9 billion. The larger number did cause the Atlanta Fed to shave down its estimates for Q4 GDP from 3.5% to 3.2%; my guess is that they will be revising it lower.  Most of the numbers I have been seeing show the economy slowing down, at least measured by the GDP. Candidate Trump Promised Lower Trade Deficit While Calling Stock Market "A Bubble" What's significant about this trade deficit it is the largest trade deficit in 5 years, and it is the biggest trade deficit in the Trump Presidency.  If you remember, candidate Trump made the trade deficit a big part of his campaign. He wanted to lower it.  He said the trade deficit was too big, and the fact that it had been allowed to get so big; all these countries were taking advantage of us; and he was going to fix it! He was going to "Make America Great Again" in part, by getting rid of these trade deficits. So we were going to start operating at a profit again.  He's not talking about trade deficits anymore.  Does he want to accept responsibility for the increasing trade deficit, just as he claims credit for the rising stock market? Trump Now Takes Credit for the Stock Market but not the Trade Deficit When Trump was a candidate, he never promised, "Vote for me and I'll make the stock market go up!".  He said the stock market was a bubble. Part of the problem was that the stock market was the only thing going up. The economy was actually getting worse, despite the fact that we had a stock market bubble.  So a higher stock market was not part of his stump speech, yet that's all he talks about now is how high the stock market is. Trade Deficit is Not Shrinking What was part of his stump speech was shrinking the trade deficit.  Well the trade deficit is not shrinking.  It's growing! In fact, I believe that the trade deficit is going to end up hitting an all-time record high during the Trump Presidency.  So that will be a complete failure. He campaigned on a lower deficit and we're going to get a much bigger deficit. Dollar Down And of course, the trade deficit is growing even as the dollar is down.  The dollar has fallen by about 8 or 9% this year.  Now, most economists tell you that if the dollar goes down, that will be good for trade, right?  It will be good for our exports, we will import less - none of that happened.  What actually happens when the dollar goes down, it simply makes our imports more expensive. So our trade deficit goes up.  It's not like we can just buy domestically produced goods instead of foreign-produced goods because we don't produce the goods.  We have to import them and we just have to pay more to do it, and the trade deficit goes higher. Bush All Over Again And since I believe the dollar is headed a lot lower during the Trump Presidency, the trade deficit is headed a lot higher. That's exactly what happened under Bush.  The dollar hit an all-time record low under George W. Bush, and the trade deficit hit an all-time record high. And since I think the dollar is going to take out the lows it established under Bush, the trade deficit is going to take out the highs. Our Sponsors: * Check out Aeropress and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://aeropress.com * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Infinite Epigenetics: https://infiniteepigenetics.com/GOLD * Check out Justin Wine and use my code SCHIFF20 for a great deal: https://www.justinwine.com Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

7 Joulu 201728min

Market Rallies on News of Passing Tax Cuts Act Late Friday night, or I guess early Saturday morning, the Senate passed its version of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.  Last week the market, as it became more apparent that the Senate was in fact going to pass the bill, the market was rallying, and continued to rally and, in fact rallied again today.  This was the first chance the market had to react to the Senate actually passing their version of the bill. DJIA Up, NASDAQ Down At one point today: the DJIA was at 24,534, that's the new record high.  It had surrendered most, if not all the gains by the close.  The Dow closed up only about 58 points - still, a new record close at 24,290.  The NASDAQ, on the other hand was down as the correction, and maybe the beginning of a bear market (we don''t know yet).  The correction in the technology sector continues. The NASDAQ was down 72 points today.  Although, even when the Dow was up 250 points earlier this morning, the NASDAQ was still down about 50 points.  So the tech stocks are weak. The S&P ended up negative on the day, although it hit a record high intra-day. Who Benefits? Part of the justification for the markets rallying is the tax cuts. If corporate taxes are going down, then your after tax earnings are going up, and since stocks' value is in theory a function of their after tax earnings, if your after tax earnings goes up, then all else being equal the stock is going to be more valuable. But clearly taxes that are not earning money will not benefit from lower taxes. Republicans Abandon Any Pretense of Smaller Government I wanted to get into an analysis of the Senate version of these tax cuts. There was one Republican senator who voted the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, of course all the Democrats voted against it, but Senator Bob Corker, who voted against it on the principle of   adding to the debt.  There were some interesting rumors floating around last week that in order to get Corker to vote yes, they considered adding an automatic trigger (implementation  seemed crazy to me, and that's why they did not do it) that if the tax cuts did not pay for themselves or the deficit got bigger, an automatic tax increase would be implemented.  What disturbed me the most about this, is:  Why would there be automatic tax increases, why not automatic spending cuts? Why not say that if the tax cuts don't pay for themselves, we'll cut spending in order to pay for the tax cuts?  If this doesn't tell you that the Republican party has completely abandoned any pretense of wanting smaller government, I don't know what does. Our Sponsors: * Check out Aeropress and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://aeropress.com * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Infinite Epigenetics: https://infiniteepigenetics.com/GOLD * Check out Justin Wine and use my code SCHIFF20 for a great deal: https://www.justinwine.com Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

5 Joulu 201751min

Buy the Rumor Sell the Fact One of the things that could de-rail Wall Street enthusiasm is if Republicans are not able to deliver on the promised tax cuts.  Of course, even if they are able to deliver, it will be a, "buy the rumor, sell the fact".  Especially since the fact is not going to deliver the promises of the rumor, which is more economic growth. These tax cuts are not going to grow the economy because they do not shrink the size of government. When the Fed Loses Control of the Bond Market Government continues to grow, despite the tax cuts, meaning that government will have to find an alternative source of revenue, and that alternative source will be deficit spending and money printing, which will be negative for the economy. Ultimately,  it will also be negative for the markets - maybe not in the short run, because money printing has not proven to be a negative for the markets thus far; it will only be a negative when it backfires and the Federal Reserve loses control of the bond market and when it can no longer pretend that inflation does not exist. No Slam Dunk When you look at the prospects for the tax cuts, I think the Senate is going to vote on Thursday, whether or not to pass its version, of course, if it doesn't make it through the senate, then it's done. Even if it makes it through the Senate, it needs to go through a reconciliation process so that the differences between the Senate and the House versions can be ironed out.  Then they have to hope to get everybody to vote for the reconciled version, which is no slam dunk. Apparently, there are about 6 senators who are not fully on board with these tax cuts, who have expressed some reservations.  So they have to get most of those 6, otherwise it is not going to work. Individual Tax Cuts Expire in 2025 One of the more interesting discussions has to do with the fact that in the Senate's version, the individual tax cuts, most of them, anyway, expire in the year 2025.  So that's not even a full 10 years from now. Why is that?  Why are they making the individual tax cuts expire?  What is even worse politically, is that corporate tax cuts are theoretically permanent, or at least they do not come with an expiration date.  This is making for bad public relations on all the talk shows: "It's permanent for the rich corporations, but it's only temporary for individuals.  It shows that by 2025, a lot of individuals who are getting tax cuts, will actually end up paying higher taxes. Juggling Deficits Now the way the Republicans are responding to this criticism just shows you how disingenuous this whole process is. The reason the Senate has to make the individual tax cuts temporary is so that the bill does not increase the deficit by more than $1.4 trillion over these 10 years, so to do that, they had to make the individual tax cuts expire, during these 10 years. During the entire 10 year window the deficit would go up by less than it needs to in order to be able to be approved according to the voting process. The Whole Thing is a Farce But at the same time, the senators are saying, "Don't worry about the fact that these tax cuts are temporary because no future Congress is going to allow them to expire.  In other words, they are admitting that the whole thing is a sham, because they are using the expiration period to make the impact on the deficit smaller. But they are saying "Oh, it's really not going to make the deficit smaller because we're not going to allow the tax cuts to expire the way we've written it into the  bill.  In order to be able to pass it, we are going to cancel it, which means the whole thing is a farce.  It means the Senate's version of the bill adds much more to the deficit than what the Senators are claiming in order to get the thing passed. Government on a Credit Card I've made this point before: No tax cuts are permanent. They are saying, Our Sponsors: * Check out Aeropress and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://aeropress.com * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Infinite Epigenetics: https://infiniteepigenetics.com/GOLD * Check out Justin Wine and use my code SCHIFF20 for a great deal: https://www.justinwine.com Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

27 Marras 201737min

Fed Fears Inflation Is Not High Enough Fed statements drove the markets today; particularly the foreign exchange markets and the precious metals markets. First we got a quote from Janet Yellen early this morning in which she was talking about inflation. Her concern is that inflation isn't high enough.  Here's and exact quote from Janet Yellen: “It can be quite dangerous to allow inflation to drift down and not to achieve over time a central bank’s inflation target,” Dangerous? Dangerous to whom? She also says that one reason it is dangerous is because inflation expectations are likely to drift down, too.  So she's not only worried that inflation isn't high enough, but she is worried that people won't be worried about inflation.  Why is low inflation dangerous? What's so Bad About Low Inflation? First of all, it's not even negative. She's not saying we are going to have deflation, which I don't think is bad anyway.  She is just saying it is dangerous if we don't have enough inflation, meaning that if we have 2-2.5% inflation, we're out of the danger zone, but if we have 1.5% inflation, we're in this danger zone? What is so dangerous about prices not going up? This is all a bunch of nonsense that the media just accepts. Now, I'll tell you why it is dangerous and for whom it is dangerous: The reason the Fed wants high inflation is so the next time they cut interest rates, they can create a negative rate.  They know that the bubble is so big that just low interest rates are not going to do anything.  This addict is so hyped up on this "sauce" that we have to get rates negative. Low interest rates are not enough.  They've got to be negative. Major Ramifications for the Reserve Currency So the Fed has got to be able to get the Fed Funds Rate below the inflation rate, and they need it to be way below, because, let's say inflation is only 1% and they go to zero interest rates, well they have -1%!  That's not enough!  They might think we need -3% or -4%.  Well, if zero is the lower bound, and you want rates to be -3% then you need to have inflation at 3% in order to get a negative 3% yield. Unless you want to go from the absurd to the ridiculous, and actually take rates negative, which would have major ramifications for the reserve currency, I think the Fed is still reluctant to try that, but if they have to, they'll certainly give it a shot.  They'll use that as the Hail Mary, but they'd rather keep that one in their back pocket.  So they need room to be able to get interest rates to zero but have a high enough negative rate to try to provide the stimulus that they think helps the economy. Collateral Damage in the Fed's Manipulation and Experimentation But it doesn't help the economy.  This is all their nonsense but they are willing to sacrifice American families.  They are just casualties of war, collateral damage in the Fed's manipulation and experimentation.  They are saying that we need to have higher inflation so that we can fight the next recession.  Well, the next recession is going to be a lot worse, if in addition to unemployment, people are dealing with a rising cost of living.  But as far as the Fed is concerned, that's OK, because the only way we can stimulate the economy is to make sure we sedate it by causing the cost of living in the U.S. to go up and the standard of living to go down. Concerns About a Potential Buildup of Financial Imbalances The other danger of inflation not being high enough is probably the stock market.  Interestingly enough, later on in the day,  the FOMC minutes were released, and in addition to expressing their concern about low inflation, they are also worried about the stock market.  It's about time, but listen to this, I am reading a quote from the minutes: "In light of elevated asset valuations and low financial market volatility, several participants expressed concerns about a... Our Sponsors: * Check out Aeropress and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://aeropress.com * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Infinite Epigenetics: https://infiniteepigenetics.com/GOLD * Check out Justin Wine and use my code SCHIFF20 for a great deal: https://www.justinwine.com Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

23 Marras 201741min

Financial Conditions Are Loosest Since 1994 I was reading an article today that the Chicago Fed released their National Financial Conditions Index (NFCI)  and according to their research, financial conditions in the United States are the loosest since January of 1994.  Of course, that was early on in the dot com bubble, before it even "bubbled up", it was just at the beginning of that bull market, yet the Federal Reserve has been tightening; raising interest rates for a couple of years.  They've been talking about shrinking the balance sheet - why is it that financial conditions are looser now than they were when the Fed was still at zero? Fed Behind the Curve I have been talking about this the whole time.  The Fed is so far behind the curve.  Yes, they have raised interest rates, but it is too little too late.  Even the official inflation rates have risen as much if not more than the rate hikes. Meanwhile, the stock market keeps going up and now that you have the dollar going down, a weakening dollar actually adds to the loosening of financial conditions which are obviously going to get a lot looser if the Fed doesn't really start jacking up rates faster, which I don't think they are going to do. Relapsing Back into Recession In fact, I think they are going to get ready to cut rates again and loosen financial conditions even further as the economy relapses back into recession, which I said in my last podcast, would have already been here had Hillary Clinton won the election.  Since Donald Trump won, all this false optimism is delaying the onset of that recession for a year or two, but it's not preventing it. So if financial conditions are this loose now, when the Fed is tightening, imagine how much looser they're going to get when the Fed is easing. Our Sponsors: * Check out Aeropress and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://aeropress.com * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Infinite Epigenetics: https://infiniteepigenetics.com/GOLD * Check out Justin Wine and use my code SCHIFF20 for a great deal: https://www.justinwine.com Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

18 Marras 201734min

Faltering Expectations The U.S. dollar and the stock market continued to be a little bit under pressure this week as anxieties are rising over the fate of the tax cuts with so many investors are putting so much expectation into the proposed tax cuts. Tax Cuts Do Not Reflect Smaller Government I have gone over many times on this podcast why I do not believe the tax cuts are going to help the economy. Tax cuts are good for the economy to the extent that they reflect smaller government.  If you are going to make government smaller, and government is going to be less of a burden on the economy, if government is going to take fewer resources out of the economy, it will be freeing those resources up for the private sector.  If you are lowering people's taxes because you relieve them of the responsibility of paying for a larger government, that is a big positive! Government Will Have to Print or Borrow Any time we can take resources out of the government sector and put them back into the private sector, those resources will be used more efficiently and more productively, the economy will be better off.  But if we simply cut taxes, and allow government to get bigger and bigger, that is not good for the economy.  All that is happening is that the government has to find and alternative source for paying for the resources it is consuming.  And if it is not going to collect it through taxes, then it is going to have to borrow it or print it. Those other ways of sucking up those resources do more economic damage than what otherwise would have been the case if they had just left taxes alone. So Everybody is Wrong So everybody is wrong in believing that these tax cuts are going to be good for the economy.  They are not going to be good for the economy, and they are certainly not going to be good for the dollar. They will hurt the dollar because, by definition, instead of removing dollars, the government is going to print dollars out of thin air and spend that.  So they are debasing the dollar. No Individual Mandate But putting that aside, there is still a lot of nervousness out there about whether or not the tax cuts will pass and what their final form will be.  First of all, the Senate came out yesterday and all of a sudden thew a curve ball into the tax cuts. As part of the tax cuts they said they were going to repeal the individual mandate from Obamacare. That is the part that requires individuals to pay a penalty to the government for not purchasing insurance. Hail Mary First of all, the fact that they have to throw that in there shows that they needed to do that to tempt some Republicans, maybe like Rand Paul, who were on the fence or not for the tax cuts. I think the fact that they had to go for the Hail Mary shows that they are having a hard time getting enough Republican support. Saving the Government Money? But here's the ridiculous part: The government claims that by eliminating the individual mandate it is going to save the government a lot of money and the savings will subsidize a larger tax cut for the middle class.  Wait a minute. The individual mandate means that people who don't buy insurance have a penalty to the government!  That's revenue to the government. Wouldn't that cost the government more? Republican Logic Here is the Republican logic: If they stop penalizing people who don't buy health insurance, then fewer people will buy health insurance.  Some of the people who are buying health insurance now are getting government subsidies, so if they don't buy health insurance then the government won't have to provide the subsidies and that's where they save the money. Premiums Through the Roof Then they argue that if younger healthy people drop out, then insurance premiums will rise even faster than they are rising right now.  And because health insurance premiums will rise a lot faster, Our Sponsors: * Check out Aeropress and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://aeropress.com * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Infinite Epigenetics: https://infiniteepigenetics.com/GOLD * Check out Justin Wine and use my code SCHIFF20 for a great deal: https://www.justinwine.com Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

16 Marras 201742min

No Real Tax Relief Yesterday the Senate released their version of the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, and it is not that different from the House version.  There are some differences, some of which I will get into, but the main problem is not the difference, but the similarity.  The plans don't deliver any kind of substantial tax relief, in the manner that President Trump refers to as, "the biggest tax cuts ever". It's not even close. For most people, there will be minor tax cuts and for other people there are actually minor tax increases. Democrats: "I'll Give You Something You Did Not Earn!" The real problem, again, is that Republicans can't really be Republicans, given how much debt we have.  They like to talk about lower taxes - that's how they get elected: "We're going to lower your taxes!". The Democrats are generally the party of, "I'm going to increase your benefits! Vote for me and I will give you something you did not earn."  What the Republicans used to say is, "Vote for me and I'll let you keep more of what you did earn." That was really the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. The Democrats were about taking things from other people and the Republicans were about keeping your stuff. You Can't Take Away an Entitlement The problem is, too many Republicans are really Democrats or they're afraid to cut any government spending. At this point, the deficits are so big that you can't really have big tax cuts unless you're willing to cut government spending. Most Republicans are not willing to do that. Sometimes they will vote not to create a new government entitlement, but they will never vote to take something away, which is why they didn't really want to take away Obamacare. A lot of Republicans didn't vote for it, but they are not going to vote to kill it. Small Government Everywhere but in the Military The problem is, if you really want to cut spending so you can have tax cuts, where's the money? The defense budget is big, and most Republicans don't want to cut defense - that' s the only place they like big government (in theory) is defense. They want small government everywhere except in the military. So there are not very many Republicans who are willing to cut defense to enable the tax cuts. So What's Left for Republicans to Cut? Now you got Social Security and Medicare, but a lot of Social Security recipients vote Republican. So the Republicans don't want to cut Social Security and don't want to cut Medicare because they are afraid of how the voters will react. So that's off the table. You can't cut interest on the debt, unless you're going to default on the debt; nobody wants to do that. In fact, interest on the debt is going to go up as interest rates go up.  So what's left that Republicans (in theory) can cut?  They are afraid of being labeled mean, heartless, taking away programs for the poor, the needy - so there's really nothing that the Republicans are willing to cut, so they can't give any tax cuts. They don't want to level with their constituents and say that they can't cut your taxes because then, what's the point of voting Republican? Our Sponsors: * Check out Aeropress and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://aeropress.com * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Infinite Epigenetics: https://infiniteepigenetics.com/GOLD * Check out Justin Wine and use my code SCHIFF20 for a great deal: https://www.justinwine.com Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

11 Marras 201757min