Too many people are fools every month…
A bad neck/head ache actually turned into a good thing this morning. I woke up about 4 AM because of the pain, but four ibuprofen and a half hour of heat with my new heating pad and I felt fine. Waking up at that hour allowed me to get the trash out on time for collection. I usually put it out the afternoon before as it is picked up quite early, but I forgot yesterday.
I was also able to get breakfast for my wonderful wife and me at the nearest Starbucks. It is very close, less than two miles driving distance one way. Weirdo that I am, I was struck by the fact that when I left for Starbucks the motion sensor night lights over the garage went on, but when I returned there was too much light in the sky for the lights to trigger. I told you I am a weirdo…
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“Post-mortem” for monthly/quarterly blog performance…views for the first quarter of 2022 declined 30% compared to the first quarter of 2021. Yes, the number of posts also declined, but only by 13%. The last month with the same number of posts as March of 2022, which was November of 2021, had 23% more views with one fewer day.
I can’t deny the data; fewer people are reading Disaffected Musings. Of course, I will not use the criminal organization Fack Fucebook to drive blog traffic.
I think that the more I ask those of you reading to pass the word, the less effective that messaging becomes.
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The financial news media is making a big deal out of the fact that the 2-year/10-year Treasury yields inverted yesterday, meaning the 2-year yield was higher than the 10-year, for the first time since 2019. That’s supposed to be a signal of an imminent recession.
Well, not exactly…the last three times that part of the yield curve inverted the average time to a recession was actually 16 months. (I have also seen that average shown as 20 months.) Investors should get nervous when the 3-month/2-year yields invert; that is actually the signal for an imminent recession. At present, that part of the yield curve is not even close to inverting.
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Over-reaching government is everywhere. In Great Britain, proposed legislation to make it illegal for car owners to “tamper” with their vehicles is causing an uproar in the classic car community, which is quite large.
The legislation, which is actually aimed at new cars and their owners, is worded in such a way that it could be interpreted to apply to all cars. British collector car insurance company Footman James wrote, “The goals that the Government describes have the best of intentions, however, it is when you read deeper into the ‘Tackling Tampering’ section that each paragraph and future ‘offense’ could easily be applied to the classic vehicle industry.” As I have written before and truly believe, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
ALL proposed legislation should have a cost/benefit analysis performed by a non-governmental company. I know that’s a pipedream, but in a world where all resources are finite, efficiency always matters and trade-offs always exist.
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I would be incensed if I had purchased this car and then be informed that it would be illegal for me to modify it.
This is a 1948 DeSoto convertible that sold for $35,200 all in at the recent Mecum auction in Glendale, Arizona. Imagine the stupidity of regulations that say I couldn’t modify it, EVEN if the modifications made the car safer and more efficient.
I would never go off the grid and live in a forest, but I understand why some people do. Government is NOT supposed to be an unaccountable, dictatorial monolith, but is only supposed to exist with the consent of the governed.
#NoAprilFools
#IAmAWeirdo
#WhereAreTheReaders?
#InvertedYieldCurve
#SayNoToBigGovernment
#somanyCARSjustonelife
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Disaffected Musings 
Living in a cave in the forest is NOT part of my retirement plan, Yet. There are, however, events that MIGHT make that a possibility. I’m neither a prepper nor a doomsday believer but there are current events that have my “spidey senses” tingling. Living out in the country I have for years planned for emergencies and disruptions in the grid, things that a lot of folks are now starting to do. Given the supply chain issues being seen over the last couple years, keeping a supply of non perishable goods seems like a prudent plan. Not years worth of stock, but enough to get you thru 2-3 months of something being temporarily unavailable. Something along the lines of the Great Toilet Paper Panic of 2020. An extra package seemed prudent, given that Sears no longer sends out a catalog. Living out where I do, one doesn’t just “run down to the store” for an item. The closest major grocery store is about 20 miles away, Dollar General about 5 miles, therefore you try to plan ahead. Currently, if the SHTF tomorrow, I should have all the major needs covered for 4-6 months with proper planning, i.e.; zero waste of food and other resources, contingency plans for disruptions in the power grid, limited availability of fuel, etc.
I don’t foresee anything major happening in the near future, but that could change in a minute given the state of world affairs. The level of foolishness one sees today in the world governments, and non government entities, makes nearly ANY scenario possible. As such, I would rather have some form of a plan. Whether it works or not would remain to be seen.
And yes, my car collection would suddenly be worthless and mostly unusable. My shop would be useful for purpose of barter; I’ll patch up your car/truck/tractor in exchange for 20 pounds of potatoes and a sack of flour type of thing. I hope it doesn’t come to that, but it could as fiat dollars would become useless for the most part. With the current rates of inflation they are becoming worth less each day already. Two weeks ago I had to tow a trailer to my dad’s house to load up the rest of the stuff from his shop, as his house is now under contract to be sold. I paid as high as $5.50 per gallon for diesel. At around 10 mpg towing a trailer, 800 miles total mileage, my credit card was whimpering. In our business, I can pass that cost on to the customer, to a point. Eventually it could become economically unfeasible for us to bid jobs outside of our local home bases. At that point we would end up contributing to the unemployment rate as we would no longer need as many employees for the limited amount of work. Again, I hope it doesn’t happen, but it’s possible.
I do anticipate a lowering in our standard of living with inflation and shortages becoming the new normal. I remember the inflation of the late 70’s/early 80’s and the effects it had on the country. Anyone who is on a fixed income is already feeling it more than those of us still in the workforce, but we are feeling it also. I know that I’m doing better than many folks out there, but even I have reconsidered some of my expenditures recently. I can’t foresee the future, so I’m not sure where it will end, but I hope it comes to a stop without civilization being torn apart.
Sorry about the length of this response, sometimes my fingers don’t know when to stop.
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DDM, you never have to apologize for any aspect of your comments. I very much enjoy reading them in their entirety and suspect that most of those who read the comments feel the same.
As the child of Holocaust survivors I know things can go bad in a hurry. My wonderful wife is more of an optimist, though, so our “preparations” are not where I want them to be. We did just install a whole-home backup generator powered by natural gas, but that speaks more to the decay of the electric grid, the population explosion in the Phoenix area, and to not wanting to be without A/C when it’s 108° outside, and not to a doomsday scenario. I think the vast majority of first-world residents would be completely screwed in such a situation, myself included.
I anticipate a worldwide economic recession next year and that will almost certainly mitigate inflation. Like you, my wonderful wife and I are better off financially than most–and that’s nothing about which we have to apologize–so barring a major calamity I suspect we’ll be able to eat. We have no debt and despite what those on the outside might claim is extravagance, we have always lived below our means. How do you think we have no debt?
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I’m not an economist, and didn’t play one on TV, but I do recall that you studied it. While a major recession will certainly drop inflation, at what cost? It seems in the past that usually results in serious unemployment, which in turn puts a drain on government resources. As someone who is not seriously knowledgeable about that I would like to read your thoughts.
Like you, I’m debt free and have been since 2002. That was the year I paid off the last mortgage I had, 1994 was the last year I had a bank “tote the note” on a vehicle. All my credit cards, including business accounts, are paid monthly. Even most of my cards, including business cards, are at no annual fee due to the amount of money we/I keep in their system. It’s a smallish, I believe 20 locations around my local area, bank and we/I are probably in the top 100 accounts they have. While I don’t have any problem spending my money, I don’t mind saving money where I can. $75 here, $100 there can add up to a decent sum over a year. I have been accused of being a “Scrooge” over the years, based on my style of living or the vehicles I have driven. These folks know little or nothing about the collection of vehicles I have, never mind what I spend on them. They see me driving an older vehicle, wearing jeans and company t-shirts, and not spending big money in a restaurant and just assume that, given my perceived income that I must just fill my mattress with all that money. These folks don’t see why I don’t have the latest iPhone (my 8+ works just fine), or drive a new high dollar car( because I don’t like most of them), or have a home on the water somewhere (because I couldn’t have my shops there). But these same folks are in debt up to their eyeballs and are mostly living paycheck to paycheck, probably 2-3 paychecks at best away from insolvency. If that makes me a tightwad, I’ll wear that crown happily.
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For years, most economists believed in something called The Philips Curve, which stated that unemployment and inflation were correlated and that governments could pick the spot on the curve at which they wanted to aim. The stagflation–high unemployment and high inflation–of the 1970s shot major holes in the Philips Curve theory. The problem with the theory is exogenous, or outside the system, shocks. In the 1970s, the Arab Oil Embargo wreaked havoc with western economies long after the oil flow resumed. Now, of course, we’ve had the damn virus and the Russian dictator’s evil.
The inflation of the 1970s was broken at least partly by the Fed significantly raising interest rates, curtailing economic activity enough to cause a sharp recession, but in so doing broke inflation, at least partly because it reset everyone’s inflation expectations. Remember 18% mortgage rates? However, the late 1970s and early 1980s were really a time of little or no economic growth with US GDP declining in 1979 and 1980 (a significant factor in Reagan’s win in 1980) as well as the Fed induced recession of 1982.
For the nth time, EVERYTHING is a trade-off. The Fed has finally admitted that all of the monetary and fiscal stimulus provided in the wake of the damn virus has played a significant role in the major increase in inflation. With inflation having seemingly been tamed by technology, those in power thought they could prime the pump with little or no effect on prices. They were wrong. Oh, if government data is to be believed, the economy is basically back to pre-virus levels. That’s why the Fed has signaled many rate hikes this year and has acknowledged that will slow down the economy (back to the Philips Curve) although they think they can engineer a “soft landing.” I remain doubtful, which is why I think a recession will occur next year.
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I too had an older phone. I disdain the Apple variety. We share a plan with our daughter and her spouse’s family. There is value is numbers. Two weeks ago AT&T upgraded their system and the result was that my “older” phone was now obsolete and will no longer work on their new “upgraded” system. Needless to say, I am still awaiting my “new” phone, which I should have today. I let my daughter handle the details, Sometimes there are things which I know better than to handle completely myself. Needless to say it required a new case of the Mil spec drop variety. Fancy/pretty doesn’t cut it with me.
The essential things necessary to live here we keep in deep supply. One being distilled water which the grocery stores have trouble keeping in supply. Both my wife and I need the distilled for our nightly medical devices. I do have a backup distillation still where I can make a gallon at a time every week or so. It does however suck up electricity to the tune of 508 KW per gallon. You can see the dent in the electric bill when I have had to use it. Gas has been steady at $4.499 per gallon so we have been lumping our errands together to use less of the stuff.
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Thanks, Philip. Your state of readiness does not surprise me.
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