Pirate's Cove

I mean, on one hand, advisors do not want to go up and be all sorts of negative, right? On the other hand, there’s being positive and there’s utter gaslighting. Living in a different reality

Biden Adviser Sperling on Recession Fears: ‘Too Many People’ ‘Not Realizing’ How Successful Our Policies Were

On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Chris Jansing Reports,” Senior Adviser to President Joe Biden Gene Sperling responded to a survey showing that a majority of CEOs expect a recession in the next 18 months by stating that “we think that too many people are not looking at the more reassuring elements of resilience in this economy right now and they’re not realizing that the American Rescue Plan put a historic number of people back to work.”

Host Chris Jansing asked, “So, look, because of fuel prices, it’s fueling inflation, there are concrete fears of a recession. There was one survey recently that said 60% of CEOs expect a recession in the next year or year-and-a-half. The president believes a recession is not inevitable. Is that his natural optimism or based on something you can share with us?”

Sperling responded, “I think we think that too many people are not looking at the more reassuring elements of resilience in this economy right now and they’re not realizing that the American Rescue Plan put a historic number of people back to work. People have called it the great return to work. You know, today, we just got out state unemployment numbers. There are 30 states in the United States where their unemployment rate is already below [what] it was before the pandemic hit. That’s remarkable progress and 15 of those states are at the lowest level of unemployment ever.”

Most of those jobs are simply companies hiring back to fill the positions they axed during the pandemic, combined with a lot of people just staying out of the job market, which brings that rate down. But, it matters little, because what people are focusing on is the continuing rise of food, fuel, energy, and consumer goods. In terms of the American Rescue Plan, it just pumped money into the economy that wasn’t needed, helping to increase inflation. A lot of it had little to do with COVID relief, and a lot of it hasn’t even been spent yet. There are few measures of where the money is specifically going. As for consumer goods

(Conservative Treehouse) We have been waiting for the non-essential durable goods side of the manufacturing sector to start showing evidence of demand side contraction in consumer purchases.  There have been subtle sector-by-sector indicators of consumer spending shifts for several months; however, today we get the direct evidence from Samsung.

Samsung is one of the leading manufacturers of consumer electronics and products that require chips.  For three months the electronics sector has shown background signals that inventory was not moving.  One of the more recent indicators of a demand side contraction was the lack of upward price pressure inside the electronics sector.  Essentially, consumers are not purchasing the current inventory, so prices are actually dropping in this segment.  [SEE TABLE 2, CPI Chart]: (chart at the story)

Despite overall inflation of 8.6% within the CPI, deep inside the category indexes you will note that electronic prices are actually dropping.  Televisions -9.5%, Video equipment -4.3%, etc.  Video and audio products overall dropped in price 1.4% for May, and dropped 5.2% year-over-year.

The supply chain in this sector is lengthy. Meaning inventory builds slowly as consumers stop purchasing in the USA.  Retail store inventory turns slow, store inventory climbs, then warehouses inventories climb as stores do not need product. The negative boxcar effect travels back to the manufacturer overseas over the course of several purchase cycles.  Eventually, everyone within the sector is telling the supplier we do not need product.  Then the manufacturer has to quickly slowdown raw material.

Due to lengthy supply chains, including trans-pacific shipments, the process to stop deliveries in this electronic goods sector is around 90-days before the drop in retail sales reaches the manufacturer to stop production.  Here is the announcement from Samsung:

Has anyone looked to purchase non-essential goods recently? I told you I bought a soundbar the other week and returned it. Amazon had it $50 off, down from $499. Right now I tried an LG SP8YA, normally $799, ordered it for $390 (BTW, sound is great, if you like 3.1. I don’t. Do not like all the voice coming from the center channel. The left and right sound awesome, as do the upfiring speakers). The 2.1 soundbars I’m seeing are on big sale. Many other products I see are going on sale, the sales you did not see since the economy started reopening in 2020.

Were you like me and expected some great sales on products, thinking that companies would want to move some serious product after months and months of lagging sales? And didn’t see those sales? That’s because companies needed to make money, and they saw that wiping out inventories would cause problems later. And now it’s later, and they’re seeing demand crash, because people are seeing their money dry up on essentials.

The Biden people and the Congressional critters do not see the pain average Americans are feeling. They won’t acknowledge it, because they do not feel the pain, being in a bubble and living high off the hog on the American dime. Biden can helicopter off to the beach in Delaware and not pay a cent. His food is covered. His food and power bills at the White House are paid by you. He can have a fancy meal and not worry a bit.