The current situation in Russia -> Ukraine -> Europe has put the United States in the unique position to lessen the pain of inflation for a time and it's also enabled a lot of Americans to get a second chance to see how bad the situation is and prepare. Stable Income+Savings/Investments+Healthcare/Dental(JOB) is something you will want. By every definition we are experiencing record levels of inflation and we are 100% currently in a recession. We are also on the verge of a severe financial crisis that will make 2008 look like a footnote in US history. We never felt the true pain of 2008 because the Fed came to "rescue" the economy and this rings true for a lot of the other historic ways we have handled recessions in the past. Our economists believe that we can "invest", like we did with education (lol) and that the stimulus won't just continue to aggravate inflation and hurt the economy.
Quantitative Easing was deployed as if was magic after the 08 crisis and like they had invented an entirely new concept that saved us. All they'd actually done and got away with was staving off deflation and recession. We then kept rates low and continued to stimulate from essentially 2008 to now for all intents and purposes we NEVER entered a significant contraction period. The idea of a prolonged recession to some people or even a depression has seemed like a meme but people are going to end up in the streets rioting if they aren't told the truth about what is going on. I think it's disgusting people are being told that inflation is "going down" or that we are not in a recession. Politicians are blaming each other and not being objective about the issue either when it's a bipartisan failure of overspending or slashing taxes without proportionate budget cuts. This is nothing new but the consequence of being this dopey and political about this is extremely high.
The amount of money lost in stocks due to these hikes is nowhere near what is going to happen when the government starts taxing the shit out of people, businesses start failing and a financial crisis ensues. The government needs to slash spending and if it wants to, increase taxes. Prices in stores were actually and still are relatively low from COVID to now. This is also something that is going to change as every company tightens up. We haven't lessened government spending or changed our policy to be honest about the inflation / recession problem YET but.... The Fed, after a long time of bullshitting around the issue (for decades) HAS decided to hike the fed funds rate albeit not fast enough. Many EU Countries in the face of inflation are actually deciding to stimulate quite a lot, which is good for us. In the face of the US war machine and petrodollar we are in a position to continue hiking to stave off immediate issues and if public discourse surrounding overspending is amped I think we could set ourselves up best to deal with the powder keg of bond payments we have ahead of us. By 2024 we'll be paying half a trillion more, which we obviously can't afford and we need to figure it out like we should have for a long time now...
It's not a choice anymore on what to do. We either continue to hike rates as fast as we can and severely slash spending, facing what will be one of the worst economic situations literally ever (that we deserve and need to face) OR we give in to inflation, which is essentially suicide. If you see someone saying that the Fed raising interest rates or the government not saving you/businesses is bad then they are a bad faith actor (prob politically) in my opinion or extremely uneducated. $45 billion in PPP loan fraud, $600 billion in student loan cancellations, $100 billion in Ukraine, they are already pilfering your social security and it's a joke if anyone thinks you are getting that money back properly adjusted for inflation. $1 trillion a year for that btw. $2 trillion in Afghanistan. $2 trillion to Iraq. We sell billions of dollars in weapons to Saudi Arabia, then we spend another billion on humanitarian relief for the same people in Yemen we fund being bombed mercilessly. Billions more in Fraud committed by and in our government due to terrible oversight or oversight that costs more than the problem it's solving. Feel free to do the research yourself because this money doesn't save puppies or rescue old people during retirement.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCEPI
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/dat...ebt/detail-of-treasury-securities-outstanding
Quantitative Easing was deployed as if was magic after the 08 crisis and like they had invented an entirely new concept that saved us. All they'd actually done and got away with was staving off deflation and recession. We then kept rates low and continued to stimulate from essentially 2008 to now for all intents and purposes we NEVER entered a significant contraction period. The idea of a prolonged recession to some people or even a depression has seemed like a meme but people are going to end up in the streets rioting if they aren't told the truth about what is going on. I think it's disgusting people are being told that inflation is "going down" or that we are not in a recession. Politicians are blaming each other and not being objective about the issue either when it's a bipartisan failure of overspending or slashing taxes without proportionate budget cuts. This is nothing new but the consequence of being this dopey and political about this is extremely high.
The amount of money lost in stocks due to these hikes is nowhere near what is going to happen when the government starts taxing the shit out of people, businesses start failing and a financial crisis ensues. The government needs to slash spending and if it wants to, increase taxes. Prices in stores were actually and still are relatively low from COVID to now. This is also something that is going to change as every company tightens up. We haven't lessened government spending or changed our policy to be honest about the inflation / recession problem YET but.... The Fed, after a long time of bullshitting around the issue (for decades) HAS decided to hike the fed funds rate albeit not fast enough. Many EU Countries in the face of inflation are actually deciding to stimulate quite a lot, which is good for us. In the face of the US war machine and petrodollar we are in a position to continue hiking to stave off immediate issues and if public discourse surrounding overspending is amped I think we could set ourselves up best to deal with the powder keg of bond payments we have ahead of us. By 2024 we'll be paying half a trillion more, which we obviously can't afford and we need to figure it out like we should have for a long time now...
It's not a choice anymore on what to do. We either continue to hike rates as fast as we can and severely slash spending, facing what will be one of the worst economic situations literally ever (that we deserve and need to face) OR we give in to inflation, which is essentially suicide. If you see someone saying that the Fed raising interest rates or the government not saving you/businesses is bad then they are a bad faith actor (prob politically) in my opinion or extremely uneducated. $45 billion in PPP loan fraud, $600 billion in student loan cancellations, $100 billion in Ukraine, they are already pilfering your social security and it's a joke if anyone thinks you are getting that money back properly adjusted for inflation. $1 trillion a year for that btw. $2 trillion in Afghanistan. $2 trillion to Iraq. We sell billions of dollars in weapons to Saudi Arabia, then we spend another billion on humanitarian relief for the same people in Yemen we fund being bombed mercilessly. Billions more in Fraud committed by and in our government due to terrible oversight or oversight that costs more than the problem it's solving. Feel free to do the research yourself because this money doesn't save puppies or rescue old people during retirement.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCEPI
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/dat...ebt/detail-of-treasury-securities-outstanding
