The NYSE and the Russell, our erstwhile leaders, are now leading us down, having fallen over 2.5% from their Thanksgiving highs and, more importantly, finding no support at the 50-day moving averages. Even worse, there's no panic-selling yet, no volume spikes, just a relentless grind down that has, so far, earased all of November's "amazing" gains that had everyone so excited.
Well, not us, we were predicting doom and we got wisely to cash at the top but THEY (my fellow pundits) have never been more unified on the bull side and I had never felt more alone sticking to my guns while the market went up and up.
Could I have been more bullish right up to the last minute? Sure, but that would have put our MONEY at risk and we do not like to risk out money, plentiful though it may be in today's environment. So plentiful, in fact, that Argentina needs 26.8% more of it to buy the same goods and services they bought last year and the police are now on strike, demanding wages that keep up with the surging cost of living, allowing looters to have free reign of the streets. Government spending jumped 44% to keep up and relented to the police (33% raises) but now the public workers are threatening to strike too.
Is this the inflationary future for America? Argentina's debt to GDP is just 43.2%, that would be like America having just a $7Tn debt and not $17Tn and rising. Argentina will take a page out of the US book to fix inflation as well as their GDP – by adjusting the way they gather and report the data!
We've already forgotten that the US boosted their GDP by 0.5% last Q by changing the way they value intellectual property like TV shows and films, adding hundreds of Billions of Dollars of implied value to potential re-runs of the Kardasians. Not a mention of it last week, as we simply accept it as fact now – as if it's always been that way…
And if all others accepted
…
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