Don't Worry, Be Happy

Here are observations from Michael Every:

You could hear the champagne corks fly wherever you were yesterday. After all, there was "zero US inflation" in July, as some put it.

And that came after zero US recession, as some also put it, despite two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. And after a red-hot labour market report. And EIA energy data showing gasoline usage apparently well below 2020 levels despite all this non-recession and jobs boom, and even as refineries are working at incredibly high capacity levels, diesel stocks are low, and exports are also down. These are all numbers/claims worthy of champagne. Yet they make little sense taken together.

Until you recall US midterm elections are coming up. Then you wonder if it is just coincidence, bad/Covid number-crunching, or ‘convenient’ in a way we pretend DM data can’t be, because otherwise we would be EM, and we don’t like to imagine we could be, because: we have higher incomes - as millions struggle to put bread on the table or keep the lights on; ‘regulations’; ‘rule of law’; absolutely no corruption; a completely unbiased media only interested in the truth; no politicised judges or civil servants; no business sectors close to politicians; no politicians with tenuous grasps of reality; no back-stage lobbyists; no interest groups; no powerful shady forces; no issues over electoral legitimacy. None of that applies to us!

Source - https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/one-bank-warns-us-econ-data-make-little-sense-until-you-recall-midterm-elections-are-coming

Gee, all we have to do is have a continual election cycle ... and let the good times roll !!!

Until they don't ...