Here are a few Tweets that caught my eye this weekend.
Is Zuckerberg Cancelling His Fight with Musk?
S&P 500 Volatility
Inflation and Productivity
FDI in China slumped to the lowest level since at least 1998.
Consumers Pulling Back on Meat
Car Financing
“The share of consumers who financed a vehicle with a monthly payment of $1,000 or more reached a new all-time peak of 17.1% in Q2, up from 16.8% in Q1 2023 and 4.3% in Q2 of 2019.” – Edmunds
CAPE – Cyclically Adjusted P/E Ratios
Euphoria Dysfunction
Here are some of the highlights from my weekend.
Went to a coffee shop in Mammoth, Ca where a line of 30+ out the door of Millennials were there to buy $8 doughnuts, OK coffee, and water in aluminum cans for $4. None of them looked like they were active people at all. It seemed like they traveled there to blow money on unnecessary things.
Then I on my way home I suffered by listening to a conversation with my sister-in-law. She was complaining about her first registration bill on her plain F150. She said she’s never had a registration that costs $800 before. She’s paying $966/month.
Keep in mind that she hasn’t had a job for over 4 years. She said it’s pointless for her to take a job that pays less than $100k because she’ll loose $1,000 in SNAP each month and be forced to pay her mortgage.
Then we stopped in Lone Pine to use a bathroom at McDonalds who was charging $3.75-S $7.50-L for fries.
All of this told me that we haven’t hit bottom yet.
Still in the process of parting the fools from their Covid winnings.
Tesla is going to release a $25k EV that qualifies for a $7500 tax credit, probably in 2025. Seems like it might be a huge success.
TSLA glue the battery to the frame like a skate board. Any damage to the battery, any crack… ==> u have to toss out the whole car.
I’ll bet you 100 bucks no such car ships in 2025.
Great, more destruction of the environment in the name of saving the environment.
The average doctor in the USA is an immigrant, born somewhere else. Did they all come to the USA with a burning desire to care for anglo-saxons? Or perhaps some other reason?
The entire US history is built on the backs of immigrants, all of whom came here for the same reason; to build a better life for themselves. The exception to this were slaves who were forcibly moved here to “serve” others.
And speaking of making damn good money but seemingly always complaining that they hate their jobs, we have MD’s.
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Doctor salaries under fire after Washington Post report
Aug 11, 2023
Todd Shryock
Richard Payerchin
A Washington Post data analysis that it published last week ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/04/doctor-pay-shortage/ ) has created quite a stir. The analysis looked at more than 10 million tax records from 965,000 physicians over 13 years through 2020 and came to the conclusion that the average physician salary is $350,000.
But the author notes that the number accounts for ALL streams of income, meaning that figure would include side hustles and investment proceeds.
The report notes that between the ages of 40-55, the average physician made $405,000 in 2017, with 94% from wages. The top 10% of docs average $1.3 million, with the top 1% making $4 million, but 85% of that, the report states, came from business income or capital gains.
According to the 2023 Medical Economics Physicians Report, for comparison, the average 2022 salary for a family physicians was $245,000, while the Post puts the figure at $230,000. Internal medicine is $253,000, compared to the Post’s $278,400. Medical Economics’ survey is based on data provided anonymously by physicians, while the Post’s relies on tax records.
…
https://www.medicaleconomics.com/view/doctor-salaries-under-fire-after-washington-post-report
It’s a crappy, highly skilled and very important job that is extremely intolerant of mistakes … it should pay well.
““The share of consumers who financed a vehicle with a monthly payment of $1,000 or more reached a new all-time peak of 17.1% in Q2, up from 16.8% in Q1 2023 and 4.3% in Q2 of 2019.” – Edmunds”
A clear sign that people are being paid too much. So why the strikes for more, more, more?
UPS has a contract on the table that will pay DRIVERS, who do nothing more intellectual that read an address and deliver the package to that address, up to $170k/year!
Writers get $4200/week minimum and seniors get $7500 minimum. But it isn’t enough.
Too much pay is what is driving inflation, not the reverse!
Methinks you’re neglecting the 3 massive waves of pandemic stimulus that Mish has frequently discussed…
Not neglecting it. That is the kindling that accelerated inflation that results in pay bumps for everyone.
Remember all the idjiots who wanted to bump low wage people up to a “livable wage”? They claimed prices wouldn’t increase by doing so, that the increased costs of their hourly wages would be taken out of the “excess” profits they think that every business owner makes.
Well, now hamburger flippers and 7-11 clerks are getting $20/hr but they still don’t have a livable wage because the inflation caused by these pay bumps led everyone else to demand higher pay and prices to increase because of more money circulating in the economy.
So $20/hr is still the old $10/hr equivalent!
LOL. Too much money printing is driving inflation. People who pay $1000 for their vehicle are probably planning on living it in some day.
Not planning… destined.
Adam, when investors were certain that SPX July 1M will close > 4,605.37, wall
street whales dumped MSFT and AAPL.
Your thoughts on if the false charges of the Russia Gate an the withholding of the Hunter computer and the sensoring of Facebook Google Twitter postings would probably resulted in a Trump victory and all these subsequent charges would never have happened.
It might have
Very difficult to say
But if instead of pissing an moaning about ballots, had Trump encouraged Republicans to vote early, that might have done it too.
And if instead of pissing and moaning about the loss, Trump likely could have turned two Senate Seats in Georgia.
And extremely poor Trump choices in AZ and Pennsylvania certainly cost Republicans the Senate.
Trump is overwhelmingly to blame for the last election.
While you are right at the end of the day, each of us is ultimately responsible for our own outcomes, it’s a lot more difficult to do the right thing when Satan and 10000 demons are constantly attacking you and your fans from every angle. Trump never got any time off from the democratic demonic attack. No president in history has ever had to put up with this level of dirty tricks and lies and misdirection and cheating before during and after his presidency. Nobody who is trying to make things better, I mean really trying, should ever have to put up with what trump and his family endured.
[sniff] Donald Trump and his groupies set the world record for whining about how unfair the world is to him. Poor Donald…
Toot toot!
Demons now… take those meds.
Foreign investors escaped China and Israel.