A New Disturbance in the Force

Inflation still way over Fed’s 2% target

Headline inflation fell to 4.9% year-over-year, lower than the 5% expected.
Core inflation ticked down to 5.5% year-over-year, in line with expectations.


https://twitter.com/SteveRattner/status/1656275768727543808

Personal anecdote: 2 Burgers & Soft Drinks at Beck’s Prime SL last weekend — $35

Clearly. But its also dropping steadily, clearly.

2 Likes

If the rate of inflation drops, that doesn’t mean prices are going down, just that they aren’t rising as fast. The price of groceries are still much higher now than when Biden took over. Same can be said for just about everything else I can think of.

1 Like

8.3% in 2022
4.9% in 2023

That’s pain for the poor and fixed income

Inflation barreled ahead at 8.3% in April from a year … - CNBC

](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/11/cpi-april-2022.html#:~:text=CPI%20April%202022%3A%20Inflation%20barreled,remaining%20near%2040-year%20highs)

1 Like

I’m happy to see it headed in the right direction. It’s getting there.

1 Like

Defation causes prices to go down, the past high inflation as pointed is already baked into the cake.SS is based on COLA . As this years was which was the highest in decades.

2 Likes

U.S. government’s interest expense is now an annualized $928.9 billion

https://twitter.com/jeffweniger/status/1656404158126211076

1 Like

That U.S. Gov’t Interest expense graph is brutal. At the rate we’re now spending and printing money, the Fed will have to keep inflation high for a long, long time to be able to service our rapidly growing debt. Of course, they won’t ever think of repaying any of it - only refinancing it over & over again.

2 Likes

https://www.thestreet.com/investing/famed-investor-says-jerome-powell-is-making-biggest-mistake-fed

1 Like

https://twitter.com/credeallawyer/status/1658539599583404032

And here’s Office REIT Vornado Realty Trust ($VNO, monthly back to '99, click to embiggen)

Man, I thought the Chinese were bad off

The tower at 350 California in San Francisco, valued at $300 million in 2019, is expected to trade at about $60 million
https://twitter.com/rcwhalen/status/1658483162211827714

San Francisco’s 350 Cal to be sold to Korean investor for “between $200 and $225 per square foot for the 300,000-square-foot Financial District building. That amounts to $60 million to $67.5 million — 75% below the $250 million sought when the building hit the market in 2020."
https://twitter.com/idannyb/status/1658496384629379072

(click & drag on image to pan up/dn or left/right, use +/- to zoom)

1 Like

Beck’s Prime still stands up to the even higher-priced gourmet burgers. Not cheap, but not overpriced.

Hard to see an end to financial crises. Lots of stuff like “the end of the business cycle” have proven false. Chit can go wrong. Will go wrong. Frequently.

1 Like

Becks Prime was $12-18 per burger before COVID.

A nice Pappas Burger was $20-35 per burger. What is it now? (GUH, I miss good burgers… I can’t find a comparable one in SoCal)

Cheddars has a decent burger…under $9. Actually, Cheddars has very reasonable prices comparatively. I suspect the menus are so expensive to reproduce, they hold off as long as they can

China can’t afford multiple defaults

@coachv — I know you’re not a Ray Dalio fan but he writes well on global macro. Here’s his take on the debt ceiling negotiations…

I don’t like Dalio because he’s a hypocritical China whore. Still, he knows what he’s talking about. You just have to understand where his self-interest lies.

1 Like

Slight negative GDP like we had Q2 last year

More on the apartment foreclosure mentioned many posts above —

Texas apartment owner accused in lawsuit of defrauding investors of $12.4M

(paywall at link)

Apartment owner who lost thousands of Houston apartments in foreclosure this year is again under fire, this time from a group of Texas investors who are accusing the apartment buyer of essentially conning them out of $12.4 million. A group of 123 investors filed a lawsuit in Harris County this week accusing Applesway Investment and some of its related companies of fraud, theft and breach of fiduciary duties… The investors are mostly first-generation Indian immigrants living in Houston and Texas who heard about Applesway Investment’s potential real estate deals here through family, friends and word of mouth.