The latest consumer price index (CPI) numbers were released for July 2023. The CPI was up 0.2% for July, and the year-over-year stands at 3.2%, which was slightly less than expected.

The median CPI came in at 6.1% year-over-year, but the median CPI in July was just 0.2%. The median CPI tends to be less volatile, but the rate of 0.2% for July is a big drop from where it had been in previous months.

https://www.clevelandfed.org/indicators-and-data/median-cpi

I was surprised to hear Rick Santelli and Steve Liesman on CNBC agree on something. More surprisingly, I agreed with their point. They said something to the effect that prices weren’t going down. The rate of increase was going down. But the prices of eggs and other things are still way higher than they were a few years ago.

With this latest CPI data, it does make it less likely that we will see another rate hike out of the Fed this year. It has surprised me that the Fed went as high as it did, especially in the face of a heavily inverted yield curve. Jerome Powell and company are more concerned about price inflation than a possible recession.

Of course, that may change quickly depending on the severity of the recession that is likely to hit at this point.

There’s Good News and Bad News

The good news is that the rate of price inflation is coming down. We probably won’t see any outright deflation with consumer prices, although you never know. The deflation will come in asset prices – particularly real estate and stocks.

This is relief that the American middle class really needs. It isn’t a good situation when prices at the grocery store are going up faster than your paycheck.

We actually need a recession/ correction to restore some sanity in our world. It isn’t sustainable to have consumer prices continually going up faster than wages. Something has to give at some point, unless we are destined for absolute poverty.

The bad news is that we need a recession to restore this sanity, and it is the recession that often feels the most painful. That is when unemployment tends to go up as resources are reallocated. It is a time when people see their wealth on paper vanish.

The recession is like someone stopping the party. It is easy to blame the person stopping the party, but the party was going to come to an end at some point anyway. The person stopping the party may have done some people a favor even if it didn’t seem so at the time. They wanted to keep partying and drinking, even though it wasn’t sustainable.

When the Party Stops

There is a high probability there will be a recession before the November 2024 elections. That is something that most political pundits are not taking into account.

You can already tell that the party is winding down now. More people are realizing that they can’t sustain their spending. They can’t keep running up more debt.

As soon as stocks crash and the recession hits (which are likely to somewhat coincide), people will change their behavior if they haven’t already.

Some investors will panic, and some will stay the course. But the common theme is that almost everyone will start living more frugally.

It is a lot less painful if you start making changes before the party stops. You can be the person at the party who starts drinking water while everyone else is still consuming alcohol.

If you start cutting back a little in preparation, it is less painful mentally when the recession hits. It makes for less of an adjustment.

I encourage people to pay off their debt anyway, even without a recession on the horizon. But it really is that much more important to get rid of debt before a recession hits. A low-interest mortgage, student loans, and a car loan may be ok, but even here it depends on the size. All credit card debt should be gone as soon as possible, but I would say this with or without a recession on the horizon.

Overall, I think those who are mentally prepared for a hard recession will handle it better. They won’t be surprised when it hits, and they are less likely to make bad choices when it is here.

While the Federal Reserve is political, I don’t view it as always siding with the Democrats. I don’t even see it as always siding with what is thought to be the establishment position. Sometimes there are different factions within the establishment that have different positions.

It is not easy to define the establishment, but it is largely made up of people who want to maintain the status quo because they benefit from maintaining the status quo. This could have to do with money or power or both. But there are often contradicting elements of maintaining the status quo for the elite.

The Biden crime family wants to maintain the status quo of staying out of prison, grifting money from Ukraine and wherever else, and holding on to some power. This is why Biden will go along with other establishment positions such as fighting a proxy war against Russia, forcing vaccines, and piling up more massive debt (just to name a few).

It is also clear that the media and Biden’s handlers can throw him under the bus at any time, so Joe Biden will mostly do what they tell him to do.

Jerome Powell and the other people at the Federal Reserve do not have the same goals as someone like Biden. They want to maintain the status quo of central banking and controlling money. I don’t think Powell really cares one way or another if Biden is impeached or in handcuffs. He probably doesn’t care about Trump either, especially after what Trump said about Powell after appointing him.

The Fed Isn’t Bothered by a Recession

It’s not that Powell and company want a recession. It is just that they are willing to accept a recession in order to keep the dollar as the number one currency in the world.

When the CPI recently dropped to 3% year-over-year, I thought the Fed was likely to pause and stay paused for a while. But the Fed hiked its target rate another 25 basis points, and it still may not be over. They are doing this in the face of a heavily inverted yield curve.

Fed officials obviously don’t care about Biden. They don’t have the same goals as Biden. If there is a recession in 2024 that leads to Biden’s defeat, then so be it. They care more about continuing to be the big dog in the future, even though the Biden administration is undermining that by isolating China and Russia from the U.S.

The Fed’s actions prior to this year set the course for higher price inflation and a massive misallocation of resources. The trouble is already baked into the cake. It is just a matter of how fast and deep the recession is that comes.

The Fed is not trying to delay this thing until after the 2024 election. If anything, they seem to be speeding it up.

Incompetence or Something Else?

I think people have a tendency to ascribe incompetence to politicians and government bureaucrats too much, when they should be ascribing evil.

Just about every single person the Biden administration appoints into any position of prominence is bad. It is just an assumption at this point. When there is a new CDC director (or name any position), you can be certain that the person is just terrible.

If Biden and his handlers were just a bunch of incompetent fools, then they might accidentally get something right every once in a while. But that doesn’t seem to happen.

In the case of the Fed, I really do think there is some incompetence at work. There is evil too, as they are knowingly centrally planning an economy. They know they are there to bail out the major banks if necessary.

But in the actions over the last few years, I really do have to ascribe some incompetence to the whole thing.

The Fed was expanding its balance sheet into the beginning of 2022. The Fed started raising the target federal funds rate almost immediately after its balance sheet reached its peak at almost $9 trillion.

If the Fed was competent and had any kind of foresight, wouldn’t there have at least been a brief period of time in there where it wasn’t doing anything?

It went straight from pushing hard on the accelerator to slamming on the brakes. There was never a time where it was coasting.

Looking Backwards

I bring this all up just to point out that the Fed is still hiking rates in the face of an inverted yield curve and a likely coming recession.

They didn’t care about price inflation at all in 2020, 2021, or the beginning of 2022. Then, all of a sudden, it was panic in the other direction. They are determined to get the rate of price inflation down, and I think they will be successful in the short run.

But it can turn on a dime and go back the other way. Earlier in 2023, when Silicon Valley Bank failed, the Fed expanded its balance sheet by a few hundred billion dollars in a short timeframe. In its quest to slowly drain the balance sheet, there was a blip upwards during this time.

Imagine what it will look like if a major bank were to fail.

The Fed is reacting to what happened in the past and not what will happen in the future. It’s not that they should know what will happen in the future, and it shouldn’t be left to any central planner to try.

But you would think the Fed would be able to see what is happening a little bit. Just as they missed the spike in consume price inflation that was coming in 2022, they are missing the major recession and the popping of the Everything Bubble that is coming.

When we hit some kind of financial crisis, the Fed will forget about price inflation again and start pumping new money in to bail out financial institutions and the bond market. It’s as if they can’t see it coming.

It’s a bad cycle that doesn’t stop, and it only seems to get more extreme each time.

The Biden team is trying to throw everything they have at Trump and his supporters. They have tried just about everything short of assassination at this point, at least that we know of.

The latest Trump indictment relates to Trump’s challenge of the 2020 election and the events of January 6, 2021. I was expecting the indictment to say that Trump is guilty of inciting violence – even though he did no such thing.

But the charges against Trump are really just that he openly challenged the election results and didn’t go quietly into the night.

These latest charges are not just a hit against Trump and an attempt to get him in prison. It is an attempt to criminalize speech that goes against the official narrative.

The Constitution and Federalism

The Biden team is trying every avenue to get Trump arrested and imprisoned. They are using state and local governments, and they are using the federal government with the Department of Justice (not well named).

We know there are many thousands of laws and regulations at the federal level. Most people are unaware that the U.S. Constitution only mentions three crimes at the federal level. They are piracy, treason, and counterfeiting. (You can investigate the Federal Reserve on the last one.)

Crimes of murder, kidnapping, fraud, theft and many other things are supposed to be left to the state and local level.

Of course, we are a long way from there at this point, but it is still an important reminder. If federalism were more alive and well, then a corrupt government department would be far more limited in its ability to prosecute people for political reasons.

A Ban on Free Speech

This sham indictment against Trump is targeting all Americans whether they know it or not. It means that you are no longer free to say what you want to say.

I don’t even care whether or not it’s true. If you aren’t threatening someone or encroaching on their property, then you should be able to say it.

There is always the issue of purposeful defamation, which libertarians can argue whether or not should be a crime. But that is not the issue at hand here.

Trump is being charged for questioning the election results and obstructing a political procedure. He didn’t obstruct anything by having a rally/ protest. He was not blocking any doors to prevent the people in Congress from entering the Capitol, nor did he instruct anyone else to do so.

Trump gave a speech that day. In the lead up to January 6th, he was questioning the election results. It doesn’t matter whether or not he was lying. It doesn’t matter whether he was right or wrong. What matters is that he should have the right to say it.

An Attempt to Stop People From Questioning the Narrative

This is similar to the sham lawsuits against Alex Jones for questioning a school shooting. He was found civilly liable for a ridiculous amount of money. It was an attempt to shut him up.

If you are not allowed to question the official establishment narrative of a story, then you live in a tyranny. It means the tyrants can do whatever they want and lie about. If anyone tries to question the actual events, then they are subject to being thrown in prison.

It is a convenient way of trying to shut people up who speak out against official narratives.

Does this mean we can be thrown in prison if we question whether the COVID jabs were safe and effective?

Does this mean anyone who questions whether voter fraud took place is subject to criminal charges?

Does this mean that if you question the official narrative of 9/11 or the JFK assassination that you risk being locked up for the rest of your life?

The latest charges against Trump are really charges against the American people, including those who don’t like Trump. It is an attempt to ban free speech. You can only speak if you say things that are pleasing to the authorities in charge. Otherwise, like Trump, you risk being tossed in the detention camp.

Trump should have run this advertising campaign in 2020. He may get another chance to do so in 2024.

It is looking highly likely that Trump will be the Republican nominee for president in 2024. Even if he goes to jail, he will still be on the ballot.

It is less clear if Biden will be the nominee. There is some hope for RFK Jr., but the establishment and its media are already on a smear campaign against him.

The electorate of the Democratic Party consists of people who are mostly obedient when it comes to establishment politics. They obediently wore their masks and got their vaccines.

The Democratic Party establishment conspired against Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020 to make sure he wouldn’t be the nominee. Sanders dutifully endorsed the Democratic Party nominee each time, and most of his followers obliged and voted for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.

As long as Biden doesn’t have any more significant decline mentally in the next year, then the establishment will see Biden as their best chance of winning. They will sweep all of the Hunter Biden and Joe Biden bribery stuff under the rug.

But Joe Biden has always had a big mouth, and he’s always been arrogant. Sometimes he inadvertently brags about something that shouldn’t have been said out loud.

Who Should Have Been Impeached?

Donald Trump has been impeached twice. The first time it happened was because of a phone call he had with Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine. Trump was basically asking Zelenskyy if the Ukrainian government had any dirt on Biden or the Russian collusion allegations that he knew to be false.

Here, Trump had the right instincts. He knew there was deep state corruption, bribery, money laundering, and who knows what else. But much of it went through Ukraine. The Clintons funnel money and favors through foundations. The Biden family uses Ukraine.

Where Trump failed in his instincts was thinking that Zelenskyy might be on his side. Trump knew there was criminal activity going on, but for some reason put some kind of trust with the president of Ukraine.

Even though Trump never directly threatened to withhold foreign aid from Ukraine, it was enough for the Democrats to run with and use it as an excuse to impeach Trump.

The Democrats accused Trump of using taxpayer money and his own influence to curry favor with a foreign government.

Yet, this is exactly what Joe Biden did in between his time as vice president and president. In fact, he said it out loud. He wore it as a badge of honor.

The Best Advertisement Ever

If Trump is going against Biden in 2024, his campaign should run a 30 second clip of Biden talking. The two other guys in the video above look a little uncomfortable when Biden is talking about getting the state prosecutor fired in Ukraine who was investigating the company his son worked for.

Biden threatened to withhold one billion dollars (not of his own money) unless the prosecutor was fired. This is an impeachable offense.

The big story with Hunter Biden isn’t the drugs, the prostitution, the gun violations, or the tax evasion. It is that he was raking in millions of dollars because of his father’s political position. He was the middleman selling favors to foreign governments using American taxpayer money.

Trump could run this commercial and not say another thing in the video. There could just be a little caption at the bottom that says the prosecutor that Biden is referring to was investigating his son’s company.

The video speaks for itself. It shows Biden as the corrupt and arrogant criminal that he is. It shows the utter hypocrisy of the Democratic establishment and the establishment media for going after Trump but ignoring this.

This should be Trump’s strategy in September 2024. At that point, it would probably be too late for them to replace Biden with someone else, unless he conveniently dies or becomes ill.

Trump was actually impeached for trying to uncover what Joe Biden describes in this video. Trump didn’t need further investigation. Biden had already admitted it out loud.

This commercial should be run over and over again. Maybe it wouldn’t switch many people to voting for Trump, but it might dissuade some people for voting for Biden.

There are many issues that are much more important than the crimes of the Biden family. It is far more important to end the war in Ukraine and to fully repudiate the COVID regime of the last 3 years.

But pointing out that Biden is a criminal and that his supporters are a bunch of hypocrites may be the message that could put Trump over the top.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) released its latest monetary policy statement. The Fed hiked its target rate by 25 basis points (0.25%), as was widely expected.

We were reassured from the statement that the U.S. banking system continues to be “sound and resilient”. It will be sound and resilient until it isn’t.

It is bad economic theory when Jerome Powell insinuates that wages need to be forced down in order to control inflation. Falling wages may result from the Fed hiking rates and draining its balance sheet, but that is just a consequence. Making wages fall doesn’t automatically mean we get less inflation.

Of course, wages have been going down in real (inflation-adjusted) terms. They have been rising nominally, but at a slower pace than price inflation. This means that most families are experiencing a decline in living standards.

This is all because of massive government spending, government regulation, and previous monetary inflation. The only reason we are facing price inflation problems now is because the Fed was willing to create massive amounts of money and fund deficits at low rates in previous years.

A Soft Landing?

Powell was asked about a “soft landing” for the economy. Of course, no Fed chairman will ever say that a big recession is imminent. Powell pretends that the experts at the Fed are managing the economy well and hope to get inflation under control without seeing a massive slowdown.

Why should we think that this time is any different? If it is any different at all, it is because it is far worse than other times in the past. The price inflation may not be as bad as the 1970s, but the major asset bubbles are likely worse.

The Fed is continuing to hike rates in the face of a heavily inverted yield curve. And they are leaving the door open for another rate hike later this year if the economy doesn’t completely implode before then.

I know that Powell is something of a Keynesian and believes in centrally planning the economy, but I don’t think he’s completely stupid either. He must understand that a bad recession is likely on the horizon. He just has to pretend like everything is ok.

Maybe the Fed Really is Independent

It is something of a joke that the Fed always claims independence. Fed officials will say they shouldn’t be audited and should have minimal, if any, oversight because it would ruin their independence.

This is just an excuse to maintain power and to maintain the status quo.

With that said, I also don’t buy into the argument that is often made by Fed critics that the Fed is really working for the president or for the Democrats. Maybe they are working for the big banks, but I think it is hard to claim that Jerome Powell is working on behalf of Biden and company.

Maybe the Fed is just part of the establishment, which makes sense in that they want to somewhat maintain the status quo. But the establishment is not always working in complete unison.

The Fed is obviously doing what needs to be done to save the dollar. If they lose control of the dollar, then the whole establishment probably loses.

But with the rate of price inflation coming down, the Fed could at least stop hiking rates at this point. By continuing to tighten its monetary policy in the face of an inverted yield curve, they are risking a recession for the ages, and it would start before the November 2024 election.

Therefore, I think this does away with any theory that the Fed is there to help the president or the Democrats. We have a Democrat president, and Jerome Powell and company seem to have no problem bringing on a recession heading right into the next election.

It will be one more factor that will make presidential politics really interesting in the next year and a half.

At least back in the day, the Democrats would play the class warfare game and pretend to be for the poor and middle class. Their solution – at least in rhetoric – was to tax the rich more. But at least it insinuated that they wanted to help the average American.

Now the Democrats don’t even pretend to be for the little guy. They have been too busy defending big pharmaceutical companies and the military-industrial complex, while collaborating with social media companies to censor information they don’t like.

The Republicans aren’t much better, but at least some of them will occasionally acknowledge the plight of middle class America.

Mike Pence recently said that Ukraine is his number one priority. This was right after Tucker Carlson listed all of the problems at home in the United States. If Pence thinks this is a winning message, let him keep it.

DeSantis was pretty good at standing up for the little guy in Florida after he realized his mistake with the COVID lockdowns. As a presidential candidate, he has been horrific. I don’t really care about Bud Light and its transgender spokesperson. I can choose not to buy Bud Light, just as millions have chosen. I don’t need a president standing up for me regarding stupid decisions by corporations.

Where are the Populist Candidates?

In today’s world, being a libertarian is almost being a populist. Nobody else is standing up for the tens of millions of Americans taking it on the chin, so libertarians might as well do it.

You don’t even have to sell them on radical libertarian reform. You just have to acknowledge their pain, and that will be enough for a good percentage of the population to go to your side.

The only two candidates with somewhat of a populist message are Donald Trump and Robert Kennedy Jr. Sometimes Vivek Ramaswamy has the ability to connect with people, but it still isn’t an adequate acknowledgement of the suffering out there.

Trump and Kennedy touch on it at times, but they could both be better. They are the two best major candidates on the issue of Ukraine. They both want to end the war. They should tie this back to the struggling middle class.

It would be easy to say, “Why should you pay higher prices at the grocery store every single week while we ship tens of billions of dollars of money and weapons to Ukraine to prolong a war?”

“Why do the budgets of the corrupt FBI, CIA, and NSA keep growing while Americans have trouble paying their rent and their insurance premiums?”

See how easy this whole populist thing can be.

Where Rand Paul Failed

I recently read something on a forum that was discussing politics, and someone mentioned that they wished Rand Paul would run for president and get elected.

Rand Paul is wisely not running for president this time around. DeSantis should have done the same. He should have learned from the mistakes of Rand Paul. He never should have run. But if you are going to run, you have to sell a populist message and acknowledge the struggles of everyday Americans.

Rand Paul was cooked in the first 10 minutes of the first Republican debate in 2015. The first question asked was if the candidates would promise to support the eventual nominee. Everyone but Trump raised their hand.

Rand Paul then stupidly spoke up and criticized Trump for this, even though his dad had done the same thing 4 years earlier.

Rand Paul should have avoided criticizing Trump or anyone else. He should have been hammering home about the struggling American middle class every time he had the opportunity to speak.

You can do this with any question. It doesn’t matter if it is foreign policy, or gun rights, or your opinion on gay rights. You can bring every single issue back to the struggling average American.

Trump and Kennedy

Biden, or whoever replaces Biden as the establishment favorite, has the backing of the corporate media and the entire establishment. This includes many big corporations who feel the need to play ball with the government. So it won’t be easy to defeat Biden or the establishment replacement for Biden.

But there is a reason that Trump and Kennedy are the other two most popular candidates right now. It is because they talk about some real issues, even if they don’t always get them right. There is at least a sense that they are acknowledging the pain of the American people.

This is why it is basically a three-way race right now. It is Trump, Kennedy, and the establishment candidate.

The establishment would rather have two of their own candidates running against each other. Then it wouldn’t matter who won. That is why they are trying to censor and slander RFK Jr. It is why they are trying to throw Trump in jail with any possible charge that could stick.

Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, Tim Scott, Mike Pence, and the rest of the Republican establishment candidates are just plain pathetic. I don’t understand why they are running. Are they so delusional that they think they can win? Or are they all there just to try to damage Trump? That’s not working.

It is impossible for the really insincere ones to even pretend to be in favor of the little guy. They can lie, but they can’t lie that much. They don’t even understand what is happening in America. They don’t understand that people just want to be able to work, pay their bills, save a little money, and enjoy some entertainment in their free time.

Instead, a majority of Americans sense that they are getting the short end of the stick. They see their grocery bills go up and continue to go up. They see their car insurance, homeowners insurance, and medical insurance all go up in price. Meanwhile, their 3% annual raise at work barely covers a few of these items.

Americans know that things aren’t right. They are just waiting for someone to articulately point it out.

With the U.S. government toying with a major war with Russia, and coming off of the COVID tyranny, it seems that there isn’t much to be optimistic about for libertarians.

The U.S. empire grows. The federal budget grows. The national debt continues to grow at an astounding pace. Americans are suffering from consumer price inflation and lagging wages, while a major recession looks likely.

Yet, in spite of all this, there are many reasons for a libertarian to be optimistic.

Education Without the State

Homeschooling continues to grow at a rapid pace. And in most states, it isn’t that hard, legally speaking, to homeschool. The biggest hurdle is having a parent available to do it. The biggest obstacle put in place by government is the taxation and inflation that makes it hard for a family to get by on one income.

A Well-Armed Populace

The statistics aren’t really clear, but gun ownership is likely near an all-time high, at least in the last few generations. There are various reasons for people owning a gun, but for most non-criminals, the reason comes back to some sort of symbolism for freedom.

Vaccine Education

Just two years ago, we were under a major assault to take multiple COVID jabs. It was less than two years ago that government mandates entered the scene. In that amount of time, people have fought back and mostly won.

Even though a majority of people ended up getting jabbed (some through coercion), almost nobody is continuing with the boosters.

The really good news for liberty is that the excessive push by the authoritarians have radicalized people in the other direction. Many people have become skeptical of all vaccines. Some are choosing not to give any vaccines to their children only because of what has happened over the last couple of years.

In addition, it has led many people – Americans in particular – to question the entire medical establishment. If a doctor tells you to get a procedure done or to take a drug for something, more and more people aren’t just obediently listening. They at least question the advice and do some of their own research.

The Presidential Candidates

There are a lot of terrible presidential candidates. The good news is that the worst ones on the Republican side are getting almost no traction. They are polling somewhere near zero. This includes Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Chris Christie, and others. It is all of the really bad war hawks who are doing poorly.

Dave Smith may run on the Libertarian Party ticket. Tulsi Gabbard may run as an independent. RFK Jr. is stirring up trouble in the Democratic Party. Vivek Ramaswamy is at least talking about some interesting subjects.

You can find faults with any person. Aside from Dave Smith, there are many things a libertarian would have disagreements about with the other candidates. But at least many of them are questioning U.S. foreign policy and are going against some of the establishment narratives.

This means that there has been a mind shift in the American electorate. If people were the same as they were 20 years ago, we would be talking about Mike Pence or Nikki Haley going against Joe Biden or Gavin Newsom. Instead, we get some variation with RFK Jr., and even Trump and DeSantis.

Economic Optimism

This is admittedly a harder topic to be optimistic about. We are likely in for some hard times ahead. But in spite of the government (at all levels) spending almost half of our money and regulating us like crazy, the people acting in the marketplace still find a way to innovate and make the world go round.

The only way the budget will be cut in any significant way is through the laws of economics. What can’t go on has a tendency to stop, and that perfectly describes the growing federal budget and debt.

But one day when the federal government is finally rolled back, we could see a new prosperity that we can’t even imagine now. Imagine the entrepreneurship and innovation and new technology if the state is cut in half. We will be wealthier as a society that most wouldn’t think possible today.

A General Distrust

It is easy to hear people complain that we can no longer trust our media or our government officials. But that should be reason to celebrate.

It’s not like politicians and media pundits just started lying to us recently. This has been going on for all of recorded history. It is a great thing that people aren’t trusting what their political “leaders” are telling them.

It is also incredible that people are no longer holding the FBI and CIA in high esteem. They are no longer these heroic agencies battling evil in the eyes of many. They understand that these agencies are evil themselves, at least at the top. They see that these government agencies are working against the American people and not for them.

This general distrust in the establishment severely weakens the state. It might not be evident now, but it is there.

I believe it was Lew Rockwell that compared the state to a wounded wild animal. It is hurt and dying, but it will be flailing around and will hurt and kill some people in the process of dying.

We are not going to see an overnight dramatic change towards liberty. But the key to gaining long-term liberty is for the populace to distrust the state and to stop being so obedient to the state. That is happening now.

The latest consumer price index (CPI) numbers came out for June 2023. The CPI was up 0.2% for the month, and the year-over-year now stands at 3%, which is slightly lower than was expected.

The less volatile median CPI was up 0.4% for the month with the year-over-year coming in at 6.4%.

It seems that the Fed’s fight against inflation (that it created) is working. If the Fed keeps going with its current policy of gradually reducing its balance sheet and at least not lowering interest rates, then I think it will succeed in its quest for 2% annual price inflation as measured by the government.

Of course, this means that the Fed can’t have any major bailouts for the big banks or the Treasury market or Congress.

The reduced rate of price inflation indicates a slowdown in the economy and a coming recession. It’s not that lower inflation should be associated with a recession, but it is with the way things are happening.

Not the 1970s

It started to look like we were headed for the 1970s again with double-digit price inflation and double-digit interest rates. The 1970s also destroyed Keynesian theory when there was recession with higher inflation.

This isn’t like the 1970s now – at least not yet – because Fed policy is different. The Fed kept creating new money out of thin air and lost a handle on controlling the dollar.

It wasn’t until Paul Volcker became Fed chair in 1979 and started drastically hiking interest rates and shutting off the money tap that the rate of price inflation began to decline. We eventually got the recession (or recessions) of 1981 and 1982.

We are more in the 1980 phase right now. We just never saw interest rates or price inflation reach the levels that were seen in the 1970s.

It’s not to say that the Fed won’t reverse course and lower interest rates and expand its balance sheet again. But as of right now, the Fed is in a tight money mode, and the yield curve is highly inverted.

This all points to a deep recession ahead, which will include a popping of the Everything Bubble.

The Next FOMC Move

The FOMC has a meeting in a couple of weeks. The lower inflation numbers suggest that the Fed will be less likely to go for another rate hike of 25 basis points, but it’s hard to say for sure.

Stocks, bonds, and gold were all up on the day with the news of the lower CPI numbers. It looks like investors were bullish because there is a better chance the Fed will stop raising its target rate.

I think investors are swept up in the last of the mania and are missing the big picture. The lower CPI numbers are good news for consumers, but they shouldn’t be good news for investors. There is a big recession coming if we are to believe the inverted yield curve.

Again, this isn’t the 1970s. We are better off with the lower inflation. But we will probably get a bigger recession because of the size of the bubble.

You can enjoy the prices going up at a slightly slower pace at the grocery store if that is a reason to celebrate. Unfortunately for many, asset prices are likely to fall hard.

The yield curve is still heavily inverted. It has been mostly inverted for all of 2023. This indicates there is likely a recession on the horizon. And with how high asset prices have gone – particularly stocks and real estate – there could be a major asset bubble popping.

While this blog tends to focus on monetary policy, politics, and investments, I want to remind people that their investments are not their number one priority, at least for most people. If you are retired and wealthy, then your investment portfolio may be your number one financial priority.

For most people, their investment portfolio is far less important than maintaining their income. For the majority of people, this means a job. For some, it could mean income from a business. Both of these things are vulnerable in a recession.

We have seen falling real wages in recent years with price inflation exceeding any nominal rise in wages. But at least most people still have 90% or so of their income (in real terms) as compared to a couple of years ago. This can make life more stressful and bit less pleasant, but at least you can pay the most important bills.

If you lose your job – or worse, your own business – then virtually your entire income disappears. If you are married, maybe your spouse has a job or some sort of income. But even there, it is a drastic reduction.

So for most people, it would be better to be more productive at work, to network, and to have an updated resume than to worry about their investment portfolio.

Another Priority

Aside from maintaining your main source of income, I believe the next most important financial thing to prioritize is being out of debt.

If you have a low-interest rate mortgage, then this is probably fine. Even here though, it shouldn’t have a high balance. You can have a 2% mortgage rate, but if it is on a million-dollar loan for your house, then you are highly vulnerable.

Perhaps a low-interest rate loan on a car or student loans is fine too. But again, the overall balance matters. There is a difference between a car loan for $10,000 and a car loan for $50,000.

Credit card debt with any interest rate above zero is just bad. If you can’t pay your credit card bills now, it isn’t going to get any better in a recession. You have to do what it takes to eliminate that debt now. It will only get harder if you ignore it or don’t do something to fix it.

The economy can change quite fast. A house that was worth $600,000 could all of a sudden only be selling for $400,000.

Someone making a nice salary of $150,000 could quickly see that go down during a recession. It might be a choice between the job and a significant salary cut.

If you are out of debt, or mostly out of debt, then it is much easier to scrape by when things get tough. If you are already staring at major debt, it will be that much harder.

Investments

After doing what you can to prepare in terms of maintaining your primary source of income and being out of debt, then you can focus on your investments.

This means diversifying and making sure that any scenario will not wipe you out. If the bond market tanks, will you be ok? If gold falls by $500 per ounce, will that set you back a lot? If stocks fall by 78% – as the Nasdaq did in the early 2000s – will that ruin your retirement and financial security?

As I learned from Harry Browne, you can’t predict the future, and you don’t have to predict the future. If you are afraid of some economic scenario happening (where the world doesn’t end), just ask yourself if you will be ok if it does happen.

If you are afraid the market will crash by 80%, then you don’t have to worry if just 20% of your assets are in stocks. 80% of your portfolio should still be in place and doing fine.

This is why I recommend Harry Browne’s advice to have a permanent portfolio. It will not give you the best investment returns, but it will give you some peace of mind.

Not Enough Fear

While I wouldn’t take political advice from Warren Buffett, he has had some great investing advice over the years. He said to be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.

While many families are struggling, there seems to be way too little fear out there given the conditions. This is why stock prices are still high. It is why people are still buying expensive cars and upgrading their kitchen (using debt).

The recession will hit people hard when it comes. The one upside is that consumer price inflation may ease. The downside is that the Fed may start another round of money creation if it is needed to save the major banks.

Mortgage rates have gone up significantly in the last year and a half. This makes the monthly payments much more expensive for anyone buying a house if using a mortgage.

You could buy the same house for the same price from 2 years ago and expect to pay a few hundred dollars more per month for a typical house. Of course, it can be far more dramatic if you get a mortgage in the millions.

One would expect housing prices to fall since the cost of a loan is more expensive. Most people buying a house get a mortgage of some kind. There are very few who can just pay for a house out of their bank account and even fewer who actually do.

Supply and demand can be a funny thing. The higher price of a mortgage (the higher interest rate) would indicate that the prices for residential real estate should be going down. Yet, that hasn’t been happening much in most areas.

As always, real estate is local. But because everything is tied to the dollar and interest rates, the trends across the country tend to be similar. While prices may have declined a little from their peak, we have not seen a dramatic fall in prices.

The Supply Side

Real estate is a funny thing because there always seems to be exceptions and different rules for real estate.

In this case, the higher mortgage rates are actually limiting the supply of houses on the market.

I can speak from my own experience on this one. I was smart enough (but really mostly lucky) to refinance my mortgage at just the right time around early 2021. I got a 2% fixed -rate on a 15-year mortgage.

I have absolutely no plans on moving any time soon. If I did have to move, I would probably want to try to rent out my house and keep the mortgage. The rate is so ridiculously low, it wouldn’t make financial sense to sell the house unless there was a very good reason to move.

Most people don’t have a 2% rate, but there are a lot of people with rates around 3 or 4 percent. They are low compared to current rates around 7% for a 30-year fixed mortgage. So unless they are moving to another city or looking for a major change (perhaps a growing family), it is easy to see that most people are going to keep the house with the low mortgage rate.

If someone already owns a house and moves to another house, they will just be paying a much higher rate than they were before in most cases. So they have the incentive to not move.

This is keeping the existing supply of houses off the market to a large extent. It doesn’t prevent new homebuilders, but that takes a lot of time and investment. Most houses bought and sold are not brand new.

There Might Be a Breaking Point

This is bad news for people buying a house now who didn’t previously own one. They still have relatively high prices to contend with, coupled with higher interest rates.

If you are one of these people and you can wait to buy, then I would recommend doing so. You can either wait for interest rates to go down, or wait for prices to go down.

I don’t think this scenario is going to last for a long time. If we hit a deep recession in the next year or so, things can change quite quickly. People desperate for money may sell.

In addition, if the past is any indication, the Fed will lower its target interest rate again. Sure, there is price inflation to deal with, but that could go down with a deep enough recession. We all know the Fed will bail out the banks if needed.

So it isn’t an unrealistic scenario to imagine that interest rates could go back down in the somewhat near future.

Of course, if the Fed goes on another money creation spree, this could just reignite a run in housing.

But it is important to remember that prices can only go up as long as people can afford to pay them. If we hit a deep recession with higher unemployment, many families won’t be able to afford their mortgage with all of the other costs of owning a house. We are already contending with wages lagging behind price inflation.

Conclusion

Housing is highly unpredictable in this environment. The best thing to do, as always, is to think through the fundamentals.

Don’t take on more debt than you can afford. It doesn’t matter if you see a great deal or what the interest rates are. Once you are in the house, will you be able to comfortably afford it?

If you already have a house with a low interest rate mortgage, and you are not severely struggling, then it is probably best to stay where you are.

Moving is expensive anyway. Buying and selling a house isn’t like buying and selling a stock where there are low or no trading fees. Closing costs, moving costs, and other costs are expensive. Aside from a flipping business, you should never buy a house unless you plan to keep it for at least 7 years. 10 years or more is better.