We know what’s coming and we are prepared.
Consumer Sentiment & the C.P.Lie
The latest Michigan survey saw 1Y-inflation expectations increase to 3.5% (versus 3.2% expected) and consumer sentiment plunge from 69.1 to 65.6 (versus 72 expected).
We don't need to tell you that this is a bad outright terrible result, but meanwhile the Fed as usual has its blinders on, desperate to explain it away because, after all, "why, at a time of falling inflation, low unemployment, and strong economic growth, do voters appear so unsatisfied with the state of the economy, and in how Biden is handling the economy? Why in particular do voters complain so much about inflation?" (That's a quote)
The first comes from the Richmond Fed, which finds that "consumers whose political party is in office tend to have higher sentiment than those affiliated with the party not in office," noting that "the partisan sentiment gap has widened over time."
The second, much more convincing result, is some research from the Chicago School of Business, which used the pre-1983 CPI that took home prices and mortgage interest payments into account.
"If it still did, inflation would have peaked at nearly 18 percent in late 2022, about double the current CPI measure."
In fact, as the study itself claims, "If we measured inflation as the BLS did in the 1970s, the recent bout of inflation would have been even higher than the worst of the 1970s! It really is as bad now as it was then."
If the CPI were to include interest paid on personal debt (such as auto loans and credit-card debt), that would also produce a much higher inflation rate than suggested by the current official measure (chart above). In fact, using this CPI, the year-over-year change in inflation has only just returned back down to its 2022 highs.
Maybe this would better explain for the economists like John Cochrane why "voters complain so much about inflation?"
Yanis Varoufakis (former Greek Minister of Finance) describes AI as a new form of capital that produces not goods, but behavioral modification. This is achieved by engineering perceptions.
The answers provided by ChatGPT, or the images rendered by StableDiffusion — as these increasingly inform our perceptions, they in turn define the reality we experience.
This is what makes AI so powerful — he who controls the AI, defines the reality of tomorrow.
⚡️🇺🇸 Some more things coming out for the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
Under the preliminary drafts of the bill, the USAF is requesting a release of $57,000,000 USD ($57.0 Million) to retire all remaining 162 A-10 Thunderbolt IIs in current service. Apart of the 2023 NDAA, there was a clause for a few million dollars to be released every so often to gradually retire the (then) 250 airframes by 2034; however due to the push by the Dept of Defense to ‘shed’ obsolete or obsolescent airframes that cannot be overhauled or upgraded further without a whole new airframe, it appears the USAF wants to retire all 162 remaining A-10s by the end of 2026.
The USAF plans to fully divest the 340-total remaining A-10s entirely, including those that currently serve in a handful of Air National Guard units in some states; which will be replaced by F-15EX Eagle IIs (like what is already happening with the Michigan State Air National Guard’s A-10s), or F-35A/Bs.
Included ...
My older sister lives in the country in between Velma Oklahoma and Duncan Oklahoma near the Fuqua Lake area, this story was told by a rural mail delivery woman who delivers the mail in the country.
The incident happened while she was on her route, when she came upon to the mailbox a male Chinese nation came out brandishing a, AK-47 rifle being very hostile,
I don't know if he pointed it at her since it is against the law to do so but she was terrified and said she was never going back and that the location that had a guard tower. Was the sheriff department notified, I don't know, did she notify her supervisor, don't know. But word is from the country folk who live in the area they have seen the guard tower at the pot place;
I refuse to call it a farm because it is an insult to farmers.
And yes she was traumatized by that ordeal
