The positive spikes
were obviously the virus stimulus checks.

Now that the liberal government teat has dried up
and inflation is modelling socialist Venezuela,
the debt junkies are living on their credit cards

You can consider this a hurricane warning.

How do they calculate disposable income?

Lots of jobs out there. Tons of them everywhere in my area. Hell, I could open a business selling physical help wanted signs and make bank.

Anyone locally who can't find a job is either on drugs, an alcoholic, a hideous beast that has metal everywhere and tats on their face and wanting customer interaction work or, just plain lazy as hell.

And yes, it may not be a job you like but its a job. Sometimes that is just what you have to do, take something and keep looking for the one you really want.

Triple whammy.

In 2020 the liberal government virus nazis gutted the middle class by forcing 60% of all small businesses to close permanently.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/16/yelp-data-shows-60percent-of-business-closures-due-to-the-coronavirus-pandemic-are-now-permanent.html

It's a government statistic complied by

the US Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Its actually encouraging that the government teat has dried up, it will hopefully keep us from falling off the cliff and seeing a Venezuela style run away inflation.

painful of course with bad times ahead but the system will correct itself with time if allowed too

All bets are off though if the .gov starts seizing parts of the economy like oil companies for example and or instituting price fixing crap

I am sticking with standard investing and planning but if i see .gov seize its first company for the good of the "people" my plans and preparations for the future will undergo a massive change in strategy.

Two years of massive FOMO driven by the media and the assumption prices will continue to go up indefinitely.

Thanks for posting that info.

FRED charts are extremely useful economic indicators.

Thanks for the quick and thorough reply.   That sure is a scary drop.  

What caused the huge rebound near the end?  

It’s really weird how it stayed within a tight range for so long, and then it got incredibly unstable.

The rebound is the pickup in business activity from the liberal government temporarily lifting virus mandates.
In my opinion, the liberal virus nazis will only clamp down again,
because once fascists gain control,
they NEVER let go until they are destroyed.

I think the instability is from both the liberal virus hysteria and the liberal government's insane reaction to it with the lockdowns, business shutdowns,
along with implementing the money printing liberal insanity of Modern Monetary Theory.

This economic destruction is deliberate in order to bring about the Great Reset.

It makes more sense once you realize that the Y axis data is a percentage difference compared to a year prior.

Presume you normally have $2,000 per month in disposable income under normal circumstances.  Now presume that you got $1,000 worth of stimmy in May 2021 but for all time both before and after that your disposable income situation is unchanged.  Your data on this chart would look like this:

May 2020 -> $2,000 -> 0% change compared to May 2019
May 2021 -> $3,000 -> 50% change compared to May 2020
May 2022 -> $2,000 -> -33% change compared to May 2021
May 2023 -> $2,000 -> 0% change compared to May 2022

I don't think this particular chart is necessarily the right way to measure the peril we are in when stimmy was involved in the prior two years.  The big downspike could easily be interpreted as just people not getting stimulus in 2022 and NOT necessarily representative of a dramatic reduction in disposable income.  That said, it would make sense that inflation is eating into people's disposable income.  I'm not arguing that.  Just saying that this method of measuring it is probably not showing as clear of a picture as if it was measured in constant dollars rather than a percentage change.

ETA:  If you look close at the chart you'll see that the shape of the part in blue and the part in red are a mirror image of each other set apart exactly 1 year:

Attached File


ETA2:  Using the magic of photoshop to shift the latter half of that data over by one year back:

Attached File

Were the stimmies taxed at the same rate as other income? Also, were state UE checks/payments figured in? Hell, I know of people making MORE laid off during covid then what they made while working.

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make with regards to my post.  I'm just describing a phenomenon that occurs as a result of the way the data in the chart is calculated.

But yeah, I know plenty of people who made more between stimulus and UE than they made while working.  That's almost certainly a huge factor in the upswing portion of that chart.

That is all I am saying, the jump has several different factors working for it plus forgotten ones like the ability to not pay rent and house payments without immediate eviction.

If FJB actually resumes the student loan payments in September, it's going to get even worse

Government entitlements definitely skewed (screwed) the graph.

The real destruction is how unearned entitlements encourage parasitic liberal government Dependence which always leads fo liberal government Bondage.



Another ingredient in the mix is credit card debt which is near it's all time high and on track to surpass it.
Trying to live off of credit cards while inflation increases their interest rates is financial suicide.

I don't disagree with any of that.  It's all true.

I'm just making the point that this particular chart can easily be misunderstood and may not show very well what you and I both agree on.

Right on.  I agree.

I might be the only inflationary contrarian here. I see a drift toward employment layoffs leading to reduced incomes and loss of money chasing the goods available, eventually leading to a deflationary recession, and perhaps a deflationary depression (unlikely but possible).

Include into this millions of illegals looking for jobs and willing to work for reduced wages, replacing many who now have low skilled employment. This will lead to unrest and a reduction of money supply used for buying necessities, and more work layoffs.

This could become a cycle that would be hard to stop.

This is not what I want, just what I see coming.

Will the gov. start printing loads of money again, I don't know but may become necessary.

I understand your point.

I'm commenting on how people have enslaved themselves to government as well as to their own debts.

Government can only control those who need it,
and that dependence is totally self inflicted.
Here is a list of those needs
by which people have enslaved themselves:

Government Employment
Government Insurance
Government Education
Government Healthcare
Government Pharmaceuticals
Government Vaccinations
Government Welfare
Government Loans
Government Mortgages
Government Grants
Government Subsidies
Government Entitlements
Government Benefits
Government Disability
Government Housing
Government Food
Government Transportation
Government Childcare

America has degenerated into a nation of parasites.

The credit destruction that is coming and corresponding deleveraging will be deflationary. The massive bubble created is unwinding.