I talk a lot about inflation.
But today was the first time in my life I actually used a dollar bill as toilet paper.
I talk a lot about inflation.
But today was the first time in my life I actually used a dollar bill as toilet paper.
Jared Dillian at Mauldin Economics:
I get this a lot. People say, “We are experiencing inflation, so stocks should go down! Because that’s what happened in the 1970s.”This is something I've felt intuitively, but haven't really had a good answer when people have said stocks historically aren't good inflation hedges. It's all about the 70's being the only inflation in recent memory!
This isn’t the 1970s. This is a different sort of inflation.
What we are experiencing now is a monetary inflation, compounded by big government interventions in the labor market. This is not stagflation.
In fact, the period of stagflation that we experienced in the 1970s was an anomaly, as far as great inflations go, and isn’t likely to be repeated.
If you’ve been shorting stocks in advance of CPI numbers, and you’re not broke already, you will be soon. Inflation benefits stocks. Stocks are inflation pass-thru vehicles, though most people realize that by now.
In fact, stocks have been a better inflation hedge (so far) than gold, which has seen a lot of outflows to cryptocurrencies. This is why I’ve been increasing my allocation to equities and real estate and decreasing it elsewhere.
Do you buy the Treasury bond that will be destroyed with inflation, or do you buy the chip stock whose products, assets, and dividends will rise with inflation?
You used to earn an interest rate roughly inline with nominal GDP growth, even slightly better. Since the Fed started manipulating interest...