Why are We Seeing High Inflation? -- The Block is Hot

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Inflation is Coming, No Inflation is Here:

I have never really looked back over time to understand when and why I post. I have a feeling it probably aligns over time with when our economy is at its highest and lowest. I've come to conclude that if I put my thoughts in writing and it has a historical time stamp on it, then eventually over time I can change minds (by looking at my past thoughts). I have molded myself over time to being a contrarian...and this means I appreciate going against the grain. I don't try to follow the crowd. The crowd is like a herd and in fact where and when I see a stampede I run away. 

I believe this is how I see risk, protect myself from negative risk, and then eventually use leverage to capitalize on risk. I take these life lessons and simply apply them to the stock market. I try to create habits and repeatable practices that can be applied to the game of life and carry these concepts over to the stock market game. Notice, I purposefully called them a game. There is an ebb and flow to everything in my opinion and you have to know how the game is played. I take time to find, learn, and observe this lifecycle in everything. Whether it's the game of life, the stock market game, sports, or our economy you will notice they all have cycles. Why this repeats OR cycles like a clock is unbeknownst to me, but I'd be a liar in telling you that understanding this concept has made me successful.

I clearly am a broken record because over the years, I've posted about how the economy roughly goes up and down in cycles. From observing the stock market, I can tell you LIKE CLOCKWORK, we roughly have periods of boom and busts that cycle OR repeat every 8-10 years. Read my blog and I think I've thoughtfully documented the following:

• 1987 - Savings and Loan Crisis | Black Monday Crisis - The stock market (via the Dow) was down 22% in one day
• 1995 - 2000 Dot Com Stock Market Soars - It gave us Amazon, Semiconductor Stocks
• 2002 - Dot Com Bubble Busts - Every business added a Dot Com and many did not survive
• 2004 - 2007 - The Hot Housing Markets Soars - Homes prices and buying skyrocket, and no interest loans become the norm
• 2008 - Financial Crisis - We lose Lehman Brothers and financial markets are in turmoil; I used this downturn to finally purchase my first house in 2010 thanks to the First Time Homebuyers credit led by the Obama administration; I also started buy stocks again when the Federal Reserve started lowering interest rates
• 2014 -18 - I wrote in 2014, that the Dow should take a bow. It reached all-time highs. I was starting to plan for a slowdown but then President Trump surprised me and many in 2016 by vocally telling the Federal Reserve NOT to raise interest rates (which slows the economy down) and he doubled down on cutting business taxes which created a Trump era boom after we already had a Obama era boom. Remember unemployment and minority unemployment were at record lows during the Obama presidency and then the set new record lows during the Trump presidency
• 2019 - COVID-19 Crisis led a to a health crisis, stock market meltdown and the entire globe was under siege
• 2020 - COVID Stimulus + Payment Protection Program + Child Tax Credits - because the Federal Reserve could not lower interest rates as they were at 0%, Congress stepped in literally made it rain. 

If you look at this historical backdrop that I documented, the Federal Reserve talked about raising interest rates in 2016 as the economy was doing great 8 years after the financial crisis. But when then President Trump vocally broke the separation of powers and vocally told the Federal Reserve in as many words to not raise interest rates...I believe it led to 2 things:

1) Our economy never really cooled down from 8 years of doing well and started to get hot. I remember in my 2017-18 search for my second home getting outbid and racing to find the next house. Only come to find out this would get even worse in 2020.

2) When COVID-19 hit and shocked our economy we could not lower interest rates. By creating all those stimulus programs and most being for businesses who did not have to pay them back, the US economy was flooded with cash. This is equivalent to pouring gasoline on an already white hot fire.

The gasoline lead to something similar to the Dot Com Bubble, only this time you might call it the Cryptocurrency and Housing rise. Don't believe just look at the headlines:

1. Gamestop, AMC Theatres, and Crypto ruled the day. haha Gamestop and AMC were virtually closed during the pandemic and they are skyrocketing more than our most valuable companies in the world. Crypto which is backed by nothing and can't be used to pay for toilet paper and groceries is now one of the most valuable currencies in the world? Notice what bubbles and inflation begins to do. It makes the unreal -- real, the unfathomable -- possible, the unrationale -- rational. 
2. The 10 richest persons in the world are worth more than 40% of the bottom 40% of the world, which is roughly 3.1 Billion people. 
3. 88 bids were made on one home; 25% of homes in the US were bought by corporations

Pouring gasoline on a white-hot economy did not cause these strange investment scenarios or market inequities...it exacerbated and amplified them. We are now at a point where the only tool we have to slow things down is the Federal Reserve. They pour water on the fire by raising interest rates and this doesn't cause slow burn rather a cold shock. For the last 5 weeks the markets have dropped sharply, convulsing their way down. Interest rates have jumped from 3% to 5%. So I started to dip my toes back into the real estate market to see if I could take advantage of the situation. Nope, the open house I went to was visited by other and I was greeted by the agent telling me this house was already under contract. This tells me the market is still to hot. To change habits, the Federal Reserve will continue to hike rates until it makes you feel sick. 

Crypto hit all-time highs of $60K and now its below $30K

ROKU was at $400 at one point, now decimated to $below $100

 The goal is to raise rates to stop your buying of homes, stocks, crypto which is fueling inflation. 

This is why I moved my retirement funds to inflation - protected investments last year in anticipation. This is also why I'm disappointed in myself when I didn't sell Spotify and ROKU at their highs. I saw it coming and didn't do enough. These stocks have been decimated and are down big time. The funniest is the Federal Reserve told you this is exactly what they wanted to do.