Mixed Blessings

From bloomin' hills to withering fields of grain.

May 22, 2023

Today’s news editorial is a potpourri. To start the week on a beautiful note, California is blooming. The hills are awash with color because extreme weather brings blessings along with struggles. There is a beautiful side to its severity, which includes largely replenished CA reservoirs and ground water and hillsides that are blazing with poppies, instead of brushfires for once.

However, extreme weather in other parts of the US has brought the exact opposite, Kansas Farmers, a group of grain growers, reports their worst crop failure due to continued drought and extreme cold since the dustbowl. Oklahoma is looking like it will stack up about the same way. The likelihood of widespread brownouts and blackouts is also growing as a returning El-Niño scorcher threatens to overtax an electrical grid already weakened by continued low-water conditions on the Colorado, intentional destruction of hydro facilities to save the salmon on the West Coast, and intensified EPA regulations everywhere, while hit by the extra load of electrical vehicles in a land of brownouts.

Economists have smartened up a tiny bit (not much) to where the majority are now predicting a Fed rate cut is not going to happen in 2023 after all. We’re almost halfway through the year, and they finally figured out something that was abundantly obvious at the start of the year. Inflation, which the Fed did its utmost to create, is not easily battled back down. Economists, of all people, should have been universally aware of this, as history is a clear teacher on the subject; yet, they remained dismally dull. Stock investors, of course, have clung to every shred of false hope offered.

My own mantra for almost a year now has been against the popular flow: “No Fed Pivot!” The Fed will fight inflation and will not return to plush money policy until the economy is destroyed. They spent too much time under “flush money” policy to avoid the battle now. When they finally do turn back to easier money, even a monumental lift isn’t going to help much because of all the damage they have already banked in.

This weekend, another Fed head made it clear that even a pause in rate hikes at the next meeting, for which he gave a 50/50 chance, would not mean the Fed’s last hike is in. It would merely be a breather to await more data. As our “Creative Collapse” section shows today, the Fed has flushed our economy and is turning dollars into toilet paper if it doesn’t get inflation back down. These are our prize economists, who cannot even do their own designated job because they miss seeing the obvious every single time. They need to get off the throne.

Flabby-headed, former Fed head, Janet Yellen, who sits on a different throne these days, reiterated her statement that June first or “early June” is a “hard deadline” for when the US stops paying some of its bills. I say “flabby-headed” because she doesn’t seem to realize her statement is self-contradictory. Had she said, “June 1st is a hard deadline,” that would be a hard deadline. When you add “or early June,” you give it a two-week spread that makes it a little soft … like her head.

In closing, I didn’t get much response to last week’s survey on the pros and cons of the nascent Daily Doom, but the general opinion in the limited number of responses was that the editorials are more valuable to most than the news headlines; however, more focus on economics and less on politics when the politics are not economically related would be preferred. The majority said, they would rather get the editorials than see them trimmed in order to get the headlines out by 8AM Pacific Daylight Time. I invite more of you to respond as a final request here if you have not. You can go to the original survey and add your responses in the comment section if you did not receive this via email. You may want to add to the weight of what has been said or counter it.

Rest assured what my editorials say will never be based on popularity. I’d rather quit writing than do that; however, the topics I choose to cover the most will likely lean toward preferred interests. What I have to say about those topics will not lean toward any public opinion. Unlike Fox, I will not pander to any audience, but there is no sense writing on topics people are not interested in. I’ll still write from my own heart and mind.