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Pastimes : The Naked Truth - Big Kahuna a Myth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Pitera who wrote (85660)	2/21/2001 10:29:58 AM
From: pater tenebrarum	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86076

John, isn't the 'forever shrinking' trade deficit a good laugh! here's how they do it: whenever the new trade deficit comes out, the raise the estimate for the PREVIOUS number...then the new number comes in a few dollars lower than that, and the headlines are blaring: "trade deficit shrinks!" ROFLMAO!! it is only up 40% year-on-year...LOL! re. the inflation numbers, if you consider that they are vastly UNDERSTATED due to geometric weighting and hedonic pricing (both completely arbitrary concepts introduced to help lowering the government's COLA related expenses and furthering the financial assets bubble) you can appreciate how bad it really is. e.g. the shelter component is a JOKE! rents and real estate prices have been exploding in many regions, in some shockingly so (California, NYC have e.g. seen 30% increases in MEDIAN house prices over the past 12 months). anyway, i do agree with Greenboink that inflation isn't REALLY the problem...it is a temporary cyclical blip within the larger secular deflationary trend imo. already the Baltic Freight Index has begun to fall sharply - this is my favorite gauge of inflationary pressures. what we see feeding through now are late cycle phenomena...e.g. contract prices for longer term deliveries of energy related products (oil, coal, etc. ) are only beginning to catch up with their increases in the spot and futures markets. in the meantime, II reports 61,2% bulls this morning, and a multi week low of only 28,6% bears....i'm conjecturing that investment advisors from Mars have been interviewed for this latest survey....