Disturbing Signs of Hysteria

What, oh what, gave Costco an Edge? Is it actually Customers, or a huge Employee Discount? I don’t mean to be Insulting, but maybe this is a Diving competition where you need to cut the High and Low. Walmart is understandable, there being too many Stores throughout the Country, so they acquire every suppressed neighborhood; they expressing incredible luck to get the half-point gain. When is a Gain a loss, a loss? When there is a 4% Inflation rate. There is a Revisionist, outlaw Opinion which suggests that Consumers are maxed out, like their Credit Cards, and someday must adopt a declining Consumption path. I shouldn’t be so rude so early in the morning, as I have made even myself feel bad.

Industry gets a good one-Quarter shot of high Productivity growth, then complains when they don’t get those Productivity growth rates every Quarter; they start a howl about rising labor Costs. Productivity growth rose a respectable 1.6%, while labor Costs rose 3.1% for the total of 2007. Business personnel look at these numbers, and start to scream they have been betrayed by Labor. The real lack comes in New Orders–the fault of Management and Sales–and Business and Investor must realize that recent year Record Profits was the anomaly. I told these People that they should keep up their Stock buyback programs–or did I? You put in a few dozen paragraphs, and you forget the Time references.

It sounds like the Fed is out of play, and will not further reduce Interest rates. I feel a profound sense of relief, even though it affects the Markets badly. Plosser mentions that the current Fed rates, coupled with the current Inflation rate, cancel each other out; a sensible evaluation which outlines the idea that We should not lose Profits in attempts to fuel the Economy from a Macro viewpoint. I should explain this Concept within a separate Post, but I am excessively lazy, and the positional points are hard to translate. Simply think that it an attempt to rob Peter to pay Paul, whose basic fallout is to raise Consumer Credit rates–nullifying any stimulus, but making Business balance sheets look better. What We do must aid Consumers, who We are trying to woo back. lgl