Bienvenidos mis ositos, tu siempre eres mis queridos! (Welcome back little bears you are always my dears!)
It’s a fresh start and that time of the year when people play financial guessing games.
Don’t you just love it when people with room temperature IQs try to impress those with shoe size IQs?
Your dimwitted but humble panda fren will attempt to forecast 2023 by going back to the past to see if we can get any clues.
Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong decade. I often wonder what it would be like to have been a young man trying to make it in the 1970s.
It was probably a groovy time to be alive! Gasoline prices went through the roof because of an oil embargo.
We saw The Godfather emerge as a cinematic masterpiece!
Lynda Carter (hubba hubba) was a sexy yet classy Wonder Woman!
Paul Volker was the inflation tamer.
Now that was a Fed Chairman!
By 1979 Volker had raised the fed funds rate up to 20%!!! Those are like the former Terra Anchor deposit rates except it was legitimate.
Imagine making an almost risk free 20% a year instead of gambling on animal pictures or virtual nick knacks.
It took almost another FOUR years for inflation to go back to around 3%!
SAVERS were rewarded. Eventually those savings became CAPITAL for investment into productive assets and activities.
Imagine that, REAL capitalism works if you let it!
I roll my eyes when some Boomer yells at the younger generation to work “harder”. What do you think they’re doing? They’re working a normal job and hustling at a side gig (or two or three).
They conveniently forget about the Boomer advantage – 40 years of low interest rates. Until recently Japan and parts of Europe had NEGATIVE real interest rates!
Life was on easy mode!
Today we have this mutant politically permissioned corporatocracy. An unholy union between bloated government and bureaucratic corporations.
Sorry Jerome, but I don’t think you have what it takes to jack rates high enough to kill off inflation.
Worker wages and fuel costs won’t go down any time soon.
Bankers, burger flippers, and bureaucrats don’t add much economic value to society. At least burger flippers provide a useful service, I hope that some of them can use it as a stepping stone towards a better paying career.
The AI and automation industries will try to replace certain jobs.
While computers don’t need much rest or food they still need power.
Energy may continue their outperformance in 2023.
Even as we attempt to transition to “clean” energy there’s a dirty secret. We will still need oil, gas, and even coal to complete the transition.
Even if everyone drove a Tesla, where does that electricity come from? It will take decades to transition off of gas and coal power plants.
Where will all those lithium batteries come from?
All those dump trucks and excavators don’t run on wind you know.
What if we get ANOTHER war? As far as I know there aren’t any solar powered fighter jets, tanks and submarines.
Let’s see if the ol’ Panda crystal ball will be accurate.
Obviously none of this is formal financial or tax advice. You need to find qualified professionals in your jurisdiction.
Be sharp, stay hungry let’s get that money!
