The economy in 2023: Post #1- The people I listen to for info

Wealthion founder Adam Taggart interviews Nick Gerli from Reventure Consulting in January of 2023, about the state of  U.S. real estate in 2023.  I think Nick has, by far, the best overall grasp on U.S. real estate these days.  I've been following his YouTube channel since last Spring, and he's been calling where things are going incredibly well that whole time.  

If you follow my blog(s), you know I have a geeky interest in economics, and consider myself an amateur futurist.  Since I was a little kid, I've been trying to predict where society would be in the future.  The late futurists Alvin Toffler, and his wife Heidi, are the people I look up to the most, in that repect.  I've written quite a bit about my idea of The Big Transition, which is basically an extension of the Toffler's Third Wave theory, extended into our current time period. 

I have a new blog called Adaptive Reuse SoCal, about finding new uses for old, abandoned, and unused buildings, as well as the economy and commerical real estate in general.  Check it out!

Adaptive Reuse SoCal

I'll go more into my Big Picture concept of where I believe society is in the next post.  I began writing this post two days ago, and the original version is now a 1,000 word+ behemoth.  I realized I needed to turn this into three or four posts, so here's the first.  These are the main people I look at to get more detailed info on different aspects of the economy, to fill in the Big Picture concept I have.  Check out any that seem interesting to you.

The late futurist Alvin Toffler on the Gregory Mantell Show in 2007, discussing the Third Wave idea, and his last book, Revolutionary Wealth (25 1/2 minutes)

Heresy Financial- "Why it's more important than ever to learn to budget."  (9 1/2 minutes)

Reventure Consulting- (real estate)- Nick Gerli reports a major home builder has 68% of contracts cancelled on new homes- January 2023-  (11 1/2 minutes)

The Money GPS- The Fed has gone too far- February 2023 (12 minutes)

Wealthion- Adam Taggart interviews John Rubino- January 2023  (1 hour 17 min.)

Stansberry Research- Daniella Cambone interviews Nomi Prins about her new book, Permanent Distortion- February 2023- (19 minutes)

Wealthion- Adam Taggart interviews Stephanie Pomroy- February 2023 (1 hour 19 min.)

Article: U.S. Labor force has lost 2.6 million people since the pandemic started

Coin Bureau- Blackrock's 2023 predictions  (31 minutes)

Lucky Lopez- Used Car Market Update February 2023   (13 minutes)

Rich Dad Radio- Robert & Kim Kiyosaki interview Brent Johnson on The Dollar Milkshake Theory- 2021 (36 minutes)

Full Send Podcast interviews Gargamel and Gordon Goner- two of the founders of Yuga Labs/Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT's- September 2022- 1 hour 25 minutes - While the real investment world tries to figure how to make 2% returns after inflation, the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT's, after crypto winter, are up over 63,000%, since late April 2021.  That's not a typo. 

New meme.  This is kind of a sarcastic middle finger to all the lawyers in society who help shady people make screwing Americans legal, or more legal.  1913 is when the Federal Reserve was created, who blessed us with high inflation, and then this current recession that's just getting going, to fight their inflation.  Uh... yeah... thanks guys.  

The economy for 2022- 3/22/2022

Why a amateur rocket launch in a blog post about this year's economy?  It's a good visual representation of the way inflation took off, and raised prices on almost everything in the past several months.  Many people are looking at gas, home, and other prices, thinking, "Whoa, what just happened?

Disclaimer

In my opinion, we are now 31 months into what I call The Phoenix Great Depression, a 5 to 7 year + economic mess that will ultimately feel like a great depression to most Americans, and may meet the traditional definition of one.  It started with the Repo Market Crisis in late September of 2019, and got everyone's attention when Covid-19 hit U.S. shores in February and March of 2020, leading to mass business shutdowns.  

We are now heading into the second recessionary wave of this long crisis.  What does that mean?  This year, that means three main things.  

1) Prices will keep going up, in general.  Gas prices will go down some after a while, and real estate prices should be falling most places nationwide, by late 2022.  The official inflation rate, currently 7.9% is a joke, real inflation for most things people buy is probably closer to 12% to 20%.  Gasoline prices are up around 50% here in the L.A. area, over $6 in many places, and that's a lot more than 7.9% per year.  I think the official interest rate may go a bit higher, but then will come down this year.  But inflation will remain high, 5%-7% most likely.  

2) Interest rates will keep going up for most, or all, of 2022.  I wrote an economic outlook report for my business owning friends, and sent it out on September 10th, 2021.  In it, I  predicted interest rates would rise 1% to 2% by late 2022.  The 10 year T-bill rate, a good benchmark for interest rates, was 1.35% then.  The 10 year T-bill rate just hit 2.38% yesterday, meeting the 1% minimum rise I predicted six months ago.  It's reasonable to expect interest rates to rise another 1% to 1.5% by the end of 2022.  This will dramatically slow down the real estate market in 2022, and should lead to falling prices in most areas by late this year.

3) The stock market indices will continue a bumpy downward trajectory for the next few months.  Think of a ski slope with moguls, they will bounce up at times, but the overall trend will continue down.  Look at a DIJA chart for 2008, that's the kind of trajectory I see as most likely for stocks this year4-7 months of bouncy downtrend, and maybe a big drop afterwards.  Up and down, but a slow downward trend from now (late March) to maybe July-October 2022.  The four main stock indices should drop below these levels this year, 2022:  Down Jones Industrial Average- below 27,000, Nasdaq- below 10,000, S&P 500- below 3,500.  Once stocks bottom out, below these numbers, they should bounce back 10% - 20%.

Where  do I get these numbers?  In stocks and commodities, there's an old rule that every long term bull market makes a retracement of about 50% of the rise, after reaching the peak.  So if a bull market rises about 1,000 points, it will drop back about 500 points, get unstable for a while, and then begin a new trend.  I read about this rule in a commodities course by Ken Roberts in 1998.  The markets are so manipulated and warped at this point, I think the retracement will be more like 35% to 45% of the total rise from the 2009 low, to the peaks early this year.   

These are my personal opinions, and, as always please do your own research, due diligence, and consult appropriate professionals before making business and investment decisions.   

Oh, by the way...  When I was writing this post last night at a McDonald's, the type pad for my laptop was turned off remotely, by someone.  This has happened 2 or 3 times now, rendering my laptop useless.  As of right now, I can't get into the software to re-enable the type pad.  That's how intense the censorship of alternative thoughts about the economy is these days.  

In addition, I just noticed the page view counters on my blog have been turned off, AGAIN.  So, there's this thing in the U.S. called a Constitution, and the First Amendment is all about Free Speech.  This is how intense the attacks on free speech our in the U.S. A. in 2022.