The number of new claims for unemployment is slowly declining.
For the week ending 11/6/21 there were 267,000 new claims. While this is encouraging progress, keep in mind the number of people who are getting laid off is still far above the average of 212,000 per week all the way back in January and February 2020. We are still seeing more people laid off every week than before the pandemic began.
Here is a recap of newly unemployed over the last several months:
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There is growing resistance to forced, involuntary vaccinations. The most noticable part of the vaccine hesitancy is amongst people who are otherwise happy to receive vaccinations.
We need to be careful on how we proceed. There is danger ahead.
This post continues the discussion of intentional government policies which have the unintended consequence of creating further strain on the economy and the entire supply chain.
Two more of many recent articles pointing to the risks:
One has to wonder why so many health care workers are refusing the vaccination.
We as a country are willfully headed for a disaster.
The Epoch Times – 11/5/21 – NYC Firetruck Availability Down to 55 Percent, Manpower Shortages Due to Vaccine Mandate: NY Firefighters – Couple weeks ago or so I read a report that 20% of the fire stations in New York City were closed because of a shortage of firefighters.
Last week, only 55% of firetrucks were available for dispatch because of staffing shortages.
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The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.9% in October 2021 after a more modest 0.4% increase in September and 0.2% in August.
The October increase matches the June increase of 0.9% and is slightly higher than April increase of 0.8%.
Diving into the components of the CPI shows the increases are broader than several months ago.
The press release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics explains:
“The monthly all items seasonally adjusted increase was broad-based, with increases in the indexes for energy, shelter, food, used cars and trucks, and new vehicles among the larger contributors. The energy index rose 4.8 percent over the month, as the gasoline index increased 6.1 percent and the other major energy component indexes also rose. The food index increased 0.9 percent as the index for food at home rose 1.0 percent. “
Warning sign as we roll into winter is fuel oil increased 12.3% in October and utility gas increased 6.6%. Keep in mind those are changes for the month, not for the year.
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The Producer Price Index (PPI) in October 2021 continues to show unusually high and ongoing inflation. Increasing October was 0.6%, which follows a 0.5% increase in September and 0.7% increase in August.
The PPI has shown high inflation for all of 2021. The worst months were 1.2% in January, 1.0% in April, and 1.0% in July. Those extremes have not repeated for the last quarter, which is a small amount of good news.
Graph at the top of this post shows the monthly change and final demand (the total index in other words) in blue. The average of the monthly changes in green. The red line shows core change, which excludes food, energy, and trade.
The PPI was increasing around 0.4% the month until the end of 2020. Since then it has averaged 0.8% for 2021 through October. Ouch.
This index is explained by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as follows:
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Got to wondering how much money the Fed has created out of thin air and then pumped into the economy. The answer is a vague “bunches and bunches.”
How do I know that? Because of my reading over the last few years. I pay attention to such stories (yeah, yeah, I know – I’m weird – pray for me as you feel led). I also am aware the Fed pumped a lot of money into the economy when the pandemic started.
There have been lots of news reports commenting they have been pumping something in the range of $100 billion a month into the economy after their initial round.
As I was thinking about things the federal, state, and local government have been doing to harm the economy, got to wondering just exactly how much fiat money the Fed has been creating, out of thin air of course. Yeah, I wonder about such things.
Answer is again bunches and bunches, and is measured in trillions of dollars.
Graph above shows the amount of total assets on the Federal Reserves balance sheet since around 2003.
Wow.
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The promised vaccine mandate for private companies with 100 or more employees were published on 11/4/21.
The federal diktat applies to private-sector employers with 100 or more employees. Companies have to verify employees have been fully vaccinated or require a weekly negative test. In addition anyone not vaccinated will have to wear a mask at work.
The vaccinate-or-test requirement goes into effect 1/4/22, two months from now.
Oh yeah, that mask requirement for the unvaccinated goes into effect 12/5/21, a month from now.
Separate federal diktats applied to federal employees, any company with a federal contract (think airlines, trucking companies, defense contractors), and any health facility with billings to either Medicare or Medicaid program.
Newest rules catch another 84 million people the mandatory vaccinate-or-else requirement.
News flash: The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a temporary injunction against the rules on 11/6/21.This circuit covers Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Utah. The ruling cited “grave statutory and constitutional issues.” Brief coverage from Investing on 11/6/21: U.S. federal appeals court freezes Biden’s vaccine rule for companies.
Background on the rules and then the beginning points of issues with the requirements.
Wall Street Journal – 11/5/21 – OSHA Covid-19 Vaccine Mandate: What to Know –
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This is start of what will be a series of posts describing steps taken by federal, state, and local officials to compound the supply chain problem we are experiencing. Other policies, deliberately imposed, have the foreseeable consequence of being a drag on the economy. There are lots of recent articles pointing out policies, intentional policies by supposedly intelligent bureaucrats, which have the effect of making it more difficult to get things done.
A few policies that come to mind:
Additional tax on non-zero-emission trucks picking up cargo
Port Technology – 11/5/21 – Port of Los Angeles accelerates zero-emissions truck efforts – The Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissions approved a requirement for trucks picking up cargo at either Long Beach or Los Angeles ports to be zero emission starting 4/1/22. Or else.
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Three topics in this post:
One restaurant refuses to become law enforcement enforcers
Before you read my description of this article, consider a comment I read the other day from someone who had visited New York recently. There is a mandatory requirement that all restaurants provide police-level enforcement of the vaccination requirement by checking vaccination and ID of every customer before they enter a restaurant.
This person observed that the staff assign responsibility for screening took a brief glance at whatever was presented to them and waved people in. This means enforcement is light. Restaurants there cannot afford to turn away customers (other, several report their income is down 50% to 60%) and cannot take the time to do a serious check of every single customer that ever enters the restaurant. Essentially the enforcement is quite lax, based on this person’s observations.
The Highwire – 10/18/21 – San Francisco closes In-and-out Burger After Defying City’s Vaxxing Rule – Because In-N-Out Burger allegedly would not check vaccination documents and compare them to photo ID and physically bar entrance by anyone who is not completely vaccinated at one particular restaurant in San Francisco, the county Department of Health issued an order to close the restaurant.
In a published comment, the Chief Legal & Business Officer of the restaurants chain defiantly said:
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As you read the following articles, keep in mind the LA County Sheriff and the Riverside County Sheriff have both said they will not enforce any vaccination mandate for their staff. In addition, the Chicago police union is in court trying to get and order to prohibit the vaccination dictat. Officers who are not in full compliance have been pulled off patrol.
Imminent problems:
Chronicles Magazine – 10/18/21 – The Impending Mass Firing of America’s Unvaccinated – In the midst of an existing shortage of workers and a labor force participation rate that has come close to recovering from the government-imposed recession, there is soon to be another major problem hit the economy: the pending firing of large numbers of people who refuse to get vaccinated or for whom employers refuse to provide any exemptions.
The massive hit to employment is likely to hit police, firefighters, doctors, and nurses particularly hard. The resulting, fully expected consequence will be deterioration in public services.
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The supply chain for so many of the things we buy is messed up at every step of the logistics system. Former CEO of Walmart pointed out the steps in the supply chain that are tangled up:
Essentially every stage of the distribution channel is tangled up. Biggest thing that could be done to get things moving normally would be more people to work at every step of the distribution system. Labor shortages, in other words.
This post discusses two articles:
Part one of this series can be read here. Part two here.
The Last Refuge – 10/14/21 – The California Version of The Green New Deal and an October 16, 2020, EPA Settlement With Transportation is What’s Creating The Container Shipping Backlog – Working CA Ports 24/7 Will Not Help, Here’s Why – Author spent three days researching reasons for the backlog of containers here in California. Checking resources, researching details, and other research showed some surprising things.
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Without even trying to find such news reports, examples keep jumping out which show senior politicians, health officials, and sundry members of the elite caste ignoring the rules you and I must follow. The examples just don’t stop.
The most recent illustrations from the California governor, New Jersey governor, and New Jersey Attorney General are discussed below.
Following is a list of my previous discussions on the ever-expanding list of senior officials who don’t bother to follow the rules they imposed.
Another post published a moment ago asks the question whether these officials really believe the rules they dictate are even required.
California Governor
Yahoo! News – 10/9/21 – Gavin Newsom’s daughter not yet vaccinated as implement sweeping mandate – California has now imposed a mandatory requirement that all students in public and private schools be vaccinated against Covid-19. The diktat was announced for children 12 through 15 as soon as the FDA gave approval for the Pfizer medicine.
The governor has not had his daughter, who turned 12 recently, vaccinated yet. Does he lead by example? Does he comply with the requirement? Not yet.
The second reason is that she has
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Let’s picture a situation where politicians and public health officials believe eating seedless grapes is dangerous, will make a tremendously large number of people horribly sick, and will inevitably kill lots of people.
Let’s pretend that grape-sickness is so dangerous that even inhaling trace amounts of grape-breath from other people will make you terribly sick, with a frightening chance grape-breath will kill you.
Let’s picture said politicians and public health officials banning seedless grapes and insisting that none of us ever eat them again because they are so terribly dangerous.
Now let’s picture dozens of those politicians and public health officials being photographed and video recorded eating seedless grapes.
And breathing on each other.
In public.
With cameras rolling.
Knowing they are being recorded.
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Indicators I can see suggest inflation is going to continue at a high rate for quite some time.
This is a bigger issue for charities that for businesses.
For charities, inflation will push up the expenses of performing ministry and providing help to those in need.
Simultaneously, it will put pressure on donors because the money they have left over after rent, groceries, and gasoline will be shrinking. That will put pressure on contributions. Charities cannot push through an increase in contributions like a business can push through increase in prices.
Here are a few of the articles I have read recently pointing towards ongoing rise in prices:
Asia Times – 8/27/21 – US rent hikes will explode consumer inflation in 2022 – Anecdotal information indicates rental prices are skyrocketing.
A friend of mine priced the apartment they are living in to help a relative who was moving into the area. Price for this exact unit is 50% more than when they signed their annual lease a number of months ago.
An acquaintance reports the price for renting a particular house went up while they were thinking about it for a day or so.
Two friends report landlords renting apartments expect six months rent in advance and some landlords renting houses are expecting a year in advance. A year.
Article mentioned above says the reports floating around in the media indicate rent hikes overall are around 10%. Yet the CPI shows only 2% increase in rent.
How can that be?
Fascinating detail of how the CPI is calculated explains the anomaly and also points towards dramatic increase in the rent component of CPI over the next year.
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Seems like most industries have a tangled supply chain. The entire transportation system is sorely distressed.
The elitists in federal and state governments have a staggering level of hubris. They think waving their hands, clicking away on their laptops, and issuing press releases will make the entire economy bend to their will. What they accomplish is willfully causing disruption in your life and in my life.
Here are merely a few of the recent articles describing the tangled impact of Covid dictats and sundry government policies:
Looks like it might take another 15 or 18 months to untangle the worldwide supply chain.
Wall Street Journal – 8/17/21 – Cargo Ships Are Again Idling Off Jammed Southern California Ports – Back in the middle of August the tally of cargo ships sitting off to coast of California was 37.
A tweet I saw this morning (10/9/21) from someone flying out of Long Beach indicated the individual counted 50 ships waiting to unload.
At around 10,000 containers per ship that is somewhere around 370,000 containers waiting to be unloaded back in the middle of August and is now currently somewhere in the range of half a million containers sitting off the coast.
Article says a few months ago it was only nine. Normally it is zero.
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The supply chain in most industries is tangled up somehow somewhere.
The people in federal and state governments with the staggering level of hubris to think they can wave their hands and make the entire economy do their bidding are willfully causing disruption in your life and in my life.
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