Biden White House: Year 4

[Come on Titans]

 

[begooode]

The US economy grew at a slower pace in the fourth quarter than previously estimated.

 

Inflation-adjusted gross domestic product — the broadest measure of economic activity — increased 2.6% for the final three months of 2022, according to the Commerce Department’s third and final reading for the quarter. Growth was initially estimated at 2.9%, then revised down last month to 2.7%.

[nine]

On 3/24/2023 at 9:38 AM, Starkiller said:

They are working on that, too…

 

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/17/tech/fcc-spam-text-crackdown/index.html

The problem is, a lot of those robocall companies are basically scam artists anyway….their entire business model is based on fraud and illegal activity, so they clearly don’t care if they’re violating any laws.    
 

 And while additional security and identification features will probably help for a while…it’s only a matter of time until they find a loophole or workaround and resume their shady business practices.    
 

Personally, I’d be all for a system where a negligible charge is applied to all outgoing telephone or IP phone calls….say maybe .01  penny per call.    (1/100 of one cent)   Most people would pay less than 1-2 cents per month…but robocallers  and cold-call companies that make thousands or millions of automated calls per day would rack up enormous charges.    
 

I’d also support a similar approach with outgoing emails to drastically cut down on the amount of unsolicited spam emails .  

[tgo]

 

[begooode]

A good article on the long overdue upgrade at the IRS: 

A large-scale refurbishment of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is underway following an allotment of $80 billion to the agency in Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act passed last year.

• Restaffing: Currently, IRS staffing levels are 20 percent lower than they were in 2010.
• Cracking down on tax evasion, starting with high wealth individuals, +400k
• Closing the tax gap: $600 billion in taxes that are owed to it every year that goes uncollected, 2.8% of gdp. Stop the 2 tiered unfairness.
• Boosting data and analysis

https://thehill.com/business/3937781-heres-how-the-irs-will-spend-its-80-billion-funding-boost/

 

Edited April 6, 2023 by begooode

[begooode]

Inflation is cooling as corporate profit margins fall from record levels. 

 

The annual inflation rate reached 5 percent in March, falling from 6 percent the month prior, according to Labor Department data released Wednesday. Prices rose just 0.1 percent on a month-to-month basis, the smallest increase since December. 

 

That comes as S&P 500 companies saw their earnings decline by an average of 6.8 percent in the first quarter of 2023, according to an analysis from FactSet. It’s the largest profit decline since the onset of the pandemic. 

 

How profits and inflation rose together

The red-hot inflation rate has aligned with growing corporate profit margins that soared to record levels in 2022. Executives in many sectors acknowledge that markups are the primary driver behind their earnings, with price hikes more than making up for elevated input costs. 

 

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has consistently linked inflation to wage growth. But he told lawmakers last month that falling corporate profit margins could also help bring inflation down in the short term.

 

https://thehill.com/business/3945727-inflation-eases-as-corporate-profits-fall-from-record-levels/

[Starkiller]

12 minutes ago, begooode said:

Inflation is cooling as corporate profit margins fall from record levels. 

 

The annual inflation rate reached 5 percent in March, falling from 6 percent the month prior, according to Labor Department data released Wednesday. Prices rose just 0.1 percent on a month-to-month basis, the smallest increase since December. 

 

That comes as S&P 500 companies saw their earnings decline by an average of 6.8 percent in the first quarter of 2023, according to an analysis from FactSet. It’s the largest profit decline since the onset of the pandemic. 

 

How profits and inflation rose together

The red-hot inflation rate has aligned with growing corporate profit margins that soared to record levels in 2022. Executives in many sectors acknowledge that markups are the primary driver behind their earnings, with price hikes more than making up for elevated input costs. 

 

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has consistently linked inflation to wage growth. But he told lawmakers last month that falling corporate profit margins could also help bring inflation down in the short term.

 

https://thehill.com/business/3945727-inflation-eases-as-corporate-profits-fall-from-record-levels/

Corporate profit seeking was the primary driver for inflation all along. 

Edited April 12, 2023 by Starkiller

[nine]

1 hour ago, Starkiller said:

Corporate profit seeking was the primary driver for inflation all along. 

 

The oil industry doesn't see an issue with this.

 

Record profits every quarter = winning

[Starkiller]

2 hours ago, nine said:

The oil industry doesn't see an issue with this.

 

Record profits every quarter = winning

Maybe we need to nationalize the oil industry like Russia and the Saudis did…

[begooode]

10 hours ago, Starkiller said:

Corporate profit seeking was the primary driver for inflation all along. 

This is a blatant ex post facto mischaracterization, imo. Companies were not colluding on a global stage to increase prices nefariously as you implied — “profit seeking”. Rather companies got a shit ton of bad news in early 2022 on raw materials, logistics expenses, and energy costs. The market outlooks on feedstock costs across the board were as bad as anyone could recall and companies reacted accordingly. Doing nothing would have been irresponsible.

 

Margin preservation was the game, and damn right pricing was pretty much the only lever available. The fact that powerful B2Bs with buying power greater most countries’ GDP even accepted those price increases — while passing on their own, of course— tells you everyone was fearfully reading the same negative news: Covid rebound, shipping containers still in wrong places, China on/off shutdowns and ineffective vaccines, 80 year war event between countries that drive energy and grain markets, potentially dragging in the rest of Europe. IOW, the same real reasons you are quick to give in explaining Biden’s economy should be attributed to corporate management, as well. Most markets are competitive and there was no collusion: “let’s stick it to the customers while all this shit is hitting the fan”. 

Asking for price increases from established customers is the hardest thing to do for most salespeople, period. They risk losing sales, missing budgets and bonuses are a big part of their compensation. They’re the first people you have to push, sometimes even harder than their customers lol. Also, you have to reprice asap as you’re fighting inertia just to get the new prices in place for the next contracts. Then there’s surcharges… just a mess. But if you delay, you’ll never recover your profitability.  And as you likely know, most increases in most years are not passed through at all, and you have to hope a new higher margin product will save your ass.

 

Fast forward to now, and the anticipated feedstock increases slowed, or didn’t hit their expected peaks. Fine, most downstream companies overshot with their price increases and, short-term, collected more profits than they had planned. It happens, and now discounting has returned. Otherwise, they risk losing sales/market share to their competitors willing to give up excess profits to return to typical margin expectations.
 

tl;dr. Navigating the most volatile global market in decades, margin preservation was the goal. Companies overshot on pricing, but there was no collusion! LOL

Edited April 13, 2023 by begooode

[begooode]

More recent good news on inflation. 
 

Grocery prices finally dipped in March, falling for the first time since September 2020, according to data released Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 
 

Of six major grocery food group indexes, three fell from February to March. The meats, poultry, fish and eggs index fell 1.4%, pulled down by another month of large decreases in egg prices. 

 

Fruits and vegetable prices fell 1.3%, and dairy products ticked down 0.1%. The other indexes, for non-alcoholic beverages, cereals and bakery products and all other groceries, went up. 

 

While the monthly decline is a relief, groceries are still expensive on an annual basis. In the year through March, grocery prices jumped 8.4%, outpacing overall inflation of 5%. Menu prices went up 8.8% in that time.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/12/business/grocery-prices-march/index.html

[IrishTitansFan]

Bidens trip here going well. He is very well liked here, has real Irish blood and is clearly proud of it

 

 

He will be even more liked after his freudian slip yesterday! 

 

 

 

 

 

All Blacks = New Zealand Rugby Team

Black and Tans = British Police/Soldiers in Ireland who murdered innocent civilians during the War of Independence!

 

 

 

 

 

[Starkiller]

Almost as popular as our last Irish president, Barack O'Bama

[IrishTitansFan]

Just now, Starkiller said:

Almost as popular as our last Irish president, Barack O'Bama

He actually made that joke when he was here

 

There is a random filling station in the middle of the country called the Barack Obama plaza with a bronze statue of him and Michelle outside

[Starkiller]

4 minutes ago, IrishTitansFan said:

He actually made that joke when he was here

 

There is a random filling station in the middle of the country called the Barack Obama plaza with a bronze statue of him and Michelle outside

I think he actually had an Irish ancestor from there (on his mother's side, obviously) and he went for a visit, if memory serves