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The Stunning Difference Between "Income Expectations" And Reality
It appears the burden of hope for the future of the American consumer, based on this morning's confidence survey data, is based on a surge in incomes. In fact, the income 'hope' index is at its highest since February 2008... which is odd given the utter stagnation of real wages. Perhaps the survey respondents have been listening to a little too much 'hope-and-change' TV promises of minimum wage hikes and fair livable wages and not enough paying attention to the layoffs, "M&A synergies", restructurings, and buybacks firms are actually undertaking, or as some call it, reality.
Shown on the chart below: the largest decoupling between reality and hope in the history of income reality vs expectations.
Peak Delusion indeed.
Chart: Bloomberg
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I realize most Americans are hopelessly deluded and stupid , but they can at least count right? So they should be aware they have less purchasing power than they did 10 years ago, so these survey numbers are probably just made up at "the ministry of truth" or some such
I think Americans can't say thing bad because government don't give them an opportunity. They are lying through indexes
But we're going to have a lot of inflation, right. Right?
How in the cornbread hell? They must have only polled gubbermint drones.
did they buy flat-panel TVs, smartphones, tablets, and scooters while living in a rented apartment, ten years ago?
not that I am an expert on Americans or "hedonics FED style", but it is difficult to compare what people wanted vs what they bought, 10 years ago vs today
take the electric bike. might become the next very important thing to buy, in Europe. of course with smartphone/tablet holder, but no cup-holder
That transatlantic thing doesn't really work, does it ghordius? Try it myself now and then without much success.
I think, as you suggest, it's based on expectations. The young are stuck in perpetual adolescence. They don't really expect negative change or responsibility.
Good luck with that.
You seem to have a realistic grasp of the situation in Europe. The "electric bike" reference provides me an opportunity to ask about the general condition of the electric generation and distribution infrastructure in Europe. Electric cars, scooters and bikes don't really reduce total energy consumption - they simply shift the way it is delivered from service station to electric utility.
Does Europe have the generation capacity and distribution network to provide the same amount of energy now delivered by gasoline and diesel?
The USA does not have that capacity. I think it is the limiting factor in conversion from fossil fuel to electriciy for transportation. Its' primary appeal is to move pollution from city streets to rural power plants.
A bit of advice: Don't even try to understand the US Free Shit Army. It will make your dick limp and drive you insane. Recent real event in my home town: A local church decided to help a woman with two children who were homeless (living in a car) and out of food. They spent $1200 getting an old trailer house made habitable and the utilities turned on and gave her $50 for food to last until her SNAP card got recharged. She bought cigarettes, gormet dog food and Haloween costumes for her two dogs. All the kids ever get to eat is the free lunches they get at school. Figure that out.
My grandmother, who never said an unkind word about anyone living or dead observed, "Poor people have poor ways". Maybe she was right.
my goodness, that is a very hard question to answer. one one side you had one single tree falling on one single electrical cable in Switzerland that caused half of Italy to endure half a day of blackout, years ago. on the other side you have overcapacities in solar panels in Spain and in wind mills in the Baltic Sea. then you have an improving network of gas pipelines that is causing a "NatGas Revolution" in the western EU countries while of course we have "some very slight (ahem...) issues" with our main deliverer and producer, Gazprom of Bear County. Add to it MegaNuclear France and Newly-Not-Nuclear-Anymore-Germany with it's "EnergieWende"... (see Energy_transition_in_Germany; the short of it: less consumption through smarter, renewable production)
it's hard to generalize, except in this: smaller continent, higher densities in cities, sizable rural populations generally in dense villages, lots of development in network capacity, even where rural populations force electric main cables underground. so some hope we could see some improvement, soon
note that an electric bike or even a gas-guzzling scooter still consumes less then a car. another generalization: the average European consumes half as much oil then the average American. that has been more or less quite exact for the last 70 years, in part because of way higher taxes on oil products, in part due to smaller housing footages, less need for heating/cooling, and way shorter aggregate travel, both for work and for leisure
Thank you.
All Americans think all *other* Americans are hopelessly deluded, uneducated, etc.
Thank you.
At the end of the day-its ALL about available energy At this point all available hydorcarbon products are being thrown to supporting the core structures of 20th century society. These are just about to begin to blow out.
Nothing like wasting precious resources in order to support the wealth transfer system that is the financial world.
Yet people scoff when I try to explain to them how the world is run by the mafia.
Shit's gonna be epic.
no one will have seen it coming.
Well thats the difference between hard and soft data, problem is, even the hard data is 'massaged' by the Optimists.
Consumer: "I am confident I want to spend money, but I don't have any."
ZIRP allows the proles to get loans to buy shiny new automobiles. Benny B.
Why wasn't he crucified, in the Roman sense, when he said that?
Income is coming in the form of EBT, WIK, Disability, SS, ETC ETC
hey look no pomo and the russell is up 1.3% on its own. Recovery
Look ma, no hands!
MS CEO Satya Nadella "Karma sure can be a bitch."
To which AAPL's Tim Cook replied: Wait for when we Drop The Beat(s)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCawU6BE8P8
That is missing average IQ change over time, would clear things up a little - or maybe it wouldn't
I swear, every authority figure I have the misfortune of hearing speak ALWAYS points out how the economy is recovering. Yet I only received 20% of the raise I was promised this year (first raise in 6 years), as somehow Hopium isn't yet fully convertible to Fed Notes.
"Get to work, Mr. Yellen!"
I guess they expect the minimum wage increase to pass in those states having it on the ballot.
I will be shocked if ONE minimum wage increase on the ballot fails next week.
The hope is based on the belief that things can't get any worse
Define "income"...
Tick tock motherfuckers...
Where do they find these people ???.....I have found ZERO and I'm actually out there asking and looking !!!
Wall Street. Ask everyone over there and their planning on buying new top shelf autos, lavish vacations and other nice toys.
Then you have got to get out of the Ghetto.
Go to your wealthy communities and ask. (It is actually a litmus test of sorts.) If the people there do not tell you that they expect that their incomes will rise then you are not in a wealthy community.
If you did not figure that out...THAT IS WHERE THEY POLLED THESE PEOPLE.
It is called INTENTIONAL SKEWING so that they can publish the propaganda which they want.
They are not lying through their teeth, after all. They are just not telling you the whole truth, the full truth, and nothing but the truth.
TRUTHINESS instead of truth-FULL-ness.
Get with the program otherwise you will be known as one of them domestic terrrrists....and a RaYcisS also.
Seasmoke, it matters so much where you are. In rural New England I have a relative who can find nothing at all (and she is very hard working and competent). In Oakland, CA, I have a friend who finds loads of jobs and so do the people around her (they are reasonably educated); not jobs that truly pay the insane rent, but jobs. I don't know what the answer is for the 85 percent of people who can't move.
consumer confidence surveys are absurd. They will vary, reliably, for example, if performed mainly in the morning versus afternoon [testosterone levels].Also - a guy who's thinking of buying a Toyota isn't doing quite the same thing as guy thinking of buying a used Ford, see?
You know, it ued to be there were good arguments against, say, having the Fed send everyone a 10,000 k check for the holidays - but we are in the post QEternity world, it's chaos, I say cut the checks and everyone pay down your debt so you can get new debt! That's "the economy" in a nutshell - buying shit on credit - tee hee!!
Speaking of 'expectations' - I presume th enew ebola caesar is up to the task of managing mine...
If this government sends out any more stimulus checks, I'm cashing them, and immediately using the FRN's to buy gold. (I'd buy more silver, but at this point I've accumulated enough...any more and I'll be using Morgan silver dollars to prop up uneven table legs...)
Small gold from private sellers. No bars or large coins, and no paper trail at the coin shops.
People see the price of their everyday expenses increasing and simply expect that their wages would keep pace. Clearly, the majority are not buying the CPI nonsense being touted as inflation.
Again this morning I have awaken to a market where stock futures are soaring ever higher even after important economic numbers have been released coming in at below expectations. As the stock market continues to remain at historic highs please tell me what is so good? What is so much better?
As I see it the weight of carrying a large number of unemployed and nonworking people who have dropped out of the work force will wear down society through attrition. The article below points out some of the glaring flaws in the argument that blue sky lies ahead as the stock market seems to indicate. As I look at a landscape of empty and under-leased buildings that once housed thriving businesses that provided Americans with good paying jobs I'm forced to ask, How are things getting better?
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2014/10/tell-me-again-how-things-are-getting.html
Most people on Wall street think everyone else is like them. Where the lower tier makes several hundreds of thousands a year and the higher end make 10s to 100s of millions a year.
If that's what most of Wall Street thinks, then they ought to realize that the consumer will hoard any windfall they get from dropping gas prices instead of spending it...after all, that's what THEIR guys did with trillions of QE money.
Actually, I think the problem is that Wall Street thinks they are different from the rest of us. That they have somehow invented the concepts of greed and self-interest, and that only THEY are smart enough game the system in their own interests. The sheeple, they tell themselves, will be good little consumers, and go to the mall.
Maybe. Maybe not. Let's see what happens during this coming shopping season...
when consumers cut down the pine tree outside their house instead of spend $120 for a christmas tree, wall street will know they've blown it. consumers can't get to the mall if they can't afford a used 1998 saturn to drive there
when consumers cut down the pine tree outside their house instead of spend $120 for a christmas tree, wall street will know they've blown it. consumers can't get to the mall if they can't afford a used 1998 saturn to drive there
rubber meets the road this holiday
NRF (national retail federation) reported RECORD imports for the holiday season
All HFT and near zero interest stock buy backs.... Christmas this year is going to be dismal. Just think how bad it would be if there were Ebola, Isis, and a war in the Ukraine....
i'm expecting a big dud
"experts" are saying it will be good since price of gas dropping
we'll see who's right
The "experts" assume that those folks will spend those savings on retail consumer goods. Actually they HOPE this will be the case.
It hasn't occurred to them that people might have other plans for this money. Like the big banks turned out to have other plans for all that Fed money...the money they assumed the banks would lend.
You can't fix stupid, truly you can't. All YOU can do is assume that TPTB will be as right as they always have been, and hedge accordingly.
"other plans" = "catching up on bills"
Huge bonuses expected by the boys on Wall Street.
Most people where I live dont even know who or what the fed is. They sure as hell can tell you who was the mvp of the football game or won the singing contest however. Americans for the most part are and I hate to say it ,but deserve what's coming.
As always, "Stupid should hurt!"
ZH duly noted sept core cap-ex orders -1.7%
BUT did not mention revision (census SA numbers are month over month) to august.
august core cap-ex revised from +0.6% to +0.3%
if no revison ... -2.0%
Perhaps they are hoping that the next $1 trillion dollar QE will be the FED hiring people. With 1 trillion dollars the FED could employe or create 33 million, $33,000 a year jobs.
Now you're thinking outside the box! :-)
The low gas prices is QE.
Coming next month: "Turns out we had a new intern that coded the 'income expectations' incorrectly."
Next month won't matter. Bush the elder lost when the November numbers showed the end of the recession...but the numbers came in after the election.
It forces one to consider that any numbers pre-election might be fudged to the optimistic.
Or, it could be a senior/principal/lead developer who was hired due to the excellent job they performed on healthcare.gov. /s
The working rats in the country are so high on short-term stimulus that any slight uptick in income will cause the kind of exaggerated reaction that you see in 'confidence.'
Crime seems to be the growth sector.
And if your Too Big To Fail your too big to procecute according to the former Just-Us department leader, Eric Holder.
Your TBTF you can commit any crime. Even murder. Criminals your free to commit even larger crimes. The Just-us department will just look the other way.
I thought I would have $$ for 3 or 4 cans of tuna this week.
Ended up eating sawdust again.
I wonder how long before tire shops start salting roads with nails? Or amazon starts mailing empty boxes or resending returned items? That is one of my tells I have been watching for. At some point the workers start taking stuff out the back door. Thats what happened in the soviet union at the end.
Talking to a friend years ago about Yugoslavia in 90/91 near the end. The auto part stores would get shipments of empty boxes. Or boxes of old/broken parts. Repacked old spark plugs and stuff like that. One scam was back dooring booze bottle caps then watering down and resealing the vodka bottles. Anti freeze that was just water and food coloring.
Think it wont happen here? Think meat glue. Yea son it will become very comonplace here too.
I want to know when they are going to start selling recaps again.
They do. Now just they call um ( Financial Inovations.)
Yep,,, keeping the income down for the State and Federale Bene's.
An article on ZH awhle back showed the advantages of keeping income down. A $26,000 yearly income panned out to about $50,000 or more when all your voluntary contributions are included. Moar is More!
Dow up 57; Nasdaq up 52 and S&P up 11.
No QE...
Recovery Bitches! /s
deja vu
Many years ago I posted on my facebook page a similar chart.
The horizontal axis was marked Time. The vertical Prestige.
From the lower left hand corner, there rose a line at a 45 degree angle called your intended career path. Below that, a second line rose at a much lesser angle and jiggle-jaggled only half the way up the vertical axis.
The second line was called your actual career path.
The space between the the two lines was marked WHY YOU DRINK.
All charts on that topic after that one seem unnecessary.
Message: Only a fool would stay an hourly wage slave.
engineers working at walmart. doctors quiting their jobs because of ebola-care and they can make more at home depot pushing carts. then we have ebola-care dieticians getting paid 130k a year, city bus drivers getting paid 130k a year,
ya, raise the ebola minimum wage. maybe the nurses will stay and care for the african ebola patients.