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We Have Found Where The Gas Tax Cut Was Spent: Hookers, Drugs And Booze
Submitted by Andrew Zatlin via MoneyballEconomics.com,
A Burst in Vice Spending
Vice spending, as we know, is affected by the weather. This year it was battered by storms which rocked the US from Spring Break into early April, holding back spending until Easter. It’s fitting that the original Easter holiday was a pagan celebration of the Spring Equinox full of revelry, feasts and sex.
Last year, we saw a similar pattern: storms dampened play time but once they passed, the game was on.
...
Hookernomics: Is Nasty Outbreak of Inflation Contagious?
Previous expectations were for a vanilla first half of the year. Over the holidays, we conducted a business survey of escorts. The feedback was consistent: for 1H of 2015, escorts expected no inflation. Given that there was no jump in costs, no major change in client spending and no margin or demand-driven pressures; that prediction should have made sense.
In March we noticed that more escorts were taking road trips. In the business of Hookernomics, fishing in new waters is typically an indication of a business slowdown.
Fast forward to April, and prices are selectively moving up. Why the sudden change?
For starters, the March slump definitely seems to have been weather related. In response to the weak start to the year, escorts hustled to generate the necessary cash flow. More recently, however, some escorts are testing the waters to see if the market will bear higher prices.
- The What: Prices have moved up 10%. The price jumps are very selective – mostly in the middle and upper tiers of escorts. The increases are also very sporadic, just as the previous month’s road trips were.
- The Why: Raising prices is demand-driven and client pockets are expanding with unspent cash, or so some escorts seem to believe. It’s a not-so-shining example of the free market in action. Suppliers are responding quickly to customer demand.
Whether or not this inflation trend will continue depends on several factors:
- Escort pricing power: College summer vacations are starting and that inevitably leads to greater escort supply.
- Client discretionary cash flow: Are escorts correctly reading the signs when perceiving fatter wallets?
- Staying power: Client spending might be getting artificially pumped up. The spending budget grew only because of a one or two month weather delay. If the built-up funds suddenly get released in a burst of activity, demand will droop again, bringing down prices.
So is this a head fake after all? There is a spring rebound underway in consumer spending, but it may lack sufficient stamina to last into the third quarter.
Gambling Limps Back
Per Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, February saw Macau gambling revenues drop 49% year-over-year, the first annual drop in Chinese gambling revenues. The reason: Chinese government anti-graft crackdowns have set limits on the number of gamblers allowed to visit Macau, and many wealthy gamblers are keeping their heads down to avoid attention. Those travel restrictions and interest in laying-low is hitting Vegas as well. Not to mention, folks like Steve Wynn are reporting that business is bad in Sin City.
For a handle on US consumers, the odds are better if we ignore Vegas and concentrate on the local casinos; the drive-in places, not the fly-in places.
Just as retail partially rebounded in March, so too did gambling.
For some reason, many people expected that the March retail data would rebound a lot stronger than it did. This made no sense given that storms also hit March pretty hard, but there was a partial rebound in retail, just as there is a partial rebound in gambling.
What’s especially interesting are the upticks in areas hit hardest by the snowstorms: Connecticut and Atlantic City. That just underscores the large pent-up desire and cash available to consumers, which is a great sign for April.
“High” Profits: Big Tobacco Turns Big Whacky Tobacky
Name the world’s biggest drug pushers and Philip Morris is near the top. As global tobacco consumption slows, Big Tobacco is looking at alternatives like cannabis. It’s the equivalent of Seagram going after Molson. Liquor or beer… it’s all drinking. Tobacco or cannabis… it’s all smoking.
Big Tobacco also brings some much needed advantages to the cannabis community (in no particular order):
- Political lobbying strength
- Ties to farmers
- Familiarity with the market dynamics of cash crops
- Existing infrastructure to scale production
- National branding
- Quality control methodologies
- Experience with extracting and mass producing the key chemical components (Cannabis-laced food products already exist, but are companies like Frito-Lay planning on tossing THC in the Tostitos?)
Also don’t forget that people all over the world frequently smoke tobacco and cannabis together.
Big Tobacco has been studying the cannabis opportunity for decades. As part of the tobacco settlements a few years ago, millions of pages of documents were released by Philip Morris et al. According to a study done by the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, since the 1970s Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds and BAT:
- Determined cannabis is not a threat to tobacco
- Studied ways to affect decriminalization and legalization
- Considered combining cigarettes and cannabis
The business potential was recognized quickly. Cannabis was not perceived as a competitive product. Philip Morris underwrote a study that concluded:
“…marihuana (sic) smoking will have grown to immense proportions within a decade and will probably be legalized. The company that will bring out the first marihuana (sic) smoking devices, be it a cigarette or some other form, will capture the market and be in a better position than its competitors to satisfy the legal public demand for such products.”
Aside from business prospects, switching from tobacco to cannabis will have health benefits. Tobacco kills, that much is proven. Conversely, there are no meaningful studies that demonstrate cannabis is a health hazard. True or not, the general assumption is that it’s healthier. In a 1976 memo to BAT, it was noted:
“If more restrictions are placed on tobacco and if the marijuana habit notches up further small advances in legality, many people may switch from one to the other in their search for a form of escape from our neurotic civilization. Marijuana supporters would claim that was a net improvement from the health aspect.”
The key obstacle in all this is the public’s conditioning to believe that marijuana is morally bad. As BAT noted in 1980:
“At present the taking of many of these drugs is either medically prescribed or regarded as deviant behavior, but could be “socialized” like alcoholic drinking and tobacco smoking…”
...
Near-Term Optimism in Vice May Not Last
The market seems revved up to further the gains in vice spending, at least in the short-term, as people spend their pent-up cash reserves from the storm-ridden first quarter of the year.
Yet proceed with caution, because this short-term spurt in vice spending is a bubble about to burst by summer’s end.
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Money well spent by taxpayers, following the example of DEA agents.
Maybe we could roll up our debt and smoke it.
America is of course the world's most self-avowed christian nation.
In God we trust. Whose god?
What happens in Vegas....yeah, let's make Vegas the convention hub. That way, all the drinking, cheating, prostituting, drugging etc. will process 42 million adults a year...
All left with that Vegas grime on the outside and in.
Yeah, what happens in vegas actually infects the world...
https://aadivaahan.wordpress.com/2015/05/21/are-you-ready/
In Italy this would result in GDP spiking.
Silvio would be proud.
EBT! EBT! EBT!
https://youtu.be/82vpIsQ3lX8
PLEASE, Castro brothers, PLEASE let Sheldon Adelson emigrate to Havana. :-)
Wall Street probably took market profits while the retail investor got in, allowing them to spend the money on hookers, booze, and blow.
As soon as they outlaw cash, this little problem will disappear...they think...
"Maybe we could roll up our debt and smoke it."
Maybe we could make suppositories out of it and stick it up the asses of those in government because they are all obviously full of shit
http://goldtradercommentsaugust2010.blogspot.com/
Stupid me, I just bought two $35 T-bone steaks.
It was fun while it lasted, but you don't need us to tell you that gas prices are back on the rise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAkxR9T01pw
I'm wondering if congress critters' salaries are in the hooker category?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jul/3/congressional-perks-like-...
Sorry calling BS on that headline.........looks pretty seasonal to me and April certainly appears to bring vice out of hibernation.
Actually, I think that chart was just for the Secret Service.
When some families wait 10 to 15 years for their fellow family members to "get to" America legitimately. How is it that thousands and thousands of Chinese prostitutes are given a free pass? Isn't it ironic, that every single one of them comes through New York.
There are exceptions to EVERY rule and tight, petite, Little Brown did I say tight chinese girls are worthy, noble one.
H1b visas?
Didn't you know there is a shortage of hookers willing to live 20 to a room and live on rice?
It's not rice they are eating, they need a cool half million just to enter the usa, they then pay taxes and compete with todays upper middles who have to live paycheck to paycheck just to keep up with the joneses. It's the destruction of the middle class from every angle.
"Client spending might be getting artificially pumped up"
Yes, very droll.
No need to worry, because it may "suddenly get released in a burst of activity, demand will droop again"
Bitches and blow, bitchez.
Other vices haven't been considered. My GF thinks the horrific increase in my chocolate, ice cream, Twix, wedding and chinese sponge cake is worse than smoking, chewing tobacco, and watching IDHD programs about reality killing.
She may be right. You could be suffering from a case of relationship gender role reversal.
I've never understood the need to pay for sex. It's always been fairly easy to get it for free,and on those times when you can't find it you just have to take matters into your own hand.
We just don't appreciate those things we get for free as much as those we pay for.
If people did better accounting of their marriages, they might actually feel more 'vested'. unfortunately we don't fully realize the costs till its over.
There is always something that will not work out in a marriage, finding it (and managing it), or not finding it, is what makes for a good or bad marriage.
Hmm, how can I put this? Let's think of women as fruit. I like bananas, they're my favourite fruit, but I don't want to eat them every god damn day. It's nice to have an apple or a pear every now and again.
Comprendez?
Monogamy is about family (sex and children). Marriage is about money (property), insurance, and taxes (in a nutshell).
No couple needs to get married to have a family and can do so quite successfully based on their ATTITUDES, CHOICES, and BEHAVIORS. A wedding ring changes none of that. Marriage is a legal status and introduces sharing of assets/liabilities, insurance, and special tax statuses.
The problem today, in my eyes, is culturally we are so far from the attitudes, choices, and behaviors that make for good families. Finding a quality life partner is fucking impossible these days, particularly as you get older (the good ones get it right the first time - strong bias towards fuck ups). And then there is the predatory legal system on top of that to destroy families and economic independance after divorce.
I would bet on a three legged plow mule to win the triple crown before I saddled up and rode into the sunset with an American gal who is in my age bracket. No fucking way, no how. I am sure there are exceptions, but none that I have met. Fortunately, I eventually met an amazing woman who isn't from the US and what a fucking eye opener that was! Totally happily married man and hope we have a lot of years together.
Trust me, it is all cultural and if what I see/know is any indicator of the broad reality, this place is heading for the shitter as the generational odometer keeps ticking over.
Regards,
Cooter
+1 Cooter I married gringas twice; longest 5 years. Left USSA 25 years ago and met a Latina/Black/Mayan; been married for 19 years now. We're growing old gracefully; no unreasonable expectations. :-)
I don't pay prostitutes for sex; I pay them to leave.
- Charlie Sheen
Amen Brother!
Judging by your picture, I find it hard to believe, doc. You're telling me chicks are into the "big spikey eyeball" look?
Fembots luv the look of real wood! :>D
Top three reasons they can't get rid of cash.
BS
I prefer my vice seasonally adjusted.
Since you're here. What do women spend their vice money on?
No, it's a serious question.
Male hookers. Lavender scented blow.
Lavender scented blow
Huh, didn't even know there was such a thing. Good to know.
Trips to Jamaica...
It's not just for fat, pedo-bears anymore!
Houses.
Sexual motivation in men is quite different than women. Suprise right?
Men are genetically programmed to desire YOUNGER and HEALTHIER partners, as this is directly related to successful births (older women has many more baby complications). Men have more children being promiscuous because they increase their "child production". That is to say, a child is more likely to come from a father who is promiscuous simply because there are more children born of those circumstances.
So, hookers scratch that itch for men.
Women on the other hand have to bear the children (dangerous) and need resources support to bear and raise the child. Without sufficient support/resources there is serious risk of child (or parent) death. And if mom doesn't raise the baby, it usually doesn't live (in historical terms), so a child is more likely to come from a mother who is attentive and caring simply because there are more children born of those circumstances. So, women are attracted to men who have status, wealth, and property - all resources which indicate the ability to bear and raise children. This also explains the age gap in relationships where both parties are scratching their itch.
So, women spend their vice money trying to look younger, sexier, more attractive. This explains boob jobs and all the other weird body mod crap that is COMPLETELY NORMAL now.
In conclusion, men pay for blowjobs and women pay for boob jobs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW3cN4HWbjA (She likes money, He likes love)
Regards,
Cooter
Bingo. We have a winner.
Most women are dried up by the time they are 25 or 30. A woman told me so.
I don't know. Those boob jobs look strange to me. Rubbery and unnatural. I think I'll pass.
Sometimes I think just having a fun personality, staying fit and taking care of yourself and enjoying sex is really all you need to keep a man happy. Mine doesn't complain. The women I knew who chose to ride the cock carousal instead of settling on one good guy, really looked scary when they hit 40.
Miffed;-)
I don't smoke cigs and I don't drink heavily, but you bet your ass I'm stockpiling booze and cigs for barter when things go bartertown.
Careful chief. Cigs don't have the shelf-life like grain alcohol does.
True. Gotta rotate the cig stock, but raw tobacco stays fresh for years with proper storage conditions.
and the rest was completely wasted
This is what infuriates me! The government says there's no inflation, but if you want to buy necessities like food, gas, or sex the prices are going up!
There are a few reasons they say there is no inflation. If there was inflation, government handouts would have to rise as well. Along with Social Security and disability checks.
Tobacco is working hard to kill the vape industry, especially the small independent shops.
They are going to force closed container e-cigs, which are crap, via CONgress.
And don't get me started with the idiots who equate vaping to smoking.
I'll just start smoking again.
E-Cigs: A Lifesaver That Health Fascists Want To Kill
http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2015/01/05/e-cigs-a-lifesaver-th...
I caught my 10 year old son smoking an e-cig, so I took it from him and threw the pack away and gave him shit. He asked, 'why is it bad Dad?' and I said 'because it makes you look like a fag' and bought him a pack of cigars.
bought him a pack of cigars
Havana?
Got any more?
Tough times...
I can not wait till someone in power suggests that we need to add these items in to find our true gdp.
Not true. Even the strip clubs are hurting for paying customers.
Not the one I was at Saturday nite. PACKED.
When cash disappears, so will vice.
HAHAHAHA...........
Is there an ETF for junk rated nasty girls in GOFO?
BJK, FXD
I'm so proud of America right now
So eurozone was right to include hookers in GDP figures, after all :D
I likes titties.
That's EXACTLY what I was shouting out Saturday nite!
The public probably suffers a net loss when the price of gas drops because the taxes go up and the oil companies run the prices up at the first opportunity to make up for it.
Panicked states are looking to kickstart gas tax revenues by inventing the, "Mileage tax". This means all the big-government-believing enviro wackos who smugly marched out and paid premiums for electric cars and hybrids, boasting future savings at the pump, are going to get fucked under the Karma bus.
Let's face it, electric cars still run on 40% coal burning electricity and hybrids that get 45 mpg are already no match for fuel injected turbo diesels (TDIs) that already get 70 mpg in Europe (but are not allowed in the USA).
But it's still down 1 tic yoy... just sayin'
In the meantime oil is back over $60........................
"Send us your tired, your poor, your tight-breasted yearning to own a house in Brooklyn".
"...escorts expected no inflation." If there's no inflation, they'd better find a new profession.
Nothing to see here... people are naturally more horny in springtime which is why the demand and price of a sexworker goes up then.
Surely Romania got a piece of the action? Not everyone is likely to go the hooker route.
Sorry, looks seasonal to me.
Phew! At least they didn't waste any $$$! Had me worried for a bit!
Wasn't that called the Bill Clinton Index at one time?
Don't understand ... US has spent billions to eliminate tobacco ... in ten years pot will be demonized as causing dementia, heart problems, and Copd and we will spend billions to eliminate it ... why don't we just skip all this and embrace E-Pot
Bear: No chronic marijuana smoker has ever contracted dementia.
Dang, missed another one!
Still waiting for that TV Economist's program to work out... you know "Buy high, sell low"
Picked the wrong week to give up sniffing glue...
more like dudes with cash know the world is coming to an end soon so they're enjoying their spoils while they can