ECONOMIC UPDATE: It's Dragflation, Not Stagflation
Raising the debt ceiling is nothing more than a sick joke brought to you by the mentally deranged politicians running and ruining the nation
NOTE TO READERS: The following is our weekly Economic Update — Market Overview found in this week’s issue of The Trends Journal. Consider subscribing here for in-depth, independent geopolitical and socioeconomic trends and trend forecasts that you won’t find anywhere else.
In dumbed-down America, where nearly 45 percent of the people get what they call “news” from mainstream corporate TV and swallow the crap spewing out of the mouths of Presstitutes—media whores who get paid to put out by their corporate pimps and government whore masters—the vast majority have no clue of what in the world is going on.
And those that do watch TV news are the dead heads that politicians lie to and easily lead. Just ask the warmonger former President Richard Nixon who’s “Operation Freedom Deal,” “Operation Menu,” (aren’t those nice names to murder people?) and his prolonged wars against Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos killed over three million people: “The American people don’t believe anything until they see it on television.”
Add to that another 30 to 40 percent who don’t even watch, look or listen to the “news”… and it is perfectly understandable why most people live in their own little worlds and follow their leaders.
Take the economy, for example, as we detail in this and previous Trends Journals: While the vast majority of Americans—from upper-middle class to lower class—are living paycheck to paycheck, those who do tune into to the “news” hear that the economy is moving up and inflation is going down.
Just ask the only 63 percent of all adults who, according to the Federal Reserve, can cover an unexpected $400 expense. As for credit card debt at nearly $1 trillion and rising, this is the first time their debt has not decreased following a holiday season.
Not only are the plantation workers of Slavelandia feeling it in their pocket books, they feel it in their heads. Today, the Conference Board reported that its consumer confidence index fell to 102.3 in May from 103.7 in April. This is the fourth time in the past five months that overall U.S. consumer confidence has slumped… particularly for older Americans.
The “expectations index” which measures how consumers feel about income, business and labor conditions in the next six months fell to 71.5 this month, down from 71.7 in April.
The Conference Board notes that a reading under 80 often signals a recession in the coming year, and “While consumer confidence has fallen across all age and income categories over the past three months, May’s decline reflects a particularly notable worsening in the outlook among consumers over 55 years of age,” said their senior director of economics, Ataman Ozyildirim.
Reality of TV
Again, while most “adults” especially males (or whatever men are being called today by politicians, teachers, bureaucrats and other brainwashers) know the batting averages of every baseball player this season, they don’t have a clue of the socioeconomic and geopolitical trends shaping the future.
Take a trip to the world’s fourth largest economy, Germany.
Once upon a time, we the little people of Slavelandia were taught by our teachers, the government, and the mainstream business media that two consecutive quarters of negative Gross Domestic Product was called a recession. With its GDP down 0.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2022 and now down 0.3 percent in the first quarter of this year, Germany is “officially” in a recession.
And while Dragflation was one of our TOP TRENDS 2022, and we warned of a future of declining GDP and rising inflation, none of the mainstream media Presstitutes would report on our trend and instead pumped out the bullshit spewing of the mouth of the hack playing Deputy Finance Minister of Germany who warned the nation was heading to stagflation: stagnant GDP and rising inflation. Last September Florian Toncar warned that “there is an increasing risk of stagflation.”
Wrong! By the inflation and GDP data, Germany is suffering from Dragflation: declining economic growth and rising inflation.
Germany’s consumer price index increased 7.2 percent in April compared with April 2022 while the nation’s annual inflation rate is at 7.6 percent. And again, not only is the country “officially” in recession, household consumption fell 1.2 percent last quarter which is more data confirming our forecast of Dragflation: declining economy, rising inflation.
Again, this is the fourth largest economy in the world and it signals the economic conditions of Europe where consumer prices increased 7.6 percent on year in the EU.
TRENDPOST: Refusing to report the hard facts and indisputable “Dragflation” data last Thursday, the Financial Times quoted Salomon Fiedler, an economist at German investment bank Berenberg, who predicted German GDP would “stagnate” in the second quarter followed by “slow growth” for the rest of the year.