Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

Gold’s Inflation Utility

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Gold is okay, but not yet unique

There are times when gold is an okay inflation hedge, while under-performing the likes of industrial metals, oil/energy, materials, etc. During those times, if you’re doggedly precious metals focused you should consider silver, which, as a hybrid precious metal/industrial commodity, has more pro-cyclical inflation utility than gold.

But as I have argued for much of the last year, if the inflated situation is working toward cyclical progress (as it is currently) then there is a world full of trades and investments out there to choose from, many of which are trouncing gold (which, as I have belabored for the better part of 2 decades now, is not about price but instead, value) in the inflated price casino.

The latest ISM Report on Business shows one negative among the important areas as employment declined. Now, before we get too excited about that gold-positive reading let’s also realize that manufacturing employment is still growing, new orders are briskly increasing, backlogs are up and customer inventories are down. In short, manufacturing continues to boom.

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Biden’s Alternate Universe

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As Biden Speaks, remember the economy is run by the Fed and it is run by inflation

Of course, a career politician will be adept at framing the narrative just right, adding to it, tweaking it and layering on fancy words and concepts in order to veil the true and unbelievably simple fact that the inflation started under a very different presidential administration and continues to this day. The only difference is that the party that won the election gets to take a bow for the broad results that have little or nothing to do with them.

Biden goes on offensive against economic critics, argues rising wages show his agenda is working

Well, his agenda was to push rising employment costs into the economy with the inflation the Fed created out of thin air. So that is true. I am not against raising minimum wages under this vile inflationary system because low income people cannot keep up with the pace of the inflation the Fed has created. Under an inflationary regime, an inflationary (Keynesian) system, you can’t go with the old conservative method of letting each earn his or her way based on merit. At some point – due to inflation – the goalpost has been moved too far away.

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Inflation Cools, Stag Awaits

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To maintain the inflation, a cooling of inflation was needed

That is one of those Alice in Wonderland-like statements, like the one I’ve got tattooed on my left forearm: “Contrary-wise, what is it wouldn’t be and what it wouldn’t be it would, you see?”

To maintain inflationary policy, as per various talking Fed (egg) heads, the hysterical run up in inflationary expectations and fears had to be tamped down. And so, Google users have indeed eased their neuroses right along with a recent tamping of inflationary hysteria.

google search
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Inflation: Going Stag

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Stagflation in the offing, unless it’s not different this time…

As corporations continue to raise wages, market participants fear the Fed is wrong about supposedly “transitory” inflation, long-term Treasury bond yields resume the rally (bonds decline) manufacturers’ (ISM) costs keep rising, the Fed’s inflationary operation – a desperate monetary kick save if ever there was one – labors on.

The Fed has manipulated bonds and flooded the markets and economy with funny munny created out of nowhere, as if by magic. As if by MMT (modern monetary theory) TMM (total market manipulation). So far, so good. Jerome Powell stands to be the first non-Bernanke winner of the Ben Bernanke Award for Heroism in the line of inflating a debt ridden economy.

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An Inflationary Slingshot

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Cost-push inflation could break out (and a note on gold)

Before beginning the post a little context is in order. We (NFTRH) anticipated the current pause in long-term Treasury yields (one indicator of inflation) because pro-inflation sentiment became over-done in March and was due for a cool down; so said a contrarian view. This post discussing the likelihood of more inflation to come is not written by a one-way bias booster. It’s important for credibility to make these distinctions from the herds running with the daily news cycle.

The short-term contrary sentiment situation against the inflation view began with the Bond King’s media-touted short of long-term Treasuries (i.e. expectation of higher yields), per one of our best macro tools…

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