Flat As a Pancake

The markets are quiet, waiting for Powell and NFP this week. July 30, 2024 [WEBSITE]( | [UNSUBSCRIBE]( Flat As a Pancake SEAN RING Dear Reader, Yesterday was one of those “slow days” the market experiences in the summer every year. Whether everyone’s on vacation or there’s nothing going on, the markets barely moved yesterday. When I say the markets were flat, I mean they were Bonneville Salt Flats flat. The S&P 500 was up 0.08%, the Dow was down 0.12%, and the Nasdaq was up 0.07%. It was a total snoozefest. Why is that? Well, it’s a combination of summer holidays and the keen anticipation of news. There was nothing significant yesterday, but we’ve got to keep a close watch on the numbers for the rest of the week. Today’s Releases We have the Case-Shiller Home Price Index at 9 a.m. As far as immediately moving the markets, that's not a big deal. But consumer confidence usually matters. However, as we’re right before a FOMC meeting day, this will mean less than usual. A little background: the Conference Board, a business and research organization, releases its Consumer Confidence Index on the last Tuesday of every month. The figure is based on the Conference Board's monthly survey of 5,000 households, which asks consumers how confident consumers are about the state of the economy. It tries to gauge how they feel about the current business conditions and the labor market and how they feel about the future. In case you’re wondering, the University of Michigan publishes a similar measure, the Consumer Sentiment Index, twice a month. Why should we care about either of these? Increases in consumer confidence may be associated with increases in stock prices as the increase may suggest that confident consumers will spend more, helping the economy to grow and eventually leading to more robust corporate earnings. With all that said, Wednesday is the big day this week. Wednesday is Fed Day Oh, Jay Powell, if only you’d have listened to me! You would’ve cut rates by 25 basis points in June, and we wouldn’t be talking about you until after the inauguration. But as central bankers always do, you’ve now waited too long and will have to make a more dramatic move. But first, you will almost certainly sit on your hands for this meeting, waiting for more data to justify your rate cut. It’s funny because last week, my colleague Simon and I were teaching a bunch of recent graduates about Social Styles. It’s a handy, back-of-the-envelope way of knowing the type of person you’re talking to. Economic Ph. D.s, quants, and other spreadsheet geeks are almost invariably “analysts.” Their kryptonite is “paralyzed by analysis.” Jay Powell and his crew are the archetype of the analyst. They simply can’t make decisions quickly because they’re inundated with data. Time and again, we’re left to swing in the wind while the misguided Keynesian nerds in the Eccles Building argue over tenths of a percentage point. As the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) won’t cut this meeting, Jay Powell’s presser is of paramount importance. If he comes out bullish and tells the market it’ll get its rate cut this year, it’ll be party time. If not, we can see more of a sell-off. [Free Event Replay for {EMAIL}]( [This A.I. chip]( looks like any other chip… On the surface, there’s nothing special about it… Yet I believe [this chip]( will play a major role in the artificial intelligence boom. It’s currently being mass-produced by the millions as we speak, in this facility you see here. The most shocking part of all? You’ll never believe who’s behind these powerful A.I. chips… It’s not Nvidia, or anyone else you might expect… [Click here now for the full story.]( [Click Here To Learn More]( Thursday is Jobless Claims and PMI First, the move—and its volatility—from Wednesday’s FOMC meeting will dwarf any move jobless claims or PMI produce. But that doesn’t mean they’re irrelevant. In particular, initial jobless claims are becoming more and more critical. Stay with me here. The yield curve has been inverted since October 2022: Many get this wrong: the curve's inversion doesn’t immediately signal a recession. It’s the re-steepening after the inversion that signals we’re in trouble. As you can see from the above, that hasn't happened yet. When a recession is about to kick off, the yield curve steepens, and jobless claims pick up. Jobless claims have risen since the beginning of this year: The last ingredient is oil prices. Once the yield curve becomes positive, initial jobless claims pick up, and oil prices rise, that’s the killer. But oil hasn’t gone anywhere. Oil isn’t trading at $150 despite war and inflation because the world economy is in the toilet. Also, the U.S. dollar is the prettiest currency in the ugly currency parade. A declining dollar is needed for oil to explode to the upside. But thanks to the yen, sterling, and yuan weakening against the dollar, oil’s rally remains a pipe dream. As for the euro strengthening against the dollar, even that has cooled off a bit. So far, only one of the three economic conditions I mentioned above (steepening yield curve, rising jobless claims, and higher oil prices) indicates an imminent recession. This is just another reason to remain confident in your current investment decisions. The July PMI was a dismal 49.5, signaling a contraction in manufacturing. However, manufacturing is less than 10% of the U.S. GDP, so the market assigns this number less weight. Finally, we’ve got payrolls on Friday. Friday is Nonfarm Payrolls As a broker all those years ago, this was the only economic number that mattered. It carries a similar weight today. Nonfarm Payrolls measure the change in the number of people employed during the previous month, excluding the farming industry. Job creation is the foremost indicator of consumer spending, which accounts for nearly 70% of economic activity. The consensus is that the NFP will be 185,000. It’s not a significant number, but it will surely suffice. Wrap Up While yesterday was as dull as dishwater, the rest of this week may prove volatile. Watch the numbers to see how the market reacts. If anything pops up, I’ll write about it later in the week. All the best, Sean Ring Editor, Rude Awakening X (formerly Twitter): [@seaniechaos]( Rate this email Like Dislike Thanks for rating this content! Looks like something went wrong. Please try to rate again. In Case You Missed It… Gay Paris SEAN RING If you didn’t know what the Western World was up against, watching the Olympics’ opening ceremony in Paris should be all you need to comprehend the threat fully. Yeah, ok… Credit: [@BretWeinstein]( Why? Why? What was the purpose of the fat dudes in beards pretending to be ladies? Wasn’t this supposed to be a celebration of athletes with near-perfect physiques competing at the highest level against the finest in every land? Why was a man with his right cojone hanging out the bottom of his shorts? Why would the French show The Last Supper with a fat female Jesus in the middle of the table… then claim it was The Feast of Dionysus and that everyone should calm down, and then show tweets that demonstrate they meant to show The Last Supper? This is one of those instances where I loathe the French as if I were born in England or Italy. Then, I immediately saw their reaction of disdain and disbelief. [Watch this video of a French family watching this embarrassment.]( Charles de Gaulle once said, “Paris is not France.” One could easily say the same about London and England, though I’m not sure it holds up with New York and the United States. Paris is a festering hive of loony leftism. It has been since France’s dreaded and much lamented “Revolution.” Even the Nazis didn’t change Paris. In August 1944, Hitler demanded that the Nazi Governor of Paris, Dietrich von Choltitz, raze every religious building and historical monument to the ground. Thinking old Adolf to be insane, von Choltitz disobeyed the order. Instead, German forces in Paris surrendered to the liberating forces. I’ve got to admit, I was thinking this weekend if von Choltitz had made a mistake. Credit: [@MedvedevRussiaE]( Does anyone want to argue with Dmitry? I don’t. The Iranian Government piled on, too. Are they wrong? London 2012’s opening ceremony was a spectacular celebration, “a love letter” to Britain. Why didn’t the organizers choose to celebrate all that France offers humanity? It’s because their “message” matters to them more than anything else. And that message is, “You’ll obey, and you’ll like it.” Except this time, no one liked it at all. The old saying may be, “There are no atheists in foxholes.” But now it seems there aren’t any when Western civilization is pooped on. The Big Man Upstairs was also insulted, though a likelier story is that the hackers were Christian and shut off the lights everywhere but at Sacre Coeur Cathedral. Credit: [Breitbart]( [Sachin Jose wrote on X]( This basilica was first proposed by Felix Fournier, the Bishop of Nantes, in 1870 after the defeat of France and the capture of Napoleon III at the Battle of Sedan in the Franco-Prussian War. He attributed the defeat of France to the moral decline of the country since the French Revolution, and proposed a new Parisian church dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. …the country's moral decline since the French Revolution, you say? Let’s talk about that. [URGENT: Regarding Your 2024 Strategic Intelligence Membership Dues!]( Hi, I’m Matt Insley. I’m the Publisher at Paradigm Press. Just moments ago, I just got off the phone with Jim and we agreed: it’s time we start charging more money for access to his newsletter. That’s why we may implement a massive price hike for all subscribers in the coming days. But if you [click here now]( you can lock in your current subscription price at 80% off – and never have to pay the potential new price of $500. Don’t waste any time. [Just click here now to claim this special offer.]( [Click Here To Learn More]( “The World’s Most Fascinating Man” You must be something special for an intellect like William F. Buckley to call you that. Buckley also called him "A Walking Book of Knowledge." Kuehnelt-Leddihn had an encyclopedic knowledge of the humanities and was a polyglot. He could speak eight languages and read eleven others. Kuehnelt-Leddihn argued that majority rule in democracies threatens individual liberties. He declared himself a monarchist and an enemy of all forms of totalitarianism. However, he also supported what he defined as "non-democratic republics," such as Switzerland and the early United States. He was unabashedly Catholic and Conservative. After World War I, he moved to America and taught at Georgetown University, Saint Peter’s College, Fordham University, and Chestnut Hill College. Kuehnelt-Leddihn [resettled in his native Austria in 1947]( and devoted his time to alternating periods of studying, traveling, writing, and lecturing. He was a columnist for the National Review for 35 years. What he says about the French Revolution is shocking. It's a stark reminder of the horrors that can unfold when radical ideologies take hold. But First, The Original Leftists The first Leftists were a group of newly elected representatives to the National Constituent Assembly at the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789. They were called "Leftists" simply because they sat on the left side of the French Assembly. Shockingly, the original Leftists wanted to abolish government controls over industry, trade, and the professions. They wanted wages, prices, and profits to be determined by competition in a free market. They stood for freeing their economy from central planning. Perhaps most surprisingly, they wanted to remove the government-guaranteed special privileges of guilds, unions, and associations whose members could set the price of their product above what it would be in a free market. Funnily enough, the Rightists wanted a highly centralized national government, special laws and privileges for unions and various other groups and classes, economic monopolies in various necessities of life, and government control over prices, production, and distribution. The Leftists held power for two years with a small majority. To their great credit, they pushed most of their program through. But before it was completed, a violent minority from their ranks - the revolutionary Jacobins - took over. Head Jacobin and downright evil bastard Maximilien Robespierre, the “spokesman for the people,” first said that the division of the powers of government was a good thing when it diminished the king's authority. But when Robespierre became the leader, that power belonged to the people and predictably, chose to consolidate it. And then, the Reign of Terror began. It's a period in history that's hard to comprehend, a time when the French Revolution took a dark and violent turn that led to unspeakable horrors. This is what led Kuehnelt-Leddihn to write: First of all, one has to bear in mind that 1789 did not lead necessarily and inevitably to 1792 and to the rise of totalitarianism in Europe and later in all other quarters of the globe. Later Lord Acton, Alexis de Tocqueville, Philippe Sagnac, Georg Jellinek, and Felix have emphasized the American roots of the French Revolution but also insisted that the ideas prevailing in America at the time of the War of Independence had been grossly misinterpreted by the French: They assumed a new meaning and, when transplanted in French soil, degenerated rapidly. Many Americans, fresh from creating their own country, were horrified by what happened in France. John Adams was chief among them. In a letter he wrote to Benjamin Rush in 1811: Have I not been employed in mischief all my days? Did not the American Revolution produce all the calamities and desolation to the human race and the whole globe ever since? I meant well, however. My conscience was clear as a crystal glass, without scruple or doubt. I was borne by an irresistible sense of duty. God prospered our labors, and, awful, dreadful, and deplorable as the consequences have been, I cannot but hope that the ultimate good of the world, of the human race, and of our beloved country, is intended and will be accomplished by it. For those who still cannot understand why “democracy” is not mentioned in the US Constitution, Adams wrote, "Napoleon and all his generals were but creatures of democracy." Kuehnelt-Leddihn included these gems in his chapter on the French Revolution in his fabulous book [Leftism](. Needless to say, children should belong to the state, a demand that will always be raised by leftists who have an innate hatred for the family as an "individualistic" group that tries to separate itself as an independent cell within the state and society. Voltaire was certainly not an ardent republican, nor was he a democrat. His ideal was a constitutional monarchy headed by a roi sage, Plato's philosopher-king. So was Diderot's. Voltaire wrote of the republic that it represented a social order leading to tyranny. "Independent of my love for freedom," he wrote, "I still would prefer to live under a lion's paw than under the teeth of a thousand rats who are my fellow citizens.” It’s fascinating that the French celebrate this day, even though the Bastille was already condemned and ready to be sold by the government for a real estate project. Hilariously, when the “storming” actually happened, Kuehnelt-Leddihn writes: The Governor of the Bastille, M. de Launay, an enlightened liberal, had a tiny garrison of Swiss and some invalid veterans at his disposal when the mob finally gathered around the building on July 14: He offered only token resistance. The delegates of the Town Hall and two appointees of the mob were received and were invited to join the governor at his meals. In the meantime the drawbridge of the outer court was let down and guns were directed at the inner court. The soldiers, sensing that they had no commander willing to take the responsibility, surrendered. The surprise came when the "victors" found only seven prisoners. Four were forgers who quickly decamped, two were insane (they had been there only for observation), and one was a dissolute young man of noble descent who considered himself the real hero of the day: he harangued the people with revolutionary phrases. Much ado about nothing, methinks. The French Revolution was the template, not for freedom reigning, but for totalitarian revolutions worldwide. A genuine disaster, which led Kuehnelt-Leddihn to write: For the average person, all problems date to World War II; for the more informed, to World War I; for the genuine historian, to the French Revolution. Keep that in mind when someone tries to compare July 4th to July 14th. They’re misinformed. Wrap Up The consequences of France’s idiotic revolution continue to reveal themselves. The opening ceremony of this Olympics was disgraceful. Luckily, most of France herself is rightly embarrassed by this fiasco. This may lead to the change necessary for the West to recover from its slumber, but I wouldn’t count on it. After all, it’s nearly August—time for a summer holiday. Have a great week ahead! All the best, Sean Ring Editor, Rude Awakening Twitter: [@seaniechaos]( ☰ ⊗ [ARCHIVE]( [ABOUT]( [Contact Us]( © 2024 Paradigm Press, LLC. 1001 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, MD 21201. By submitting your email address, you consent to Paradigm Press, LLC. delivering daily email issues and advertisements. To end your Rude Awakening e-mail subscription and associated external offers sent from Rude Awakening, feel free to [click here.]( Please note: the mailbox associated with this email address is not monitored, so do not reply to this message. We welcome comments or suggestions at feedback@rudeawakening.info. This address is for feedback only. 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