Was it the COVID checks they sent out? Might be a good thing to do in the next recession...
But this current state of margin debt, I do not like at all. That with the reduction of new home construction.
The magic money we sent out is the cause of a lot of the problem we're facing now though, it's not like you can print magic money every 5-10 years to extinguish systemic problems
So, inflation.
Do you know that banks in the last 15 years have been getting free money and then lending to people at rates from 5 to 29%? Does that not make you mad?
Who does matter are the white collar upper-middle, upper class people. They generate the most value and spend the most money. These advanced sectors are the american economy. And what happened to them during the pandemic? They just stayed home and kept working, thanks modern tech.
However the government responded like it was still 2005, where there was no tech to keep things moving, and created an incredibly stimulative environment for an economy that was largely still doing fine. By the end of 2020 GDP had recovered.
Despite this we still got:
- 0% interest rates, this is the crack-cocaine of the upper class, especially when the actual economy was doing fine.
- Pause on student loan payments, this was massive, most of these people were employed making more money than ever
- Pause on rent, another massive boon, again people who didn't lose their job now are not paying loans or rent
- PPP loans, pretty much a straight handout to business owners, who again, were still in business anyway.
- Child tax credit, the child tax credit was almost doubled for anyone who had a kid(s).
- Unemployment benefits, this is getting away from upper class territory, but lots of lower class workers were getting 2x pay while not paying rent or working, which they took right to spending.
- Stimulus checks, the most visible but least impactful, everyone got a few thousand dollars.
The guys who clean the stadium and sweep the court are needed for the games to happen. They are called the backbone of the stadium because they provide support. But the economic backbone of the stadium, the ones making the whole thing worthwhile, are the players, and unsurprisingly they are paid the most. It's not nice to say that, but I doubt you ever paid $80 to buy overpriced beer and snacks to sit in a seat to watch someone mop a basketball court.
The bedrock of the US economy are high skilled high compensated workers. The US is an advanced economy. Hits to it's cashier, shelf stocker, screw turner, or retail worker are not really meaningful hits. If they were, the economy would have collapsed in 2020. Instead it became clear that the "players" weren't taking a hit, they were just working at home, and the economy ripped as uneeded stimulus for them poured in.
2020 was hugely disruptive and the stock market did tank for a while. But the actual impact on labor was relatively modest? Cashiers and retail workers largely continued to do the same jobs, which are necessary for a functioning economy. Hospitality and travel are what got hit (and covered by PPP).
Covid cheques which in some countries only went to persons in the former niche category I think had less remarkable impact than the broader factors.
The irrational/solvent saying has never been more true, and it has been irrational for almost 20 years because we never paid the piper.
We didn't? '21-'23 was a bloodbath on the market. How that was spun as not being a recession is mind boggling to me.
https://www.dallasfed.org/research/economics/2022/0802
If we did, it was seemingly mild in hindsight.
That's pretty much the consensus.
Also, remember that markets are most responsive to rates of change, which is an important angle to consider beyond the hard recession definition. It may have technically been a mild recession, but the rates of change in many areas were extreme and had some fairly catastrophic consequences (for example, fixed income/rate volatility getting so high that systemic risk skyrocketed and Fed intervention was required).