June 2019 - Independent Investment Advice Blog | Investment Planning

Negativity About the U.S. Dollar Is Wrong

It seems a many financial advisors and financial commentators are making an increasing amount of negative comments about the U.S. dollar and U.S. Treasuries. I disagree with them. I remember the 1970’s when there were many scary headlines about the end of Bretton Woods monetary agreement, Watergate, Nixon’s resignation, the U.S. defeat in Vietnam, the two OPEC oil shortages of 1973 and 1979 that severely damaged the economy, and the US embassy hostage situation in 1979 in Iran, etc. The dollar went down in value and the economy performed poorly while inflation increased dramatically in the 1970’s. Gold went up from $43 in August, 1971 to a peak of $880 in January, 1980. The inflation-adjusted price return of the

Employment Market Weakens, Recession Coming Soon

The Employment report was released by the BLS today showing only 75,000 new jobs created, less than the 100,000 a month needed to keep up with population growth. Thus, on a relative population-adjusted basis, employment shrank by 25,000 jobs. Based on employment to population percentages before the GFC of 2008, the hidden unemployed are roughly 1.0% to 1.5% of the workforce, thus the unemployment rate is close to 5% instead of the official 3.6%. Many workers are labeled by the BLS as employed even though they have a speculative, high risk self-employment occupation with almost no income or they may have a waiter’s “job” with a $2.50 an hour minimum wage. The inverted yield curve of bond yields implies

Monthly Archives: June 2019