The most important data series in the world at the moment remains quite remarkable
Hot takes, denialism, disaster-ism, mawkish reporting, political panicking, etc abound with the bug. We know its not a good thing...but we can't scale its badness appropriately. This data series is what will allow us to scale the bad in the broadest sense (as the world economy and markets really do rely on US to grasp their footing).
Everyones got a hot emotional take on the consequences of the bug - it fits whatever political / market/ economic / stock bias view one wishes to sagely take. We're still in the resolution fog....resolution is not a cure but how we feel we can cope with it and be normal-ish
If the chart pattern holds we will move decisively to resolution phase soon.
The other most significant data series in the world that doesn't receive attention it deserves is that the US Treasury (ie under Trump's control) has >$1.4tr real cash sitting in its Treasury General Account (TGA) at the Fed. Normally this is c.$200-300m.
It crept up to $400m+ around the repo crisis H2 2019 - remember this was when Trump was putting max pressure on the Fed to drop rates, weaken currency, etc. Then during covid crisis and massive Fed interventions the TGA has rocketed higher.
This is a true money transubstantiation moment as it moves out of the 'low powered' pure financial sphere (like all QE) and into the very 'high powered' real economy sphere. No one knows why this has happened as there as been no reporting of why...my opinion is that it is deliberately action by Mnuchin/Trump to build a stash to do what the Fed can't.
Will that money just sit there waiting for a rainy day? Hell no! 4 months to go before presidential elections. Orange man is going to spend it. On what? Dunno, but he can spend on what he likes and he has the readies...no need to ask for the funds from elsewhere. This is supercharged money, not just high powered.
The two bits of data probably relate to each other in that how the covid fatalities play out influences heavily how Trump plays Santa. Trump has been unusually quiet for a bit...maybe there's a very big announcement coming...
