Markets Weekly August 12

Hello my friends, today is August 12th, my name is Joseph and this is Markets Weekly. This week we're going to talk about three things. First, we're going to talk about how the Fed is slowing laying down the background work for rate cuts next year and why they don't think of that as easing monetary policy. Secondly, we have to talk about the big labor movements we see sweeping across industries in the US and what that means for wage growth and inflation going forward. And lastly, I'm going to do a little bit of myth busting on some of the common doomer takes that I see floating around social media.

大家好，今天是8月12日，我叫约瑟夫，欢迎来到本期《市场周刊》。本周我们将谈论三个问题。首先，我们将谈论美联储正在逐步为明年的利率下调做背景工作，以及他们为什么不认为这是货币政策的放宽。其次，我们必须讨论美国各行业涌现的大规模劳工运动，以及这对工资增长和通胀的影响。最后，我将对一些在社交媒体上流传的普遍的悲观论点进行一些"揭秘"。

Okay, beginning with the Fed.

好的，我们从美联储开始讲解。

So this past week we had president of the New York Fed, John Williams, given an interview with the New York Times. John Williams is one of the top three people at the Fed so we always got to listen to what he's saying. The interview was wide ranging but what said out to me is how John Williams is trying to explain to the reporter how it might make sense for the Fed to cut rates later next year.

所以上周，纽约联邦储备银行行长约翰·威廉姆斯接受了《纽约时报》的专访。约翰·威廉姆斯是美联储的三位高层之一，所以我们总是要听他说的话。这次采访内容广泛，但是我对约翰·威廉姆斯试图向记者解释的一点印象深刻：他试图解释为什么美联储可能在明年晚些时候降息是有道理的。

Now the Fed looks at interest rates through the lens of real interest rates. That means nominal interest rates minus inflation. For example, let's suppose that today interest rates are at 5%. Is that high or is that low? Well, it depends on a few things, right? Let's say that you take out a loan and you have to pay 5% interest on it. But at the same time, let's say that your wages are increasing 10% a year because inflation is high. Well, in that case, if your wages are going up 10% a year, then maybe 5% interest rates don't sound all that bad.

现在美联储通过实际利率来看待利率。这意味着名义利率减去通货膨胀率。举个例子，假设今天利率为5%。这是高还是低呢？这要看几个因素，对吧？假设你贷款需要支付5%的利息。但与此同时，假设你的工资每年增长10%因为通胀很高。嗯，在这种情况下，如果你的工资每年增长10%，那么5%的利率可能听起来并不糟糕。

Now with that in mind, let's think about what happened over the past two years. When it's high, it's not going to be a bad situation on an annual basis when as high as 9%. And the Fed took interest rates from 0% to 5%. Now, gradually inflation has been moderating. It's been coming down. And most recently, it looks like it's about an annual rate about 4%. So as inflation has slowly come down, it makes sense for the Fed to also gradually reduce low interest rate, it doesn't change too much. Otherwise, if the Fed doesn't cut rates and inflation steadily comes down, what ends up happening is that real interest rates end up increasing. So the Fed effectively is tightening monetary policy even as inflation comes down and that doesn't really make any sense.

现在我们考虑一下过去两年发生的情况。当通胀率上升时，整体来看，年度增长率高达9%时，并不会造成糟糕的情况。而美联储将利率从0%提高到5%。现在，通胀逐渐在缓解，有所下降。最近的数据显示，通胀率大约是4%左右。因此，随着通胀率的逐渐下降，美联储逐渐降低低利率也是合理的，这样不会带来太多变化。否则，如果美联储不降低利率而通胀稳步下降，实际利率将会增加。所以即使通胀下降，美联储采取的货币政策会变得更为严厉，这是没有任何道理的。

Now this topic is particularly salient because this past week we had another positive CPI print. So this past week, the CPI print was 0.2% month over month, which if you add a lot, annualize it, it gets you around to where the Fed's target is. Now the people who are following the CPI print also point towards the fact and the San Francisco Fed has a blog post on this is that according to various measures, a shelter inflation, which is basically, let's say what you have to pay on rent, is expected to come down further in the coming months and maybe, maybe even head towards deflation. That is to say, rents actually decline year over year. So there's a lot of people who are looking at this and thinking, well, CPI is really good these past two months and in the future, maybe you will get even better. So maybe we have to cut rates just to make sure the real rates don't go too high. But that's one view in the market and not the Fed and it's a reasonable view.

现在这个话题尤为重要，因为上周我们又有了一个积极的消费者价格指数数据。所以上周，消费者价格指数环比增长了0.2%，如果进行年化计算，将接近美联储的目标。现在关注消费者价格指数数据的人们还指出，根据各种指标，住房通胀，也就是租金，预计在未来几个月内会进一步下降，甚至可能走向通缩。也就是说，租金实际上会与上年同期相比下降。因此，很多人认为，过去两个月的消费者价格指数表现非常好，而且未来可能会更好。所以也许我们需要降低利率，以确保实际利率不会过高。但这只是市场上的一种观点，而不是美联储的观点，但也是一个合理的观点。

But there are also other views as well. There are people who think that maybe going forward, inflation will continue to either stay sticky or maybe even accelerate. After all, if you look at commodity prices like crude oil, it's been rising the past few months. And of course, if you look at wages, well, the latest Atlanta Fed wage tracker looks like it's stabilizing about 4% or 5%. It ticked up a tiny bit month over month, but it's still increasing at a rate that's not consistent with 2% inflation. So right now going forward, I think the expectation is that the Fed probably has to adjust the rates a little bit next year, maybe cutting a little bit. But that doesn't mean that they were going back to where they were pre-pandemic. Think of it more as staying higher for longer does not necessarily mean staying going to a maximum level and just keeping it there for a long time. They could adjust it a little bit, let's say to 4.5% and still keep it for a long time. We'll have to see what the data shows going forward. I suspect that it would make sense for the Fed to cut maybe a little bit next year, but definitely not a lot.

但也有其他观点。有人认为，也许通胀在未来会继续保持稳定，甚至可能加速。毕竟，如果你看看像原油这样的大宗商品价格，在过去的几个月里一直在上涨。当然，如果你看看工资，最新的亚特兰大联邦储备银行的工资指数显示，它似乎在4%或5%左右稳定。虽然月度略微上升了一点，但增长速度仍然不符合2%的通胀水平。因此，从现在开始，我认为预期是明年美联储可能需要适当调整利率，或许会有所削减。但这并不意味着它们会回到疫情前的水平。把它想象成更长时间保持较高的水平，并不意味着将其维持在最高水平上很长时间。他们可以稍微调整一点，比如将其设定为4.5%，并长时间保持在这个水平上。我们必须看看未来的数据。我认为，明年美联储可能适当削减一点利率是有道理的，但绝对不会太多。

Now let's take on the next topic. So over the past several months, we've seen big movements in labor across the country. We had lots of negotiations with the airlines, which ended up with United, for example, giving their pilots big raises. We've also most recently had a big potential strike with UPS where the UPS workers basically walked away with sizable wage increases.

现在让我们转向下一个话题。过去几个月，我们在全国范围内见证了大规模的劳动力运动。我们与航空公司进行了大量谈判，比如联合航空最终给他们的飞行员大幅加薪。最近，我们还可能遭遇了与UPS（联合包裹服务公司）的大规模罢工，结果UPS工人最终以相当可观的工资增加结束了。

Now right now what's front and center is we have ongoing strikes in Hollywood where the writers and the actors are on strike. Together from what I understand, this is not very common. Usually it's one group of workers striking and then another group of workers striking, but rarely do they strike together and they're striking together right now. And of course, we also have a looming strike with the United Auto Workers, who are the workers who work for the big American auto companies based in Detroit, and they're asking for a lot more money.

现在，正值好莱坞正在进行的罢工是最重要的事情，编剧和演员都在罢工。据我所了解，这种情况并不常见。通常是一组工人罢工，然后另一组工人罢工，但很少有他们同时罢工，而他们现在正在同时罢工。当然，我们还面临着与美国汽车公司有关的联合汽车工人罢工的威胁，这些工人在底特律工作，他们要求更多的薪水。

So what's happening? Why is there all this labor activity? So if you've been following this program, then you know that overall we are in a very, very big demographic shift. Our working force population hasn't really been increasing over the past several years, but at the same time, more economy continues to grow and boomers continue to retire. So structurally, we have a labor shortage and that's giving labor a lot of power. We see this in the ongoing wage increases and now we're seeing it more aggressively in ongoing strike activity.

发生了什么事？为什么会有这么多劳工活动？如果你一直在关注这个项目，那么你就知道我们正处于一个非常、非常巨大的人口结构转变中。我们的劳动力人口实际上在过去几年里并没有增加，但与此同时，经济继续增长，婴儿潮一代继续退休。因此，在结构上，我们面临劳动力短缺，这给劳工带来了很大的权力。这种情况在持续的工资增长中能够看到，并且现在我们更加明显地看到这种情况体现在持续的罢工活动中。

There's a really good on lots episode on the United Auto Workers that came out last week. And what the leader of the strike is saying is that they feel like they have power and in this time, they're demanding more money. From their perspective, they look at the surging corporate profits over the past few years and corporate profits have indeed absolutely surged post pandemic and they want to get their share of it. And finally, because there is a structural decline or structural labor shortage, they're able to get it.

上周推出了一集关于美国汽车工人联合会的节目，非常精彩。罢工领导者所说的是他们感觉自己很有力量，并且在这个时候他们要求更多的钱。从他们的角度来看，他们看到了过去几年里企业利润的大幅增长，尤其是在疫情后企业利润确实大幅增长，他们希望能够分得一杯羹。最后，由于存在结构性劳动力短缺，他们能够达到这个目标。

So if you look at this on a bottom picture, that suggests that wages really are going to stay high for extended period of time. And I actually think that's a good thing. Now let's zoom out a little bit and look at the macro trends between labor and businesses over the past few decades. And what you'll note is that labor share of overall income has been steadily declining over the past few decades. While corporations and let's say high skilled workers in finance and tech have been doing very well, your typical blue collar worker has been doing very poorly. In effect, because of globalization, the unskilled labor in vast, in other parts of the world, say China and India, were basically able to export, labor was basically able to be exported globally or another way of saying it is, of course, that American companies move their factories to where labor was cheap. But same thing. So the total supply of labor increased significantly over the past few decades because of globalization.

如果你从底部图片来看，这意味着工资在相当长的一段时间内将保持高位。我认为这其实是件好事。现在我们稍微放大视角，看看过去几十年劳动力和企业之间的宏观趋势。你会发现，在过去几十年中，劳动力对总收入的占比一直在稳定下降。与此同时，企业以及金融和科技领域的高技能工人表现得非常出色，而典型的蓝领工人的状况则非常糟糕。实际上，因为全球化的原因，世界其他地方（比如中国和印度）的非技术劳动力基本上能够进行出口，也就是说劳动力基本上能够全球出口，或者换句话说，当然，是美国公司将他们的工厂搬到了劳动力廉价的地方。但本质上是一样的。因此，由于全球化的影响，过去几十年劳动力的总供应量大幅增加。

But we're at a point where all of that seems to be gradually reversing. Now the workforce in the US is not growing, but even in China, the workforce is expected to gradually decline because of their one child policy. So they're going to face a severe, severe decline in their workforce in the coming years, not yet, but in the coming years. So globally, workers are going to have more power. They're going to be able to have higher wages. So in a sense, you can think of society as becoming a little bit more egalitarian simply due to basic supply and demand.

但是我们现在似乎正逐渐逆转这一切。现在美国的劳动力不再增长，但是即使在中国，由于他们的独生子女政策，劳动力也预计会逐渐减少。因此，在未来几年里，他们将面临严重的劳动力减少，虽然尚未发生，但在未来几年中会发生。因此，在全球范围内，工人们将拥有更多的权力。他们将能够获得更高的工资。因此，从某种意义上说，社会正在变得更加平等，仅仅是基于供给和需求的基本原则。

I think that has pretty big implications for inflation going forward because as wages increase, well, that means that more people are going to have more money to spend. And as we all know, if you give rich people a lot of money, they tend to buy assets. So over the past decade, rich people got a lot of money and they went and they bought stocks, they bought real estate, and we all saw all those prices skyrocket. But when you give lower income people more money, they tend to spend it on goods and services. Right. So and we saw that during the pandemic, we gave everyone a semi checks and they went and spent it on stuff and we had tremendous amounts of inflation. So the big trend going forward, I think, is for labor to have a bigger share of income. And they're going to spend that money on goods and services. And I think that's going to keep inflation pretty structural going forward. And I think that's going to be the big story of the next decade.

我认为这对未来的通胀有很大的影响，因为随着工资的增加，意味着更多的人将有更多的钱去消费。众所周知，如果你给富人很多钱，他们往往会购买资产。所以在过去的十年里，富人获得了很多钱，他们去购买股票，购买房地产，我们都看到所有这些价格飞涨。但是当你给低收入人群更多的钱时，他们往往会把它花在商品和服务上。对。所以在疫情期间，我们给每个人发了一些支票，他们去消费了各种物品，导致了巨大的通货膨胀。所以我认为，未来的一个重大趋势是劳动力在收入中占据更大的份额。他们将把这些钱花在商品和服务上。我认为这将使通胀在未来保持相当结构性的水平。而且我认为这将成为未来十年的重要故事。

Okay. Now, the last thing I want to talk about is I want to myth bust some of the do my narratives that I see floating around social media. So now, okay, just just to level set with everyone and to come clean from my read of the data, the US economy is doing really well. So we got first quarter GDP. It's growing above trend. We got second quarter GDP. It actually accelerated over the first quarter and based upon data as we as it comes in. And this is really, really preliminary and it's going to change a lot. This quarter also looks like it's going to be pretty good.

好的。现在，我想谈论的最后一件事是，我想要揭穿一些在社交媒体上流传的关于美国经济的一些错误观点。所以，现在，只是为了让大家有一个共同的基础，并且坦白地说出我的数据分析结果，美国经济的表现真的很好。我们有第一季度的GDP数据，增长超过了预期。我们有第二季度的GDP数据，实际上比第一季度增长更快。根据数据的收集情况，这个季度看起来也会表现得相当不错，但请注意这只是初步情况，还会有很多变化。

So you combine that with the record low unemployment rates and rising wages, the US economy seems to be doing really well. And yet despite all this, and I suspect when this year's over, we're going to we're going to be fine that we're living in a pretty good economic conditions. And yet throughout all this, there's been so many people who are just doing and glooming and crying at the minute recession and pointing to all sorts of things to try to try to justify that viewpoint. I'm going to go over just three of them, but I think we're that stood out to me that we're particularly wrong.

所以，你将这与创纪录的低失业率和上涨的工资相结合，美国经济似乎表现得非常出色。然而，尽管如此，我怀疑当今年结束时，我们会发现我们生活在相当良好的经济条件下。然而，尽管如此，有很多人一直在黯然神伤，哭泣说着眼下的衰退，并指出各种各样的事物，试图为这种观点寻找正当理由。我将只列举其中的三个，但我认为这三个特别是错误的。

Okay. So the first is that many times we see people post on social media, soaring amounts of US bankruptcies. The narrative, I suppose, is that interest rates have gone higher. Corporations just can't handle these interest rates and they're flying for bankruptcy at very high rates. And then it's just going to be doom and gloom. We're going to have another crisis, mash layoffs and so forth.

好的。首先，我们经常会看到人们在社交媒体上发布美国破产数量激增的消息。故事情节是，我猜测，利率已经上升。企业们根本无法承受这些利率，它们正在以非常高的速度破产。然后就会是末日和悲观的局面。我们将面临另一场危机，大量裁员等等。

Now let's take that data set and zoom out a little bit. Now this buffalo, I don't know his real name on Twitter does really good work and he has this good post where he actually went to the official data sources and looked at the quarterly bankruptcy filings in the US for the past decade. And you can see from the chart that he created, yes, there's been a spike with bankruptcy filings. But once you zoom out a little bit, you notice that it's a spike from really, really low levels. And bankruptcy filings seem to be, you know, basically nothing to be alarmed about that. That seems to be a very misleading chart of bankruptcy soaring. And that's in line with what we see, right? Zooming out a little bit, corporate profits are very high. Corporations are hiring people, consumer spending and so you really would be expecting tremendous amounts of corporate bankruptcies.

现在让我们将数据集放大一点来看。现在这只水牛，我不知道他在推特上的真名，他确实做了一项很好的工作，他发了一篇好贴子，实际上他去了官方数据源，研究了过去十年美国的季度破产申请。从他制作的图表中可以看出，确实有破产申请出现了一个峰值。但是，一旦你把画面放大一点，你会注意到这只是从非常非常低的水平上升的一个峰值。破产申请似乎并不需要引起什么警惕，这似乎是一个很具误导性的破产飙升图表。这也符合我们所看到的情况，对吧？放大一点来看，公司利润非常高，公司正在招聘人才，消费支出也在增加，因此你实际上不应该期望发生大量的公司破产。

Okay, the second myth that I would note is that oftentimes this past week, I saw that there was a headline where a US consumer credit credit card debt soared past a trillion dollars. Now there seems to be many people looking at this and suggesting that, you know, this is really bad because it suggests that maybe the consumers are in dire in really bad shape. So are trying to make ends meet, they just can't make ends meet. So they're going out to borrow money, maxing out their credit cards and things are really dire. Okay, that's one narrative. There's another narrative you could tell. And the way that I would do this is I would obviously just zoom out a bit.

好的，我要提到的第二个谬论是，最近一周我看到一个头条新闻，美国消费者信用卡债务超过了1万亿美元。现在有很多人看到这个消息，认为这很糟糕，因为这意味着消费者可能处于非常困境中。他们努力维持生计，但却无法收支平衡。所以他们不得不去借钱，将信用卡刷爆，情况非常糟糕。好的，这是一种说法。还有另一种说法。我要做的就是稍微放大来看。

Now when you zoom out a bit, that trillion dollars in credit card debt doesn't look so doesn't really stand out. What you'll see is that it seems basically to be on trend. So during the pandemic, it seems like people, they were making a lot of money. Okay, well, they continued to make money and they got same checks, but they didn't have any place to spend it since they were locked down. So they basically just paid down their credit card debt. So we see credit card debt decline a lot during the pandemic. And then now that things are normalizing, we see credit card debt climbing back towards trend. So it's around trend, which is, you know, would be about trillion dollars. Now then the question is, why are they taking our credit card debt? Is it really that because they can't make ends meet? Well, that's totally possible. But we got to look at this through the totality of the data.

现在，当你放大一些，那一万亿美元的信用卡债务看起来并不突出。你会发现，它似乎基本上符合趋势。所以在疫情期间，人们好像赚了很多钱。好吧，他们继续赚钱，他们得到了同样的支票，但由于被封锁，他们没有任何地方可以花钱。因此，他们基本上只是还清了信用卡债务。所以我们看到疫情期间信用卡债务大幅下降。而现在事情正常化，我们看到信用卡债务又回到了趋势上升。所以它接近于趋势，也就是大约一万亿美元。那么问题是，为什么他们要承担我们的信用卡债务？难道真的是因为他们无法收支平衡？这完全有可能。但我们必须从数据的整体来看待这个问题。

And the data shows that unemployment, you know, multi-decade lows, wages, increasing, inflation coming down, that is to say that real wages are increasing. And consumer confidence is also taking up as well. So when I look at this credit card data, what it suggests to me is that consumers, they're making money, they're having jobs, they're feeling more secure, and they're just, you know, borrowing to spend a bit more money, which is totally normal. And I don't really need human gloom from this at all.

数据显示失业率在过去数十年来达到了历史低点，工资增长，通胀下降，也就是说实际工资在增加。同时，消费者信心也在提高。所以当我看到这个信用卡数据时，我得出的结论是消费者挣钱了，他们有工作，感觉更加安全，只是借点额外的钱来消费，这是完全正常的。对此，我并不感到任何消极情绪。

Now the last doom or myth that I'd like to talk about is that because interest rates are higher, households are having to spend tremendous amounts of money on their interest expenses, and that's stressing them. Now you can look at a chart of personal interest expenses, and you'll see that indeed it spiked higher over the past few quarters. And that makes total sense, right? That increased interest rates from zero to 5%. So obviously your interest rate expense is going to go up.

现在，我想要谈论的最后一个命运或神话是，由于利率较高，家庭不得不在利息支出上花费大量资金，这给他们带来了压力。您可以查看个人利息支出的图表，您会发现在过去几个季度里确实有大幅增长。这完全合理，对吧？从零增加到5%的利率自然会使您的利息支出增加。

Now the question is, is this something to be alarmed of? And I don't think it is. Again, I think it's important to look at the totality of the data. Now in this chart here, we see interest rates, personal interest rate expenses next to personal wages. Now what should really stand out to you is how small wages are as a fraction of wages. And also no wages have gone up significantly over the past few years. So that's really greater than 5% interest. So okay, and one thing you have to also keep in mind is that for the vast majority of people, their biggest debt is their mortgage payments. And most mortgage holders were able to refinance to take advantage of record loan interest rates. And so their interest rate expense is probably, the mortgage expense is probably around 3% and will be for the foreseeable future. So they're basically locked into really low rates, even as inflation is relatively high.

现在问题是，这是一件应该引起警觉的事情吗？我认为不是。再次强调，我认为重要的是看整体数据。在这个图表中，我们可以看到利率和个人利息支出与个人工资。现在你真正应该关注的是，工资占工资的比例是多么小。而且在过去几年里，工资也没有显著增长。所以，实际上大于5%的利率并不多。好吧，你还需要记住的是，对于绝大多数人来说，他们最大的债务是抵押贷款。而且大多数抵押贷款持有人能够重新融资以利用创纪录的贷款利率。因此，他们的利息支出可能大约是3%，并且在可预见的未来将保持不变。所以，即使通货膨胀相对较高，他们基本上还是被锁定在非常低的利率上。

So interest rate expense has definitely gone up. But when you zoom out, you see that it's just not that big a portion of household expenditures, especially since people were able to benefit from low mortgage rates. Now the people who are buying homes today, some would say, yeah, they have to face 7% mortgage rates. But that's actually not super true either. Because for a lot of people, when they're buying a home today, they don't really have any resale homes to buy because there's not a lot of inventory. So they're going to buy a new construction. And what the builders are doing is that they're buying down their mortgage rates. So for example, usually if you go and buy a new home, a builder will maybe throw in closing costs, maybe give you a few upgrades and something like that, basically to sweeten the deal. A builder, home builder margins have been wider than they were pre 2020. So instead of offering all those closing costs and things like that, they're offering to buy down mortgage rates. So even though what you see on the website is a 7% mortgage rate, what actually many new home bars are facing is somewhere around to 5.5%. So you got to keep that in mind as well.

利率支出确实增加了。但当你放大视角时，你会发现它并不占家庭支出的很大比例，尤其是考虑到人们能够受益于低抵押贷款利率。现在购买房屋的人，有人可能会说，他们必须面对7%的抵押贷款利率。但实际上情况并非如此。因为对于很多人来说，当他们购买房屋时，并没有很多二手房可供选择，因为市场上的存货不多。所以他们只能购买新建房屋。而建筑商正在做的就是降低他们的抵押贷款利率。例如，通常情况下，如果你购买一个新房，建筑商可能会包含一些封闭费用，或者给你一些升级设施等等，以此来吸引你。而目前房地产开发商的利润率比2020年前宽。所以他们不再提供所有那些封闭费用之类的东西，而是提供降低抵押贷款利率的服务。因此，即使网站上显示的是7%的抵押贷款利率，实际上很多新房购买者面临的利率在5.5%左右。所以你也必须记住这一点。

So again, I don't see this increase in industry payments as very alarming, especially because as I've shown, wages are going much higher than that and at the end of the day, it's not a big part of your household expenditures on the aggregate. Okay, so that's a lot prepared for today. If you like what I'm producing, remember to like and subscribe. And if you're interested in learning more about the financial system, about market views, check out my blog, spadeguy.com and my online courses centralbanking101.com. Thanks so much and I'll talk to you guys next week.

所以，我并不认为行业支付的增加是非常令人担忧的，尤其是因为如我所示，工资的涨幅要高得多，并且归根结底，这并不是你家庭支出的一个重要部分。好的，今天准备的内容就这么多。如果你喜欢我的制作，请记得点赞和订阅。如果你对了解更多金融系统和市场观点感兴趣，请访问我的博客spadeguy.com和我的在线课程centralbanking101.com。非常感谢，下周再和大家交流。