I went shopping today. I'm seeing conflicting signals. Many shoppers, husbands and wives, walking slowly through the store. Blank numb stare. Older women, parsing each price. I saw a woman walk away from eggs. In various stores they were $4-7. Stores have closeout bins for shelf goods and vegetables too. They are populated, and disappear in a few hours. Walmart had a boatload of eyedropper flavorings for meat or tacos I think. 10 cents each. All sitting there.
Cooking oils have come down, as has sugar. Lentils are still 99 cents or so. To my eye retailers are discounting on some things to move them because they're end date is near, and trying to make it up on other items.
Braking federal spending while creating fear amid uncertainty - on interest rates, federal support of the social safety net, stock market gyrations, FDIC, SNAP - is difficult to read.
Corporate America is so efficient at fleecing the public as well as their employees that they can build palatial HQs, pay the CEO 50-100 million, pay the shareholders dividends, and lobby for no taxes. Ordinary workers are left so poor by this system that they have to lobby Congress to help them pay their bills. The privileged think it's more like paying them not to revolt, but I digress.
Federal expenditures are 20% of all the money spent in America. We risk instant recession along the magnitude of the Great Recession or the Dot Com collapse. Bernie Madoff was weak fish.
Just to remind there is a federal communications blackout. They're not telling us anything. Wonder who's walking off with the loot?