11 Comments

Recession psychology is probably more important than recession data. In the old vertical economy, GM sales would slow down, a few workers get laid off, the recession was self-reinforcing. Now we are still in a broken global or horizontal economy and vertical economy psychology. (The revisionist meme, why did we ever lock down, what were we thinking?) China still contends they have <5k covid deaths.

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The clever ones can create quite a pretzel by diverting attention where they want it - revenue (salespeople) or newly-devised operating metrics. What's that great Munger quote, 'show me the incentive and I'll show you the result' ?!

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"Look here, not there."

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I’m curious why he sees positive goods spending ahead. It certainly isn’t showing up in the cass freight index

https://www.cassinfo.com/freight-audit-payment/cass-transportation-indexes/october-2023

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Dunno, he does his own thing. He used to write those reports, so I'll ask!

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Thanks. I’d be very interested in that take. Most of the news I’ve seen on shipping as of late has been negative.

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I'm about to send it off, head to bed and am slammed tomorrow (in Vietnam) but will definitely ping him... who knows, maybe he'll respond here.

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want to hear all about Vietnam. bought into the Asian tiger stocks years ago, never panned out. Anthony Bourdain loved Vietnam.

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It would be cool if he did. Enjoy the trip.

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The Donald has spoken, via LinkedIn: "As we have been saying for almost two years now, "Those calling for a recession are wrong." The economy is gaining momentum in multiple areas. Instead of landing (soft or otherwise), it is about to do a Tom Cruise fly-by, spilling coffee on all the chicken little bears, as it roars past at supersonic speed. Fasten your seatbelts, the Great Post-COVID Boom has only begun."

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Honestly this is rather unsatisfying, and sounds like a cross between Jim Cramer and a Reddit GameStop bull who hopes to graduate high school next year if all goes well. I was looking more for an intellectual argument. Also the cocksure nature of the comment about the future is off putting. Humility reads better with me when talking next year. He may be right and he may be capable, but it’s not conveyed in that response. Thanks for asking though.Appreciated. Enjoy the trip.

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