The October trade deficit fell but the drop was primarily due to a data anomaly.
October 2021 charted a total trade deficit of -$67.1 billion. It was the lowest trade deficit since April 2021. Month-on-month, the trade deficit fell 17% from the record set in September.
Similar to August and September, the total national debt has not increased due to the current debt ceiling that’s in place. Similar to August, the Treasury has raided public retirement accounts to continue funding government spending (light green bar below).
Looking at the bigger picture, Covid has forever shifted the landscape of US Debt.
The federal government lacks any legitimate constitutional authority to establish welfare programs for the poor. Not only that, the federal welfare system fails in its promise to “help the poor” out of poverty.
Inflation is running rampant. At first, the powers that be tried to convince us it wasn’t a problem because it was just a temporary phenomenon caused by coronavirus. (As if a virus could cause the money supply to increase.) But now, the transitory inflation narrative is dead. Jerome Powell recently admitted that it’s time to “retire” that word. The new strategy seems to be to try to convince you that rising prices are “good for you” and the broader economy. You can decide for yourself the veracity of that argument.
Over the last several years, we’ve seen strong central bank gold-buying. The surge in gold purchases has primarily been driven by a handful of consistent players. But over the last several months, we’ve seen several new countries enter the market.
The most recent is Ireland.
That was one weird jobs report.
The labor department released the November employment data on Friday. The numbers simply don’t make any sense. As one chief investment officer put it, “One of the weirdest reports I have ever seen.”
One thing seems pretty certain. The labor market has not recovered, no matter how the powers that be spin the numbers.
Looking at the data, it appears hedge funds are currently driving price action in the gold market
Please note: the COTs report was published 12/3/2021 for the period ending 11/30/2021. “Managed Money” and “Hedge Funds” are used interchangeably.
November was the weakest jobs report of the year, coming in at a paltry 210,000, missing consensus expectations of 573,000. There were modest revisions upwards over the last two months of 8,000 and 15,000 for September and October respectively. Nothing to be excited about.
There are a lot of great places you can buy gold jewelry. And then there are some places you should absolutely not buy gold jewelry.
After President Biden announced he was reappointing Jerome Powell for a second term as Federal Reserve Chairman, Powell went hawkish, saying it’s time to retire the word “transitory” when it comes to inflation and talking about speeding up the taper. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey talks about the Powell transformation and questions whether a dove can really change his feathers.
