EZEtoGRU

I haven’t seen an update in a while of Lucky Horseshoe in Chicago, so I thought I would attempt one.
Since Micah took ownership of the bar, he has made quite a few improvements. There are three bars inside with two of them that have stages for dancers.  The third bar is open only on weekends.  The old bathrooms have been updated, and a third one installed in the far back bar.  They have various theme nights, and added new lighting.  Drinks are fairly priced compared to other bars in Chicago.
The dancers have improved greatly in my opinion.  They dance every night except Monday at 8:00 and start at 3:00 on Saturdays and Sundays.  On any given night there are from 12 to 20 dancers in all sizes and shapes, from twink to twunk to bodybuilder.  They are good about not huddling together, but make the rounds of the customers.  During the evening, there are 2 dancers at all times - one on the front stage and one on the back stages.  Both stages are accessible from all sides.  
Micah recently bought the bar called @mosphere up in Andersonville in Chicago.  They have dancers as well, but don’t start until the late nights.
 

Some pictures of Stock & Soda and Stock Easy

All is NOT good.  A Big Mac meal was $7 two and 1/2 years ago.   Now it's $12.  The damage has already been done.  People have a lower standard of living.  

All is good.  Americans continue to feel better about inflation and the economy:
Americans continue to feel better about inflation and the economy | CNN Business
WWW.CNN.COM US consumers have been feeling a whole lot better this summer as inflation has continued to slow.  

You are right.  I was just in Montreal and spent three nights around the village.  I felt completely safe, saw very few homeless people, and never got pan-handled once.  I would say The Village has changed compared 20 years ago.  However, to me, it's basically the same as it has been for the last 7-8 years.  So I would say it's pretty stable now.   
Like you, I don't seek hotels in The Village any more.  Been there done that 30 years ago but not now.  Obviously, to each his own.

The Fed’s Preferred Inflation Metric Falls Again, to 4.1% Annual Rate
The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge climbed at a 4.1% annual pace in June, marking a sizable step down from May’s 4.6% annual rate and bringing price growth to its slowest pace in nearly two years. The core personal consumption expenditures price index rose 0.2% in June from a month earlier, the Commerce Department reported on Friday, compared with a 0.3% climb in May. Economists had expected prices to rise 0.2% in June from May and fall to a 4.2% rate. 

Read in Barron's: https://apple.news/AZmiDDH2gRxanGiLyEUzGQw
 
 
 

That's okay.  I'm grateful.  It's nice to know for once it wasn't me!   😉
Anyhoo, the Fed and CBO just said the recession that was MIA actually won't be arriving in 2023 at all. Boo hoo!   I added to some positions. 
Obviously at some point there will be a correction.  But the idea that a recession is what drives a big correction, while possible, is looking less likely.

Me & my big mouth!  Another positive day for the Dow would've tied its record, set in 1897  However, the market plummeted in the afternoon.

You are right.  I was just in Montreal and spent three nights around the village.  I felt completely safe, saw very few homeless people, and never got pan-handled once.  I would say The Village has changed compared 20 years ago.  However, to me, it's basically the same as it has been for the last 7-8 years.  So I would say it's pretty stable now.   
Like you, I don't seek hotels in The Village any more.  Been there done that 30 years ago but not now.  Obviously, to each his own.

Sad to hear she's gone.  She had a troubled life for many years...mental illness.  Sadly, she lost a son to suicide not so long ago which had to be traumatic for her.  
Rightly or wrongly, I always considered her to be a one-hit wonder.  For the last 25 years, I never heard much about her except when  she was missing, threating suicide, or being hospitalized for one thing or another.  Her illness had to be exhausting for her.

You are right.  I was just in Montreal and spent three nights around the village.  I felt completely safe, saw very few homeless people, and never got pan-handled once.  I would say The Village has changed compared 20 years ago.  However, to me, it's basically the same as it has been for the last 7-8 years.  So I would say it's pretty stable now.   
Like you, I don't seek hotels in The Village any more.  Been there done that 30 years ago but not now.  Obviously, to each his own.

Same for my Chase Sapphire Account.  I think any major US bank offers a premium checking account that allows international ATM withdrawals without charging a fee and does the transaction at the prevailing foreign exchange rate at the time.   Easy peasy.   Even if you're only going to Canada and/or Mexico 2-3 times per year, this is much better than changing money at airports or foreign exchange offices.  Obviously just my 2 cents.

I stayed at the Hyatt recently. At best it might be 3 stars, maybe could compare to a Holiday Inn. 
When you return to the hotel at night after the clubs the entrance door is locked, you have to ring a bell show your room key for the front desk clerk to let you in. 
Might not be great for entertaining. 
To the right of the hotel entrance is a doorway used by refugees in Canada seeking asylum staying at the hotel. The manager told me they are housed on the lower floors of the hotel.  The link is to a March 2022 CBC article about the use of the hotel. Most of the hotel has since been renovated however the lower floors are still occupied by refugees. I wouldn't stay there again. 
'We're in the red here': Montreal shelters for asylum seekers nearing capacity | CBC News
WWW.CBC.CA Since the reopening of Quebec's Roxham Road last November, the unauthorized border point has seen...  

It is an exageration to say the Gay Village in Montreal has become very seedy. It just isn't what it was ten or twenty years ago. I have stopped staying there on my visits to Montreal and prefer using hotels downtown on or around Sherbrooke St in the Golden Mile. 
The city still does a good job of keeping the streets clean but it is the panhandlers, homeless people and drug addicts that spoil the ambience somewhat. During the daytime its not too bad. 

You are right.  I was just in Montreal and spent three nights around the village.  I felt completely safe, saw very few homeless people, and never got pan-handled once.  I would say The Village has changed compared 20 years ago.  However, to me, it's basically the same as it has been for the last 7-8 years.  So I would say it's pretty stable now.   
Like you, I don't seek hotels in The Village any more.  Been there done that 30 years ago but not now.  Obviously, to each his own.

No triskaidekaphobics on Wall Street...  Dow positive for 13th day in a row... first time since 1987.  🤑😎🤑😎🤑😎🤑😎
 

I’ve enjoyed watching my nephews dreams of student debt loan forgiveness vanish (them wanting more free stuff) as they also are buying their first homes and wondering why interest rates are higher.  Crazy uncle attempts to explain that there might be a correlation involving how money works….

You should know.  That's your standard MO here.  

I think we can all agree there is really no inflation problem in the US right now.  The trend has been towards lowering inflation for more than a year.  The Fed may raise rates one more time this week just to finish the job.  I see no further rate increases this year (since there is no longer an inflation issue) unless there is another oil crisis or a major COVID resurgence.  Hard to predict.  

I think we can all agree there is really no inflation problem in the US right now.  The trend has been towards lowering inflation for more than a year.  The Fed may raise rates one more time this week just to finish the job.  I see no further rate increases this year (since there is no longer an inflation issue) unless there is another oil crisis or a major COVID resurgence.  Hard to predict.  

We mostly agree on the factual points.  The "printing money" part is simply a fact.  I posted the CFR charts that said, in effect, the whole world was an ocean of printing money  in Spring 2020.  Now, here's an opinion.  The alternative was a deep recession, or even depression, in 2020.  I'd say the same about going into debt.  We were fighting a global war against a virus.  Some would argue, with good facts on their side, that we erred on the side of too much debt.  That's debatable. And the points are all related.  The reason we might avoid the recession is that we stimulated the economy enough to pull it past what would have been a recession if we stimulated it less. As one example, in 1966 and 1967 we had all the classic signs of a recession, including an inverted yield curve.  And yet the recession went missing.  I would not bet on it.  But I would not bet on the opposite, either.
There is a Goldilocks analogy here.  People might not like that we went from too hot to just right.  But the alternative could have been that we went from just right pre-COVID to way too cold.  Then again, you are right that just because we were too hot doesn't mean we can't end up too cold.  In the real world, running an economy is just harder than making porridge.  😉
But my opinion now is that, having won the war, we should be pivoting to the idea of gradually lowering and paying off the debt.  To not do so invites more inflation, I believe.  That is an opinion, too.  But an informed one.
He doesn't.  But I did.  Here ya go again.  Here's the website on long-term inflation in Switzerland.

As I said above, just posting the JPG cuts off the labels.  But Japan had a 40 year high in inflation.  In the case of Switzerland, it was more like a 30 year high.  So the idea that somehow Japan and Switzerland escaped the inflation that gripped most of the planet is simply not a factual statement.  ESPECIALLY if you want to break out food and energy.  The difference in those two countries is that they started from deflation and went to inflation a bit above 3 %.  In both cases it was an inflationary surge of about 5 % from valley to peak.  Worse than they'd experienced in 30 to 40 years.  Those are simply facts.
The surprising thing is that the overall inflation spike in Switzerland was "only" 5 %, given that oil prices spiked something like 30 %, as the green part of the chart above clearly shows. Food prices, the red part, also spiked.  But not by as much.  
That's the statement you were attempting to refute by bringing up Switzerland and Japan, Auggie.  But the facts are not on your side.  Switzerland and Japan clearly experienced 30 to 40 year highs in inflation, like most of the industrialized world. 
Now that some of the global factors @EZEtoGRU correctly identified are abating, we might be in a better position to distinguish between national or regional factors.  Since you want to make national distinctions, Auggie, would you like to speculate about why inflation in the UK is 7.9 % today, versus 3 % in the US?  What is the US doing right, compared to the UK?
Since most of us live in the US, my main point is from an investment perspective.  As Druckenmiller says in that video I posted above, long term too much debt kills the goose laying the golden egg.  He did say, as a counterpoint, that regardless of anything, including a recession, stocks like NVDA will likely flourish.  But I agree with him that if we want to talk about long-term inflationary pressures that could derail a bull market, we should be focusing on the debt. I think you and I agree on that.

Yes but can a smart techy fix a lousy attitude?

The quicker Twitter, or X,  swirls down the toilet into the sewer the better off society will be.  Well done Mr Musk !

Yes but can a smart techy fix a lousy attitude?

The quicker Twitter, or X,  swirls down the toilet into the sewer the better off society will be.  Well done Mr Musk !