Boy, this social media thing is really taking off, eh? I’m not much of a user myself. I’m mostly a lurker, but an enthusiastic one. I am not proud of this, but I find myself checking various outlets, several times a day, in the hopes of obtaining visuals as to what everyone I’ve ever known has consumed for lunch.
Most visible among the platforms, of course, is the one operated by Meta Platforms, Inc. In days of yore, it was called Facebook, and, near as I can tell, that’s what it still is. Facebook. And this is where I turn to greedily review cat pictures and inspirational quotes, issuing, routinely, from individuals I once knew, but in many cases haven’t seen or spoken to in several decades.
For a variety of reasons, though, this company has not only launched itself into the dubious, parallel metaverse, but has taken the additional step of modifying its branding accordingly. In the markets, this means those wishing to monitor the current fortunes of its stock must double their effort to do so – typing the four-digit code META as opposed to FB, the two typographical characters of which are conveniently proximate to one another on a standard keyboard.
Perhaps this is also part of Zucky’s corporate strategy, because, given that its market capitalization now stands at half of where it entered Tricky ’22, he may figure the fewer clicks on his ticker the better for all concerned:
Far be it for me, a grubby risk manager, to offer strategic advice to those fabulous, flashy folks in Cupertino. However, were I to do so, I might suggest that they expand their offering to include a separate Social Media silo – The Fess Up Book. They wouldn’t need to go so far as to engage in yet another rebranding (but if they chose to do so, the elegant, truncated equity ticker FU remains available). But I betcha they’d draw a lot of clicks on this portion of their platform, and that their advertisers (almost all of whom have some considerable fessing up of their own to do), would fall all over themselves to purchase prime real estate on the banner/front page.
The premise here should be obvious – content would be limited exclusively to that involving the repudiation of longstanding, inauthentic statements/actions, on any subject of any kind.
I came up with this idea a couple of weeks ago (and would’ve written about it last week had not Jerry’s 80th intervened), as partly inspired by, of all places, the New York Times, which, a couple of weeks ago, instructed all eight of its active columnists to write editorials about what they’d gotten wrong. Michelle Goldberg issued a “my bad” for sanctioning the kneecapping of Comedian-turned- Senator Al Franken. University of Chicago graduate David Brooks apologized for being a proponent of Capitalism (!). Gail Collins sent forth a mia culpa to a toothy, always-coifed Mitt Romney. And a writer I’d not heard of – one Farhad Manjoo, informed the world he was wrong for encouraging everyone to join – you guessed it – Facebook.
A pox on you, Manjoo! May no more wedding pictures or diatribes about local sports teams ever enter your stream again!
The uber-pompous and eternally annoying Paul Krugman, to whom, and to their everlasting shame, the Skandis awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics a few years back, took an editorial page walk of shame regarding his repeated downplaying of the Inflation conundrum. That’s a lot to chew on – particularly given that the next cycle of critical data awaits us mid-week. But, for the moment, I digress.
Even as an identified Conservative, if I could engineer the first posting on The Fess Up Book, it would come from Donald Trump – not for his existence, not for significant portions of his presidency, but for his highly destructive behavior after the 2020 election, which cost untold damage on the country and his party.
Two problems exist in this regard, the first of which is that DJT has been banned from FB until next year, whereupon, at expiration, they will presumably ban him for all time. The second, of course, is that there is a lower probability of him fessing up, to anything, on any platform, than I have of joining an NBA roster or winning the Miss Universe pageant.
From there, I’d move to the Fed, which, through multiple cycles, has missed the opportunity to normalize rates at an appropriate point (say, about five quarters ago). Instead, it presides over normalization in an economy, which, as evidenced on Friday, features a white-hot job market with a lot of patchy holes, the near-certain persistence of Inflation (we’ll know more this coming week), visible activity declines in critical sectors, and a market that has no way of determining what to make of it all.
Of course, a lion’s share of fess up content would justifiably emanate down the street from the Fed, in the hallowed halls of Capitol Hill and the White House. But when was this not the case? The newest postings should certainly come from Congress, for stuffing $1T of new spending – half of which involves handouts to the semiconductor industry and sacred, politically favored Green Energy projects down our throats. They’re also gonna put a cap on drug prices. I’m not sure what David Brooks learned at the U. of C., but I came away from there convinced that such measures only restrict output, stifle innovation, lead to the misallocation of resources, and in the end, in fact, place upward pressure on associated costs.
It’s all billed – presumably in some metaverse – as the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Well, we’ll see, but as for me, I’ll take the Inflation Over. Congressional Leadership managed to beg, threaten, and cajole the two outliers in the ruling coalition, each of whom managed to wrangle desired concessions, to climb on board.
Machin and Sinema – your Fess Up Book table is ready.
Particularly given that recent events have ginned up an approximate 20% snap back in the realms of the Gallant 500 and Captain Naz.
It hasn’t been costless, and some of the expense has been born by our fickle siren — Madame X (U.S. 10 Year Note), who has been impelled to lift her yield skirts noticeably in recent sessions. If, as planned, our fess up Fed continues to reduce its Balance Sheet, she may find herself exposed to an even more undignified yield configuration.
But maybe it’s all just talk. The fess up Fed has been threatening Balance Sheet reduction for more than a year, but at present, it looks like this:
With Inflation at current levels, real interest rates remain in deeply negative territory, and this, as a matter of human nature, has extended the never-ending orgy of debt creation. Back to the Fed, which, on Friday release the latest Consumer Credit figures, telling of a borrowing binge last month, the second highest on record:
My read of this chart is that, considering business, state and municipal credit, the numbers reach about 1.5 years of GDP.
And this is to say nothing of Treasury borrowings, which themselves are the equivalent of another 1.5 GDP years.
And this is to say nothing of “off Balance Sheet” obligations, most notably Social Security and Medicare, which add several years to the amount of aggregate toil involved in settling our balances with The Man.
All of which begs the big question: when, as a society, do we fess up to our fundamental, unequivocal insolvency?
But as no one seems to be attending to this, I will defer the topic to another day. All of which leaves only one item of unfinished business for this note: my own obligatory contributions to The Fess Up Book.
I’ll keep my never-ending inventory of personal transgressions to myself. On the professional side, I will cop to the transgression that the vigor of the current snapback has taken me by surprise. I remain skeptical, but the earnings cycle has, on balance, been better than I expected it to be. I also find myself to have been on the wrong side of the big slide in most commodities.
I am particularly embarrassed to observe, as I type out this note, WTI Crude residing at below $90. If it stays there or retreats further, perhaps this rally has some life left in it. I have my doubts, especially with power costs in Germany and the rest of the Continent hitting yet another all-time high at week’s end – before the weather turns, in advance of any nasty tricks that punishing Putin has up his sleeve.
But I remain confused, and I’ll fess up to wondering whether (or not) I still got it. Maybe not, and if so, perhaps it’s time for me to seek out another profession.
The problem is that I don’t know where to look. So, I have one step to take in preparation.
Keep this to yourselves, but also keep an eye out for an announcement in this space of a joint venture with you know who — a professionally oriented social media platform for the professionally disenfranchised.
I’m thinking, for obvious reasons, of branding it as Linkedout. My sense and expectation are that none of my readers are called to post on it, and I hope they never do.
But as to The Fess Up Book, I can say this much. Any of y’all who have nothing to contribute simply aren’t looking hard enough.
TIMSHEL