Author: Power Hedge

Earlier this year, I published an article to this site suggesting that the production cuts implemented by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries could push prices up. We have been seeing that play out over the past month or two, as can be clearly seen here: The price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil hit…

Earlier today, I encountered an article written by Brendan Brown of the Mises Institute. In this article, he appears to be suggesting that inflation was always going to decline following its initial spike due to the pandemic. His reasoning for this statement rests in a belief that the high inflation that we experienced in 2021…

In various previous articles and blog posts, I have suggested that the Federal Reserve will not be as accommodating with interest rates as the market wants. Over the first half of the year, the market was trading as though it was widely anticipating that July would be the final rate hike, and the central bank…

It is unlikely to come as a surprise to anyone reading this that energy prices have generally not performed very well over the past year. As of the time of writing, West Texas Intermediate crude oil has declined 17.1% over the past twelve months: Natural gas has certainly not performed any better. This commodity is…

In various previous posts, I have discussed how American consumers seem to be struggling more than the media wants us to believe. For example, consider the following posts: The basic narrative here is that despite politicians touting the success of the economic recovery from the depths of the COVID-19 lockdowns, millions of average middle-class people…

Over the past several months, I have been discussing how American consumers are experiencing considerable financial stress today. This should be fairly evident by looking at real wages, which are the average wages earned by consumers after adjusting for inflation. In May 2023 (the most recent month for which data is available), real hourly wages…

It seems as if some sector of the economy is in a perpetual bubble, or perhaps the markets are always in a mania. After all, for most of this century, there has been some asset that investors are buying simply because there is a fear of missing out with no consideration for value. For example,…

One of the few bright spots in the economy over the past several months is that consumer discretionary spending continued to remain robust, despite the fact that high inflation has largely meant that people cannot really afford their spending. This is evidenced by the fact that credit card balances are at nearly $1 trillion and…

Over the Memorial Day holiday weekend, it was announced that Speaker McCarthy and President Joe Biden had reached a deal to resolve the debt ceiling impasse that has been weighing on the market for the past few weeks. That was not a surprise as neither side seriously wanted to entertain the possibility of the United…