Bad Bad News

Let’s first start by diving into new economic data that has been released. We’ll look into a number of indices that can tell us what is happening right now in the economy. We then look into US banks and how they are bracing for the worst to come. Finally, we dive into our bi-weekly segment of the European View. We’ll talk about their recent stimulus deal as well as a strict housing measure introduced in Barcelona, Spain.

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It seems as if everything has calmed down over the last couple weeks. We’re hearing more and more about the rising Covid numbers and less about the election. We’re also hearing more from Fed Chairman Jerome Powell on the status of the economy and how he believes a recovery is going to take a long time. This is what I also believe. The stock market is in its own world and does not accurately reflect what is being experienced on Main Street. People are still struggling to make ends meet and are awaiting another round of stimulus checks, with many worried when the CDC eviction moratorium ends in January. Many are also facing astronomical medical bills due to their Covid diagnosis. But the one indicator that seems to be not telling the whole story is unemployment. We’ve seen a gradual decline over the last few months, but over 10 million are still unemployed. With the rapid technological changes occurring, many will be forced to learn new skills and will have to remain out of the workforce until they are able to acquire those skills. On top of this, those skills are not cheap to acquire, meaning more people will go into debt. This is the unfortunate truth that we need to realize and start figuring out how to deal with it.

As always we’ll start with a quick economic update. We then have the opportunity to talk with Dr. Florina Salaghe, a professor at Benedictine University, about unemployment and what’s really happening within the numbers we are given. We will not have a European View segment this time around but we will next time.

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The Election. That’s been the biggest story these days. On Saturday, November 7th, the race was called and showed that Joe Biden will become the next President of the United States. President Trump has not accepted the results, nor do I foresee him doing so. Many of his supporters have called out election fraud. I can say that living in Nevada, that there have been several friends of mine that have told me that their votes did not count. Meaning that when they went on the website to track their votes, it was not counted. Does this indicate widespread election fraud? Or is it just because all the votes have not been counted yet? I don’t know. I’d hope that our election process is fair and that the people’s voices have been heard in the choosing of our next president. I believe the process to be fair, so I’m hoping that this discrepancy is due to the vote tally not being completed yet.

But one thing that cannot be understated is the massive division we are facing today in the United States. We cannot forget that over 70 million people voted for President Trump while another 74 million voted for Joe Biden. It's been an interesting experience for me. I’ve had many friends on both sides “coming out” to me as voting for one candidate over the other, afraid of consequences for doing so. And though some of these friends I disagree with politically, they are and will remain my friends. This division is not healthy. But the change starts at the individual level. I ask everyone who has a friend or family member on the so-called “other side” to reach out to them and see how they are doing. Refrain from having a political conversation and instead have a friend to friend or family member to family member conversation. I can guarantee you that there is more that unites us than divides us. Once we see that, we’ll be able to move forward to a path of greatness that lies ahead for this country. But until then, the fighting and bickering will continue.

Now, this blog post will be shorter than previous ones. I, like everyone else, have been glued to my tv and trying to figure out what will happen next. Due to this, I picked a few economic updates I thought were important to bring to everyone’s attention. I also sat down and talked with Dr. Clemens Kownatzki about the election and its effect on the markets moving forward.
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