My Adobe account went from $14.99 to 19.99 monthly after spending the better part of 7 years at the previous price. That is only one example but if you combine the multiple cases, prices of basic goods and services have risen at least 30%! While at the same time the individual incomes or in the case of businesses, revenues, they haven't risen nearly that much. In fact, in many cases they haven't even recovered the pre-covid levels.
That is the definition of "Stagflation" which I have written about many times and also predicted that it would be happening; now it is.
The gap between how much more folks need to pay to maintain their existing lifestyle and how much their incomes have fallen behind is big; multiply it by 5 Billion people globally and perhaps you can fathom the magnitude of the math here. "Doing the math" results in far worse outcomes than any of the happy talk I'm hearing coming from the TV.
On Monday I wrote about the connection between the regional bank runs leading to the recent failure of First Republic and the practice of "short-selling" stocks which I believe is being used as a weapon to destroy confidence in smaller, regional banks whose shares are listed on the stock exchange. Like clockwork, this just came out from Reuters:
"NEW YORK, May 10 (Reuters) - Federal prosecutors in Washington are looking into short seller activity around the recent volatility in U.S. bank shares sparked by the failure of three regional lenders since March, a source familiar with the matter said. Short sellers, traders that profit by betting shares will fall, have come under scrutiny over the past week as government efforts to steady the sector have faltered and investor fears over the health of regional lenders have deepened."
What's the message here? Keep your money in smaller, regional banks or credit unions that aren't publicly traded. The big ones aren't any "safer" and they don't pay squat for interest.
The bank "walk" will go full on "run" very soon as the Fed pretends to play "whack-a-mole" with regional banks while overtly supporting their much larger competitors.
All the evidence I'm seeing points to a very aggressive and concerted effort to destroy small businesses in favor of larger ones. Also under attack are the smaller, regional banks who make up the largest percentage of loans to small businesses and farms. Business owners now face a perfect storm of higher costs for everything, lower and declining revenues and more government regulation including ESG, DEI and many other "climate" related obstacles.
This is by design it seems as all fronts: Industry, government, economy and media are all allied against small businesses:/
"The banking crisis is limiting access to credit for small businesses, preventing them from operating at capacity or expanding. Small banks, which make 60% of small business loans and 80% of farm loans, are especially vulnerable as depositors flee for big banks in a perceived flight to safety."
"Biden [administration] is also stepping up their regulatory assault on small businesses. They are pursuing labor regulations that would make becoming an independent contractor or franchisee more difficult. They are pushing environmental regulations that raise the cost of energy and transportation -- two significant small business input costs. For instance, Biden [administration] EPA recently announced regulations to require two-thirds of new cars to be electric in only nine years."
Small businesses are having to seek financing to support their growth at a time when lenders are all scared to death of taking risk. Lenders act like Deer when frightened so we're seeing very tight conditions and things that would go smoothly in normal times are being scrutinized heavily and delayed.
Rates are stable because they reflect actual supply-demand dynamic however approvals are down and many industries are getting lower amounts offered and shorter terms.
I am committed to providing affordable capital to small business owners. It's not always easy or even possible sometimes but there are wires being sent every day to businesses in all 50 states.