Alright, after starting this website almost two and a half years ago, time for me to quit basking in the bittersweet afterglow of covid narrative vindication (you have been reading my 2020/2021 corona posts yes?) and get on with some bonafide economic forecasting! Way overdue. Before diving into my first published Flea Market Economist forecast, what do you say we set the room tone with a quick tour of the last two and a half years and a snarky quote from one of my favorite 20th century economist big boys, John Kenneth Galbraith…

“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable” 

Amen! It seems we econos, no matter what astrological school of economic philosophy we hail from, are historically all over the map when it comes to predicting the direction of the economy as was recently illustrated by the wild stock market ride during 2020 when the lockdowns were in premeditated global lockstep and the world economy was in a tailspin. (Yes, due to crafted media perception that began in the 1980’s, the stock market, Mr. Market is now effectively the economy) 95% of financial/economic forecasters on Seeking Alpha and mainstream media were foreseeing the long awaited doomsday reckoning right around the corner as all the indexes headed for the basement and fear fear fear of the “deadly disease” kept our critical thinking sheltered in place. Well, all except a few. Avi Gilburt is an Elliot Wave maker over at Seeking Alpha who had the audacity to suggest in early 2020 that a melt-up was a coming soon, not a melt down, based on his reading of the Elliot cyclical ripples. What do you know, the wave sequence was right, the stock market took off to new highs, his subscribers were ecstatic and lots of folks and funds made oodles of money while the majority of econo “experts” jealously cried in their covid kool-aid. Opps.  

Regarding faulty economic and investment forecasting by the retail investor, here’s an observation from one of the Clinton Crew, Robert Rubin…

“Most people are in denial about uncertainty. They assume they’re lucky, and that the unpredictable can be reliably forecast. This keeps business brisk for palm readers, psychics, and stockbrokers,”

… and economists, dag nabbit!! Whether armchair, academic or well paid corporate econos, how many of them anticipated the revival of the Fed’s Quantitative Easing, magic money machine c. 2020 thru 2021. “Yes Dorothy, fiat money does grow on trees”, as does it’s adorable twin, inflation. While another heapin helpin of QEasing was unforeseen (?) as the default solution to pay for the massively expensive Corona Cottage Industry, the inflationary pressures all that dough creates was anticipated by many, including me. All that free money at damn near zero interest has gotta go somewhere, yes? “All boats rise with the tide”, a lesson learned (and re-exploited) from the 2008/09 crash. And when that money gravitates to certain easily exploitable asset classes, like single family homes, up up and away home prices go as all that quasi-government money generously given to private equity funds goes on a rent seeking rampage!!! Interestingly, a lesser known asset class, rare vinyl records of the right vintage, condition and genre also experienced a similar inflationary bump during this time which continues to this day. But is it more to do with honest supply and demand than with speculation? Is Larry Fink a rock and funk crate digger? Hmmm…

Moving on to 2022’s recent events and their potential effect on the Main Street / Flea Market economy – the “safe and secure” crypto currencies rise and dramatic fall; the continuing post covid global supply chain disruption; the war in Ukraine/bio-lab cover-up and the commodities speculation/inflation that goes along with the war mongering, “spend tax payer money!” territory; China’s belligerent signaling and uncertainty of eventual Taiwan take-over as their speculative housing market collapses; central banks finally raising interest rates to stop run-away, post covid QE inflation; the continuing increases in household, government and corporate debt (record highs?!); the FDA/CDC/HHS covid cover-up cracking at the seams as the realty of adverse events from the mRNA gene therapy (er uh, “vaccines”) becomes increasingly impossible to ignore (SADS?! Short Pfizer, BioNtech and Moderna?)… with all this concurrent uncertainty in play, one would expect fickle flea market consumer sentiment to take a big hit. What is mystifying to me is, it hasn’t!

Not so long ago, I suspected a series of slow sales at the Sunday fleas may have been due to gas hitting $4 a gallon. For a couple of years prior to covid chaos, it seemed like $4 gas had become a consumer resistance point and a bellwether for slower sales at the markets. Or maybe it was just my lazy “behavioral” tendency, much like the mainstream tabloid media, to find and blame the nearest boogie man. Earlier this year, as the unanticipated war in Ukraine escalated along with the prices of food, gas and commodities, I couldn’t help wondering what even higher gas prices would do to flea market consumer sentiment as the price of gas aggressively headed for the $6 dollar mark. Oh Oh. 

When gas prices eventually went to $6.50 a gallon in Southern California, I really really expected my vintage and LP sales to go south. They didn’t. In fact, overall, my sales went up. Could this be due to a “wealth effect” generated by 5X higher interest rates (.5% > 2.5%) on the certificates of deposit most Main Street consumers hold in their bank savings accounts? That monthly bank statement showing a modest return of soon to be compound interest can certainly put the spring in one’s step! I can hear Paul Volker in the cosmos sayin, “Go Fed, Go!! 10% Fed rate!” And then there’s the ongoing wealth effect many lucky home owners had as housing prices continued to climb just after they refinanced their mortgage at 2-3%. Recession? What recession?

As of now, this has been one of my best vintage/LP sales summers and summer is typically hot weather and family vacation slooooow. I’ve also noted from news radio and online/print media that most brick and mortar retail is doing well as shoppers exit e-commerce in favor of the much more soul satisfying, sensual retail experience. Personal opinion, I think e-commerce has peaked. Sorry Amazon, digital doesn’t even come close to the truly serendipitous, non algorithmic, shopping experience. Human beings, treasure hunting flea marketeers, etc, would much rather touch, examine and closely inspect an item (record freaks!) when given the opportunity. The bell curve showing the decline in online sales after it’s mid covid peak is telling. 

Now, I am often an anomaly at these vintage events due to the wide variety of weirdo sub-culture items and the broad spectrum of musical genres I make available to my record clientele, so I do not reflect your typical flea market vendor, many of which are still developing their “good eye” meets purchase price point, often hoping for the best. Usually there is seller consensus on “good day”, “bad day”, but I often tend to lean “good” on days when others had “bad”. Knock on wood. Regardless, a busy flea market is a busy flea market and if people are spending money, or not spending money, I have a front row seat as to the spending of disposable income on soul satisfying non-necessities almost every weekend. Despite all the current event bad news and noise, it’s currently looking good. Consumer sentiment is positive. I talk to a lot of complete strangers during the course of a flea market day and by and large the disposable income demographic that attends a typical vintage flea market is not spooked by to the point of not spending. Yet. I do not take this for granted. Besides the not to be “Trusted News” media desperately ignoring the existence of vaccine adverse events (Open VAERS), ie, “the elephant in the room” mentioned in my “No Jab, No Job, I Quit” post, there are several unexpected black swans circling just over the horizon, looming events that may have influenced the mad, selective scientist, Dr. Gain-of-Fauci’’s recent announcement to quit his position at NIAID as he prepares to run for self-inflicted cover while the lawsuits and lawyers continue their covid cover-up “discovery” and his contribution to it. I’ll get to the most immediate black swan hiding in the elephant’s shadow in a moment.

But first, the short term Flea Market – Main Street Economic Forecast

Barring none of the above mentioned “wild card” dominos suddenly crashing down (how ‘bout them Georgia Guidestones! Ka-BOOM!)), I’m fairly confident we Main Street Flea Marketeers will experience fairly stable economic conditions until the upcoming mid term elections, especially if the HHS “Covid-19 Public Health Emergency”, that expires on Oct 13th, is not extended, indicating the return to pre covid “normal” while the CDC and FDA desperately tries to fix their fk ups and restore public trust. Ha! Good Luck!!! The labor market is still tight and most likely will get tighter due to the nasty mRNA vax after effects. (Huh?! Black Swan #1) Short term, I agree with Eric Parnell at Seeking Alpha that inflation may have peaked, much to do with the drop in commodities prices. Besides October being notorious for sudden stock market surprises, things will get politically contentious, guaranteed, as we approach the mid term elections in November. The question is, how contentious? You have seen the recently released movie/documentary “Selection Code”, all about hackable, computer voting machine tampering? As to the more distant short term forecast, when the post election and holiday’s smoke clears and the pension and private equity funds have algorithmically reshuffled their year end stock, bond and dubious derivative positions in preparation for 2023, I’ll cross that forecast bridge when I get to it. Long term, two to five year forecast? I am solidly in the “things gonna get (much?) worse before they get better” camp (Black Swan #2, #3… #98 in future forecasts). Be Prepared. I will most likely do a monthly economic update for the foreseeable future or as major circumstances dictate.

But before we get to today’s featured Black Swan, just what the hell informs and qualifies my economic forecast opinion? Glad you asked. Besides being engaged 24/7 with the Flea Market/Main Street frontlines, and occasionally as a general contractor/carpenter, I’m a long time subscriber and avid reader of The Economist, just like “never met a virus he didn’t like”, Mr. faux-lanthrophist Bill Gates. Please don’t hold that against me. I also regularly listen to local AM radio KNX and KFI (Bill Handle, Mo Kelly) for local, state and national/international news as well as FM radio Pacifica (Richard Wolfe, Ralph Nader) and NPR. About late 2021, I started subscribing to some of the investigative journalists that have migrated to Substack after being censored on “Trusted News” media. But my favorite source of economic, investment and finance updates is the online Seeking Alpha universe consisting of deep dive niche industry/company specialists and financial advisers who write private investment letters ($$$) and in some cases manage investments for their well heeled clients. Something about having a fiduciary responsibility to their wealthy clientele and newsletter subscribers makes them take the accuracy of their outlooks just a little more seriously than the TV economist talking heads with nothing to lose. “Skin in the game”? Exactly. My current, long time SA faves are Avi Gilbert/Sentiment Speaks, Eric Parnell and Lyn Alden Schwartzer/Stock Waves who often does those deep dives down the backroads of finance and economics. They tend to be much less susceptible to the capricious whims of the pop media economic/investment forecasters. 

Who I tend to pay the least attention too is the mainstream media economic pundits, most often reading from their Trusted News Initiative pre-approved script blaming the rise and fall of the stock market on whatever news event is currently at hand. Lazy! And yes, I’m a reluctant believer that indeed the stock market may as well be “The Economy” after all due to the reality that all our pension funds, and to a large extent Social Security, are heavily invested in corporate stocks and bonds as well as developed and third world debt, etc etc ie, “the market”. Billions, Trillions, Gazillions? Massive amounts of money, especially those Ponzi private equity entities exposed to ETF/exchange traded funds. Look out below?

Look Dorothy! Up in the sky! It’s… an elephant turning into a black swan?!

Actually, it’s a 2022 VAERS graph (Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System) showing covid vaccine deaths skyrocketing to Oz just after the vaccine roll-out began!

(WARNING!! If you are covid vaxd and boosted and continue to believe the Fauci/CDC/FDA “safe and effective” vaccine narrative, you may not want to read the following)

As the “elephant in the room” that was the shameful Trusted News media’s willful ignorance of global labor’s “Fk Off!” protest against the 2021/2022 vaccine mandates flies off into classic “lying by omission” history, it’s Black Swan shadow has come to pay it’s respects. 

The labor shortage America is currently experiencing is most likely going to get worse. Much worse? Approximately 65% of Americans have been mRNA vaxd and boosted. Amongst labor, this number may be higher due to the “No Jab, No Job!” vax mandates which began in 2021 as workers were either forced or intimidated to take the experimental jab by their employer (or their spouse, etc), whether they wanted to or not. Consequently, many (most?) of the covid vaxd are now what patent researcher Dr. David Martin and many many physicians refer to as “ticking time bombs” due to the unpredictable migration throughout the body of the lipid nano-particles contained in the gene therapy, experimental “vaccine”. DR. Martin estimates that “700 Million Worldwide Will Die from CV19 Vax by 2028”. Yikes! All Cause Mortality, Sudden Adult Death Syndrome (SADS), the excess in annual deaths from young athletes to the elderly is being openly reported by some life insurance companies and mortuaries. Excess deaths have mysteriously increased since the vax roll-out by an average of 10% in America, in Germany, and in the UK as well as many of the developed countries most friendly to the Pfizer Moderna Astra Zeneca and J&J jabs where the data is being fairly accurately tracked. This is unprecedented by insurance company, actuarial metrics. 

Also being independently reported, but again, willfully ignored by our “Trusted News” mainstream media, is the equally mysterious 10% to 15% drop in birth rates since the global vaccine campaign began, coincidentally, also in those very same, most inclined to be covid vaxd countries. “Nothing to see here, kids?”, or a damning inditement of CDC/FDA/HHS/WHO “safe and effective” pharma funded misinformation campaign? The excess deaths and the drop in births attributed to the covid vax adverse events does seem to give some sinister credibility to those suggesting the ultimate aim of the globalist Covid Chaos Campaign is massive global depopulation. Less “useless eaters” to control means a greater likelihood of achieving full control! Nyaa ha ha ha hah! 

And then there’s the increase in worker disability claims that began after the gene therapy vax roll-out, which x-Goldman Sharks reseach analyst Edward Dowd believes to be “Three Million Extra Americans on Disability”. And not a peep of this from our trusted corporate media. Between the data sets showing excess deaths, the sudden drop in birth rates and the growing amount of disability claims from workers unlikely to return to their former jobs – like the commercial airline pilots who cannot pass their required annual physical due to the “safe and effective” mRNA vax damaging their hearts – I strongly suspect the labor shortage between now and the next two to three years is going to get worse due to the delay in adverse reactions associated with the vax. All those ticking time bombs innocently walking their dogs, driving their cars, and suddenly… 

A big question I have is how much of an effect will a slow moving disruption in labor have on “demand” in general? Will there soon be less demand for homes while more homes are added to the housing market as an indirect result of the fatal vaccination campaign? Will this foreshadow a real estate/housing collapse? And keep in mind, less labor, whether skilled or un-skilled, means less things getting done; less food being planted, harvested and prepared; less medical personal to keep you well, less manufacturing to make the useful/useless stuff we think we need, less drivers to deliver goods to your door, less carpenters to fix your home, less skilled tech to repair your computer or your electric auto, and less grave diggers to bury the decomposing vaxd bodies… a rather dismal “shortage” scenario, indeed. 

And to add insult to iatrogenic injury, the un-covid vaxd control group might just be more employable due to cheaper health insurance premiums when insurance companies eventually acknowledge the increased health risks of vaxd employees and demand employers pay higher insurance premiums to cover these potentially vaxd “time bombs”. While the vaccination indoctrinated general public may not be connecting the dots, believe me, I suspect many insurance companies sure as hell are. It might be financial suicide not to. I’m sure Justin Bieber’s recent face/throat paralysis, which may have been the result of a vax booster, will inspire some of them to look a little more closely at what our government is mandating their insured clients, in this case a multi-million dollar asset, put in their body. Is it safe? Let’s see the studies, buddy. Let’s see the friggin proof! 

Will un-vaxd labor have the employment upper hand in the foreseeable future? Will the pressure from the vaccine data dam coming from all directions finally break the mainstream media’s covid censorship as the un-vaxd control group is finally vindicated for challenging the covid narrative and holding their “sovereign body” ground during the relentless media shame blame campaign? I suspect it will. I also suspect that the momentum from the upcoming vaccine fraud revelations and lawsuits will result in the repeal of big-pharma’s current VICP/PREP Act moral hazard indemnification so that we the tax payers are no longer on the hook for big-pharma’s fk ups, our long overdue Holy Grail. And might this be an opportunity to rebuild our health care system from the ground up? Maybe Robert Kennedy Jr., Dr’s Malone, Kory, McCollough et al could be persuaded to oversee the festivities.

In long overdue conclusion, at least until the next “gain-of-Fauci” accidental bio-release, “HELP WANTED” is going to be around for a while.

“Hey boss, about that raise… “

Stay tuned for the next black swan on my radar that may actually make the tick ticking vaxd time bombs look like a non event. 

Dismal Dave Lancon © August 2022. All Rights Reserved. Play Nice!