We’ve all experienced shortages of various goods and/or services in the last year or so of the coronavirus pandemic. In recent decades, American manufacturers have increasingly outsourced the production of goods we consume to foreign countries where they can often be produced cheaper.

Through the first six months of 2021, gunfire killed nearly 10,000 people in the United States, about 54 lives lost per day, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research organization.

I have written a lot recently about the surge in inflation we’ve seen this year.

Demographers now project that China, with its record large population of nearly 1.4 billion people, will overtake the US as the world’s largest economy by 2028, if not even sooner, a few years earlier than previously predicted, based on the latest GDP figures for 2020.

I’ll start by revisiting the so-called “Misery Index”, which I suspect many of you may never have heard of.

We will touch on several topics as we go along today, beginning with the economy.

US inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index and others continues to surge at rates we haven’t seen in decades.

I generally try to avoid political commentaries in Forecasts & Trends, although I never hesitate to make it clear I am a conservative on most issues.

The US birthrate fell to another record low in 2020, extending a trend which began in the mid-1960s, and this pattern is also happening in most other parts of the world.

We begin with last week’s surprising report on inflation in May, which saw consumer prices rise the most in 13 years.

Late last week President Joe Biden unveiled his first federal budget proposal as president for fiscal year 2022, which begins on October 1.

There was the usual mish-mash of financial news last week, some good and some bad.

The US inflation rate soared above all pre-report estimates in April, the Labor Department reported last Wednesday, to its highest level in 12 years.

The US Centers For Disease Control and Prevention reported last week that the US birth rate plunged for its sixth consecutive year in 2020. The US fertility rate also hit a new record low. Demographers are puzzled at this potentially troubling trend...

It was ever so tempting to devote today’s letter to a discussion of President Biden’s latest massive government spending, which he proposed Wednesday night in his “First Hundred Days” speech before Congress.

Last week the Labor Department released its Consumer Price Index for March, and it was the highest monthly reading in more than eight years.

President Biden’s massive $2.25 trillion infrastructure bill is on the tracks, rolling toward what many in Washington believe will be speedy passage in the House and Senate.

A compelling argument can be made that the 21^st century US economy has been a two-decade series of disappointments.

The latest surveys show most Americans who are eligible to receive the new $1,400 stimulus checks included in President Biden’s latest $1.9 stimulus plan are in favor of the upcoming government payments.

Since the Commerce Department reported in late February that 4Q Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rose a stronger than expected 4.1%, many mainstream forecasters have been raising their US growth projections for 2021.

Following the Great Recession and financial crisis in 2008-09, the Federal Reserve responded with unprecedented money creation, which was known as “Quantitative Easing.” Since then, the Fed has created trillions of dollars in new money, which mainstream economists were certain would lead to much higher inflation.

One of the most popular investment vehicles in recent years is the Special Purpose Acquisition Companies or “SPACs” as they’re commonly called. While SPACs have been around for years, they’ve increasingly become the investment model of choice for Wall Street firms and fund managers who promote them.

The CBO said its latest forecasts are stronger because the recession in the first half of last year was not as severe as previously reported, and the recovery which began in the second half of 2020 has been stronger than previously estimated.

We’ll touch on several bases today. We start with the latest news from the Commerce Department which just released its initial estimate of 4Q economic growth (or lack thereof). 2020 goes down as the worst economic year since the end of World War II.

Earlier this month, one of the leading global economic forecasting groups predicted inflation will rise, potentially significantly, later this year, and the stock market will react very negatively.

This enormous stimulus plan will have numerous effects on the economy, including the likely loss of millions of jobs, which the media doesn’t report, so that’s what we’ll talk about today.

Over the holidays, I spent a lot of time reading forecasts for 2021 from leading economists, big banks, think tanks and other so-called experts. Coming off one of the most volatile economic years in history due to the coronavirus pandemic, I was very interested to see what forecasters were predicting for the New Year.

Each January 1 as we turn the page to a new year, we are inundated with articles which summarize what important things happened in the outgoing year, both good and bad. I tend to avoid writing about such lists because we all know what happened last year.

With the COVID-19 pandemic spiking again, and with most federal stimulus programs having expired over the last several months, the US poverty rate is soaring at a rate never seen before. Nearly 8 million Americans have fallen into poverty over the last 5 months alone, since the government stimulus programs have largely ended.

In today’s letter, I’ll share my comments on several topics I find interesting. For starters, do you ever wonder why the official inflation statistics are so low, compared to what we see in the grocery store, what we pay for healthcare and the cost of housing, just to name a few?

The two Georgia Senate runoff races on January 5 will be among the most important elections in our lifetimes, whether you are a conservative or a liberal. As a result, enormous and unprecedented amounts of outside money are gushing into these runoffs.

The media seems focused on President-elect Biden and his Cabinet and inner circle appointments, whether President Trump will leave the White House peaceably, coronavirus developments, the January 5 Senate runoff races in Georgia and which party will control the Senate.

There is new reform legislation making its way through Congress which will significantly affect how many of us save for retirement and specifically how, and how much, we can contribute to our retirement accounts and at what ages. This is the most significant retirement saving reform legislation in years. I’ll break it all down for you below.

Gun sales in the US have gone through the roof in 2020, especially since the widespread protests turned violent last spring in many large cities across the US. Over three million more guns have been sold since March than occurred in the same period a year ago.

As long-time readers know, I tend to be upbeat about the economy and the stock and bond markets, and that has certainly proven to be the correct position to hold over the last 20-30 years.

The US inflation rate has hovered around 1.5% over the last decade, well below the Fed’s target rate of 2% most of the time. Such low inflation for such an extended stretch is quite unusual given historical economic relationships, especially with the economy strong and the unemployment rate near historic lows late last year and earlier this year before the pandemic hit.

US Economy Suffered Record Losses in First Half 2020. August Jobs Report Came in Much Better Than Expected. Business Bankruptcies Jumped 26% in First Half 2020. Trump Boat Parades Across the Country on Saturday

The Federal Reserve convenes a major economic symposium in late August each year in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the popular ski resort. Lots of Fed officials, banking big-wigs and other financial market players attend each year, along with a collection of media correspondents who pay thousands of dollars to be there.

Our total national debt today is now $26.7 trillion, the largest ever, as reported by the Treasury Department and tracked by the US Debt Clock. There is no argument over that figure. However, our total national debt is broken down into two components: “Debt Held by the Public” and “Intra-Governmental Debt.”

There are numerous factors which can cause the price of gold to rise significantly, but I don’t believe inflation fears are the main driver behind gold’s recent surge. I believe it has much more to do with uncertainty and fears surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The Commerce Department will release its first estimate of second quarter Gross Domestic Product on Thursday of this week, and it is widely expected to be really bad due to the economic lockdown earlier this year. Most forecasters expect 2Q GDP to be down 30-50%, making it the worst quarterly downturn since the Great Depression.

What we’re seeing in our big cities today is unprecedented. No one knows where this violence is headed, how to stop it, or when it will end. We’ve turned a new corner in our country, and I don’t think anyone knows for sure where it will lead us. It is certainly not a good direction.

I haven’t written about our national debt in some time, largely because I feel like a broken record no one wants to hear anymore. This year, however, we’ve seen our national debt explode as never before. For that reason, I feel obliged to bring it up once again.

For the second month in a row, the Labor Department reported last week that the economy added a record number of new jobs in June, vastly outpacing forecasters’ pre-report estimates. This far better than expected report is leading many economists to refigure their growth forecasts higher for the second half of this year.

Today, we’ll take a look at some of the rosy forecasts for second half US economic growth and why I think they could prove to be far too optimistic. Let’s get into the numbers.

I want to begin today by sharing with you the latest question I am getting over and over from colleagues and friends. That question is: How have the stock markets rallied to record or near-record highs in light of the terrible economic news due to the coronavirus crisis?

There is a growing debate in financial circles over whether the US Federal Reserve should move to a negative interest rate policy in an effort to stimulate the economy during the coronavirus crisis. Even President Trump has said more than once in recent weeks that he favors negative interest rates and considers them a “gift.”

With government spending clearly out of control and a budget deficit expected to top $4 trillion this year alone, more and more forecasters are warning that inflation is going to soar later this year and next.

There is no shortage of negative economic and financial news that has been announced over the last week that I could continue to write about today. But the truth is, I’m tired of being all negative all the time. So today, I want to shift gears and tackle a topic that most Americans probably haven’t thought about, but one that I think we should.

While this may not come as a surprise, many US small businesses that are shuttered right now face a financial disaster. Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly clear that millions of small businesses may not be able to reopen their doors when the economic lockdown ends.