Sunday, March 1, 2020

Sunday thoughts - while Peppa Pig and the kind is playing nonstop on my tele.

Another Sunday morning, Peppa Pig, Paw Patrol and SpongeBob are playing non stop on the tele, for the happiness of my 3 kids and my mind tries find refuge somewhere else for the sake of my mental sanity.

Is based on this setup that i started thinking about an article that i have read in the Economist that basically was saying that all the latest big successful IPOs were almost exclusively done by companies that had blitzscaled based on business models that the winner takes it all, thus growth at all cost trumps anything else and the price they charge for the services/products provided are significantly below the price of its marginal costs and even not mentioning its value (the Uber, Lyft, Neflix, Spotify, Tesla's of these world). This, then creates an huge consumer surplus and on a macro level tames the inflation on the big economies.

If we compound all the direct effects created by this trend and also the spillovers to the other industries, we mix it with the trade wars and the massive subsidies that are being given to the Agricultural sector in the US and also in EU (the latter something almost perennial since the EU inception), we see that most probably the current low inflation could be the results of all these non natural factors that cannot be sustained on the long term (the markets are already asking positive results to these companies and that can only be achieved with higher prices that the end-consumer will have to pay eventually).

Then if we go from the Micro to Macro, we see that the QE and historical low interest rates (even negative) can be done only in an environment of low inflation and even with this big stimulus we denote that the economic growth prospects are dismal to say the least to the advanced economies.

So if inflation picks-up due to this rebalancing of the current pricing levels of these everyday more important products/services in the CPI basket (technological and agricultural ones) and the low inflation scenario disappear are we set to a major disruption in Macro terms?

Well, just started an episode of Motown Magic that i really like, thus have decided to stop the nonsense thinking and enjoy the music and the story with my 3 kids! Enjoy the weekend!

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