Post 351: The Fake Wealth Effect that Leads to a Divided Society

• Delta Airlines passenger revenue growth is barely in positive territory.
  • But falling fast in economy class.
• Walmart takes to the air.
  • In less than two years drones will be delivering to over 40 million Walmart customers.
• Saks Global files for bankruptcy protection.
• A look at the evolution of Canada’s housing affordability crisis.
  • The Bank of Canada first handed the baton to municipal and then federal governments but took it back after COVID.
• Consumer products company Helen of Troy sales have accelerated downwards.
  • Its share price is down 93% since its peak in 2021.
    • But has still grown at an average annual rate of 9% over the last 40 years.
• In Financial Ructions
  • U.S. job numbers remain relatively weak.
    • Yet, over the last two months, jobs in the private sector are growing strongly.
      • And government jobs have been declining.
  • A look at a report that says we are only at the beginning of a gold bull market.
• In our book review of Depression, War and Cold War by Robert Higgs:
  • Further proof that the high real GDP numbers during World War II did not represent economic prosperity.
    • And that low real GDP numbers immediately after the war did not signal consumer hardship.
  • Although real GDP declined in 1946, in terms of the growth in private investment, it was a year unmatched in U.S. economic history.
    • But mainstream economists still point to war time boom and postwar contraction in an attempt to falsely validate Keynesian economics.