Sadly very true. However, the US usually stands to gain by ending the meltdowns. That doesn't mean others should also pitch in more.

It will become even more extreme as housing hemorrhages and inflation kills bondholders.

What we are getting is commodity and tariff inflation which is not good. This is arguably a lot worse than wage inflation because it makes everyone poorer not richer. The only good news is that housing costs have stopped inflating, mainly because of foreigners pulling out of the market and the fact households have already been pushed to the breaking point with housing costs.

Amazon is trying to push into everywhere. Maybe they just want to feel out the best area to grow. Strangely, this should make everyone scared to partner and do business with them as they consume more business segments. They are smart not going to corner any one market. It's easier to grab some market share than grow the market share above 20-33%. The issue is, it's getting so big they need to grow into bigger and bigger markets.

They will get into banking which is bigger than the pharmacy market eventually. Every penny spend on ads with them will be spent to eat another market segment. Hope it's not your market segment.

The Fed is less concerned about popping the bubble than making rates rise back towards some area of normalcy as well as clearing a little room for QE by lowering their current QE for the time being. They should have been doing this years ago. It is dangerous to be tightening this late in a cycle but their behavior has been illogical for so long they feel they must do it before another downturn.

As for downturn speculation, the US is inflating the deficit which is spurring economic growth for now with no major collapse in the dollar or over inflation for the time being. We should be safe for now as long as there isn't a big spike in oil prices, the trade war gets worse, or real war breaks out and affects things like oil.

It's good to see some air come out of this market and its fortunate it is coming out while the economy is still doing well. Imagine what this market would have done if the drop coincided with a recession. I think some has to do with foreign speculation dropping in the US housing market. Sadly, housing is primarily supposed to be used to house people not to speculate up prices and push rents beyond what people can afford long term.

True inversion is an effect not a cause, however, if inversion happens and stays inverted for a long time it will affect behavior. The main issue is as the author points out, figure out why and how the cause for the inversion affects things. Right now the growing economy and inflation are pushing up short term rates not long term rates are falling due to expectation of a dreary future.

It sounds so much better saying it is the longest though.

Excessive debt load is the most sure way of ending the good times in any expansion. The main excessive debt load the US has is not corporations but the US debt load, and that is more a function on the sheer size of it and the unwillingness of the US to control it more than the debt to GDP issue. Someone must buy the debt and fewer and fewer creditors are big enough to finance it.

The US could engage in a soft dollar policy if it was not already causing inflation by raising tariffs and engaging in trade wars. One must go.