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HEALTH, WEALTH, AND HAPPINESS

[DATE], 2022

Hi everyone,

There's no sugar coating it, Friday's inflation data was a disaster, and markets are having a severe reaction today.

If there previously was hope that the worst of the US inflation era was behind us, Friday's CPI numbers have taken that hope, crumpled it up, stuck it in a barrel of very expensive gasoline, and lit it with a flamethrower.

Here we can see the annual inflation rate each month for the past year. May's numbers were widely expected to be well below March's 8.5% but were instead higher.

Some analysts and even well-known institutions are blaming these numbers on COVID-19 and the Russian-Ukraine Conflict. These people, however, are completely ignoring all the trillions of dollars of new money that's been created in the last few years.

For anyone who is still unsure about what causes inflation or the cycles we go through, here's a video of the late great economist Milton Friedman explaining government money printing cycles in a clip from 1980, which is ironically the last time inflation was this high and well before either of the two above-mentioned macro events.

Total blackout

Perhaps if the Fed were online to respond to the numbers in real-time, the market sell-off may not have been quite as bad. 

Unfortunately, the Federal Reserve is currently in what they call a "blackout period" ahead of Wednesday's critical interest rate meeting. For some reason, they have a strict policy not to make any public statements beginning about a week before the interest rate announcement. I think it's to keep people from speculating on what they might do but has clearly backfired in this case.

For cryptocurrencies, there's another blackout right now that's adding to tensions. The popular crypto website known as Celsius, which offers users yield to those holding crypto with them, has suddenly and inexplicably halted all withdrawals. Here's an excerpt from their Medium published early this morning.

Needless to say, this is very bad. Especially for those holding their coins there, but also for the industry as a whole. We hope they sort it out quickly. Even if they don't, the industry has survived much worse.

I am HODLING

That's it for me today. Sorry there isn't much optimism right now. It's been a very brutal bear market for all of us. Perhaps on Thursday I'll be more inclined to point out the silver linings of a market that is by now quite clearly oversold. However, in the spirit of bitcoin on a bad day, I do want to leave you with one final link: the original post that coined the term HODL, which just seems super appropriate right now.

Please read: I AM HODLING

Have a wonderful week ahead!

Mati Greenspan

Analysis, Advisory, Money Management

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