I don't do this very often, but once in a while I buy something online -- within a few minutes get a call from the people who run the joint, they talk with me, confirm what I want, I get it, and..... I'm actually impressed.

Not just "satisfied" -- impressed.

This is one of those: https://www.cloghog.com/proddetail.php?prod=Gutter-Jet-for-Gas

You have to have a pressure washer and if you have gutters above the second floor an extension wand.  The problem with clearing gutters is that its a five-alarm pain in the neck -- and if they're on a second floor doing it without a bucket truck or scissor lift (and we know nobody rents one of those for that job) can be quite dangerous.  You can pay someone to do it (hope they have Workman's Comp and aren't just a "'Handyman" without it -- you don't want to know what happens if he comes off that ladder onto your concrete driveway from 20' up!) but calling them out once or twice a year gets expensive especially for folks carrying proper insurance.  Not clearing your gutters, if there's evidence they're clogged during heavy rains, is an extremely bad idea as water can back up into the fascia boards and rot them -- then your gutters detach as they're mounted to that wood, you call someone to fix it and discover you're talking about a nastily-expensive amount of work.

If you have a pressure washer and extension wand (e.g. to do the siding on the house or similar) then this job would seem simple, but it isn't.  The reason is kickback -- you need a gooseneck end on the wand to go into the gutter and when you hit the trigger the thrust has a huge moment arm against you on a 15'+ extension wand.  This is very different from the lightly-curved normal end that's on those you're used to; there you can brace against it (which is why most of those have a body harness) but that doesn't work with a gooseneck.  If you actually need the extension at anywhere near its full length I find it completely uncontrollable.

This end for your extension wand absolutely solves that problem -- not helps it -- 100%.  There is zero kickback in any direction when you hit the trigger.

Just make sure your downspout -- if its connected to an underground pipe or similar -- is unconnected and runs on the grass first because everything you sweep is going to come down it.  Yes, it will clear off the matted leaves on the top of the downspout connector and flush what it doesn't down it and out..

They have a patent applied for on this and I can certainly see why.  It's a complete game-changer even for two-story houses.  I have two sections of gutters that animals like to destroy the covers on where I can't get to them without risking my life and thus those two places are subject to trouble every spring.  I've made up a number of home-made adapters and such both for the pressure washer and hoses to resolve this -- one with success, the other not so much.

This thing cleared both in seconds and verification of the one that I usually do with my home-made hose adapter from the deck to run down it, which does work, confirmed that it was entirely-clear including the matted "stuff "from critters over the downspout connection.

Let's do the forward look first, since that's what really ought to matter -- PPI.

The index for final demand less foods, energy, and trade services moved up 0.4 percent in April after rising 0.2 percent in March. For the 12 months ended in April, prices for final demand less foods, energy, and trade services increased 3.1 percent, the largest advance since climbing 3.4 percent for the 12 months ended April 2023.

So much for the forward looking indices relaxing.  Uh, nope.  And what is especially troublesome is that both goods and services moved in unison.

Remember we are a majority-services economy.  People often disregard goods inflation in the pipeline with some level of justification because its simply a smaller piece of the basket and is subject to quite a bit of discounting as you go through the stages of production.  Neither is true for services.

Now there is one piece of the goods side that could be reasonably dismissed, particularly since a large part of it has come back out in the last couple of weeks: Gasoline prices.  Some will point to foods showing negative price changes but nearly all of that is due to fresh and dry vegetables, which are not a large component of the index in any event (nor of most people's diet.)  Natural gas was also down but this is a seasonal thing that is expected; winter is over, so residential gas demand is now nearly all for cooking and water heating, which is the usual pattern -- and leads to lower prices in the spring.

There is a "pig in the python" problem in energy materials in the intermediate table, however, and strongly suggests that the passthrough will wind up in the CPI in two to three months.  That's not good as, of course, that's right into the maw of the summer travel season.  We'll see.

Nothing else really stands out to me beyond ordinary seasonal variation.

Then we have the CPI....

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.3 percent in April on a seasonally adjusted basis, after rising 0.4 percent in March, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 3.4 percent before seasonal adjustment.

The index for shelter rose in April, as did the index for gasoline. Combined, these two indexes contributed over seventy percent of the monthly increase in the index for all items. The energy index rose 1.1 percent over the month. The food index was unchanged in April. The food at home index declined 0.2 percent, while the food away from home index rose 0.3 percent over the month.

Ex food and energy was up 0.3%, which is down one tick from last month.  But all less food and energy is still up 3.6% over the last 12 months which remains close to double the so-called "2% target."

As in the PPI report there was a spike in gasoline which was coincident with the eclipse -- whether that was pure gouging or not I do not know, but it was definitely there and it definitely reflected back into the CPI (as it should have.)  That's a one-off and most of it has come back out already.

But -- both OER and rent were still up wildly strong -- over 5% annualized.  Of course there will be people that really like that idea but facts matter and non-discretionary purchases, with housing among them, don't just have to stop going up at close to triple the so-called target they must actually come down in gross terms.  

What's much worse is that hospital and related services, along with elderly care, are rising at a crazy rate, up at close to 8% annualized and 13.9% for elderly people.  Again I remind you these are compounding figures so for elderly people this means a double in six years.  How anyone thinks that can continue on a forward basis is beyond me -- there's just no money to do that, and its the driver of CMS cost acceleration although the latest Treasury Statement shows slight improvement over last fiscal year.  There is no way to know at present if that's a deferral of payment out of CMS (it might be) or if there's real progress.  We simply need more time to know.

Car insurance continues to wildly spike higher -- up 1.4% this month alone and 22.6% annualized.  That has not resolved, so the idea that this was a "one off" is thus far just plain wrong.

The market seems to love this number -- but I'll take the under on that one.  The IRX ticked up a couple while the 10 year is down materially, further widening the spread which just continues the run of what, on an objective basis, certainly appears to be an illogical Pavlovian response in asset markets.

Come and get it!

Yet another interview with Dennis; we talk about the recent employment reports, inflation and how a huge percentage of the employment "adds" are in places that benefit the employee, of course, but are "parasitic" in terms of the overall economy -- that is, they're costs rather than benefits.

I also comment on the interest rate environment and Fed policy -- and note why the Fed is almost-certain to stay out of the market from roughly July forward until after the election.

We also touch on the personal savings rate, increases in credit card balances and the view that short rates near 5% are "high" (they're not; they're historically normal and in fact balanced -- if inflation was 2%, which it isn't.)

You can get the full interview here!

Let's do the easy one first: There are plenty of people talking about taking Social Security early because it is likely to "go broke."

I'm going to make an assumption here: You're either not working or intending to not when you take it.  If you are working and have employer-provided health insurance then this doesn't apply to you, but if not it most-certainly does.

The problem with taking Social Security early is that Social Security distributions count toward MAGI and thus will reduce your Obamacare (PPACA) subsidy.  Right now the former "cliff" that whacked you at about $40,000 of income (cutting the subsidy off entirely) has been abated by pandemic-era law changes but those are scheduled to expire in a couple of years and they might not be renewed.  Indeed they are a serious part of the fiscal trouble that the Federal Government is in right now with its deficits -- and letting them expire requires doing nothing where extending them will require actual passage of a bill.  Choosing to take Social Security cannot be taken back and if you get nailed by this the cost will be extraordinary, as the older you are the worse medical insurance costs become.  This could, quite-trivially, eat half or more of your Social Security check so do not ignore it -- this risk is very real and for nearly everyone, unless you have no other income, it makes taking it prior to 65 flat-out silly on a cost basis since you cannot control whether that subsidy cliff will return and you can't change your mind either.

This risk goes away at 65 and is replaced with a known and inescapable one in that you both qualify for basically have to enroll in Medicare, which is typically (if you take Social Security) deducted directly from your check.  While there is plenty of risk in that program as well both in terms of payouts and costs at least at 65 you're not subject to, at a modest income, having an enormous clawback that could easily expose you to $20,000 a year worth of insurance expense or more, entirely wiping out your Social Security payment!  That risk absolutely does exist prior to 65 so pay very, very careful attention.  Note that if you're working now that three year period is still at-risk because you could, of course, lose your job.

I have had plenty to say about the political and cost-shifting aspects of both these programs over the years -- and if we don't get the medical side under control Medicare will collapse -- or worse, drag the entire federal government down the sewer with it.  But that's a subject for another time and, frankly, likely one for the other side of the blog.

The second is this piece here from CNN on college costs.  

Here's my two cents on this article:

That which you wish to gift your child in the form of college expense is fine, but you should never go into debt or cosign any of their debt for that expense, and it is very, very important that you drill into your kid's head that whatever pie-in-the-sky views they have of a profession it can change from under them in very bad ways with little or no warning.  If your child is truly in the top five or ten percent of capability within a given field they'll be ok most of the time provided the upper end of the field has an earnings potential sufficient to cover the expenses but many such fields don't and most don't unless you're in that top five or ten percent.  Further, essentially all fields are always under some sort of attack, whether deliberate or not.

It isn't just offshoring, the "promise" of AI and similar -- but that is certainly part of it.  It is also just the odds of society generally in that technological advancement and change is not predictable, it takes place over decades and yet you put in four or six years which sounds like a reasonably-stable period of time but in today's world it is not.  When I was younger if you could code you were in pretty good shape.  But what passes for "coding" today among most isn't what I'd consider paper-bag worthy and unfortunately industry has figured out how to offshore or H1b that so if you're not in that top 10% you got problems.  Never mind the risk that you are trained to use some set of technology that becomes a "runt" a few years later such as occurred with mainframes and minicomputers when I was younger.

This is a tolerable risk if you go to school without taking on debt as you still learned something of value, it likely can apply somewhere else (even though not entirely) and thus while nobody likes having the rug ripped out from under them through no fault of their own life goes on.  If you've taken on six figures worth of debt and this happens you can be ruined and you can't file bankruptcy in these cases to discharge it either.

That's something we should have never done but we did and it is why the cost of school has exploded upward.  You can't fix that today but you don't have to play that game and shouldn't with your future.

There are reasonable loan options -- Stafford, for example. But the rest are not, particularly those involving parent co-signatures.

In addition think long and hard about whether college makes sense at all.  There are trades that will never go away and can't be offshored.  Is that a perfect answer?  No, but it is something to consider and in many cases can lead to a six-figure income quite rapidly.

Reality is that ultimately most people who really do well didn't do it going to college and getting a job.  They did it starting and running a business which may or may not have included college as a source of inspiration, connections and ideas.

Finally, do realize that with the wild-eyed price escalation in multiple areas of the economy over the last 20 years (not just the last four!) there is every reason to believe we are on the verge of a serious and long-term economic dislocation.  Exactly what form it will take and what fields will be ruined -- or advanced -- is not possible to determine with enough reliability to bet on it successfully. There is an enormous difference in outcomes if you find yourself in a tough spot and have $20k in liquid cash and no debt as a young person .vs. being $100k or more in the hole and having no cash at all, literally living on a credit card's float with less than $500 in your bank account.  You do not want to be in the second group but a huge percentage of Americans are of all ages and if you put yourself in that position you're one piece of bad luck away from disaster.

Time is the one commodity nobody can get more of, no matter how much money they have or make.  Its common to believe, for example, that if you're a 20 year old woman you can pursue business interests until you're 30 and then settle down and start a family.  This is foolish.  It's even more foolish to think as a young man that you can go find yourself a partner, marry her and start a family when you're 40, having spent the previous 20 years advancing your earnings potential.  Yes, you can be one of the exceptions that has it work out, but the odds are not in your favor.  Figure out what's important; if its business and accumulating money then fine, but don't kid yourself that this comes without cost or that you can chase those other things "later" and it will all work out.  It probably will not but there are myriad people who will try to sell you on exactly that, often for their own purposes whether financial or simply to stroke their own egos.

Youth is a time of idealism and people prey on it.

Don't be the prey.