A one chart post today showing the relative performance of various industry sectors within the S&P 500 index (Chart 1 from Yardeni research).
The US stockmarket has been a 2-3 sector game for the last 10 years: mainly information technology and consumer discretionary companies, with a bit of healthcare thrown in. That's 3 out of 10 sectors outperforming, with the other seven in decline. This trend has been exacerbated recently with "the usual suspects" on a tear.
This is is reflective of the entire US economy and society, of course: a de-industrialized nation enthralled by and hooked on FAANG services and products, massive consumer spending on discretionary (i.e. unnecessary) items, and pills by the truckload.
It is a very narrow and thin foundation on which to build a solid, all inclusive economy and society. It has created a few hundred multi-billionaires whose companies pay very little tax and tens of millions of formerly middle class workers trying to make ends meet on minimum wage jobs, food stamps and handouts.
And it is no wonder that the political scene is so polarized and that, for the first time ever in the US, there is a rapidly rising, viable left wing movement within the Democratic Party itself. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders immediately come to mind. On the other side of the aisle, the rise of GOP Trumpist populism is just a different flavor of the same dish: popular discontent.
Bubbles form and bubbles pop...
The worldwide fight is on between politics as usual, establishment, corporate-owned politicians vs. Progressives, extremists and dictatorships. It's so sad that of the lot, only the progressives are worth the while; but decades of corporate-owned mainstream media propaganda have left the majority opposing their best interests and mostly voting for the other, worse for the majority, alternatives.
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