Benchmark Commentary No. 1459

• Intractable and Deteriorating Conditions Still Signal No Imminent Economic Recovery, Irrespective of Some Bounces in March Activity Against Weather-Driven February Collapses
• Monthly Annual and Post-Pandemic Payroll Declines Have Stabilized Around Minus Six-to-Seven Percent for the Last Eight Month, Weakest Showing Since 1946
• Annual-Change Gyrations Are Just Beginning for Economic, Inflation, Money Supply and Financial Return Numbers, as the Pandemic-Driven Collapse Passes It First Anniversary
• Beyond Year One, Multi-Year, Crisis-Driven Collapses Need to Be Assessed Against Pre-Crisis Levels, or Stacked Two-Year Change, As Well As Year-to-Year Change
• The Federal Reserve Overhauled Its Money Supply Reporting, Redefining Traditional M1 from 34.8% to 93.4% of a Not-Redefined Total M2
• This Masked Accelerating Flight-to-Liquidity in Traditional M1 from Non-M1 Components of M2
• ShadowStats Defined “Basic M1” — Combined Currency and Demand Deposits — Still Reflects the Extraordinary Liquidity Flight to, and Surge in the Narrower Money Supply
• Expanded Federal Reserve Accommodation Remains Likely Well Into 2023, Given the Increasingly Negative Outlook for Imminent U.S. Economic Recovery
• Fed Chair Powell Noted That Surging Money Supply No Longer Boosts the Economy
• That Is Because the Current Collapse Is Pandemic, Not Business-Cycle Driven; Surging Money Growth in a Non-Business-Cycle Collapse Can Trigger Hyperinflation
• Surging Monetary Base, Reserves and Currency Indicate Intensifying Systemic Problems
• Underlying Fundamentals Remain Extremely Strong for Gold and Silver, and Weak for the U.S. Dollar and Stocks, Despite Central Bank or Other Systemic Machinations to the Contrary