Winds Of Change For The Philatelic Market

It is true that current credit card debt stands at historical highs, just shy of 1.2 trillion, but it was sitting at 1 trillion 15 years ago. The major difference, to the good, is the delinquency rate on that debt, which is now a hair above 2%, as compared to 4.5 pct in 2007.

"Total credit card balances rose more than 15% from a year ago, marking the largest annual jump in over 20 years. According to New York Fed officials, the increase in credit card debt "towers over the last eighteen years of data.""

I do know why my electricity charges doubled - just making the point, it wasn't because the supply of electricity changed, or the demand for electricity changed. It was due to external factors, refuting the simplistic statement, "Supply and demand determine the price of everything". They don't - there are production costs, labour costs, price wars, loss-leaders, market confidence, rents, taxes etc etc... they all feed in. If only things were so simple.

putting 2 economists in a room will yield at least 3 opinions.

The issue being that there is more than enough numbers/metrics to play with to put spin on the perspective you wish present.
Don

I think that the KISS principle applies here. Fossil fuel costs are at the root of it all. It takes fossil fuel to produce electricity, many materials that are used in manufacturing, fertilizer and pesticides for growing food and so on. Then you have transportation which requires fossil fuels for truck, rail, air and sea transport. Turn on the lights, machines, heat and you are using more now expensive fossil fuels. Heck, those EV's are made of materials that require fossil fuels to manufacture in fossil fuel powered factories. Not to mention the energy expenditure extracting all of those battery elements out of the earth. Cheaper FF = Cheaper COL

ris - so true

The jobs number made no sense and now we know why. The BLS numbers were incorrect whether by design or not we do not know. The Philadelphia Federal Reserve thought that something was wrong and did a deep dive which found that jobs numbers for the last quarter were not 1,121,500 but rather 10,500 net new jobs. That is a stunning difference and the BLS numbers were used by the Fed to raise interest rates and by others to counter a recession narrative.



https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/m...2-report.pdf

Makes perfect sense to me. Spiking inflation was served up as a hot economy with no recession and good job numbers further supported the administration's claim about no recession (under at least their redefined definition of recession). Now with the mid-terms safely past, correct data cannot harm the party in power.

Of course cranking up interest rates through 2023 will make the sudden drop in the fed rate in early 2024 look like the economy took off under this administration just before the 2024 POTUS election.

Gee .......I was thinking the increase of Social Security by 8% plus the big jump to almost 5% for deposits on CD's would get many collectors back in the buying mind set especially the older collectors .

I am seeing less purchases of stamp albums and more of the print your own ,you can see this with the stamp auction firms with more offers of computer made pages in their worldwide collections section . The subscription companies and Post Offices selling new issues have also dried up . Your seeing more collectors reaching a cut-off point in their collection like cutting off pages like 1970 or 1980's even U.S. collectors are ending at 1990;s or 2000's and dropping their automatic purchases with the USPS .

Another area that your seeing less of is the premium for collections containing MNH stamps after 1940 ,even the auction houses are dropping this, by just adding MNH ,MLH and used in their descriptions when listing album mounted collections . Basicly who care if a $5.00 set is hinged or not .

I am surprised how many packets of good hinges keep coming out of the woodwork it seems more are discovered each year , I believe they will trade for $15.00 to $20.00 a pack , I purchased a few dozen 10 years ago and the price has stayed the same since . Now I can't see them going higher ,so no change there .

The CPI for housing, transportation and rent all increased by about 8% this year. The CPI for gas, food and electricity increased by 10-14% this year. Fuel oil increased 42% this year. Those COLA's and interest rates do not keep up.

Not to mention medical costs...
Don

floor trader, I think there are many exceptions to this. There is a "Forever" sheet boon underway. I can't really grasp the dynamics of this (quantities alledged exist, but "noone has them". There are quite a few that are remarkably hard to find. Another area is keeping unsplit press sheets. Whether there are buyers is one thing, but early indications imply these 'vanished' and aren't in retail/auction channels. I can't recall EVER seeing a Droid uncut press sheet on the market after the USPS "sold out".

There s a market for forever stamp issues, not so much for uncut press sheets.

Philatelic market will go down with prices in near future .... yes, it is my opinion, but have reason.
A lot of postage stamps are printed, a lot of collection/s go offered for sale.
In 1970-1980, even in 1990, it was very popular hobby around globe, and a lost of collections are made, market was active, an people buy postage stamps because they have stable income.
Now, after this turbulent years 1991 up to 2023, war here, war there, torn apart countries, inflation, no stable work and income ..... people just sell all collection/s inherited....
What we have today?
Most of Post Companies around globe, still print postage stamps, but don't use it "on desk" when You wish to send mail or parcel ....
....so, a drop, a huge drop in postally used material .... than come more "obstacles", as post worker in some countries, don't accept any use of postage stamp as payment for service....
Personally, I see that Philately is going back to the pre-stamps period, and that is what will cause that really used material, will be hard to find.....