When I moved to Montecito a few years ago, I was amazed at how many people didn’t seem to work.

To be clear, we don’t have a homeless problem out here. We just have a lot of people who own businesses. And it’s not quite true that they don’t work. They just don’t have regular hours so there’s a disproportionate number of people hanging out during the day.

Of course, I myself am a business owner and my businesses have experienced their fair share of pain over the last several months. In fact, my cosmetic surgery business in Chicago finally went out of business after almost 15 years.

And I know it’s not just me. Everyone is slow and it seems like there are layoffs going on everywhere—lots of skilled people are losing their jobs.

So I have been racking my brain trying to figure out why the economy is supposedly doing so well. I have come to the conclusion that we are not looking at the right indicators for the time that we live in.

It’s like we bought an electric car but are still watching to make sure we have a full tank of gas when we should really be paying attention to the battery charge indicators.

We’ve always judged the economy in terms of two major indicators: jobs and GDP. And those numbers haven’t looked that bad even after a year of oppressive rate hikes.

But what does the jobs report really tell us? Is it telling us that many people left the workforce during COVID-19 and never came back? After all, you are only considered unemployed if you’re actively trying to work.

And when you see all those new jobs added to the jobs report every month, is that taking into consideration the additional part-time jobs people are taking just to make ends meet? The numbers we get make no distinction.

The bottom line is, I am convinced we are missing something that will become very clear within the next 12 months.

My guest on this week’s episode of Wealth Formula Podcast believes this too. Believe it or not, he’s an Austrian economist I discovered on TikTok. And, because of him, I now have a TikTok account and you probably will too!

Show Notes:

00:05:59:05 Who is Peter St Onge?

00:09:20:23 Is there such a thing as true conservative economics in the modern political system in the US? 

00:13:44:01 Is the economy actually doing well?

00:16:38:18 Why is the job rate going up when people are getting laid off?

00:21:38:03 Why high GDP might not suggest a strong economy

00:25:57:21 Statistics on Bankruptcy

00:28:50:18 When is the next recession coming?

00:35:40:04 Why have we not seen more regional bank failures?