Hey Peter Navarro here with this podcast and Substack Market Rap for the week ending January 12, 2024.

A Sugar AI High shrugs off bad market news.

It seems like nothing can stop the current upward movement of the S&P 500.

Not even bad news on the inflation, unemployment, and geopolitical fronts as the market

finished slightly up for the week. I continue to believe that it is the

secular bullish trend for artificial intelligence in particular and tech in general

that is disguising what is otherwise growing rot in the rest of the American

economy. Remember here that the ISM manufacturing index has been below 50 and therefore

signaling a recession in manufacturing for an astonishing 14 months.

Meanwhile, America is mega-billionaires and likes of Musk and Zuckerberg at all,

erasing forward with AI investments that will eventually wipe out large swaths of the American

labor market and no doubt be used in a coming war of the machines.

Life imitates science fiction.

On that note,

2024 started off with yet more layoffs,

Google and Amazon at the top line,

with Citigroup eliminating fully 10% of its workforce, some 20,000

groupies to hit the bricks.

Inquiring minds want to know how much of this is AI driven or a recession driven.

More about this in a separate column.

On the bad inflation news front, Thursday's Consumer Price Index report came in hotter than expected, with the 12-month

CPI rising 3.1 to 3.4 percent, at least the core rate dropped from 4.0 to 3.9%.

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