Sales are down, so young men must have a lot of money to not dare to buy
CNN has just quoted the comments of the former head of the US Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, about the signs that signal an economic recession, including men’s underwear.
He argued that men’s underwear is an inner wear, few people pay attention, so men mostly buy them new because of need, not because of following fashion. Therefore, when the sales of underwear decreased, young men must have had a lot of money to not dare to pay so much.
“He once told me that men’s underwear is the most discreet type of clothing because no one sees it except the people standing in the dressing room, and in fact, no one cares about it,” the reporter said. longtime NPR columnist Robert Krulwich said when sharing an interview with Mr. Alan Greenspan many years ago.
The Men’s Underwear Index, sounds weird, but actually exists. In fact, it’s true that sales of men’s underwear in the US dropped dramatically from 2007 to 2009 – the period of the global financial crisis. Only when the economy gradually recovered in 2010, the men’s underwear index prospered again.
According to CNN, analysts have always been looking for signs of a recession. Just as animals often trample and flee to higher ground to avoid tsunamis, the same law can be applied to the economy.
That’s why lately, there’s been a lot of talk about yield-curve inversions or the phenomenon of short-term bond yields being higher than long-term yields. These are all considered warning signs of recession risk because they have often appeared before every economic crisis since the 1970s.
In addition to underwear, there are still some other interesting indicators of an economy in recession: skyscrapers.
Andrew Lawrence, an analyst at financial investment firm Barclays Capital, came up with the “Skyscraper Index” theory in 1999. He argues that the higher the number of skyscrapers, the better the economy. economy is gradually approaching the risk of recession. This means that the moment a building breaks the world’s tallest record is also the time when the economic crisis is approaching.
Data studied from the 1800s to the present also demonstrate a correlation between the economic crisis and the opening of the world’s tallest buildings.
The Empire State Building was completed in 1930, just in time for the Great Depression. The Sears Tower and the World Trade Center twin towers opened in the early 1970s, shortly after that, the US economy fell into a state of stagnation and inflation. In October 2009, the exterior of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai had just been completed, but two months later the capital’s government was almost insolvent.
The reason Lawrence came up with this strange theory is because skyscrapers are said to be a sign of loose monetary policies, cheap money doesn’t know what to do, so the government built tall buildings to gain fame. This is a manifestation of wasted investment, the beginning of an economy that must soon adjust.
Today in the US, most skyscraper projects are on pause, but in another development, billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk or Richard Branson are still pouring billions of dollars into the space race. pillar.
Sales of cosmetics, especially lipsticks, tend to be opposite to economic growth
In addition, according to the president of cosmetics company Estee Lauder Leonard Lauder, sales of cosmetics, especially lipstick, also tend to be in the opposite direction with economic growth. For example, in the fall of 2001, lipstick sales increased 11% while the economy was in a slump. During the Great Recession, overall cosmetic sales also increased by 25%.
In the digital age, people also see online dating apps as an indicator of the economy: The more active the apps, the tougher the economy. For example, the Match application said that the company had a strong growth quarter in the year of the 2009 financial crisis. In 2020, when the COVID-19 epidemic raged, Match’s share price also increased sharply by 141%. Does the unemployment crisis, job loss cause people to have a lot of free time and think about dating?
According to: CNN
By Business and Marketing
at Blogtuan.info – Source: cafebiz.vn – Read the original article here
