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How are earnings artificially inflated?


It's a common trope for people who don't like the fact that the stock market is trading at normal-ish P/E levels to say 'well the E is fake!!! Just wait until the E normalizes!'

Usually, they cite things like artificially low input costs (hard to argue that today), unsustainable demand from customers due to 'cheap money' (haven't seen evidence of that yet, the opposite actually), and a general disdain for advertising and retail business models (despite their long-term durability).


Yes, you are the clever one, everyone else just repeats tropes. Personal debt is at record levels, inflating earnings. That has to unwind at some point and it will be when the cost of money increases, which it will, if the Fed has to trigger a recession to do so. We're in a different regime now.




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