There are actually two excellent reasons for him saying what he did: 1) a buyers strike would push the already falling rate of goods inflation lower and 2) should we go into a recession with its risk of job loss etc. having cash and/or access to unused credit lines can be very helpful.
These points are offset by the fact that holding off on big-ticket purchases can summon the very recession we're thinking about. See: Keynes' Paradox of Thrift.
First up, from MarketWatch:
Billionaire Jeff Bezos, who founded the e-tail behemoth Amazon, has some spending tips as Americans gear up for the holiday shopping season — amid four-decade-high inflation and recession worries.
Here’s what he said:
“‘If you’re an individual and you’re thinking about buying a large-screen TV, maybe slow that down, keep that cash, see what happens. Same thing with a refrigerator, a new car, whatever. Just take some risk off the table.’”
Bezos made the comments in a CNN interview that aired this week, the same interview in which he pledged to give away most of his fortune in his lifetime.
Why did Bezos offer the tip for consumers and small business to go easy on big-ticket items? He provided one big reason.
“If we’re not in a recession right now, we’re likely to be in one very soon,” he said in the interview, picking up on a cautionary tweet last month that “the probabilities in this economy tell you to batten down the hatches.”....
....MUCH MORE
And related, from ZeroHedge:
US Consumers Are Doing Exactly What They Did Just Prior To The Crash Of 2008
We never seem to learn from our mistakes. Just before the financial markets crashed and the economy plunged into a horrifying recession in 2008, U.S. consumers went on a debt binge of epic proportions. Mortgage debt, auto loan debt and credit card debt all skyrocketed, and so when the economy finally crashed all of a sudden there were millions of Americans drowning in bills that they were unable to pay. Well, now it is happening again. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, during the third quarter of 2022 household debt increased at the fastest pace that we have seen since the first quarter of 2008…
Households added $351 billion in overall debt last quarter, taking the total to $16.5 trillion, according to data released by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on Tuesday. That’s an increase of 8.3% from a year earlier, the most since a 9.1% jump in the first quarter of 2008. The debt figures aren’t adjusted for inflation.....****....When Jeff Bezos starts sounding just like The Economic Collapse Blog, that is definitely a sign that it is late in the game.....
