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Recently, I have seen a number of blog posts and articles about the uneven nature of the U.S. economic recovery. Zero Hedge documents how the number of households on food stamps have climbed to a new record.

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Over at FT Alphaville, Cardiff Garcia has pointed out that most of benefits of the post-Lehman crisis recovery have accrued to the wealthy.

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You can see the disparity in the consumer confidence figures by breaking them down by income levels.

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My inner investor is horrified by these statistics. He could go on and start railing about how rising income inequality will ultimate create social pressures, which will ultimately damage the social fabric of the nation and be very bearish for the U.S. in the long run. As an illustration of this trend, the chart below shows corporate profits as a percentage of GDP (in blue), employee compensation as a percentage of GDP (in red) and the U.S. Gini coefficient, which is a measure of inequality (in green).

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Classic economic theory holds that the three factors of production are capital, labor and rents. As the above chart shows, the returns to capital (profitability) has been rising while returns to labor (compensation) has been falling for several decades. Moreover, a rising Gini coefficient indicates that income inequality has been rising. At some point, this will create social pressures that have the potential to tear society apart. The American Dream is about equality of opportunity, not equality of wealth. Any steps that erode the equality of opportunity erodes American competitiveness (see my previous post Another American step to Argentina).

My inner trader is more agnostic. He shrugs and tells my inner investor that these problems have a way of not mattering until they matter. The income inequality situation is exemplified by the Tiffany (TIF) vs. Wal-Mart (WMT) pair*. As the 10-year chart of the pair shows, the TIF/WMT ratio is rising and is not at an extreme yet and it is exhibiting positive momentum. In fact, my inner trader is more inclined to go long this pair with an eye to the upper end of the band as a target.

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The Great Gatsby lives!

* I am being metaphorical. I would not actually trade this pair as a way of playing the income inequality macro trade, as there are highly company specific issues that can affect both TIF and WMT.



Source: 2 Views Of Income Equality