Stagflation Is Cutting Into My Beer Budget

The joys of modeling.

Wall Street firms can apparently use any form of model they wish to price securities. Economists go with models that run from the arcane to the obscure, provided their results are indecipherable. The business media gets to use rotating models, writing different predictions depending on how that day's sun is shining (or not) and the alignment of random moons.

But The Business Press Maven gets all his predictive powers by looking at the economy one way: through the eyes of the small pleasures in life. And readers, there is trouble in simpletown: The Business Press Maven's Small Pleasure Index is officially illin'. After two years of bullishness, I have to declare us as close to a recession as possible.

First the bad economic conditions -- signs of stagflation -- appeared in chocolate and pizza, and nobody said anything but me. Now it's beer and gambling.

I ask you: Is nothing sacred?

Two weeks ago, I pointed to certain signs of stagflation -- that most toxic mix of slow growth and inflation -- in the earnings reports of Hershey(HSY - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) and Domino's(DPZ - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr).

Worse: virtually no one had picked up on it publicly. No reporter made this link or declared a trend, though God knows the business media normally declare trends on wings and prayers.