Friday, August 29, 2025
Let's check in on real return from stocks since and before the August 2000 high to see what a real bull market looks like
$SPX since August 2000 through July 2025: 5.24% real, average per annum, dividends fully reinvested.
And the 24 years, 11 months before that to August 2000?
10.90%.
108% better.
IYKYK.
Let's check in on the S&P 500 version of the Buffett Indicator
The S&P 500 averaged 6,029.95 in June 2025.
Nominal GDP in 2Q2025 from the second estimate yesterday was $30.3539 trillion.
The first divided by the second yields 198.65, 145.25% elevated above the long-term median of 81.
Off the chart.
Where angels fear to tread.
Population adjusted vehicle miles traveled in the first half of 2025 is lower than at the bottom of the Obama travel depression in 1H2014
Ain't got no where to go, I guess, with all that new delivery availability spawned by the pandemic.
Speaking of gaslighting, Kremlin Karoline wants you to think gasoline wasn't cheaper as recently as last December
Don't gaslight around gasoline, dearie.
Gaslighting: Spot gold to $3,433.99, spot silver to $39.14 on persistent core inflation of 2.77% average yoy for the last 18 months, 85% higher than the old normal, not on rate cut probability
They want a rate cut so bad, everything points to one, including what doesn't.
Gold on track for best month in four as inflation data bolsters rate cut bets
... Spot gold was up 0.5% at $3,433.99 per ounce. Bullion has gained 4.4% in August so far. U.S. gold futures for December delivery rose 0.7% to $3,497.30. ...
Spot silver added 0.2% to $39.14 per ounce and gained for the fourth straight month. ...
Trump's federal government spending cuts are non-existent: We're on track to blow $7.3 trillion as expected
The Elon Musk-DOGE spending cut affair was pure theatre.
When I said we spend $20 billion a day I wasn't kidding.
OK, it's only $19.869794 billion a day.
Meanwhile revenues are expected to fall short by $4.842671 billion PER DAY in 2025.
The core pce inflation rate was 48% lower 2009-2020 than it was in July 2025
The July 2025 yoy rate of core pce inflation, the Fed's key measure, rose to 2.877%, the third increase in the rate since April.
The average rate 2009-2020 was 1.5%.
Averaging 2.77% for the last year and a half is not progress.
Thursday, August 28, 2025
Can you spot the GDP?
The real GDP report is out and it looks better than a month ago: +3.3% seasonally-adjusted annual rate for the second estimate for 2Q2025, instead of +3.0% in the first estimate.
But the big picture changes only microscopically.
From the second quarter of 2017, the year when Trump's tax reform became law on December 22nd, until now real GDP has grown at a compound annual rate of 2.466%, instead of 2.456% last month. For the seventy years before that, the compound annual rate of growth was 3.182%.
Trump's so-called pro-growth tax reform falls short of the previous seventy years this month by 22.5% vs. by 22.8% last month.
Now made permanent as of the Fourth of July, or so they say, the Trump tax reform is likely to continue to, shall we say, weigh on things.
The problem remains the lingering after effects of the Great Recession, the Great Financial Crisis, the Housing Bubble, whatever you want to call it.
The Trump tax reform of 2017 didn't do anything to address that meaningfully, just as Obama never addressed it meaningfully, nor Biden.
The rupture with the past occasioned by 2008 is the elephant in the living room, and the Uniparty just pretends it isn't there.
From 2Q2008 to 2Q2025, the compound annual rate of real GDP growth has been 1.995% vs. 1.990% last month, vs. 3.421% for the sixty-one years prior to that, starting in 2Q1947.
America is still 41.68% behind that this month vs. 41.8% behind that last month.
It's . . . depressing.
Under Joe Biden we had a proposal to tamper with the Supreme Court, under Donald Trump we have an actual attempt to tamper with the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Federal Open Market Committee
Trump's firing of Lisa Cook is the actual power grab we only feared from Joe Biden.
How Trump could give the Fed a MAGA makeover:
... Fed watchers say a Trump-appointed majority on the Fed Board could then exert greater influence over future decisions on interest rates by using a little-known process.
While it’s typically a routine event that gets little attention, every five years the Fed Board must approve the new terms of regional Fed presidents, who vote on a rotational basis on interest rates.
That event is coming up soon, with the terms of all 12 regional Fed presidents scheduled to expire – simultaneously – at the end of February.
That means, in theory, a Trump-nominated Fed Board could reject regional presidents, for whatever reason they wish, or no reason at all.
“The President could push his majority to reject reserve bank presidents unless they agree to back lower rates and are comfortable with more White House influence over monetary policy,” Jaret Seiberg, financial services policy analyst at TD Cowen Washington Research Group, wrote in a note to clients this week. “That would give Trump a more cooperative FOMC,” he wrote, referring to the Fed’s rate-setting committee.
While the Fed chair gets all the attention, decisions on interest rates are voted on by all 12 members of the Federal Open Market Committee. The committee consists of the seven members of the Fed Board, as well as five regional Fed presidents: the New York Fed president and four rotating regional presidents. ...
Wednesday, August 27, 2025
A victory for lunch your way lol
... The result in Dunn’s case is the second time in three days that a
grand jury has rejected an indictment request by the office of U.S.
Attorney Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox News host appointed by Trump.
On Monday, Pirro’s office told a judge in a separate criminal case that “an Indictment has not been returned” after “a third grand jury returned a no true bill.” ...
Pattern development.
Brooke Rollins, Trump's Secretary of Agriculture, says Trump is America's third revolution
No amount of revolution is ever enough for the odious Uniparty.
Trump's women are the craziest women, the bosom pals of tyrants since at least Aristotle.
Speaking of The Worker, what's old and stupid is new again at The Department of Labor
A fatal notion of things, half false & half stupid, began to pervade educated & semi-educated minds: "the worker" becomes the real person, the real nation, the meaning & aim of history, politics, public care ... he is made the saint, the idol, of the age.
The fact that all men work, and moreover that others - the inventor,
the engineer, and organizer - do more, and more important, work is
forgotten.
No one any longer dares to bring forward the class or quality
of his achievement as a gauge of its value. Only work measured in hours
now counts as labour. And the "worker," with all this, is the poor
unfortunate one, disinherited, starving, exploited. The words "care" and
"distress" are applied to him alone.
No one has a thought left for the
countryman's less fertile strips of land, his bad harvests, his losses
by hail and frost, his anxiety over the sale of his produce; or for the
wretched existence of poor craftsmen in strongly industrialized areas,
the tragedies of small tradesmen, fishermen on the high seas, inventors,
doctors, who have to struggle amid alarms and dangers for each bite of
daily bread and go down in their thousands unheeded.
"The worker" alone
receives sympathy. He alone is supported, cared for, insured. What is
more, he is made the saint, the idol, of the age. The world revolves
round him. He is the focus of the economic system and the nurseling of
politics.
Everybody's existence hinges on him; the majority of the
nation are there to serve him. The dull lump of a peasant, the lazy
official, the swindling tradesman, are legitimate targets for mirth, not
to mention judges, officers, and heads of businesses, who are the
popular objects of ill-natured jest; but no one would dare to pour the
same scorn on "the working man."
All the rest are idlers, egoists; he is
the one exception. The whole middle class swings the censer before this
phantom. No matter what one's own achievements in life may be, one must
fall on one's knees before him. His being stands above all criticism.
-- Oswald Spengler
Immigrant worker shortage impacts produce quality at Sam's Club?
I bought six heads of romaine lettuce yesterday like I usually do at Sam's Club every couple of weeks, for $4.46.
Such a deal, right?
Well, this has never happened before in years of shopping at Sam's: the cores were rotten. I barely salvaged half of it.
I also bought a five pound bag of organic carrots, for $3.62. That's always a great deal at Sam's, except this time all the carrots in the bin were THIN, THIN, THIN, and LIMP.
Summer weather is hard on such produce in any case, but I've been buying this stuff year round at Sam's for years and have never experienced this.
I should have taken the stuff back, but I do live in the country and I have compost piles.
Worms gotta eat, same as buzzards.
Tuesday, August 26, 2025
What would you call it?
Declaring 52 "national emergencies" as of June 2025 under which the executive branch exercises broad powers to achieve its objectives . . .
Military patrols in U.S. cities . . .
Police raids on homes of government critics . . .
Nameless, faceless, armed masked men in unmarked vehicles abducting people in broad daylight and disappearing them . . .
Detentions of large numbers of people in special facilities for indefinite periods under poor conditions and without due process of law . . .
Federal government taking financial positions in private businesses . . .
Federal government fining, suing, intimidating businesses for speech it doesn't like . . .
Federal government removing people from their positions because they produced data it didn't like . . .
Price increases and supply shortages due to federal government interference with lawful trade . . .
Federal government impoundment of monies already appropriated for expenditure by law . . .
Ending functions of lawfully created government institutions without statutory authority . . .
Monday, August 25, 2025
Donald Trump is such an asshole
No "innocent until proven guilty" for this guy.
It's a blatant power grab which will give him two appointees to Fed governor on top of one to Fed chair when Powell finishes his term in the spring. If he finishes his term in the spring.
What a tragedy for this country and its prestige as issuer of the world's reserve currency.
The Financial Times is full of it about a rate cut, and can't even spell
... the Fed chair is clearly more convinced by the employment side of that equation, indicating that “adjustment” may be necessary — a big hint that the central bank is poised to restart cuts in interest rates next month.
This was itself a surprise to investors, who seemingly were expecting a snoozefest. The dollar dropped sharply, government bonds jumped in price and stocks picked up at the end of a rough week as markets baked in those new expectations. A cut next month is now seen as a done deal, with likely chops in the following two meetings too. ...
If employment data for August picks up from its summer lull, which we will not know until the first week of September, then the Fed will be in the awkward spot of cutting interest rates in to a decent jobs market with inflation still running above target. “The Fed would risk a policy error if it were to cut rates,” warned analysts at Bank of America. ...
The Fed is supported by structures that protect its independence, but anyone who doubts Trump’s desire and willingness to bend it towards his will is kidding themself ...
More.
Complete tosh.
The Fed is data dependent, and there are two inflation readings and one employment report intervening before the next rate decision.
Powell never even got close to saying the FOMC was poised to make a policy change. His remarks, as always, emphasize data and contextualize hypotheticals, that's all.
The press are scoundrels trying to bully the Fed like this. They are on Trump's level in Dante's Inferno.
Powell said conditions "may warrant adjusting our policy stance." That could include a rate hike as well as a rate cut. He said "risks to inflation are tilted to the upside" while "the labor market appears to be in balance" even after the huge downward revisions to total nonfarm employment which got the head of the BLS fired.
In fact, he said that the latest data for July core pce inflation, which won't be out until Friday, indicate 2.9% year over year, an uptick from June's 2.8%. That's not good news for the rate cut cheerleaders, and that's why no one is reporting it.
The FOMC is not going to cut the interest rate if that happens and employment remains steady.
August 29 and September 5 will tell us what is likely to happen on September 17, not The Financial Times. Fittingly, the ignoramus for The Financial Times ends her column with a preposition.
And don't forget core cpi inflation on September 11. Powell & Company will have all the very latest data for their decision, on which they will rely:
Monetary policy is not on a preset course. FOMC members will make these decisions, based solely on their assessment of the data and its implications for the economic outlook and the balance of risks. We will never deviate from that approach.
Sunday, August 24, 2025
Ha Ha Ha House Freedom Caucus phonies high tail it out of Congress for state level runs
... Four of the most prominent archconservatives in that caucus have said they are running for statewide office, the latest being Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who announced Thursday he will run for state attorney general.
Roy followed Reps. Andy Biggs (Arizona), Byron Donalds (Florida) and Ralph Norman (South Carolina) in saying they will run for the GOP nomination for governor in their states. They depart at a time when the Freedom Caucus’s swagger and negotiating credibility on Capitol Hill have taken a hit. ...
“HFC = House Folding Caucus,” Rep. Brendan Boyle (Pennsylvania), the top Democrat on the Budget Committee, declared after they gave their votes to the GOP’s massive border, tax and health bill in July, shortly after many members publicly slammed the legislation. ...
The House Freedom Caucus was founded in January 2015 by a small group of hard-line conservatives who felt that the original conservative caucus, known as the Republican Study Committee, had grown too big with more than 150 members and lost its ideological identity. ...
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is the only one of the nine founders still serving in office. ...
More.
Trump is so bad that Gen Z is falling in love with the guy who didn't keep us safe on 911, invented the religion of peace, gave us Michael Brown, and abandoned free market principles to save the free market system
... "Many comments on videos tagged as #Bushcore use past moments to contrast the current administration," Mohammed said. "Users are saying, 'These were like Bush's lowest moments. Somehow they tower over Trump's best,' or 'I would've NEVER thought 20 years ago … I wish he could be president again … I miss him,' representing how unhappy Gen Zers are with contemporary politics."
"A recent YouGov/Economist poll shows that President Trump continues to have a significantly low approval rating among young voters—61 percent disapprove. They use Bush's persona as relief, reminiscent of times when there was supposedly more empathy and community in politics," she added. ...
One would think that Gen Z would be more, I don't know, REBELLIOUS or UNGOVERNABLE if it's really true that they have experienced the following awful realities.
One of life's great mysteries.
...
a typical Zoomer on the apps is getting rejected by, and rejecting,
more prospective partners in a week than a typical married boomer has in their entire life.
... Ella, a 20-year-old from Allentown, Pennsylvania, applied to 12 colleges and got rejected from 10. "I had so much hubris and unfounded confidence," she says. "I just thought, well, I'll only want to go to college if I can get into a 'prestigious school.' They ask, 'Why us?' obviously, and I couldn't tell them why besides it's Harvard." In a Substack post she published before her high school graduation, she described how at odds her tenfold rejection was with her belief in simply working hard to succeed. "I thought that I was going to be someone," she wrote.
... many Zoomers apply to more jobs in a day than many lucky Boomers have in their lives. ...
Why do Republican led states have such a problem with illegal immigration that only the National Guard can solve?
Illegal immigration theatre for the folks!
Saturday, August 23, 2025
Trump to step back from efforts to reach a Ukraine peace deal . . . for two weeks lol
... President Donald Trump is signaling that he would step back for now from efforts to reach a Ukraine peace deal, expressing frustration over rising casualties and the failure of the two sides to come closer to a peace agreement.
“I’m not happy about anything about that war. Nothing. Not happy at all,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday.
He added that he would make an important decision about the future of the conflict in “two weeks,” a phrase that he often uses not to specify a precise time frame, but to indicate that he wants to put off a decision for a while. After that time, he said, “We’ll know which way I’m going, because I’m going to go one way or the other.”...
More.
Because they're literally f*gs in heat, as if there were any other kind
Where they'll live happily ever after.
https://archive.ph/OqFmv
Gold has easily outperformed the S&P 500 over the last three years
SPX is up about 53% in the last three years vs. gold which is up about 90% (1775-3373).
If stagflation is our future, gold may do even better.
Dow Jones Industrial Average closes at new record high Friday Aug 22 after Powell throws red meat
Dow surges more than 800 points to post record close as Powell speech fuels rally: Live updates
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied to an all-time high Friday after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled the central bank could begin easing monetary policy next month.
The Dow climbed 846.24 points, or 1.89%, reaching a fresh high and closing at a record level of 45,631.74.
The S&P 500 rose 1.52% to end at 6,466.91. At its session high, the broad market index came within three points of its record.
The Nasdaq Composite gained 1.88% and settled at 21,496.53. ...
Gold and silver prices are up big in the last two years
Spot gold on Friday: $3,373.89, up 75% since September 2023.
Spot silver: $39.01, up 69.5%.
-- Reuters/CNBC
Friday, August 22, 2025
Thursday, August 21, 2025
Tulane University's Walter Isaacson calls out Trump's state capitalism for Nvidia, Intel, and Advanced Micro Devices
... “That state capitalism often evolves into crony capitalism, where you have favored companies and industries that pay tribute to the leader, and that is a recipe for not only disaster, but just sort of a corrupt sense of messiness,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” ... Earlier this month, both Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices agreed to pay 15% of their China revenues to the U.S. government for export licenses to sell certain chips there. ...
Trump adds $1 trillion to the national debt in record time and S&P Global underscores its own irrelevance by maintaining the U.S. AA+ credit rating
Trump tariff revenue expected to offset tax bill impact, S&P says in U.S. credit rating hold
... "We could lower the rating over the next two to three years if already high deficits increase ..." lol.
These people are afraid of Trump.
They don't want to be singled out for Trump's daily Two Minutes Hate.
They don't want to be the next Jerome Powell, or Lisa Cook, or Volodymyr Zelensky.
Meanwhile year to date the Trump deficit is running $112 billion ahead of Biden's last deficit. DOGE so-called spending cuts and Trump Tariffs have done nothing to reduce it.
Wednesday, August 20, 2025
Tuesday, August 19, 2025
The Trump administration's Howard Lutnick doubles down on the state capitalism of the CHIPS Act of Joe Biden
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Tuesday that Intel must give the U.S. government an equity stake in the company in return for CHIPS Act funds.
“We should get an equity stake for our money,” Lutnick said on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.” “So we’ll deliver the money, which was already committed under the Biden administration. We’ll get equity in return for it.” ...
Lutnick said any potential arrangement wouldn’t provide the government with voting or governance rights in Intel.
“It’s not governance, we’re just converting what was a grant under Biden into equity for the Trump administration, for the American people,” Lutnick said. “Non-voting.”
Intel declined to comment.
Lutnick also suggested that President Donald Trump could seek out similar deals with other CHIPS recipients. ...
“The Biden administration literally was giving Intel for free, and giving TSMC money for free, and all these companies just giving them money for free,” Lutnick said. “Donald Trump turns that into saying, ‘Hey, we want equity for the money. If we’re going to give you the money, we want a piece of the action.’ ” ...
Um, I don't think getting an equity stake was anywhere in the bill.
Just another example of Trump executive branch overreach, but will the supine GOP Congress care?
Monday, August 18, 2025
Two weeks Trump was already at it again on Friday before meeting with Putin on Saturday
... Trump
said on Friday he did not immediately need to consider retaliatory
tariffs on countries such as China for buying Russian oil - which is
subject to a range of Western sanctions - but might have to "in two or
three weeks." ...
More.
It's been a long war against the NFL
“The left targets something it doesn’t like, and they never give up, and they keep going until they ruin it. And I’m telling you, National Football League is in their cross-hairs right now,” Limbaugh said. “One of the most important planks of liberalism, militant feminism, is the vehicle which is being utilized in this latest effort to undercut the game.”
-- Rush Limbaugh, September 2014, here.
Sunday, August 17, 2025
Saturday, August 16, 2025
Frozen orange juice concentrate, coffee, bananas, and chocolate chip cookies also made new record high average prices in July 2025
Frozen orange juice concentrate $4.641/12oz
Coffee $8.414/lb
Bananas $0.657
Chocolate Chip cookies $5.264
Even though bananas and chocolate chip cookies made new highs, they are good values adjusted for inflation since 1980. Bananas are 49% lower than they should be, and the cookies are 12% lower. Most US bananas come from Guatemala, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Honduras.
Coffee is running 3.9% ahead of its inflation adjusted price from July 1984, and OJ is running 3.4% ahead of its inflation adjusted price since July 1980.
All nearly fifty food items I track are still near their all time highs.
We've had no fewer than seven spikes of serious food inflation running ahead of core inflation just since the year 2000.
Agricultural export prices also have soared since then. What a coincidence.
All eight beef prices I track made new record average highs in July 2025
Adjusted for inflation since July 1984, 100% ground beef should cost $3.88/lb in July 2025, but it's actually 61% higher than that.
100% Ground Beef $6.254/lb
Ground Chuck 6.338
Round Roast 7.909
All uncooked beef roasts 8.397
Choice chuck roast 8.439
Round steak 8.69
All uncooked beef steaks 11.875
Choice sirloin steak 13.554
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