Fiscal 2025 deficit, October-April: $1.049 trillion
Fiscal 2024 deficit, October-April: $0.855 trillion
Increase in the deficit in 2025 Oct-Apr: $194 billion
Meanwhile CNBC blows smoke up your ass:
Monday, May 12, 2025
Trump's phony Liberation Day for working Americans evaporates into thin air, new 90-day pause brings 145% reciprocal tariffs on China, which tanked markets in early April, down to 30%
Stock futures surge. Crude oil surges. US Treasury yields surge.
... The trade agreement means that “reciprocal” tariffs between both countries will be cut from 125% to 10%. The U.S.′ 20% duties on Chinese imports relating to fentanyl will remain in place, meaning total tariffs on China stand at 30%. ...
Trump had imposed tariffs of up to 145% on Chinese imports, prompting Beijing to respond with retaliatory curbs of its own, including restrictions on some rare earth elements. ...
Sunday, May 11, 2025
Whatever else may be said about Rene Girard, he grasped the big problem even if he miscast it as capitalist, namely Chinamerica
“Everyone now knows that the looming conflict between the US and China, for example, has nothing to do with a ‘clash of civilisations’, despite what some might try to tell us. We always try to see differences where in fact there are none. In fact, the dispute is between two forms of capitalism that are becoming more and more similar,” Girard wrote.
Quoted here.
America became its own enemy long before China did.
Girard defaulted to the priority of religion over economics beginning in 1959.
Saturday, May 10, 2025
Hello Washington Times, hello, how did Biden's increased oil supply from the SPR to buy the 2022 elections lead to increased gasoline price at the very same time?
I'm so confused.
Doesn't price drop on an increase in supply?
"Let's increase supply so prices rise so the voters vote for us and not them" makes absolutely zero sense.
... Mr. Biden sold off hundreds of millions of barrels of oil after Russia invaded Ukraine, causing already rising gas prices to spike even higher. ...
The Biden administration sold off roughly 206 million barrels of oil from the SPR between 2021 and 2023. ...
Democrats fended off an anticipated red wave in the November 2022 midterms, keeping control of the Senate and barely losing House seats, although Mr. Biden’s party remained in the minority in the lower chamber. ...
More.
The Chicago Tribune editorial board laments the closing of all Jo-Ann Fabrics stores, never mentions that becoming a literal sewer of woke was the last straw for many of its long time customers
Sewer has two meanings dontchaknow, seamstress only one.
From the conclusion:
... And lucky Chicago suburbanites have small businesses such as LindaZ’s Sewing Center in Arlington Heights, where knowledgeable staff connect savvy sewers, knitters and quilters with fabric and machinery, and Thimbles in Lockport, which still serves a loyal community of sewers and quilters too. ...
Friday, May 9, 2025
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tells Congress to shift or get off the lot
... “However, after receiving receipts for the recent April tax filing
season, there is a reasonable probability that the federal government’s
cash and extraordinary measures will be exhausted in August while
Congress is scheduled to be in recess,” Bessent wrote. “Therefore, I
respectfully urge Congress to increase or suspend the debt limit by
mid-July, before its scheduled break, to protect the full faith and
credit of the United States.” ...
Words have a meaning, and a Biden invitation to come was not an invasion
I don't care how wrong Biden was, and neither should the courts.
The Supremes have already ruled the illegals have habeas rights, and this would be a desperate attempt to get around that.
Are they daring the Supremes to rule against them yet again?
... Miller’s use of the word “invasion” reflects the Trump
administration’s argument that the U.S. faces an “invasion” of
undocumented migrants. ...
The chairman of the House Fweedom Caucus is calling for tax increases on the rich
Not to reduce the deficit, but to pay for all the new Trump goodies.
$50 trillion in debt in ten years is a lead-pipe cinch.
Thursday, May 8, 2025
Trump is still pressing for tax increases on the rich to pay for all his gimmicks
Trump urged US House Speaker Johnson to raise top tax rate, sources say
U.S. President Donald Trump privately urged House Speaker Mike Johnson during a phone call on Wednesday to raise the tax rate on the wealthiest Americans and close the carried interest loophole for Wall Street investors, two people familiar with the conversation said on Thursday. ... Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters last week that Trump had ruled out the idea. ...
Wednesday, May 7, 2025
Federal Open Market Committee says inflation remains somewhat elevated and the economic outlook is increasingly uncertain, leaves DFF between 4.25 and 4.5, i.e. 4.33
Although swings in net exports have affected the data, recent indicators suggest that economic activity has continued to expand at a solid pace. The unemployment rate has stabilized at a low level in recent months, and labor market conditions remain solid. Inflation remains somewhat elevated.
The Committee seeks to achieve maximum employment and inflation at the rate of 2 percent over the longer run. Uncertainty about the economic outlook has increased further. The Committee is attentive to the risks to both sides of its dual mandate and judges that the risks of higher unemployment and higher inflation have risen.
In support of its goals, the Committee decided to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 4-1/4 to 4-1/2 percent. ...
More.
Tuesday, May 6, 2025
A week before the 60-day War Powers Act deadline, the Houthis conveniently cry uncle and pledge to halt attacks on US naval forces and Red Sea shipping
Israel wipes out the Houthi airport, fuel supplies, and concrete factory and then they finally cry uncle?
Something doesn't add up here.
Trump announces US will stop bombing Houthis
... Trump, ahead of a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, said the halt would start immediately. The Houthis approached the administration on Monday night indicating “they want to stop the fighting,” he said. ...
Israel escalated strikes against the Houthis on Monday night with 20 fighter jets bombing the rebel-held port city of Hodeidah. Israeli forces were responding to a ballistic missile strike against the Jerusalem airport by the group. The Trump administration also labeled the Houthis a terror group in March, changing a Biden-era policy. ... Houthi strikes against the waterway have declined significantly in recent months, and the group hasn’t targeted a commercial vessel since late December. ...
Israel's military says it has fully disabled Yemen's main airport with strikes...
... “We indirectly informed the Americans that the continued escalation will affect the criminal Trump’s visit to the region, and we have not informed them of anything else,” said Mahdi al-Mashat, head of the Houthi’s supreme political council, in a statement carried by the rebel-controlled SABA news agency early Wednesday. Trump is due to visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates next week. ...
Don't hatchet your AfD before you count, Friedrich
Germany’s Merz fails to be elected chancellor in shock first-round parliamentary vote
... “Friedrich Merz became the first chancellor candidate failing to be elected in the first round of voting in the Bundestag. However, he remains likely to win sufficient support eventually,” Carsten Nickel, deputy director of research at Teneo, said.
Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg, described the situation as a “bad surprise.” He echoed comments suggesting Merz would still become chancellor eventually, but “the unprecedented failure to be elected in the first round would still be a bad start for him.” ...
AfD ‘extremist’ label sets up political high-wire act for Friedrich Merz
... Merz’s party, the Christian Democratic Union, has been torn over how to deal with the AfD. Merz tacitly cooperated with the party earlier this year – despite insisting he would not – to push migration policies through parliament. And on the local level, his party and the AfD have cooperated on issues such as a ruling that the German flag should be hoisted in schools. ...
Populism means speaking fifty words of English: Pete Hegseth joins Marco Rubio in his own more welders, less philosophers moment
Take courage people!
You too can become populists just like Pete and Little Marco. Just get your degrees from Princeton and Harvard and the Universities of Florida and Miami.
Monday, May 5, 2025
Overall US Treasury yields have been falling for a year, but not by very much in the aggregate, and bonds keep asking for a word
Average US Treasury yields in April vs. March were down but up in comparison on Friday May 2nd after Trump meddled again in the Fed's business.
The yield aggregate of eleven securities down: 4.19 in April vs. 4.243 in March, but back up to 4.234 on Friday.
Bills down: 4.205 in April vs. 4.26 in March but up to 4.242 on Friday.
Notes down: 3.966 vs. 4.082 but up to 4.002 on Friday.
Bonds up: 4.725 vs. 4.615 and up some more to 4.80 on Friday. Investors are demanding more return from bonds because they perceive risk to be rising for long duration holdings.
The overall picture since January 2024 though shows yields falling as the rate of inflation has slowly declined. The black line below shows the average of the aggregate peaking in April 2024.
The 10-year Note at 4.33 on Friday matches the Daily Federal Funds Rate exactly, same as the 3-month.
Speaking of which, 10Y-3MO has been screaming "major recession" since October 2022, but to no avail.
Sunday, May 4, 2025
Impeach him a hundred times if we have to: Trump lies that jury trials are needed for immigration cases
... "We’d have to have a million or 2 million or 3 million trials", he said. ... That would not require full trials, as Trump suggested. ...
This is the same slow-walking of the law and trying an end run around the law and fundamental disrespect for the law that we see all too often and increasingly from presidents from both political parties.
We are either a nation of laws or we are no longer America.
Sick of this bullshit.
The War Powers clock is ticking: The US military has been bombing Yemeni Houthis since March 15 but the Houthis can still strike Israel
A missile from Yemen halts flights in Israel hours before top officials vote on plans for Gaza war
... Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said in a video statement that the group fired a hypersonic ballistic missile at the airport. ...
Saturday, May 3, 2025
Trump's tariffs will bankrupt thousands of American businesses and millions will be unemployed as a result
So says Ryan Petersen, founder and CEO of Flexport, in The Wall Street Journal, here:
... If the tariffs on Chinese goods continue at this rate, he says, thousands of American companies will fail and millions of employees will lose their jobs. ...
When the pandemic clogged up supply chains, he rented a boat so he could tour the Port of Long Beach, Calif., and see the bottlenecks for himself.
When he’s not cruising around ports for information, he’s getting it directly from his company’s 13,000 customers. They are companies that sell electronics, furniture, clothing, toys, diapers, pet feeders—basically everything. He makes it a priority to talk with as many of them as he possibly can. ...
This past week, he traveled from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., where he spent two days meeting with government officials to make the case that tariffs pose an existential threat to his customers. ...
Apparently some idiot in the White House fed Trump the $1.98 price of wholesale, unfinished gasoline as the price paid by consumers at the pump
... Trump repeated this inaccurate assertion about three $1.98 states at least three times this week. Then, during a commencement address at the University of Alabama on Thursday night, he used an even lower figure. ...
More.
Friday, May 2, 2025
Federal employment is 1.1% of civilian population in April 2025: This is the swamp billionaires want to drain
The worst it ever got was 2.4% in December 1952 while Truman was still president.
The leisure class of state capitalism has to have something to complain about.
Trump's word is meaningless: Mike Waltz goes from secure job as National Security Advisor to UN Ambassador in a matter of just a few days
Something Elise Stefanik also knows only too well lol.
Trump national security advisor Mike Waltz leaving post after Signal scandal
... Trump earlier this week told The Atlantic that Waltz’s job was secure. ...
Asked if Hegseth would stay in the administration longer than Waltz, Trump replied, “Waltz is fine. I mean, he’s here. He just left this office. He’s fine. He was beat up also.” ...
Once again, Trump is wrong because the executive does not possess the line-item veto
This is simply another example of executive branch overreach.
Funding for NPR and PBS, with which I disagree, is lawful. It has been passed by Congress and signed into law by the executive.
This executive can't simply come along and exercise a veto after that fact.
Rule by executive order is not republicanism.
We are either a nation of laws or we are not.
Trump is the enemy of the America I once knew.
Thursday, May 1, 2025
Resolution by Senators Ron Wyden and Rand Paul to scrap Trump's craziest tariffs fails 49-49
Senate resolution to scrap Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs fails despite some GOP support
A Senate vote to scrap President Trump’s wide-ranging “Liberation Day” tariffs narrowly failed on Wednesday, sparing Republicans a second consecutive blow as the president’s trade policy continues to face opposition.
Three Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Rand Paul (Ky.) — voted in favor of the resolution alongside every present Senate Democrat.
But Democrats ran into attendance problems. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) was absent, along with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who had voted in favor of a similar bill reversing tariffs on Canada earlier this month.
The final tally was 49-49.
McConnell and Whitehouse had both missed the two votes earlier in the day. One Senate GOP member told The Hill that McConnell was sick and unable to vote. ...
Since 2007 nominal GDP has been growing at a compound annual rate nearly 40% worse than the rate which prevailed from 1947 to 2007
1Q1947-1Q2007: 7.01%
1Q2007-1Q2025: 4.23%
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
Core pce inflation numbers were finally updated in this chart by the BEA at 147pm EDT showing revisions but the same old story: No core inflation progress in a year
Core inflation in Mar 2025 year over year is 2.64%, still ahead of the lowest reading in the last year at 2.63% in Jun 2024.
Core inflation has been sideways for a year and more, and nowhere near 2% or below as in the pre-pandemic era.
The revised 2.96% for Feb 2025 is equivalent to the 2.97% reading in Mar 2024.
That Feb spike helps explain why the 1Q2025 reading was up 3.5% from 4Q2024.
It's nearly noon and this chart of core personal consumption expenditures still isn't updated with the data due out today because the Department of Commerce which oversees the BEA is now run by the incompetent Howard Lutnick
CNBC usually runs a big story on core personal consumption expenditures before 9:00 AM every month when this report comes out, but not now under Howard Lutnick.
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