The Trump administration's Howard Lutnick doubles down on the state capitalism of the CHIPS Act of Joe Biden

 

Lutnick says Intel has to give government equity in return for CHIPS Act funds

 

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? 

Trump's $170 billion tax hike on the American consumer

 The seasonally-adjusted annual rate of Trump's tariffs leaped from $96 billion in 1Q to $266 billion in 2Q.

The federal government farts through $20 billion every day, so this annualized tariff revenue goes Poof in less than two weeks, matching just 3.6% of federal outlays.

The numbskulls in the US Senate like Josh Hawley want to redistribute these tax revenues in the form of rebate checks to the taxpayers.

Wouldn't it have been easier and more efficient and more fair not to have taxed us in the first place?

Note that Donald Trump's Bureau of Economic Analysis, run by Howard Lutnick, still must call this what it is, taxes on imports lol, despite what his Treasury Secretary was still saying in June:

Bessent claims tariffs aren’t taxes.

 

 

 

1Q2025 real GDP revised down 0.3 to -0.5 in third and final estimate on an increase in imports front-loaded into 1Q to avoid Trump's tariffs

 Real gross domestic product (GDP) decreased at an annual rate of 0.5 percent in the first quarter of 2025 (January, February, and March), according to the third estimate released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the fourth quarter of 2024, real GDP increased 2.4 percent.

 

The decrease in real GDP in the first quarter primarily reflected an increase in imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, and a decrease in government spending. These movements were partly offset by increases in investment and consumer spending.

 

Real GDP was revised down 0.3 percentage point from the second estimate, primarily reflecting downward revisions to consumer spending and exports that were partly offset by a downward revision to imports. ...

More.

Sounds like Howard Lutnick gobbledygook at the end there. Paragraph two speaks of an increase in imports. Paragraph three of a downward revision to imports. 

Which is it lol? 

Nominal 1Q2025 GDP clocks in at $29.962 trillion in the third estimate. SPX was at 5612 on Mar 31, yielding a crazy high stock market valuation of 187.  

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.

 

Ding dong Howard Lutnick says we're going to be training all those new factory workers how to spy lol

And Elon Musk wanted this guy to be Treasury Secretary instead of Bessent, which is even funnier.

 

 

I sense a lot of dissension in Mad King Ludwig's palace: Lutnik attacked over crazy tariffs, Lutnick counterattacks over crazy vaccine skepticism fallout from RFK Jr

 

‘I don’t know anyone that isn’t pissed off at him’: Trump world turns on Lutnick

RFK Jr. is a ‘conspiracy theorist’ endangering lives, say analysts at Howard Lutnick’s former firm

 

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is the Trump administration sycophant who tells Trump whatever he wants to hear

 

 Reported here:

... On the other side are Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and senior adviser Peter Navarro, the latter a long-time tariff evangelist.

Navarro has described the administration as operating in harmony, quoting the 2002 film Drumline: 'One band, one sound.'

'We are the greatest economic team and April 2nd will be a historic day for American workers,' Lutnick said. 

But others inside the administration are less certain of Lutnick's motivations.

'He goes into the Oval and tells the president whatever he wants to hear,' said one Trump ally, calling Lutnick a 'f***ing nightmare' who backs Trump's instincts without considering broader consequences. 

Lutnick's influence appears to be growing, even as concerns mount that his approach is untethered from policy grounding.

As the April 2 deadline looms, inflation continues to rise, according to new Commerce Department data released on Friday - even before the new tariffs take effect. ...

 

This greaseball billionaire Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick thinks missing a Social Security check, something that never happens, would be no big deal

Howard is otherwise busy firing people and disbanding volunteer industry groups who help the government create important statistics and guidance about things like gross domestic product, population, trade, etc. which people rely on every month to forecast the economy.