Friday night fright night for Ukraine as Trump keeps Russian oil unsanctioned for a second consecutive month

 Trump is an asshole.

 

 Update from CNBC Saturday:

U.S. renews Russian oil waiver after pressure from countries dealing with Iran war price shocks 

... “As negotiations (with Iran) accelerate, Treasury wants to ensure oil is available to those who need it,” a Treasury Department spokesperson said. Just two days earlier, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington would not be renewing the waiver for Russian oil and another for Iranian oil, which is set to expire on Sunday. ...

U.S. lawmakers from both political parties had slammed the administration over the sanctions waivers, saying they stood to help the economy of Iran while it was at war with the U.S. and of Russia as it was at war with Ukraine. ... 

Fawning bootlickers lick together

 

Hugh Hewitt: It's Been A Long Time Since We Had A Formidable Treasury Secretary Like Scott Bessent

Runner Up for Lie of the Year 2025 Award is US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent: Tariffs are not taxes

 

The Uniparty: It will never not be funny how Trump insists that his tariffs are not new taxes same as Obama insisted fines for not having health insurance were not new taxes

 

People are right to doubt government data when Trump's Treasury Department under Scott Bessent leads off with this chart crime of September 2025 federal outlays

 You can access the Treasury's Monthly Treasury Statement here to see for yourself.

The OUTLAYS BY FUNCTION for September 2025 in the Figure 1 graphic DO NOT ADD UP TO $346 BILLION, as stated.

They add up to $560 billion.

The receipts DO ADD UP, almost, to $543 billion.

That the graphic indicates $544 billion, not $543 billion, is another clue that the entire thing is a tendentiously fabricated interpretation of the data from within the report, obviously. 

Well duh.

Meanwhile that "Other" category isn't a Red Flag for nothing!

"Hello! Hey! Yes, you! We're about to pull a fast one! Pay Attention!" 

In the end outlays of $560 billion minus receipts of $543 billion = a September DEFICIT of $17 billion, NOT A F^@KING SURPLUS OF $198 BILLION.

They are asking you to deny the evidence of your own eyes, and they know it. 

It's a total lie, as in Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics.

When you can't trust the U.S. Treasury Department, who can you trust?

 

The upshot is that Fiscal Year 2025 ends with a deficit of $1.973 trillion, far worse than FY 2024's $1.816 trillion . . . by 8.6%.

But the Trump Regime wants you to think the deficit is smaller than in 2024, at $1.775 trillion, that they're cutting spending by closing agencies and departments and firing federal employees, and increasing revenues through tariffs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and that the Big Ugly Bill is working.

LIES, DAMN LIES, I tell you. 

 

Treasury Secretary Bessent says we have to stop the rigged Chicom economy by abandoning free market principles just like them

 

 Trump administration will set price floors across range of industries to combat China, Bessent says

... “When you are facing a nonmarket economy like China, then you have to exercise industrial policy,” Bessent told Sara Eisen at CNBC’s Invest in America Forum in Washington, D.C.

“So we’re going to set price floors and the forward buying to make sure that this doesn’t happen again and we’re going to do it across a range of industries,” the Treasury secretary said, without naming specific industries the administration was looking at beyond rare earths. ...

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” the Treasury secretary said when asked about additional equity stakes. “When we get an announcement like this week with China on the rare earths, you realize we have to be self-sufficient, or we have to be sufficient with our allies.”

The Trump administration will not take stakes in nonstrategic industries, Bessent said. “We do have to be very careful not to overreach,” he said. ...

 

 

Trump's Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is on the same page as George Will

 

Bessent: 'I Kind of Like Mamdani Winning'

Max Mitchell, UnHerd

 

 

 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent once agreed to call two different houses his “principal residence” at the same time just like Lisa Cook ROFLMAO

 

Bessent made mortgage claims similar to ones Trump cited to try to fire Fed’s Cook: Report

Pattern development: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent first mixed it up with Elon Musk over an IRS appointment and now with Bill Pulte for bad-mouthing him to Trump

 

Treasury Secretary Bessent tells a whopper

 

Bessent: Tariff Income And Fiscal Improvement Have Made The U.S. Bond Market The Best Performing In The Developed World

 

These jokers have added $1.2 trillion to the national debt in TWO months.

 

The 10-year US Treasury has returned 1.013% nominal in the last twelve months, -1.419% real. 

The Treasury Secretary is such a kiss-ass and knows damn well that the Fed's so-called full employment mandate was a set of handcuffs put on the Fed in 1978

And why did the Congress do that to the Fed?

So the Congress could evade responsibility for high unemployment as well as for high inflation, that's why.

A bunch of cowards six ways to Sunday they are.

Besides, core personal consumption expenditures is the Fed's key metric, as everyone knows, and that is an inflation metric, not an employment metric. 

And The Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act specifically recognizes that reducing inflation is the Fed's main job, actually mandating ZERO inflation, not 2% inflation as widely misinterpreted. 

Meanwhile there is another report of employment besides the total non-farm payrolls report which the Fed can consult, and it shows employment continues near all-time highs in July.

No change to DFF was the appropriate response of the Fed to persistent core inflation way above 2%.  

 

Bessent: How Can The Fed Set Rates When Jobs Data Is This Broken? "This Was A Five Standard Deviation Mistake"

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

Stocks are up, yields are down lol

 

 Bessent floats extending tariff pause for countries in ‘good faith’ trade talks

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tells Congress to shift or get off the lot

 

Treasury Dept. asks Congress to raise debt ceiling before August to avert default

 

... “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.” ...

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.

 

 

Elon Musk and Scott Bessent got into a shouting match in the White House last Thursday which included Bessent loudly criticizing Musk for overpromising and under-delivering DOGE cuts

The Treasury Secretary would know, of course, because he has to report income and outlays every month.

One person who witnessed the dispute said:

It was quite a scene. It was loud. And I mean, loud.

The story is here.

The US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent is under fire for market manipulation because he made closed-door comments yesterday morning to big shots gathered for IMF and World Bank meetings

 Bloomberg published the story just before noon on Tuesday reporting the closed-door meeting where Bessent said he expected the tariff stand-off with China to de-escalate, and that the current situation, which amounts to a trade embargo, is unsustainable and will de-escalate in the very near future.

Markets opened Tuesday morning strongly higher and by 11:00 AM were up 110 points on the $SPX. 

The Secretary of the Treasury shouldn't be having closed door meetings with the very people most likely to profit from what he has to say.

This is quite literally fascist economics.

There is no negotiating with someone who says 0% is not good enough

 

Bessent: Up To 70 Nations Want To Negotiate Over Trump's Tariffs

"I'm going to reduce interest rates by crashing the stock market with tariffs"

Bessent says Trump is focused on the 10-year Treasury yield and won't push the Fed to cut rates

 

Trump Treasury Secretary says "Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream" after imposing tariffs which will make them more expensive

They think you are stupid.