Monday, December 16, 2024
We're finally getting some yield curve interest rate normalization with the 1MO yield leader being replaced by the 20Y, as it should be
The UST Bills end averages 4.353 as of Friday Dec 13th, while the Bonds end averages 4.650.
Still soft in the middle, though, with Notes averaging 4.288. Would like to see Bills and Notes the reverse of that for a nicely steepened slope from short duration to long.
Sunday, December 15, 2024
It's good to know that Luigi Mangione's new lawyer thinks assassinating people is bad lol
So they're going to plead "not guilty by reason of insanity", right?
Based on this hire he must be crazy.
Saturday, December 14, 2024
Mitch McConnell, 82, has five of nine lives left, sprains wrist in fall
Mitch fell in 2019 and broke a shoulder, requiring surgery.
Last year he fell and was hospitalized with a concussion.
Mitch is a childhood polio survivor who in the US Senate saw to it that Trump's appointments to the Supreme Court were confirmed.
I have had nothing good to say about Nancy Pelosi ever, but I wish her well all the same
Having a hip injury at 84 is really bad news. It can be a death sentence. I don't wish that on her, and neither should anyone else.
Friday, December 13, 2024
Inflation impact on low income households is more like 6.3% when weighing necessities higher, says retail expert Howard Jackson
The Wall Street Journal reports here, also saying low income wage growth now lags everyone else's:
Howard Jackson, president of retail-focused firm HSA Consulting, estimates that inflation has actually averaged about 6.3% over the past 12 months for low-income households. Jackson said this estimate adjusts the consumer-price-index basket to weigh necessities—such as rent, utilities and food—higher than things they tend to spend less on, such as cars, furniture, clothes and consumer electronics. His estimate considers what items constitute the food basket, based on surveys of low-income consumers. “If you don’t have much money, you keep your pair of jeans a lot longer. Those are the purchases that get deferred,” Jackson said.
Spineless jellyfish Pete Hegseth does 180 on women and gays in the military lol
Hegseth does a 180 on women and gays in combat
Hegseth has called policies allowing gays and transgender troops to serve in the military part of a “Marxist agenda.” But on Thursday, when he met with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), reporters asked him whether he thought gays should serve in the military, and he replied, “Yes.”
And once an unapologetic critic of women serving in combat roles, Hegseth called women “some of our greatest warriors” during a recent Fox News appearance. ...
Hegseth has been working to explain himself behind closed doors. [Senator] Collins, after meeting with him for nearly 90 minutes, told reporters that he had backpedaled on women in combat. ...
“He was asked in our post-meeting gaggle [with reporters] whether he was supportive of women in combat and his answer was he was supportive of that,” [Senator] Hawley said. ...
“I heard he was changing his tune a little bit on women in combat,” said Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), a Trump ally. “Sometimes you make comments that you don’t really want to stand by, sometimes, you know, when you’re not up for confirmation.”
Thursday, December 12, 2024
More inflation: Core producer prices, aka core wholesale prices, have been up four months in a row measured year over year, the last three increases all above 3% yoy
3.2%, 3.4% . . . and 3.5% year over year now in November 2024.
Overall prices are up 3% yoy in November.
Wholesale prices rose 0.4% in November, more than expected:
Final-demand goods prices leaped 0.7% on the month, the biggest move since February of this year. Some 80% of the move came from a 3.1% surge in food prices, according to the BLS.
Within the food category, chicken eggs soared 54.6%, joining an across-the-board acceleration in items such as dry vegetables, fresh fruits and poultry. Egg prices at the retail level swelled 8.2% on the month and were up 37.5% from a year ago, the BLS said in a separate report Wednesday on consumer prices.
The Fed is expected still to cut again at the next meeting despite all the evidence pointing to persistently high and increasing inflation, hiding behind the skirts of fear of job losses, a smokescreen for gifting easier money to speculators, and to federal authorities who now need to finance $36.1 trillion in the national debt at lower rates.
20Y and 30Y bonds are revolting, demanding 4.624 and 4.551 as we speak, now the highest yields across the curve, as the short end yields in US Treasury bills come back down to earth.
Now that Democrats have lost everything, The New York Times has nothing to lose by telling the truth about their illegal immigration tsunami under Joe Biden
The numbers in the Times analysis include both legal and illegal immigration. About 60 percent of immigrants who have entered the country since 2021 have done so without legal authorization, according to a Goldman Sachs report based on government data.
The combined increases of legal and illegal immigration have caused the share of the U.S. population born in another country to reach a new high, 15.2 percent in 2023, up from 13.6 percent in 2020. The previous high was 14.8 percent, in 1890.
Story here.
People should give Joe Biden more credit. He promised this immigration disaster, and boy did we get it, good and hard. Nothing sucks like success.
Joe defended it during the Democrat debates in 2019, and invited it during the final 2020 debate with Trump, and America voted for it.
Wednesday, December 11, 2024
Looks like Chuck Grassley's efforts paid off: FBI director Wray to resign
Thank you, Chuck.
Kash Patel incoming?
Before you get your hopes up about Kash Patel's capacity to do a good job, remember Wray was also a Trump appointee to replace the fired James Comey, and he turned out arguably worse than Comey.
Robert Mueller III was appointed by George W. Bush and assumed office exactly one week before 9/11/01. Neither of them kept us safe. And then they pursued the wrong guy in the anthrax attacks.
We have more than two decades of ugly feeling about the FBI to overcome.
FBI Director Christopher Wray to resign before Trump takes office
CNN data guru reports that Americans' trust in the FBI is at its lowest point 'this century'
Tuesday, December 10, 2024
Meanwhile paper tiger Donald Trump is caving, too, can't guarantee anything lol
Trump told the “Meet the Press” host that he would work with Democrats to find a way to preserve Dreamers’ legal status. He said he would not ban abortion medication, fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell or order the prosecutions of his political opponents. ...
During the campaign, Trump proposed tariffs of 10-20% on all imports — and 60% on goods from China. Welker asked whether he could “guarantee” that Americans won’t pay higher prices under those tariffs.
“I can’t guarantee anything,” Trump replied.
Senatrix Joni Ernst reportedly caving on opposition to Pete Hegseth
Many, many women have caved to Pete Hegseth.
Here.
Daniel Penny has escaped his unjust prosecution by Alvin Bragg
The vile New York Times says "Jury Acquits Choker" instead of "Jury Acquits Man Who Stopped Subway Threat".
Monday, December 9, 2024
The Buffett Indicator in the news
Some people are paying attention.
The last chart below tracks the average annual valuation from 1920 through last year, based on the S&P 500. The average level for 2024 will depend on the third and final estimate of annual GDP at the end of March 2025. 209% is a real time snapshot using the Wilshire 5000 index.
Sunday, December 8, 2024
2024 Joe Biden aiding the new terror regime in Syria is Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry defying Bush 43 by legitimizing Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad
Democrats don't discriminate. They'll work with anyone.
Saturday, December 7, 2024
Martial law fails in South Korea, Romania cancels a democratic election whose outcome authorities didn't like, and Syria is about fall to a former al-Qaeda revolutionary
Did I mention the French left and right united in Parliament and voted no confidence in Macron's PM, too?
They say that Trump is a chaos agent.
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| This is KAOS! We don't do CONTROL here! |
Billionaire Marc Andreessen loves him some plutocracy, which his beloved Thomas Jefferson would have taxed into oblivion
Trump's so-called party of populism has given us a cabinet teeming with billionaires.
Welcome to rule by the rich. We deserve them, good and hard.
Andreessen's hero, Thomas Jefferson, would have taxed them all into oblivion to keep their baneful influence from destroying republican government. Thomas Jefferson was an advocate of what we have known as steeply progressive taxation.
But billionaire Andreessen thinks you are too dumb even to know that.
Hell, he's probably too dumb to know that.
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| "Exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise." |
Friday, December 6, 2024
In March 2016 Pete Hegseth was no different from NeverTrumpers like Erick Erickson, Mark Levin, Charlie Kirk, and Ben Shapiro who all now bend the knee
CNN video here from Dec 3rd, in which Hegseth criticizes Trump for being an arm chair warrior who had the temerity to criticize John McCain while avoiding the draft.
Which is rich coming from Hegseth who was never regular military.
It's Megyn Kelly interviewing him, too, lol, who has been defending Pete The Warrior and his PTSD for his bad behavior with the women.
I keep waiting for someone to ask Hegseth how many firefights he was in in the field in Afghanistan. We'd all like to know in this age of stolen valor. We know that's a fact about his time in Iraq, but everyone keeps talking as if that's what he did in Afghanistan when the only evidence I find is that he taught a course there and that his stay was very brief.
More at Mediaite here.
Bunch of phony, baloney, plastic banana, good time rock 'n rollas.
American whiners generally rate their own healthcare positively but not the country's
Gallup, here.
People are in a bad mood about it since 2020 because of what happened during the pandemic with lock-downs, quarantines, and mask and vaccine mandates, and because the expanded emergency coverage from that year has expired with the expiration of the emergency in 2023.
But 71% still think their own healthcare quality is pretty good, compared with 44% saying the same thing about the quality for the country as a whole.
There's always been that disconnect.
And generally speaking, it is difficult to draw any conclusions from this about pre-Obamacare and post-Obamacare experiences because of it. But 62% rated the quality of healthcare in the country highly in both 2012 and 2010, the year Obamacare was passed. That's now down 18 points to 44%. 71% now rate the quality of their own healthcare highly, down 11 points since 2012 from 82%.
I suspect we'll be living with the after effects of the pandemic debacle for a while longer.
Rosie throws in the towel and BlackRock declares the boom and bust cycle over
Gee, when have we heard that before lol?
Full time employment as a percentage of civilian population fell to 49.49% in November 2024
The measure to two decimal points has been 50% or better only in June and July this year.
If 54.67% worked full time as in July 2000, we would have 147.3 million working full time today instead of 133.4 million, a difference of 13.9 million.
Whatcha all doin' out there?
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| 10-year view |
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| View since 1968 |
Pete Hegseth promises to quit drinking if confirmed as SECDEF lol
Why wait, Pete? Why not stop now?
Hegseth appeared to acknowledge that his relationship with alcohol is a matter of serious concern to GOP senators by pledging Wednesday in meetings on Capitol Hill that he would stop drinking if confirmed to serve as Defense secretary.
The Hill, here.
The bargaining is classic drunk.
Thursday, December 5, 2024
Secular bear Rosie not throwing in the towel . . . again
Rosie was on the wrong side of the trade in April 2011 when the bear went bullish. Is he again now?
He uses the same phrase, too, "not throwing in the towel", lol.
In April 2011 he claimed he wasn't throwing in the bear towel after the S&P 500 had already recovered from the 2008 debacle. Then the market slid 20% all the way to October 3, 2011, with the index falling to 1099 again, right where it was exactly three years earlier on the very same date.
It was . . . spooky!
If you had followed his take that April, you'd have lost 20% again. On top of all your losses in 2008. Ouch. Ouch.
Many of us who had kept our powder dry couldn't believe it in October 2011. We thought we were headed back to the depths of March 2009 again, too, just like the last time the market fell to 1099. I mean, that was a free-fall from there in 2008. TARP got signed in a panic that week to stop it, to no avail.
But October 2011 turned out to be more of a retest than we realized, one of the last great buying opportunities of the period. It was a brutal, crushing period of doubt, which some of us still live with.
Now it's the reverse, with unbelievable euphoria everywhere, with the S&P 500 at 6075.
A period of euphoria seems to me like a damned strange time to throw in the bear towel again, after missing out for two years by his own admission. I have no idea if Rosie is the contrary indicator he appears to be.
But the valuation of the market is pre-1920s crazy right now. It is literally not on the charts of our experience in the post-war, or even from the roaring '20s. We have GDP of $29.354 trillion, meaning a valuation of 207, when fair value has been 81 since the Great Depression.
I'm not in it, and I intend to keep staying out, because I can.
Good luck out there to those of you who go where angels fear to tread.
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