Thursday, May 29, 2025
Few people consider that the Great Depression of the 1930s was the unwind of the Great Inflation of WWI
Economics is mean-reverting.
We've been liberated from Liberation Day by two Republicans (one appointed by Trump) and one Democrat on a court handpicked by Trump to adjudicate his tariffs lol
The U.S. Court of International Trade on Wednesday blocked steep reciprocal tariffs unilaterally imposed by President Donald Trump on scores of countries in April to correct what he said were persistent trade imbalances. ...
In its ruling, a three-judge panel on the Court of International Trade said that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which Trump invoked to impose the tariffs, does not authorize a president to levy universal duties on imports.“The Worldwide and Retaliatory Tariff Orders exceed any authority
granted to the President by IEEPA to regulate importation by means of
tariffs,” the judges wrote.
And separate, specific tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China related to drug trafficking “fail because they do not deal with the threats set forth in those orders,” the panel wrote.
Implementing tariffs typically requires congressional approval.
But Trump chose to bypass Congress by declaring a national economic emergency under IEEPA, which became law in 1977, and then using the purported emergency as justification for cutting Congress out of the process.
The panel not only ordered a permanent halt to the tariffs at issue in the case, but it also barred any future modifications to them.
The Trump administration was given 10 days to make the necessary changes to carry out the judges’ orders. ...
Wednesday, May 28, 2025
Different parties, same hopium: In September 2012 Barack Obama accepted the Democrats' nomination saying Hope Needs More Time, now Trump says he needs another two weeks to see whether Putin really wants peace in Ukraine
Like Putin's record three-day bombardment of Ukraine last weekend wasn't an answer.
CNBC piles on Elon Musk with unfair story about latest test flight of Starship, which was hardly a setback
SpaceX saw its Starship system explode on Tuesday in a test flight, the third consecutive setback for Elon Musk’s rocket maker.
There's a far less biased presentation here:
The lead actor in the sequel to the Grace Commission didn't realize it was just a show
... “I was, like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly,
which increases the budget deficit, not just decrease it, and
undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk said in a clip the program shared on social media platform X. ... “I think a bill can be big or it could be beautiful, but I don’t know if it could be both,” Musk said in the clip. ...
In an interview with The Washington Post published Tuesday, Musk said that the federal bureaucracy is “much worse than I realized” and that DOGE became “the whipping boy for everything.”
Tuesday, May 27, 2025
At 65.6% in 2024, the homeownership rate in the United States matches the 1980 rate, which was an historical high water mark not exceeded until 1997
For all the justified complaining about not being able to afford a home, the homeownership rate in 2024 is historically pretty good, one of just twenty years since 1963 at the level of 65.6% or higher. 66% of the time the homeownership rate has been lower than it was in 2024.
In 2023 housing affordability in the United States bounced off the 2022 low but is still 9.15 points off the more affordable levels of the 1980s
The median income in 2022 bought just 17.22% of the median house, the all-time low in the most up-to-date data.
In 2023 that rose to 18.89%.
Peak affordability in the data was in 1984 at 28.04%.
The decline of worker hours in America
In 1966 all the hours worked by all the full time and part time workers divided by the civilian employment level peaked at about 35.35 hours per worker per week. That's full time level work. That's prosperity.
The flood of Baby Boomers, especially Baby Boomer women under the influence of feminism and the social revolution of the 1960s, and also foreign born workers after the Immigration Act of 1965, into the labor markets after the mid-1960s reduced hours per week per worker by almost 11%, not forming a new stable bottom until the 1980s at about 31.5 hours per week.
Increased labor supply = fewer hours to go around = less prosperity.
By 1999, when peak Baby Boom had passed 40 years of age, hours per week had risen as high as 32.68 per worker per week. That was the end result of the good times kick-started by Ronald Reagan twenty years prior, which hit in four waves: 1984-85, 1989, 1995, and 1999.
But the whole subsequent period 2003-2019 inclusive fell apart.
Many, many troubles reduced hours worked per worker by almost 7% between 1999 and 2009, not the least of which were admission of China to the World Trade Organization in 2001, and the Great Recession.
Hours per week per worker have risen again as of 2022, but only to the old bottom, at around 31.57 per week.
Median real earnings per week are up just $38 since 1979.
Will that be As Good As It Gets?
Monday, May 26, 2025
Putin pummels Kyiv for a third consecutive record night, makes a fool of Trump and his naive peace overtures and Friedrich Merz's promise of cruise missiles if elected in Germany
The West is supine before a third world dictator equipped with gas stations and nuclear weapons.
... The Russian bombardment on Sunday night included 355 drones, Yuriy Ihnat, head of the Ukrainian air force’s communications department, told The Associated Press.
The previous night, Russia fired 298 drones and 69 missiles of various types at Ukraine in what Ukrainians said was the largest combined aerial assault during the conflict. From Friday to Sunday, Russia launched around 900 drones at Ukraine, officials said. ...
Russia has this month broken its record for aerial bombardments of Ukraine three times. ...
Sunday, May 25, 2025
Canes mortui sunt
Russia hits Ukraine with the largest drone-and-missile attack of the war so far, killing at least 12
... The scale of the onslaught was stunning — Russia hit Ukraine with 367
drones and missiles, making this the largest single aerial attack of
the more than three-years-long war, according to Yuriy Ihnat, a
spokesperson for Ukraine’s Air Force.
In all, Russia used 69 missiles of various types and 298 drones, including Iranian-designed Shahed drones, he told The Associated Press. ...
Ivan Fedorenko, 80, said he regrets letting their two dogs into the house after the air raid siren went off. “They burned to death,” he said. “I want to bury them, but I’m not allowed yet.” ...
Nearly 50,000 Americans died of COVID-19 in 2023 according to the CDC, and ABC News thinks 300 a week is a headline in 2025
Why are more than 300 people in the US still dying from COVID every week?
The 350 a week rate from April is the equivalent of 18,200 annually.
Slow news day.
Wastewater analysis shows infection levels near their all-time lows.
Saturday, May 24, 2025
The Trump Energy Department's Chris Wright saves 1,450 megawatts of electric generating capacity by stopping closure of Michigan coal plant operated by Consumers Energy
... The plant was originally set to close on May 31, which would have been 15 years before its lifespan was scheduled to end.
More.
The green lunatic running the Michigan Public Service Commission is furious. Common sense people from the area are no doubt relieved.
Friday, May 23, 2025
If ivermectin ever made a difference to COVID-19 outcomes in Africa, it sure didn't in Latin and South America
Wide distribution of ivermectin in Africa to combat river blindness does not appear to have had anything to do whatsoever with low death rates from COVID-19 in places like Angola (62 deaths per million of population), Kenya (120), and Nigeria (16).
It turns out that ivermectin was widely distributed in eight Latin and South American countries from June, August, and December 2020, but all of them had steeply higher death rates from the disease:
Peru 6,945
Brazil 3,396
Mexico 2,654
Panama 2,089
Bolivia 1,974
Guatemala 1,222
Honduras 1,165
El Salvador 652.
Exposure to fresh air and full spectrum sunlight with its infrared and ultraviolet radiation has been shown to speed recovery from the disease:
Secular real return from stocks since investing at the August 2000 high compared with investing at the September 1929 high, twenty-four years out
August 2000-August 2024 and September 1929-September 1953 both fall far short of 8.74% per annum real return September 1953-August 2000.
Real per annum return from January 1871-September 1929 was 8.34%.
The complaisance is amazing, we are the French
Yes mon ami, there are Muslim-controlled no-go zones in gay Paris, but what can we do? 🤷
Thursday, May 22, 2025
Paper tiger Donald Trump March 2018: I will never sign another bill like this again
He's signed them ever since lol. Nothing's changed.
Trump signs $1.3 trillion spending bill into law despite being ‘unhappy’ about it
... Trump slammed the rushed process to pass the more than 2,200-page bill released only Wednesday. Standing near the pile of documents, the president said he was “disappointed” in the legislation and would “never sign another bill like this again.” ...
House GOP votes for tax breaks for rich Democrats from Blue states like New York, New Jersey, and California lol
... Enacted via the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, or TCJA, of 2017, there’s currently a $10,000 limit
on the SALT deduction, and raising that cap has been a priority for
certain House lawmakers in high-tax states like New York, New Jersey and
California. Filers must itemize deductions to claim the tax break for
SALT.
If the House provision is enacted, the SALT cap would rise to $40,000, up from $30,000 in the previous plan, and phases out over $500,000, according to revised language released by the House Rules Committee. The provision would go into effect in 2025. ...
“Any changes to lift the cap would primarily benefit higher earners,” Garrett Watson, director of policy analysis at the Tax Foundation, wrote in an analysis on Tuesday.
With an income phaseout over $400,000, the top 20% of taxpayers “would be the only group to meaningfully benefit,” Watson wrote. ...
So-called fiscal hawks of the House GOP totally cave and narrowly pass Trump's omnibus tax and spending bill 215-214: Massie of Kentucky and Davidson of Ohio were the sole Nay votes
The House Freedom Caucus is a joke, along with the rest of them: At least $20 trillion in new debt over ten years, increases the SALT cap for itemized deductions important in high tax Blue states, Green New Deal spending still in there, ratifies federal support for Medicaid's backdoor vehicle as insurance under Obamacare, etc.
The Chair of the House Freedom Caucus:
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
HHS Poverty Guidelines for 2025
The current average Social Security check is $1,999.97, minus $185 for the Medicare premium, equals $1,814.97 monthly, times 12 equals $21,779.64 annually.
Democrat US House math suffers another blow: Gerald E. Connolly (VA-11) succumbs to cancer at age 75
CNBC reported here.
House Democrats will now have three vacancies and a caucus of 212 vs. 220 for the GOP.
Representatives Turner (TX-18) and Grijalva (AZ-7) died in March.
Tuesday, May 20, 2025
Monday, May 19, 2025
The rotten apple doesn't fall far from the asshole tree
When you don't really believe the campaign's over and you won:
Sunday, May 18, 2025
Tulsi Gabbard has fired intelligence officials who concluded Venezuela wasn't directing gang activities in the United States
Another disappointing performance by Tulsi Gabbard.
Tulsi, former leftist, keeps proving she can turn with the wind with the best of them.
And I had such high hopes for her. 🤷
The chutzpah: Democrats literally pushed Biden out of office three months before the election and they want him to take the blame for losing to Trump
After covering for the guy from the beginning for his 2020 campaign conducted from a basement.
They have no one to blame but themselves.
Democrats want Biden to take responsibility for loss to Trump
... “He needs to stop talking about what could have happened and what should have happened and how the party betrayed him and start talking about how he ultimately betrayed the party,” said one Democratic strategist. “The reason we find ourselves in this position is because he was too stubborn to step aside.” ...
Eleven foods which made new all-time high average prices in April 2025
Round roast $7.616/lb
All roasts 7.995
Round steak 8.627
All steaks 11.12
Sirloin steak 12.326
Ground chuck 5.996
100% ground beef 5.801
All ground beef 6.142
Coffee 7.536
Sugar 1.021
Beer 1.827/pint
Friday, May 16, 2025
USA loses last AAA rating, from Moody's, perfectly timed for after GOP can't move a budget out of committee lol
Moody’s downgrades U.S. credit rating, citing rise in government debt
... Moody’s had been a holdout in keeping U.S. sovereign debt at the
highest credit rating possible, and brings the 116-year-old agency into
line with its rivals. Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S. to AA+
from AAA in August 2011, and Fitch Ratings also cut the U.S. rating to
AA+ from AAA, in August 2023.
“Successive U.S. administrations and Congress have failed to agree on
measures to reverse the trend of large annual fiscal deficits and
growing interest costs,” Moody’s analysts said in a statement. “We do
not believe that material multi-year reductions in mandatory spending
and deficits will result from current fiscal proposals under
consideration.” ...
“... we expect federal deficits to widen, reaching nearly 9% of GDP by 2035, up from 6.4% in 2024, driven mainly by increased interest payments on debt, rising entitlement spending and relatively low revenue generation,” Moody’s said. ″We anticipate that the federal debt burden will rise to about 134% of GDP by 2035, compared to 98% in 2024.″ ...
Moody’s officially rated U.S. bonds in 1993 for the first time, but had assigned a “country ceiling rating” of Aaa on the U.S. since 1949.
It's driving the Reuters writer of this story at CNBC crazy that US Treasury securities aren't selling off lol
... Holdings of U.S. Treasuries surged to $9.05 trillion in March, an
all-time peak and up more than $233 billion from $8.81 trillion in
February. Compared with a year earlier, Treasuries owned by foreigners
rose nearly 12%.
Some analysts said that trend could change in April as the Trump administration introduced a massive trade shock on April 2nd that saw effective tariff rates surge, particularly on Chinese goods.
That fueled a U.S. Treasuries sell-off that, at one point, pushed benchmark 10-year yields more than 70 basis points (bps) higher to nearly 4.6% over the April 3-11 period. The selloff may have included selling from foreign investors, analysts said.
Trump has since paused the imposition of tariffs for 90 days, and the Treasuries market has stabilized somewhat, although foreign investors are likely to have remained leery of U.S. assets. ...
Yeah, I don't think so.
10Y yield averaged 4.28 in April lol, unchanged from March lololol.
In December 2015 FBI Director James Comey assumed a firearm purchased over the internet would be shipped directly to your address instead of to an FFL holder, so yeah he might not know the worst meaning of 86
My dictionary doesn't have the worst meaning either.
Trump is overreacting.
The slavish respect for the consensus estimates for inflation and everything else vs. the actual levels viewed historically is as nutty as anything promoted in partisan politics
Consumer sentiment slides to second-lowest on record as inflation expectations jump after tariffs
... Recent inflation data has not shown a tariff bump, as both the consumer price index and producer price index for April came in below consensus estimates. ...
Who gives a damn about whether the consensus estimates got it right or not? What matters is what the damn rates are!
And the rates are much higher when compared with the immediate pre-pandemic rates.
Would those have come down in recent months without the spectre of a Trump tariff regime looming in the wings?
Well we'll never know, now will we?
It's all so infuriatingly stupid.
Meanwhile consumer sentiment and surveys of same don't hold much water with me.I conclude only one thing from them: that our tolerance for inflation has weakened dramatically. We were a much hardier people in the past, and now we are soft and melt like snowflakes at the slightest hint of bad news.
In November 1974 cpi inflation peaked at 12.2% year over year. The then Michigan survey of consumer sentiment plunged to 57.6 by February 1975.
But in April 2025 cpi inflation is only 2.3% year over year, and the Michigan survey has dropped to 50.8 from 52.2 in April.
It's comic.
Howard Gleckman of Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center likes House GOP $4,000 senior citizen deduction better than Trump's elimination of taxes on Social Security benefits
How House GOP bill’s $4,000 senior ‘bonus’ compares to eliminating tax on Social Security benefits
... A median income retiree who brings in up to about $50,000 annually may see their taxes cut by a little less than $500 per year with this change, noted Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.
“It’s not nothing, but it’s also not life changing,” Gleckman said.
The $4,000 senior “bonus” deduction would help lower-income people and would not help higher-income individuals who are above the phase outs, Gleckman said.
In contrast, the proposal to eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits would have been a “big windfall” for high-income taxpayers, he said.
“If you feel like you need to provide an extra benefit to retirees, this is clearly a better way to do it than the original Social Security proposal that Trump had,” Gleckman said. ...
Thursday, May 15, 2025
March core wholesale prices year over year were revised up in today's release for April, from 3.3% to 4%, and with April we now have eight consecutive months with increases above 3%
The average increase to date has been 3.58% year over year for eight months, 121% higher than the pre-pandemic average of 1.62%.
The funniest thing that's happening to Donald Trump right now is that while he tries to intimidate the Fed to reduce interest rates and they do nothing, yields are soaring all by themselves
The bond market is issuing a vote of no confidence in our elected leadership.
One branch of Republican government thinks this is the 19th century with a robust manufacturing base it needs to protect with crazy wild tariffs, and another branch of Republican government thinks it's just fine to go on spending like drunken sailors and not raise taxes to pay for any of it.
Interest payments alone on the national debt in fiscal year 2024 soared to $1.1 trillion against revenues of $4.9 trillion.
Meanwhile the most powerful military in the world can't stop a bunch of rag-headed heathen bastards from launching missiles at Israel.
These people are crackerdog.
US Treasury yields are now up a net 2.37% across the curve since last Friday.
Long duration is very unhappy:
10Y at 4.53 at the close yesterday,
20Y at 5.00,
30Y at 4.97.
VUSTX ytd total return: -0.53%.
We'll probably never know whether weak Russian invasion of Ukraine headlines like these at CNBC contributed to Trump's thinking that Ukraine started it
Shrinking from calling what Russia did an invasion was a temporary flight from reality for CNBC, probably motivated by keeping people from panicking and selling stocks.
It's all about the money, for Trump no less than for CNBC. And also for Vladimir Putin.
It should be about something else.
Wednesday, May 14, 2025
Nigel Farage's UK Reform Party won new majorities in ten regional councils across England in the May 1 elections, stunning Labour and the Conservatives
... The races were local. But Reform UK’s unprecedented surge has recast political trends nationwide, sparking panic in Britain’s two major parties while drawing comparisons to the rise of populist movements that have come to power in Europe and the United States.
Reform’s breakthrough included wins in two of four mayoral races the party contested, and the poaching of an open parliamentary seat previously held by the Labour Party. The Conservative Party fared far worse, losing control of 15 county councils and, with them, almost 700 councillors. In all, the two long-dominant parties lost about two-thirds of the 1,600 offices on the ballot, most of them to Reform UK.
“Both parties were wiped out in places where it would have been unimaginable before,” said Tony Travers, a professor of government at the London School of Economics. “This could mark a major shift in the electoral dynamic.” ...
More.
The rate of core cpi inflation is still running 55% ahead of the 2010-2020 average and liberal VOX wonders where is the inflation
Meanwhile you start turning on, and turning off, tariffs in February and expect to see massive, economy-turning evidence already in the April data?
Save it for the drive-thru.
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