Sunday, February 8, 2026

America's bailouts of banks and then businesses in past crises have paved the way for Trump's full-blown state capitalist interventions in the private sector, buying company stocks with the people's money, making loans, and taking direct control

Trump is turning America into China, but all America cares about today is the Super Bowl.

 


 

 

The Trump administration has made unprecedented equity investments and obtained other stakes in at least 10 companies over the past year. ... 

In the past, the U.S. has taken temporary stakes in companies in the context of bailouts, said Peter Harrell, who served as the senior director for international economics under President Joe Biden.

“With these companies, it’s a very different thesis,” Harrell said. “The government is kind of acting as a strategic investor to put capital into these companies so that these companies can achieve both a commercial return but also, at least in theory, some kind [of] national purpose.” ...

 

Saturday, February 7, 2026

Trump is setting records at Rasmussen Reports for record high disapproval at 57%, record low total approval at 41%, record high strong disapproval at 47%, and record low approval index at -20

I dunno, was it something he said lol?

To be entirely fair, these low numbers were already achieved on Feb 5, the day Trump posted the Obama ape video. The low numbers went up in the morning and reflect polling from the previous day(s).

The Obama ape video was just a coincidence. 

I think the low numbers are a reaction to Trump's Monday call for federal interference in the coming elections. 

 






 

Fawning bootlickers lick together

 

Nancy Pelosi's Speakerships were a double-whammy of obscene spending unprecedented in the post-war which never delivered on the economic growth

The double whammy burger you order never looks as good as the picture.

 






Why everything sucks since the Great Recession: Real GDP in the 18 years since 2007 has been growing at a compound annual rate of just 2.004%

 The compound annual growth rate before that, for the 60 years from 1947 to 2007, was 3.469%.

We're doing 42% worse.

It's uncanny.

 


 

Silver and gold remain up year-to-date

 



Friday, February 6, 2026

We're already close to the first: As of Feb 2026, the average interest rate on the U.S. National Debt is 3.4% while the compound annual rate of nominal GDP growth from 3Q2007 to 3Q2025 is only 4.3%

 One path to U.S. fiscal disaster is most alarming — and most likely

... An Everest of debt is an incentive for an inflation crisis to reduce the value of existing debt by paying lenders with debased dollars. But inflation would become baked into the expectations of investors, who would demand higher interest rates. Then R>G would bite: When interest rates paid on debt exceed the rate of economic growth, a crisis intensifies as rising interest rates depress economic growth. ... The most probable, and most ominous, outcome would be a gradual crisis. ... Nothing unsettles a middle-class nation more rapidly than inflation, a component of all of these crises. ...

A lot of us wanted Trump to just go away, and then the funniest thing happened

She's +14 at Rasmussen Reports.

 

 

 

Deep Throat was a big hit, too


 

Wednesday, February 4, 2026

We had a lousy 4-day federal government shutdown and the Feds now need until Feb 11 to report jobs, but private payrolls came out today with a pathetic +22k

Just skipping along the surface of a lake like a stone headed under.

 


The magats like Steve Bannon are trying as hard as they can to provoke violence to justify invocation of the insurrection act and martial law

I just signed up to become a permanent mail-in voter after seeing this today.

Was the 2024 election stolen, Steve, you moron?

 


 

Trump's Nazi police state says Show Your Papers to prove your citizenship

 



Trump doesn't murder and injure civilians only in the Caribbean or Minneapolis, civilian deaths and injuries are up 31% in Ukraine, too, since he became president

 


Total disapproval with Trump makes new second term high 56% at Trump-friendly Rasmussen Reports

 His total approval was 56% on the first day of polling of the second term, 23 Jan 2025.

His total approval now at 43% revisits that low first hit on several days in early December. 

Quite the reversal in just over one year.

 


 

Tuesday, February 3, 2026

Paper tiger Trump in the news

 
 

 
 
 

 
 

The biggest number in this story is $293.6 million

 Wake me when the New York Post writes a story entitled:
 
Trump's $75 billion ICE Police State rammed through right-wing Congress at taxpayer expense under phony reconciliation rules
 

The New York Times on the global economy had me and then it lost me

Because it, like too many commentators, uses an obsolete dollar index in DXY, which measures dollar strength or weakness relative to just SIX currencies: EUR, JPY (!), GBP (!), CAD (!), SEK (!), CHF (!).
 
The Federal Reserve has developed broader indices weighted to the countries the U.S. trades with the most.
 
U.S. GDP is $31.1 trillion. 
EURO ZONE GDP: $16.5 trillion.
Japan: $4.3 trillion.
Great Britain: $3.6 trillion.
Canada: $2.3 trillion.
Sweden: $0.6 trillion.
Switzerland: $1 trillion.
Global GDP: $117 trillion.

 

 
 ... It’s as if cars, instead of slowing down at a flashing yellow light as expected, started speeding up. ...
 
The traditional connection between the American economy’s performance and the value of the dollar has also been snapped. Uncertainty tends to increase the dollar’s value compared with other currencies as investors seek a safe haven in risky times. But the dollar has sunk to its lowest level in years. ...
 
Analysts backed down on their predictions that Mr. Trump’s tariff blitz last spring would cause higher prices ... 

 

Even by DXY standards, the dollar is not weak at 97, well within its long term average range between 95 and 105.
 
And The New York Times is ignoring that wholesale prices increased at a higher rate in 2025 than in either 2024 or 2023. 
 
 
Traffic fatalities surged during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research highlights the fact that disadvantaged communities bore the brunt of the increase and calls for holistic solutions to promote equitable access to safe transportation.

 

 


Yes, the dollar weakened in January 2026, but within a big picture environment of a strong dollar not a weak dollar

The nominal broad U.S. Dollar Index last averaged below 120 in December 2023.

Gold and silver climbed to all time highs in January 2026, defying the standard narrative that precious metals are the haven of choice when the dollar is weak. 

 

117.89 on Jan 30th

119.22 average in Jan 2026


Average yields on 20s and 30s are higher in January 2026 than when Trump was elected in November 2024, voting Nay Nay on what's going on

 

Yield on the 10Y is still lower but is saying Me Too


Gold and silver rebound but remain well off their highs, about -12% for gold, almost -29% for silver

Gold and silver bugs view it as a buying opportunity.

 Gold and silver rebound, pulling global mining stocks and precious metal ETFs higher

... Spot gold was last up about 5.5% to $4,921.29 per ounce. Gold futures in New York gained more than 6%, hovering at around $4,936.60 as of 4:48 a.m. ET.

Spot silver rose over 9% to settle at around $86.70 per ounce. Silver futures in New York were up 12% at $86.49. ...

Gold had hit a record high of $5,594.82 on Thursday January 29th, silver hit a record high of $121.64 the same day.

 

 

Monday, February 2, 2026

This guy should be impeached and removed from office by supper time

 


Ordinarily there is a trial first, at least in the America I once knew

 


American Greatness confidently tells us that the American and French revolutions had nothing whatsover to do with one another when French financial support of the American one lead to theirs

Seen here:

... The two revolutions had nothing whatsoever to do with one another ...             

They had more to do with one another than not.

Louis XVI unwisely spent literally billions of dollars he did not have supporting the American revolution. His motivation for support was revenge against Britain. Most of it was piled up as high interest debt which the rich of the French aristocracy and of the Church refused to pay but the peasantry could not. Add famine into the mix after trying to squeeze blood out of that turnip and boom.

Donald Trump is spending $75 billion we don't have to round up illegal aliens in the streets using militarized police, but he refuses to punish the employers who get rich off their labor. He got elected promising to cut food and energy costs but here we are one year later and those things still cost a fortune. 

Two Americans have been murdered in the streets by government agents.

You can see where this could go, but American Greatness can't. 

American Greatness doesn't think too highly of New York Mayor in 1969 John Lindsay of whom it is ignorant, Thomas Jefferson who somehow got elected president, and Thomas Paine whom George Washington found very useful in 1776

 Seen here:

... they insist that “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism,” that “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants,” and that we should all be given liberty or given death. It doesn’t seem to matter much to them that the first of these proclamations is entirely made up; that the second was written by a “gentleman-farmer” who spent the American Revolution on a diplomatic mission in France and then, mindlessly, supported the French Revolution, even after it turned bloody; and that the third was uttered by a simpleton who was never really an American and who actually served in the French Revolutionary government. ...

GOP Police State Culture Wrecking America, Actually Killing People

 

Sunday, February 1, 2026

Monthly mean average temperature in Grand Rapids, Michigan has been below normal for three consecutive months


 

Actual monthly mean average temperature in Grand Rapids vs. average monthly mean since 1892:

November 2025: 38.7 F vs. 39.1

December 2025: 26.0 F vs. 28.5

January 2026: 20.2 F vs. 23.8

Totals: 84.9 vs. 91.4 = -6.5 degrees F or 7.1% colder.

 

On an annual basis just a handful of years since 1999 have been at or lower than average temperature of 48.1 F:

2000 48.1
2003 46.8
2009 48.0
2014 46.5.
 
 
Snowfall in 2025-2026 to date:
 
66.2 inches vs. 41.6 normal to date. Annual mean = 66.8 inches. 

Friday, January 30, 2026

Wouldn't it just be easier to pick up the phone and tell the Treasury Department to print him $10 billion?

Trump Sues IRS Over Leaked Taxes

Core producer price inflation in 2025 under Trump was actually higher than under Biden in either 2024 or 2023

2025: 3.26%

2024: 2.86%

2023: 2.89%

Way to go, Brownie!

 

2025

2H2025
December 2025
You talkin' to me?




 

The real reason Trump appointed Warsh to Fed Chair

 Trump needs cheaper gold for The Ballroom.


 

Gold bug Peter Schiff's problem is that gold represented at best only about 18% of the value of total global international reserves, and that was yesterday before gold started this price plunge

"The dollar is going to collapse", he said.

"The dollar is going to be replaced by gold", he said.

Central banks "are getting rid of dollars", he said.

"They're getting rid of treasuries", he said.

None of that is true.

The nominal broad dollar index remains relatively strong. 

Even foreign official ownership of treasuries is up slightly year over year, shifting slightly from long dated securities to short, while total foreign ownership is up solidly. 

Meanwhile fiat currencies represented about 78% of the value of total global international reserves yesterday. The U.S. Dollar alone represented about 55% of the value, followed by the Euro close to 20%.

Gold is not going to replace the dollar.

But Peter will be happy to sell you some, especially today lol. 

 





The wealth inequality of today's K-shaped economy goes back to the Reagan Revolution

 
They take vacations and buy luxury goods. You struggle to pay for food, shelter, and transportation.
 
K is not OK.
 

... A key measure of wealth concentration called the Gini coefficient sits at 60-year highs, according to a report from U.S. Bank published earlier this month. ... The net worth of America’s top 1% hit a record share of nearly 32% in the third quarter of 2025, the Federal Reserve reported. By comparison, the bottom 50% cumulatively held 2.5% of overall net wealth.


 

The portion of U.S. GDP heading to workers in the form of compensation tumbled to its lowest level in its more than 75-year history, per data tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That means the average nonfarm business worker is seeing an increasingly small slice of an economy that has largely boomed over the last 15 years. ...


 

Total relative “outlays” — a broad measure of spending and nonmortgage payments — by U.S. consumers in the top 20% hit multidecade highs last year, a data analysis conducted by Moody’s Analytics found. The other 80% tumbled to new lows, the data shows. ...


 

While the “K-shape” term became popularized as an explanation for the uneven economic recovery seen during the pandemic, economists say the origins of this breakaway can be traced back decades earlier.

This type of diverging economy stems from the economic reorganization seen during the Reagan administration, according to Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at tax firm RSM. About two decades later, the structural break that created the K-shaped economy, as it’s now understood, was more clearly observed in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis of the late 2000s, he said.

That was in part due to the loss of wealth tied to the historic housing market crash, Brusuelas said. On top of that, he said the jump in joblessness limited earnings potential for those without steady employment in their prime working years.

The Great Recession “created the conditions for the winner-take-all economy that emerged in its aftermath,” said Brusuelas, who first heard the K-shape term around 2008. “If you live, work and inhabit certain portions of the economy, you might as well live on the dark side of the moon compared to what goes on down-market.” ...

To make meaningful inroads, the U.S. would instead need to focus on tax reform and expanding social safety nets, according to RSM’s Brusuelas. ...

Gold had hit a record high of $5,594.82 on Thursday January 29th, silver hit a record high of $121.64 also on Thursday, and platinum hit its record high on Monday at $2,918.80

 -- Reuters