The compound annual growth rate for US real GDP over the last 23 years continues almost 44% off the 1929-1999 rate of 3.53%

Recent US GDP: Nominal / Real

4Q2021: $24.0028 trillion / $19.8063 trillion

1Q2022: $24.3867 trillion / $19.7279 trillion

2Q2022: $24.8518 trillion / $19.6817 trillion (first estimate)

BEA, here, Table 3, Line 1.

Everybody's focusing on the short term decline in real GDP this year, as usual, ignoring the much worse big picture.

From 2Q1999 through 2Q2022 the compound annual growth rate comes in at a measly 1.98%, 43.9% off the previous 70-year performance. 

That's the real story about real GDP. We are living in much diminished circumstances since 1999.

And nobody knows how to fix it.

LOL, Larry Summers reportedly behind relatively puny tax and spending deal between Joe Manchin and Chucky Schumer

Schumer, Manchin Quietly Resurrect Deal Washington Left for Dead...
 

The Washington Post, citing people familiar with the details, reported that the two men spoke this week. A spokeswoman for Summers declined to comment,  as did a spokeswoman for Manchin. This time, the haggling and lobbying bore fruit: a surprise agreement for a $369 billion tax, energy and climate plan that Manchin and Schumer announced on Wednesday.

You remember Larry Summers, right?

 

 

Nancy Pelosi: Paul decided to sell the shares at a loss rather than allow the misinformation in the press regarding this trade to continue

 Pelosi husband sells off $5 million worth of chipmaker stock ahead of semiconductor bill vote...

Stonks just laugh at Powell 0.75 point rate hike to fight inflation

 

Fixed it for ya: Stonks continue to laugh at puny Fed rate hikes as interest rate arbitrage is defacto Fed policy

The stock market is liking Fed rate hikes this year, unlike in the past

Arbitrage.

This year's drinking word.

DFF: 1.58%.

CPIAUCNS: 9.1%.

Hey, watch me borrow cheap, buy a trailer park, and raise the rents and fees on little old ladies on Social Security.

We're goin' to Vegas, baby!

Dr. Fauci’s retirement pension ($414,667) will exceed President Joe Biden’s salary ($400,000), the largest federal retirement package in history

 Fauci Annual Pension Payout Exceeds POTUS Salary... ^ 

Pfizer’s COVID-19 antiviral Paxlovid isn’t effective for people who are vaccinated and healthy

Pfizer says Paxlovid doesn’t help COVID-19 patients unless they are high risk

Biden finished his five-day course of Paxlovid on Monday, and experts said he should know whether his symptoms have rebounded in the next few days

 As more people report Covid rebounds after Paxlovid, experts insist cases are rare

Fauci finished the Paxlovid and tested negative for Covid, but about three days later a test came back positive again ... runny nose, sore throat and fever resurfaced, too

 As more people report Covid rebounds after Paxlovid, experts insist cases are rare

You first, assholes

 Dems introduce bill to enact term limits for Supreme Court... 

This NYTimes poll headlined by Drudge on July 12th is complete and utter fake news: Just 849 people were polled, 65% of whom were either Democrats or Independents, not Republicans

Half of G.O.P. Voters Ready to Leave Trump Behind, Poll Finds

Votes

 Biden administration is considering forgiving the student debt for millions of Americans. Here’s why

Institutional investors have bought up 20% of mobile home parks and jacked up the rents on the low income residents, devouring widows' houses

 The plight of residents at Ridgeview is playing out nationwide as institutional investors, led by private equity firms and real estate investment trusts and sometimes funded by pension funds, swoop in to buy mobile home parks. Critics contend mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are fueling the problem by backing a growing number of investor loans. ...

Driven by some of the strongest returns in real estate, investors have shaken up a once-sleepy sector that’s home to more than 22 million mostly low-income Americans in 43,000 communities. Many aggressively promote the parks as ensuring a steady return — by repeatedly raising rent. ...

George McCarthy, president and CEO of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, said about a fifth of mobile home parks, or around 800,000, have been purchased in the past eight years by institutional investors.

He was among those singling out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for guaranteeing the loans as part of a what the lending giants bill as expanding affordable housing. Since 2014, the Lincoln Institute estimates Freddie Mac alone provided $9.6 billion in financing for the purchase of more than 950 communities across 44 states. ...

Soon after investors started buying up parks in 2015, the complaints of double-digit rent increases followed.

More.

If this level of inflation keeps up, the value of your nestegg will be cut in half in less than 9 years

 72 / 8.29336 = 8.68 

 

Do you want to know how inflation impacts your savings? The ‘rule of 72’ may help

 

 

A Devil's Dictionary definition of "happy ending"

 HAPPY ENDING noun phrase: a) archaic, now little used, description for the conclusion of a story where all's well that ends well, which of course is never the case; b) the fortune in the cookie which always comes with your Chinese takeout and is always made better by supplying the words "in bed" at the end; c) male sexual orgasm coming at the end of a session at a massage parlor, especially if there's no extra charge; d) description emphasizing the Schadenfreude you felt when you saw Max in Mad Max 2 permanently reunite Wez with his lover Lord Humungus in the final crash scene.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wackadoodle progressive Democrat Walter Bujak of Kent County, Michigan, crosses over to become part of the Republican Blue Wave!

I kid you not!

If this guy wins in the Michigan Kent County Republican 21st Commissioner District race on Aug 2, I might just check in to a mental institution myself and ask Alan Bolter for help!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I believe the greatest challenge we face is unifying the citizens of both the Republican and Democratic parties. ...  It is time for Democrats to wake up and cross over to the Republican Party!

-- Walter Bujak

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seen here:

 

 

 

Holy cow, Republican candidate for Michigan State Senate says inflation is a good thing

 If there is a bigger nincompoop running for office this year, I don't know it.

Seen here:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He reminds me of the ding dongs who signed Mark Dice's inflation petition back in 2009:

 

 

The idea that Trump is going to get personnel right in a second term, and on a massive scale, is just preposterous

 Axios reports, in laborious detail, here.

The grifters are lining up from sea to shining sea, including Demented Jim, and Trump retreads Stephen Miller, Mark Meadows, and Michael Rigas who didn't get it right the first time.

Who the hell wants to go to work for just four years for a lame duck?

These people think we are fools.

Michigan's Republican US House members Jack Bergman, Peter Meijer, and Fred Upton vote to turn on immigration magnet, give citizenship to the adult children of H-1B visa holders, the 1.5 million foreigners who already take jobs from Americans

The Roll Call vote is here.

The story is here.

AmodeiRepublicanNevadaYEA

BairdRepublicanIndianaYEA

BaldersonRepublicanOhioYEA

BarrRepublicanKentuckyYEA

BergmanRepublicanMichiganYEA

BradyRepublicanTexasYEA

BucshonRepublicanIndianaYEA

CammackRepublicanFloridaYEA

Carter (TX)RepublicanTexasYEA

CawthornRepublicanNorth CarolinaYEA

CheneyRepublicanWyomingYEA

ColeRepublicanOklahomaYEA

Davis, RodneyRepublicanIllinoisYEA

Diaz-BalartRepublicanFloridaYEA

DunnRepublicanFloridaYEA

EmmerRepublicanMinnesotaYEA

FallonRepublicanTexasYEA

FitzpatrickRepublicanPennsylvaniaYEA

FloresRepublicanTexasYEA

FoxxRepublicanNorth CarolinaYEA

Garcia (CA)RepublicanCaliforniaYEA

GibbsRepublicanOhioYEA

GimenezRepublicanFloridaYEA

Gonzales, TonyRepublicanTexasYEA

Gonzalez (OH)RepublicanOhioYEA

Gooden (TX)RepublicanTexasYEA

GrangerRepublicanTexasYEA

Graves (LA)RepublicanLouisianaYEA

GuthrieRepublicanKentuckyYEA

Herrera BeutlerRepublicanWashingtonYEA

IssaRepublicanCaliforniaYEA

Jacobs (NY)RepublicanNew YorkYEA

Johnson (OH)RepublicanOhioYEA

Joyce (OH)RepublicanOhioYEA

KatkoRepublicanNew YorkYEA

KellerRepublicanPennsylvaniaYEA

Kim (CA)RepublicanCaliforniaYEA

KinzingerRepublicanIllinoisYEA

LongRepublicanMissouriYEA

MaceRepublicanSouth CarolinaYEA

MalliotakisRepublicanNew YorkYEA

McCaulRepublicanTexasYEA

McHenryRepublicanNorth CarolinaYEA

MeijerRepublicanMichiganYEA

Miller-MeeksRepublicanIowaYEA

Moore (AL)RepublicanAlabamaYEA

NewhouseRepublicanWashingtonYEA

ReschenthalerRepublicanPennsylvaniaYEA

Rice (SC)RepublicanSouth CarolinaYEA

Rogers (AL)RepublicanAlabamaYEA

RouzerRepublicanNorth CarolinaYEA

SalazarRepublicanFloridaYEA

SimpsonRepublicanIdahoYEA

SteelRepublicanCaliforniaYEA

TaylorRepublicanTexasYEA

TenneyRepublicanNew YorkYEA

Thompson (PA)RepublicanPennsylvaniaYEA

TurnerRepublicanOhioYEA

UptonRepublicanMichiganYEA

ValadaoRepublicanCaliforniaYEA

WagnerRepublicanMissouriYEA

Wilson (SC)RepublicanSouth CarolinaYEA

LOL, after one month the Fed has reduced its balance sheet by a whopping 0.37%, only $8.899 trillion to go!

 

 

 

At this rate it will take only 22 more years and Jerome Powell will be 91.