TRUE BORN SONS OF LIBERTY

Eight percent of the surveyed companies reported moving segments of their supply chain out of China to the United States in the past year, while another 16 percent had moved some operations to other countries. But 78 percent of the companies said they had not shifted any business away from China.

Sunday, September 25, 2022

Mike Lee is such a phony, advocating for a clean continuing resolution instead of a last minute omnibus, as if there's much of a difference

Mike hopes you never hear of regular order again.

Here.

Last guy to mention it I think was Paul Ryan in 2015:

"We need to let every member contribute, not once they earn their stripes, but now," he said. "The committees should take the lead in drafting all major legislation: If you know the issue, you should write the bill. Let's open up the process." "In other words," he said, "we need to return to regular order."

Sorry NY Daily News, NYC criminal behavior remains an overwhelmingly black phenomenon

NYPD's Arrest Practices Are Still Starkly Discriminatory

Robert Gangi, NY Daily News

Crime and Enforcement Activity
in New York City
(Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2021

Get ready to be working zero hours per week, at least for money

Saturday, September 24, 2022

Two conditions need to develop before buying bonds

. . . the trend in the bond market . . . still looks bearish. ...

As yields rise and inflation eases, the relative allure of bond payouts becomes attractive, in absolute and relative terms vs. other assets.

James Picerno, here.

Yields are indeed rising, but prices are still falling, so no, not quite yet. Bond prices ought to stabilize when inflation finally eases, and so far prices haven't stabilized.

VWESX is instructive.

There's just a handful of years back in the 1980s where the average price of this very long term investment grade bond fund had been below $8 like the current price is today.

That's one reason why Jeffrey Gundlach rightly says that bonds are "wickedly cheap".

But VWESX only just got there on September 20th, hitting $7.99. We're down to $7.88 this weekend.

Meanwhile yields across this investment grade spectrum are bunched up in the fours, with only about 55 basis points difference between the shorts and longs, and intermediates effectively paying the same as or more than longs.

Prices on the longs need to fall a lot more before making them more attractive than intermediates if you are going to settle for only similar yield.

After all, the long term average return of investment grade longs is north of 7.5%, not in the fours.

But what the hell do I know?

Invest, or don't, at your own risk.

Friday, September 23, 2022

Adam Tooze: Central bankers' hands were forced in 2010, the poor dears, they aren't the lords of easy money, no, they're its slaves, just like us

Here, for The New York Times:

If you are worried about wealth inequality in the United States, then the solution is not to tighten monetary policy but to make structural changes to the country’s financial system, starting with the undergrowth of shadow banking. Serious taxation of wealth and capital gains would also push in the right direction.

It would no doubt help if onetime central bankers, rather than cycling in and out of private finance, spoke out seriously in favor of reform. They would be doing the public a service if they spelled out the way that their hands were forced by the current incestuous intertwining of public debt markets with hedge funds and the like. Ultimately, however, it is politics that must grasp the nettle of change.

In the current dispensation, it may be flattering for central bankers to be cast as maestros, but in practice they are less the lords of easy money than its functionaries.

Central bankers cycle in and out of private finance raking in millions, Adam.

If anyone were serious about restructuring the country's financial system, the place to start would be by restoring the key missing feature of capitalism without which it doesn't really exist. It's called bankruptcy.