The three year and five month embarrassment of core inflation higher than the 10-year Treasury yield finally ended in August

 Yield for the 10-year US Treasury rose to an average 4.17% in August 2023 while core inflation year over year fell to 3.87% in August 2023.

This ends the 3-year 5-month run where core inflation exceeded the 10-year yield, something which has never happened in the data.

The only time core inflation outran the 10-year previously for a comparable period was in 1974 and 1975 when core inflation averaged 7.91% and 8.35% vs. the 10-year yield which averaged 7.56% and 7.99% respectively.

That lackadaisical response to inflation by the Federal Reserve under Arthur F. Burns (1970-1978) prefigured the 1980 resurgence of core inflation to 9.19%. Under his successor Paul Volcker, interest rates were hiked to unprecedented levels to curb inflation. The 10-year yield rose to an average of 13.92% in 1981 as a result.

The current fear is that the Powell Fed has set up the economy for a repeat of this awful period of inflation.

Whatever is said about it, there is no question that inflation is a benefit to the Federal government because it depends on borrowing to finance deficit spending and consequently the debt, now at an unprecedented $33 trillion. Inflation simply reduces that cost to the government over time by making the dollars previously borrowed worth less.

It is true that new borrowing costs much more, but the debt mountain mammoth in the living room is the more pressing problem. This is why the cognoscenti teach that inflation is a good thing.

Extending the duration of inflation at the currently relatively low level has been in the government's interest. The costs born by the public in the form of higher prices for goods, services, and borrowing are becoming routinized so that the voters are becoming inured to the deleterious effects for them while clueless of the benefits for the debt mongers. 

This is particularly the case for voters who have no memory of that horrible inflation which gave rise to the backlash represented by Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, and who now vastly outnumber those who still remember.

It should not be forgotten that Jimmy Carter got elected in 1976 anyway, after the Burns' inflation. The voters then took it all in stride, too, until they didn't.

Same as it ever was.

 

If Trump can skip the debate so can I

 

DeSantis: Biden Is Completely Missing In Action From Leadership, Just Like Trump Not Appearing At Debate

 

 

 

Libertarianism breaks a few eggs

STUDY: Cannabis Overuse Linked To Heart Failure And Heart Attacks...

Democrats betray liberalism, become the new authoritarians

 Carl M. Cannon, here:

But the most glaring gap is between conservatives and liberals, i.e., between Republicans and Democrats. On the issue of free expression, at least, Republicans are not the authoritarian party. That distinction belongs to the Democrats, the party launched by Thomas Jefferson — the Founding Father who famously said that if he were forced to choose between “a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” ...

If Republicans’ aversion to censorship was transactional, they would have identified Democratic-friendly misinformation for removal. But they didn’t. “Regardless of the partisan slant of the content, Democrats are more likely to support the removal of content, while Republicans are more likely to oppose removing content,” the study noted.

It was Democrats who more often employed situational ethics, giving a pass to misinformation that helped their side. Most Republicans didn’t differentiate based on which way the false headline cut.

I've wanted Trump to just go away since about January 2019, Newt Gingrich since about 2012

Because it's all "just words", as Barack Obama once said.

 

Tonight Is the Most Important Moment in the GOP Primary

Newt Gingrich, NY Sun

 

If someone hits a home run with language, ideas, and/or attitude, a substantial number of disheartened and despairing anti-Trump donors may notice — and decide to write really big checks.

 

Shocking right? A politician asserting the primacy of politics.

 

Well, "the most important moment" doesn't exist. There is a long series of important moments, when the voters have their actual say in the polling booths of the individual primaries and the elections, at which point the politicians had better deliver on the words, or else.

Most of them don't, but we fall for them every time, and they know it.

But this is most certainly true:

Given all the press coverage early in Mr. DeSantis’ candidacy — and the substantial amount of money he raised — his slide has been the biggest Republican story this year.     

 

Yes, it is the biggest story because Ron DeSantis has consistently delivered on his words in Florida . . .

and the voters nationally don't give a flying fig. 

 

Newt should know better.

 

He followed up his words as a congressman during the 1980s with a Speakership in the 1990s consisting of a temporarily successful if mixed bag of policies. Which is why he, along with Mitt Romney, subsequently never made the big time. You can't run against ObamaCare by promising RomneyCare or HeritageFoundationCare instead. Donald Trump in his hubris never learned the lesson either, squandering away his political capital on overturning it in 2017.

The majority of Republicans now remain content with the feckless entertainer who mouths "just words". They have no appetite for the humdrum of an executive who actually delivers and executes real, lasting reform.

 

This remains a not serious country, ridiculously adolescent to the end. 

It turns out that former S&P Sovereign Ratings Committee Chair John B. Chambers, who presided over the AAA downgrade in 2011, is a partisan wackadoodle

 Here commenting about today:

“The external position is about the same, but I think the governance has weakened and the fractiousness of the political settings is much worse, and that has led to government shutdowns, it’s led to fears that the government might default on its debt because of the debt ceiling, and it’s led to a failed coup d’état on the 6th [of] January, 2021.”

And here a couple years ago:

"I don’t think the chance of a default because of a debt ceiling is that high as long as the Democrats control both Congress and the White House, that won’t always been the case. That could reemerge."

 Because, this:

The Wall Street bean counter who trashed America’s global credit reputation is a New Yorker who never studied economics, majored in literature and philosophy, and has a master’s in English lit. ...

Chambers grew up outside Kansas City, Kan., and went to liberal Grinnell College in Iowa, where he was a star on the swim team, ranking eighth in school history in the 1,000-meter freestyle. After graduating in 1977 with a bachelor of arts in literature and philosophy, he went Ivy League, enrolling at Columbia University, where he got a master’s degree in English literature.  ...

S&P was found to have made an estimated $2 trillion error in its 10-year deficit projection but brushed that aside, citing instability in Washington and the fact that the deficit-reduction cuts fell short of S&P’s recommended $4 trillion.

LOL, in article supposedly touting the Cornel West threat, clueless former Green Party candidate Ralph Nader says he prefers Biden autocracy to Trump fascism

 “I know the difference between fascism and autocracy, and I’ll take autocracy any time,” Nader said, according to the outlet. “Fascism is what the GOP is the architecture of, and autocracy is what the Democrats are practitioners of. But autocracy leaves an opening. They don’t suppress votes. They don’t suppress free speech.”

Yeah, every censored, canceled person in America agrees with that, right?

If Ralph Nader is West's friend, who are West's enemies?

The whole farcical thing is here, pretending Biden doesn't now have a record, that he won the House in 2022, and that inflation isn't crushing the worker.

Dramatic price action today for 30+ years old Vanguard Treasury funds

VFISX inception date 10/28/1991 New all time low price set today 09/26/2023 close : $9.71

VFITX inception date 10/28/1991 All time low price: $9.57 on 11/21/1994 Price 9/26/2023 close: $9.59

VUSTX inception date 5/19/1986 New all time low price set today 9/26/2023 close: $7.88 

  

 

Senator Menendez starts the week telling an amusing anecdote about all that cash found in his home, doesn't explain how the briber's DNA got on the envelope

 Sen. Bob Menendez suggests cash found in bribery raid came from ‘personal savings’

 

US Treasury yields pushed to new cycle highs last week despite another Fed interest rate pause

 Cash was about the only thing which did better week over week on Friday. Treasuries and bonds generally took a beating, as did stocks.

The UST yield curve aggregate closed up a net 1.27% week over week on 9/22, to an average of 5.0707692, the highest Friday close yet for this cycle.

Yields in the aggregate made a new high for this cycle on Thursday, for an average of 5.0915384. 

Here's the year-to-date performance for key categories using some commonly used Vanguard funds:

Treasury Market VFISX 0.66% VFITX -0.70% VUSTX -5.57%;

Investment Grade Market VFSTX 2.08% VFICX 1.32% VWESX -0.83%; 

Total Bond Market VBTLX -0.03% (+0.44% previous week);

Cash VMFXX 3.58% (3.48% previous week);

Total Stock Market VTSAX 12.95% (16.45% previous week).

 

 

Now controlled by Muslims, Hamtramck bans flags like the gay one, lesbian Attorney General of Michigan Dana Nessel calls it a national embarrassment

 Ha ha ha ha ha.

 

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is a lesbian, weighed in after the resolution passed. 

 “I ask the city of Hamtramck to use its voice to speak up for all its people, take down the wall you have now built that has made this proud city into a national embarrassment,” Nessel (D) said at a protest rally at the park across from City Hall. “Make no mistake, homophobia, transphobia are indeed forms of evil as much as Islamophobia is.”

More.

Allahu Akbar.

For a good time, call Angela: The Libertarian Party is very interested in RFK Jr for Election 2024 but not Justin Amash lol

 In July, Mr. Kennedy met privately with Angela McArdle, the chair of the Libertarian Party, at a conference they were both attending in Memphis — a meeting that has not previously been reported.

 “He emphasized that he was committed to running as a Democrat but said that he considered himself very libertarian,” Ms. McArdle said in an interview, adding that they agreed on several positions, including the threat of the “deep state” and the need for populist messaging. “We’re aligned on a lot of issues.”

 “My perspective is that we are going to stay in touch in case he does decide to run,” Ms. McArdle said. “And he can contact me at any time if that’s the case.”

More.

Depressed stroke victim on meds who can't even dress himself tells Menendez to resign

Sen. John Fetterman is first Democratic senator to tell Sen. Bob Menendez to resign

The only reason Democrat Senator Bob Menendez didn't keep his cash in the freezer like Democrat William J. Jefferson was because it wouldn't all fit in there

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Authorities found more than $100,000 worth of gold bars in Menendez’s home, and $480,000 in cash — much of it hidden in closets, clothing and a safe.

More. 

 

 

 

 

"In a subsequent raid, agents found $90,000 in marked money in the freezer of Jefferson’s Virginia home."

 

Climate phony Barack Obama wanted young people to stay angry and frustrated about inaction on climate in 2021 and promptly installed a 2,500 gallon propane tank on his estate in 2022

Video of the climate phony in 2021 is making the rounds here.

 

Martha's Vineyard Times June 7, 2022

Governor Kathy Bart Simpson Hochul of New York now: ""If you're going to leave your country, go somewhere else"

 Then:

 Yikes.

What did the Hot Dog Nazi say to the lesbian?

 

"No wiener for you!"

Green Party candidate Cornel West gives Trump the edge over Biden in latest Emerson National Poll

 

Cornel West has been shaping up all summer long to be the real Operation Chaos candidate for Election 2024 in Emerson’s polling. Biden doesn’t need to worry about RFK Jr unless he, too, goes third party.

From the Emerson College Polling September National Poll here :

In a general election rematch between Trump and Biden, 45% support the former president and the current president respectively. Ten percent are undecided. When Green Party candidate Cornel West is added to the ballot, Trump holds 43% of voter support, Biden 42%, while 4% support West and 11% are undecided.

China's Marxist vision of state control and redistribution never went away

 

What is a communist? One who has yearnings

For equal division of unequal earnings.

Idler, or bungler, or both, he is willing

To fork over his penny and pocket your shilling.

- Ebenezer Elliott (1781-1849)

 

… it’s back, says Rudd, and Xi’s Marxist vision means greater control over the private sector, an expanding role for state-owned enterprises and industrial policy, and the quest for “common prosperity” through redistribution — all of which is likely to shrink economic growth, he concludes. Rudd is the current Australian ambassador to the United States. …

Stevenson-Yang is … one of the few who isn’t puzzled by what’s happening in China, after living there for more than 20 years. The CCP “was always going to decouple. Once the party had acquired enough power, enough resources, enough money, it was always going to decouple,” she told CNBC.

The reforms that began in 1979, she says, “were always meant to be temporary, in order to bring in more resources.”

More.

Bankruptcy estate of FTX sues Barbara Fried, Stanford Law ethics expert, for encouraging son to skirt disclosure rules

 

Very amusing.

We’re law experts, see. This is how you get around the law.

From the story,

FTX sues Sam Bankman-Fried’s parents, aims to claw back some of the $26 million in gifts and property :

The filing characterizes the correspondence as Bankman lobbying his son to “massively increase his own salary.” Within two weeks, the suit claims that Bankman-Fried had collectively gifted his parents $10 million in funds coming from Alameda, and within three months, the couple was deeded the $16.4 million property in The Bahamas.

According to the partially-redacted filing, Bankman-Fried’s parents also “pushed for tens of millions of dollars in political and charitable contributions, including to Stanford University, which were seemingly designed to boost Bankman’s and Fried’s professional and social status.” Fried is also accused of encouraging her son and others within the company to avoid, if not violate, federal campaign finance disclosure rules by “engaging in straw donations or otherwise concealing the FTX Group as the source of the contributions.”

Bankman-Fried’s parents are legal scholars who taught at Stanford Law School. His mother is an expert on ethics, while his father specializes in taxes.