Tuesday, January 14, 2025
A jag off is someone who pulls out just in time, like Pete
Although there were at least seven times that he didn't, that we know of anyway.
Senator Jack Reed, D-RI, West Point graduate, US Army Ranger, paratrooper 82nd Airborne, drops the hammer on Pete Hegseth in the opening, speaks for the America we once knew and loved
But the committee’s ranking Democrat, Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, bluntly told Hegseth, “I do not believe that you are qualified to meet the overwhelming demands of this job.”
Reed said he finds the allegations against Hegseth “extremely alarming.”
“I vote in favor of all your predecessors, including those in the first Trump administration. Unfortunately, you lack the character and composure and competence to hold the position of Secretary of Defense,” Reed said.
More.
Jack is a patriotic liberal, ticking almost every box, in the mold of George McGovern, a B-24 Liberator pilot during WWII who won the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Meanwhile, speaking of wholesale prices, you are paying $9+ a dozen for eggs in some places because producer prices averaged $4.62 in December
That would be 75-cents for an egg that cost the producer about 19-cents.
I got a $1 off 18 eggs yesterday at a nearby health food store and paid $6.99, 39-cents each.
Why eggs are selling for over $9 a dozen in some places—and when prices are expected to drop
The biggest factor pushing up egg prices is a wave of avian flu, which began in early 2022 and led to the culling of millions of egg-laying hens. With demand remaining steady, the reduced supply has caused prices to rise.
This is the second time egg prices have surged since 2022, following a previous wave of avian flu that wiped out large numbers of egg-laying hens and caused supply shortages that year. Avian flu has wiped out over 100 million chickens since a major outbreak began in early 2022.
You would think chicken prices would go up, too, but I consistently get chicken thighs in bulk at Sam's for $1.38/lb, and have done so right through the pandemic.
And the rotisserie chicken remains $4.98, too.
We'll get December consumer prices tomorrow. Here's November's chart for eggs:
Ignore the expectations game, wholesale prices were up year over year 3.3% overall, and core prices up 3.5%
Three consecutive months of increases measured year over year for overall producer prices, FIVE for core.
But the stock market cheerleaders always play it this way:
Inflation watch: Wholesale prices rose 0.2% in December, less than expected.
Yeah, only half of the people we expected to be destroyed were. Good news!
The charts:
Monday, January 13, 2025
COVID-19 in the US is at an historic low for this time of year
COVID-19 in national US wastewater analysis:
12/28/24: 04.75
12/30/23: 13.28
12/31/22: 10.99
1/1/22: 17.17
California's prison inmates tasked with doing the job Governor Gavin Beavis Newsom won't do: Removing the timber and brush ahead of the wildfires but after it's too late
Absolute lol.
Gavin Newsom faced a recall election, but survived to prove in this new case that he more than deserved it. Just incredible stuff there in California.
28 paragraphs in.
Los Angeles wildfire deaths rise to 24 as more fierce winds are forecast
Along with crews from other states and Mexico, hundreds of inmates from California’s prison system were also helping fight the fires. Nearly 950 prison firefighters were removing timber and brush ahead of the fires to slow their spread, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
The practice is controversial as the inmates are paid little for dangerous and difficult work: $10.24 each day, with more for 24-hour shifts, according to the corrections department.
Sunday, January 12, 2025
Neither of these guys won a tectonic election: I can't believe we're still talking about this
 |
| 49.71% |
 |
| 50.73% |
 |
| Oh, we'll have to wait . . . for pigs to fly |
US Treasury yields are steepening and by duration are normalizing
This is actually a good thing.
Longer dated securities should pay more than shorter, unlike most of 2024 when Bills paid far more.
Bills yields on average on Friday match the Daily Federal Funds rate exactly, falling in tandem with it in 2024 from the 5.33 range to 4.33 now. They've been pretty stable at this level for five weeks now.
The fall in Bills yields actually ran in front of the Fed decision to make the first rate cut in September by many months.
The fall commenced after May when the Fed announced it would institute a slight decrease to its tighter money policy through balance sheet operations involving UST beginning in June.
Bills yields fell hard for four months into September even as core inflation year over year remained flat at 2.7% over the period. Investors locked in higher but rapidly disappearing return.
Yields on Notes and Bonds also plunged, but against most predictions they rebounded in the face of the Fed rate cuts, which is quite amusing. Longs got their lunch eaten.
The simplest explanation is that longer dated securities anticipate more inflation, and the Fed simply pushes on a string. Bond vigilantes demanded more return for the rising risk.
People who didn't appreciate fixed income turning into a casino like the stock market hid out in cash and did just fine. VMRXX returned 5.24% last year.
There are over $6 trillion in T-bills outstanding at the end of 2024 vs. $2 trillion to start 2018, out of a total of approximately $28 trillion total UST outstanding.
Unfortunately for buyers of houses and cars, long money is going to cost you more, as yields on Notes and Bonds climb again in anticipation of recalcitrant inflation and increased deficit spending under Trump.
The average four year new auto loan was 9.36% and the 30-year mortgage 6.93% last week.
Juan Merchan releases another convicted felon onto the streets of New York
Stay away from 5th Avenue people.
What is the world coming to?
Saturday, January 11, 2025
Friday, January 10, 2025
Full time employment as a percentage of population fell to 49.33% in December 2024 and 49.65% for full year 2024
It's been a five month slide in 2024 from the peak of 50.26% in July.
Peak annual for this cycle was in 2023 at 50.21%.
The Trump I annual peak was in 2019 at 50.38%.
Previous to that, full time as a percentage of population peaked in 2006 under Bush 43 at 52.3%, and the mother of all peaks was under Bill Clinton in the year 2000 at 53.55%.
Somebody needs to fix this.
I don't think it will be Trump II.
Sad!
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| 49.33% December 2024 |
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| 49.65% Full Year 2024 |
Your reminder that average real return from stonks sux
S&P 500
August 2000 -- August 2024
4.90% per annum
August 1976 -- August 2000
10.49% per annum
Thursday, January 9, 2025
Well of course LOL: New Apostolic Reformation wackos supporting Trump may be evolving into pro-immigrationistas
Christianity has always meant liberalism. It is one of the religion's many bastard children.
This is from an Atlantic story reproduced here:
On the day after the election, I went to Life Center, the NAR church where Elon Musk had spoken a couple of weeks earlier. The mood was jubilant. A pastor spoke of “years of oppression” and said that “we are at a time on the other side of a victory for our nation that God alone—that God alone—orchestrated for us.”
The music pounded, and people cheered, and after that, a prominent prophet named Joseph Garlington delivered a sermon. He was a guest speaker, and he offered what sounded like the first hint of dissent I’d heard in a long time. He talked about undocumented immigrants and asked people to consider whether it might be possible that God was sending them to the U.S. so they could build the Kingdom.
“What if they are part of the harvest?” he said. “He didn’t send us to them; maybe he’s sending them to us.”
It was a striking moment. Life Center, Mercy Culture, and many other churches in the movement have large numbers of Latinos in their congregations.
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