Week over week US Treasury yields in the aggregate popped 5.8% on net to an average 4.335% after declining for months from 4.5 to 4.0 and everybody's freaking out like this hasn't happened, what, six times now in the current era

Most of the pissing and moaning is from investors who pulled the bond trigger too soon, plowed into fixed income, and got burned badly because interest rates reasserted themselves.

The press this weekend is instead full of apocalyptic language about the Treasury market and the implications for America on a grand scale. It's complete rot and I'm ignoring it. It's all designed to pressure the Fed to lower their rate again.

The last time the Fed embarked on rate cuts is instructive. It was late September 2024. The average of the aggregate of the curve had fallen to just north of 4. Inflation rates seemed to be trending down. So the Fed cut, and voila! Treasury rates hilariously shot upward!

The burn was real.  

$TLT investors, who were down 4.76% in 2021, 31.41% in 2022, up 2.96% in 2023, went down again, 7.84% in 2024 as a result. Ouch.

They are back, itching again for a policy reversal like they have a flea infestation, so bad they are bleeding.

As things stand year to date, long term investment grade investors in VWESX, for example, are down 1.43%. It wasn't supposed to be this way, not again.

So everyone hates the bond vigilantes with the heat of 1,000 suns, and urges more imprudence.

Meanwhile in "cash" you go on making 4.3% or so, and in gold you have made a killing, while stocks reel under Trump's stupid tariff shotgun blasts which are wounding everyone in the field, including himself.

If the Fed had done a proper job against inflation by jacking up the Fed Funds Rate to meaningfully combat the core pce inflation rate of its average 5.35% in 2022 instead of going only where it did, which was 1.69% on an average basis, maybe we wouldn't still have this lingering inflation for the bond vigilantes to demand payment against. Core pce inflation hasn't moved materially off 2.8% in a year now, still much too high.

The bond market is "she who must be obeyed". She doesn't tell you everything you need to know, but she does tell you the most important thing.

But what the hell do I know. I'm just some punk keyboard warrior blogging in his underwear in the basement to the money men. So yippee-ki-yay, you earned it. Especially you Donald Trump, you complete ignoramus.

 

Gold just keeps making new records: $3,245.28

 ... Spot gold was up nearly 2% at $3,235.89 an ounce, after hitting a record high of $3,245.28 earlier in the session. Bullion is up over 6% this week. ...

“Gold is clearly seen as the favored safe-haven asset in a world upended by Trump’s trade war. The U.S. dollar has depreciated, and U.S. Treasuries are selling off hard, as faith in the U.S. as a reliable trading partner has diminished,” said Nitesh Shah, commodities strategist at WisdomTree. ...

More.

Liars all over Elon Musk's X kept saying Trump brought egg prices down, but in March 2025 they were more expensive than ever on an average basis: $6.227 per dozen

Sam's Club, when it has eggs in stock, is charging in the mid to high 4s per dozen.

 

The average price of gasoline in the United States remains Obama-like in March 2025

 

The average price of piped utility gas in the United States is again knocking on the door of nosebleed levels in March 2025

 

The average price of electricity in the United States hit a new record high of 18.1 cents in March 2025

 

Core wholesale prices rose 3.3% year over year in March 2025, the seventh consecutive month above 3%

 

GOLD soars as high as $3,219.84

 ... Spot gold jumped over 1.3% to $3,216.27 an ounce after hitting a record high of $3,219.84 earlier in the session. Bullion is up over 5% so far this week. U.S. gold futures climbed 1.7% to $3,230.60. ...

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As predicted, the hubris of Elon Musk's promises of $2 trillion in DOGE savings now crashes on the rocks of reality as he promises only $150 billion in savings in FY 2026

 

 Have there been no savings from the Department of Defense, the costliest department in the federal government? No $1,000 toilet seats to be found? No savings from sex change operation eliminations? How about the $7 billion in military equipment left behind in Afghanistan, stuff like that? Didn't we get booted from Niger last year? Anything left behind there? You get the idea, but we've heard nothing about Department of Defense waste, fraud, and abuse.

I mean, where did Army Surplus come from in the first place?

Oh, by the way, the Pentagon failed its seventh audit in a row in November 2024. It has $4 trillion in assets in every US state and 4,500 locations worldwide, but Elon Musk couldn't find one thing to eliminate?

Yeah, but they're on track to fire 300,000 federal workers.

Meanwhile the $150 billion in claimed savings to come, if they actually do get here, is already gone, swallowed up by the Giant Squid. The deficit year to date is already $242 billion higher than it was last year at this time.

DOGE has been nothing but theatre, and Elon's just taking a bow as his gig comes to an end at the close of May.

Has anything in recent memory failed more spectacularly than this?

 

 

 

Supremes order Trump administration to work to bring back Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador to the United States

 WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday said the Trump administration must work to bring back a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to prison in El Salvador, rejecting the administration’s emergency appeal.

The court acted in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who had an immigration court order preventing his deportation to his native country over fears he would face persecution from local gangs.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis had ordered Abrego Garcia, now being held in a notorious Salvadoran prison, returned to the United States by midnight Monday. 

 “The order properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador,” the court said in an unsigned order with no noted dissents. ...

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Crimes in high places: Mad King Ludwig admits he decided to pause tariffs early in the morning on Wednesday when he also posted "This is a great time to buy", which amounts to market manipulation

 

 Trump was asked by a reporter on Wednesday when he decided to put a pause on the tariffs. 

“I would say this morning. Over the last few days, I’ve been thinking about it. Fairly early this morning,” he said.

Quoted here in "Fund managers quietly fear Trump doesn't have a tariff plan and that he 'might be insane'".

Markets fell big again after yesterday's tariff pause rally

 

COVID-19 vaccine and flu vaccine uptake has been pretty low through the end of February

 ... As of February 2025, 21.2% of adults 18+ in the U.S. have received a 2024–25 COVID-19 vaccine and 42.8% have received a 2024–25 flu vaccine. ...

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COVID-19 prevalence is low at the end of March 2025

 

Rasmussen Trump Approval Index goes double digit negative for the first time in his second term during tariff fiasco

 

No DOGE savings show up in March US Treasury Statement of Receipts and Outlays of the Federal Government, but higher deficits sure do, $242 billion higher year to date than last year

 

 The fiscal year to date deficit last year was $1.064691 trillion.

The fiscal year to date deficit this year is $1.307132 trillion, $242.441 billion higher. 

The monthly US Treasury statement may be found here.

Longer dated US Treasury securities are selling at higher yields at auction this week compared with recent auctions

 US 30-year bond auction: 4.813% vs. 4.623% previously.

This follows the US 10-year note auction yesterday: 4.435% vs. 4.31% previously.

GOLD to $3,171.49

 Gold hits record high as U.S.-China trade war intensifies, dollar weakens

 Gold prices jumped nearly 3% to an all-time high on Thursday, as a drop in the dollar and an escalating trade war between the U.S. and China drove investors towards the safe-haven allure of the precious metal.

Spot gold climbed 2.5% to $3,158.28 an ounce, after hitting a record high of $3,171.49 earlier in the session. ...

Democrat Pete Aguilar (CA-33) predicted the House Freedom Caucus would cave to the Senate budget proposal, and every last one of them did lol

They have no principles. The national debt is going to soar just like it would have under Harris.

Spartz and Massie, the lone Republican Nay votes, are not members of the House Freedom Caucus.

Democratic leader predicts GOP holdouts will cave and support Senate budget bill

... “It’s pretty clear that House Republicans generally say one thing when they’re in an elevator with us or with you,” Aguilar told reporters in the Capitol. “And then they do something else when they are given an opportunity to vote on the floor.”

Aguilar is predicting those dynamics will also govern the debate over the sweeping budget blueprint passed by the Senate last week, which has drawn howls from a number of House conservatives who fear it will pile trillions of dollars onto the national debt. ...

House conservatives, however, are furious with the budget drafted by Senate Republicans, saying the spending cuts it promotes are insufficient to rein in deficit spending. They’re also up in arms over the Senate’s adoption of a budget gimmick empowering upper chamber Republicans to claim that the tax cut extensions will add $0 to the debt — a far cry from the $4 trillion deficit impact estimated by the Congressional Budget Office.

Aguilar, though, said Democrats anticipate that those holdouts will experience a change of heart when the pressure grows from the White House and they’re being blamed for blocking Trump’s agenda. ...

“Generally, the only one who we can believe is Thomas Massie, who’s principled and if he says he’s a no he’s going to be a no,” he continued, referring to the Republican representative from Kentucky. “Everyone else generally will say one thing until they get a phone call from the president.”

The GOP House caves again, adopts the absurd, Orwellian, milktoast Senate budget plan instead of their own to get to reconciliation

Now they all take two weeks off.

House Republicans on Thursday adopted the Senate’s framework that will be used to enact key parts of President Trump’s legislative agenda, getting the blueprint over the finish line after a last-minute scramble to win over conservatives who had spent days railing against the measure.

The largely party line 216-214 vote marks a big win for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who has pushed an aggressive timeline to advance Trump’s domestic policy priorities, and President Trump, who endorsed the legislation and lobbied those on the right flank to get on board.

Only two Republicans — Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Victoria Spartz (Ind.) — voted against the measure. ...

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