Tuesday, May 13, 2025
Core cpi inflation, which excludes food and energy, came in at 2.8% year over year in April 2025, and so did food inflation
Core cpi inflation at 2.8% year over year is 55% higher than the average rate of 1.8% which prevailed 2010-2020.
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| core |
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| food |
House Republican Chip Roy (TX-21) says the current policy baseline tax assumption of Republican Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho is a load of crap
Chip Roy is right.
The expiring temporary tax cuts of Donald Trump had a cost in 2017, and if renewed they'll still have a cost, which is obvious to everyone with a brain except Mike Crapo and his supporters.
All the focus for Chip Roy is on reducing the spending side, instead of on increasing the revenue side, as is usual with the GOP budget hawks. They never really reduce spending, however, and the deficits get bigger as a result.
Meanwhile it's amusing to watch how today's Republicans are turning themselves into pretzels just to keep the temporary Trump tax code from expiring and reverting back to the Bush tax cuts, most of which were made permanent by John Boehner and Barack Obama.
Reverting would actually be smarter than what we are going to get, which will be more unaffordable tax cuts and bigger deficits and $50 trillion in debt by 2034.
Even Trump knows this, coming out as he did just a few days ago for . . . the Bush tax cuts.
He specifically recommended adding the old 39.6% additional compromise bracket for the rich agreed to by Boehner and Obama on January 2, 2013.
Trump is a redistributionist, after all. He said so just recently.
He knows he has to pay for what he wants to give away to people. And his idea is to soak the rich to pay for it, just like any good Democrat would do.
I say go ahead. Make my day.
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| The 2014 tax brackets, showing the added 39.6% bracket on high incomes |
Monday, May 12, 2025
No DOGE savings show up in April US Treasury Statement of Receipts and Outlays of the Federal Government, but higher deficits sure do, $194 billion higher year to date than last year
Fiscal 2025 deficit, October-April: $1.049 trillion
Fiscal 2024 deficit, October-April: $0.855 trillion
Increase in the deficit in 2025 Oct-Apr: $194 billion
Meanwhile CNBC blows smoke up your ass:
Trump's phony Liberation Day for working Americans evaporates into thin air, new 90-day pause brings 145% reciprocal tariffs on China, which tanked markets in early April, down to 30%
Stock futures surge. Crude oil surges. US Treasury yields surge.
... The trade agreement means that “reciprocal” tariffs between both countries will be cut from 125% to 10%. The U.S.′ 20% duties on Chinese imports relating to fentanyl will remain in place, meaning total tariffs on China stand at 30%. ...
Trump had imposed tariffs of up to 145% on Chinese imports, prompting Beijing to respond with retaliatory curbs of its own, including restrictions on some rare earth elements. ...
Sunday, May 11, 2025
Whatever else may be said about Rene Girard, he grasped the big problem even if he miscast it as capitalist, namely Chinamerica
“Everyone now knows that the looming conflict between the US and China, for example, has nothing to do with a ‘clash of civilisations’, despite what some might try to tell us. We always try to see differences where in fact there are none. In fact, the dispute is between two forms of capitalism that are becoming more and more similar,” Girard wrote.
Quoted here.
America became its own enemy long before China did.
Girard defaulted to the priority of religion over economics beginning in 1959.
Saturday, May 10, 2025
Hello Washington Times, hello, how did Biden's increased oil supply from the SPR to buy the 2022 elections lead to increased gasoline price at the very same time?
I'm so confused.
Doesn't price drop on an increase in supply?
"Let's increase supply so prices rise so the voters vote for us and not them" makes absolutely zero sense.
... Mr. Biden sold off hundreds of millions of barrels of oil after Russia invaded Ukraine, causing already rising gas prices to spike even higher. ...
The Biden administration sold off roughly 206 million barrels of oil from the SPR between 2021 and 2023. ...
Democrats fended off an anticipated red wave in the November 2022 midterms, keeping control of the Senate and barely losing House seats, although Mr. Biden’s party remained in the minority in the lower chamber. ...
More.
The Chicago Tribune editorial board laments the closing of all Jo-Ann Fabrics stores, never mentions that becoming a literal sewer of woke was the last straw for many of its long time customers
Sewer has two meanings dontchaknow, seamstress only one.
From the conclusion:
... And lucky Chicago suburbanites have small businesses such as LindaZ’s Sewing Center in Arlington Heights, where knowledgeable staff connect savvy sewers, knitters and quilters with fabric and machinery, and Thimbles in Lockport, which still serves a loyal community of sewers and quilters too. ...
Friday, May 9, 2025
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tells Congress to shift or get off the lot
... “However, after receiving receipts for the recent April tax filing
season, there is a reasonable probability that the federal government’s
cash and extraordinary measures will be exhausted in August while
Congress is scheduled to be in recess,” Bessent wrote. “Therefore, I
respectfully urge Congress to increase or suspend the debt limit by
mid-July, before its scheduled break, to protect the full faith and
credit of the United States.” ...
Words have a meaning, and a Biden invitation to come was not an invasion
I don't care how wrong Biden was, and neither should the courts.
The Supremes have already ruled the illegals have habeas rights, and this would be a desperate attempt to get around that.
Are they daring the Supremes to rule against them yet again?
... Miller’s use of the word “invasion” reflects the Trump
administration’s argument that the U.S. faces an “invasion” of
undocumented migrants. ...
The chairman of the House Fweedom Caucus is calling for tax increases on the rich
Not to reduce the deficit, but to pay for all the new Trump goodies.
$50 trillion in debt in ten years is a lead-pipe cinch.
Thursday, May 8, 2025
Trump is still pressing for tax increases on the rich to pay for all his gimmicks
Trump urged US House Speaker Johnson to raise top tax rate, sources say
U.S. President Donald Trump privately urged House Speaker Mike Johnson during a phone call on Wednesday to raise the tax rate on the wealthiest Americans and close the carried interest loophole for Wall Street investors, two people familiar with the conversation said on Thursday. ... Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters last week that Trump had ruled out the idea. ...
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