Saturday, August 2, 2025
US Treasury yields retreated 3% from their July average in the aggregate on Friday in a flight to safety
The July average yield of the aggregate of eleven US Treasury issues was 4.2927. Friday's 3% retreat left the aggregate at 4.1636.
Yields on Bills pulled back to 4.2175 from 4.2925 in July, or 1.7%.
Yields on Notes pulled back to 3.866 from 4.042 in July, or 4.3%.
Yields on Bonds pulled back to 4.80 from 4.92 in July, or 2.4%.
VFSTX is now ahead 4.45% year to date.
VFICX is now ahead 6.37% year to date.
VWESX is now ahead 4.47% year to date.
VBTLX is now ahead 4.67% year to date.
VTSAX is now ahead 6.26% year to date.
Friday, August 1, 2025
Mad King Ludwig fires BLS commissioner in a fit of rage over his bad jobs numbers, blaming the messenger
I don't recall Obama firing anybody at BLS in 2011 when there were ZERO jobs created in August.
Banana republic stuff from the Banana Republican.
Trump is unfit to be president.
Trump fires commissioner of labor statistics after weaker-than-expected jobs figures slam markets
... “I can’t believe what I just saw,” said Peter Mallouk, president and
chief investment officer of Creative Planning. Trump’s social media post
seemed like a parody or satire at first, Mallouk said.
“This is
not healthy,” he added. “We can’t have a set of numbers come out and
fire somebody that served under numerous administrations in various
roles because you don’t like the numbers.”
William Beach, a 2017 Trump appointee and McEntarfer’s immediate predecessor at BLS, also sharply criticized her firing.
“The totally groundless firing of Dr. Erika McEntarfer, my successor as Commissioner of Labor Statistics at BLS, sets a dangerous precedent and undermines the statistical mission of the Bureau,” Beach posted on X.
“This escalates the President’s unprecedented attacks on the independence and integrity of the federal statistical system,” Beach added in a statement. “The President seeks to blame someone for unwelcome economic news.” ...
There have been just five Julys since 2008 when full-time employment exceeded 50% of population, and yep, you guessed it, July 2025 ain't one of 'em
Full time as a percentage of population was 52.32% in July 2008,
50.66% in July 2018 (ten years later!),
50.98% in July 2019,
50.69% in July 2022,
50.74% in July 2023,
50.26% in July 2024, and . . .
. . . 49.72% in July 2025.
Thursday, July 31, 2025
Ahead of the jobs report tomorrow, the 4-week moving average of continued claims for unemployment is up about 86,000 in the monthly average in July from April
The June and July levels above 1.9 million haven't been seen since November 2021.
As bad as inflation has been since the pandemic, imagine living with core pce inflation above 3% year over year for twenty-six consecutive years 1967-1992
If they lived through that, we can live through this, and we will.
Here's the latest chart for grand total foreign holdings of US Treasury securities 2000-2025
I don't remember why I started doing this chart in May of whenever it was, but I stuck with it over the years.
It was probably some nutball during the Great Financial Crisis screaming that foreigners were dumping U. S. Treasury securities and we were all doomed!
The nutballs have been saying that for a loooooooooooooong time.
These are the raw, as-reported numbers at the time, and do not incorporate any subsequent revisions.
In May 2025, 43% of the over $9 trillion in outstanding value for foreign held UST was "Official", that is, by governments. And 89.8% of that 43% is invested in longer term Notes and Bonds.
Year over year in May the value of what is owned by foreigners is up a whopping 11.25%.
Many people in addition to governments around the world are banking on the full faith and credit of the United States because they can't really bank on their own governments.
And that's a fact, Jack.
Update:
And, of course, there's a government chart of this, updated quarterly.
The Fed was right yesterday, voting 9-2 to make no change to interest rates, as core pce inflation comes in at 2.79% year over year in June, a tick up from May's 2.75%
Core personal consumption expenditures year over year have been stuck in a range of 2.78% year over year for eighteen long months.
This is shaping up to become the regrettable new normal.
Core pce had averaged just 1.50% year over year for twelve years from 2009-2020 inclusive. The rate has been 85% higher than that for a year and a half now on an average basis.
The 2.78% rate is but little lower than the 2024 average of 2.81%, and the 2.75% average for the first six months of 2025 still rounds up to 2.8%.
You remember 2024. Joe Biden was president, and so far in 2025 he might as well still be.
Inflation is the worst tax. Unfortunately it's the Uniparty's policy.
Trump's $170 billion tax hike on the American consumer
The seasonally-adjusted annual rate of Trump's tariffs leaped from $96 billion in 1Q to $266 billion in 2Q.
The federal government farts through $20 billion every day, so this annualized tariff revenue goes Poof in less than two weeks, matching just 3.6% of federal outlays.
The numbskulls in the US Senate like Josh Hawley want to redistribute these tax revenues in the form of rebate checks to the taxpayers.
Wouldn't it have been easier and more efficient and more fair not to have taxed us in the first place?
Note that Donald Trump's Bureau of Economic Analysis, run by Howard Lutnick, still must call this what it is, taxes on imports lol, despite what his Treasury Secretary was still saying in June:
Bessent claims tariffs aren’t taxes.
Wednesday, July 30, 2025
America still isn't booming
The real GDP report is out and it looks pretty good at 3% for the first estimate for 2Q2025, especially in comparison with the -0.5% result for 1Q.
If only it were so.
From the second quarter of 2017, the year when Trump's tax reform became law on December 22nd, until now real GDP has grown at a compound annual rate of just 2.456%. For the seventy years before that, the compound annual rate of growth was 3.182%.
Trump's so-called pro-growth tax reform fell short by almost 23%.
The problem remains the lingering after effects of the Great Recession, the Great Financial Crisis, the Housing Bubble, whatever you want to call it. The Trump tax reform of 2017 didn't really do anything to address it meaningfully, just as Obama didn't, and also Biden in his turn.
From 2Q2008 to 2Q2025, the compound annual rate of real GDP growth has been just 1.99% vs. 3.421% for the sixty-one years prior to that, starting in 2Q1947.
America remains 42% behind its old self.
That's why everyone is unhappy, but especially the young. They desperately feel the futility of the situation, encumbered as so many of them are with student loan debt for the degrees which are not translating into the key to the future.
That's the sad reality of where we are, and where we are likely to stay for the foreseeable future.
But as always, the first step is admitting you have a problem instead of trying to put lipstick on that pig.
I stayed up late in the eastern time zone to watch a tsunami in Hawaii, and all I got was a lousy flooded parking lot
... The 9:25 p.m. update listed a 5.7 feet wave in Kahului, 4.9 feet in Hilo, 3.9 feet in Hanalei, 2.3 feet in Makapuu, 1.2 feet in Waianae and 1.1 feet in Honolulu. Other Hawaii areas listed were about 1 foot or less.
Television footage showed some flooding in parking lots in Hilo Bay and Hanalei, but no significant damage has been reported. ...
More.
Tuesday, July 29, 2025
GOP U.S. Senate: Feckless lickspittles without two brain cells to rub together propose rebates of surpluses WE DO NOT HAVE
The goods trade deficit in May was $96 billion, in June $85 billion.
The only thing that's changed is consumers are now being taxed on those trade deficits. The numbskulls of the GOP U. S. Senate are proposing rebates of these taxes to the people paying them.
It's all completely ludicrous.
It would have been easier simply not to have imposed the taxes in the first place.
If there's a way to lower the standard of living of American consumers, Mad King Ludwig is sure to find it.
... The Treasury Department reported an unexpected surplus
for June, with a boost from tariff revenue. Customs duties totaled
roughly $27 billion for the month, compared to $23 billion in May. The
duties reflect a 301% gain from June 2024. ...
Monday, July 28, 2025
Two Weeks Trump be back dawg
President Donald Trump on Monday reduced to less than two weeks his deadline for Russian President Vladimir Putin to either reach a peace deal with Ukraine or face massive “secondary tariffs” on Moscow’s trade partners.
Trump previously gave Putin a 50-day deadline, which was set to expire in early September.
But he said Monday that the U.S. does not see “any progress being made.” ...
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