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. ...
Although swings in net exports have affected the data, recent indicators suggest that economic activity has continued to expand at a solid pace. The unemployment rate has stabilized at a low level in recent months, and labor market conditions remain solid. Inflation remains somewhat elevated.
The Committee seeks to achieve maximum employment and inflation at the rate of 2 percent over the longer run. Uncertainty about the economic outlook has increased further. The Committee is attentive to the risks to both sides of its dual mandate and judges that the risks of higher unemployment and higher inflation have risen.
In support of its goals, the Committee decided to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 4-1/4 to 4-1/2 percent. ...
More.
Israel wipes out the Houthi airport, fuel supplies, and concrete factory and then they finally cry uncle?
Something doesn't add up here.
Trump announces US will stop bombing Houthis
... Trump, ahead of a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, said the halt would start immediately. The Houthis approached the administration on Monday night indicating “they want to stop the fighting,” he said. ...
Israel escalated strikes against the Houthis on Monday night with 20 fighter jets bombing the rebel-held port city of Hodeidah. Israeli forces were responding to a ballistic missile strike against the Jerusalem airport by the group. The Trump administration also labeled the Houthis a terror group in March, changing a Biden-era policy. ... Houthi strikes against the waterway have declined significantly in recent months, and the group hasn’t targeted a commercial vessel since late December. ...
Israel's military says it has fully disabled Yemen's main airport with strikes...
... “We indirectly informed the Americans that the continued escalation will affect the criminal Trump’s visit to the region, and we have not informed them of anything else,” said Mahdi al-Mashat, head of the Houthi’s supreme political council, in a statement carried by the rebel-controlled SABA news agency early Wednesday. Trump is due to visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates next week. ...
Germany’s Merz fails to be elected chancellor in shock first-round parliamentary vote
... “Friedrich Merz became the first chancellor candidate failing to be elected in the first round of voting in the Bundestag. However, he remains likely to win sufficient support eventually,” Carsten Nickel, deputy director of research at Teneo, said.
Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg, described the situation as a “bad surprise.” He echoed comments suggesting Merz would still become chancellor eventually, but “the unprecedented failure to be elected in the first round would still be a bad start for him.” ...
AfD ‘extremist’ label sets up political high-wire act for Friedrich Merz
... Merz’s party, the Christian Democratic Union, has been torn over how to deal with the AfD. Merz tacitly cooperated with the party earlier this year – despite insisting he would not – to push migration policies through parliament. And on the local level, his party and the AfD have cooperated on issues such as a ruling that the German flag should be hoisted in schools. ...
Take courage people!
You too can become populists just like Pete and Little Marco. Just get your degrees from Princeton and Harvard and the Universities of Florida and Miami.
Average US Treasury yields in April vs. March were down but up in comparison on Friday May 2nd after Trump meddled again in the Fed's business.
The yield aggregate of eleven securities down: 4.19 in April vs. 4.243 in March, but back up to 4.234 on Friday.
Bills down: 4.205 in April vs. 4.26 in March but up to 4.242 on Friday.
Notes down: 3.966 vs. 4.082 but up to 4.002 on Friday.
Bonds up: 4.725 vs. 4.615 and up some more to 4.80 on Friday. Investors are demanding more return from bonds because they perceive risk to be rising for long duration holdings.
The overall picture since January 2024 though shows yields falling as the rate of inflation has slowly declined. The black line below shows the average of the aggregate peaking in April 2024.
The 10-year Note at 4.33 on Friday matches the Daily Federal Funds Rate exactly, same as the 3-month.
Speaking of which, 10Y-3MO has been screaming "major recession" since October 2022, but to no avail.
A missile from Yemen halts flights in Israel hours before top officials vote on plans for Gaza war
... Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said in a video statement that the group fired a hypersonic ballistic missile at the airport. ...
So says Ryan Petersen, founder and CEO of Flexport, in The Wall Street Journal, here:
... If the tariffs on Chinese goods continue at this rate, he says, thousands of American companies will fail and millions of employees will lose their jobs. ...
When the pandemic clogged up supply chains, he rented a boat so he could tour the Port of Long Beach, Calif., and see the bottlenecks for himself.
When he’s not cruising around ports for information, he’s getting it directly from his company’s 13,000 customers. They are companies that sell electronics, furniture, clothing, toys, diapers, pet feeders—basically everything. He makes it a priority to talk with as many of them as he possibly can. ...
This past week, he traveled from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., where he spent two days meeting with government officials to make the case that tariffs pose an existential threat to his customers. ...
... Trump repeated this inaccurate assertion about three $1.98 states at least three times this week. Then, during a commencement address at the University of Alabama on Thursday night, he used an even lower figure. ...
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The worst it ever got was 2.4% in December 1952 while Truman was still president.
The leisure class of state capitalism has to have something to complain about.
