Armageddon is coming for the GOP:
Monday, February 9, 2026
The bond market has voted Nay Nay on the Fed's interest rate cuts which started in September 2024, but I repeat myself
Worries about softening employment have been entirely misplaced. Jobless claims have been FLAT for four consecutive years.
The Fed was wrong about jobs, just like it was wrong about inflation being transitory.
Why did Trump's Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick lie about his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein?
Lutnick and Epstein were in business together, Epstein files show
... Lutnick, the former chairman of the financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald who at one point lived next door to Epstein, told the New York Post in October that he and his wife Allison had cut ties with Epstein in 2005, deciding after taking a tour of Epstein's New York townhouse, "I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again."
However, it appears Epstein and Lutnick continued to maintain contact and emails show they arranged calls and planned to have drinks in 2011.
The following year, the couple and their four children planned a visit to Epstein's island, Little St. James, emails show. Lutnick was invited for lunch on Dec. 24, 2012, and later, Epstein's assistant wrote on behalf of Epstein, "it was nice seeing you."
Their Adfin deal was signed four days later. ...
By the time Epstein and Lutnick agreed to buy stakes in Adfin, it had been more than four years since Epstein agreed to enter a guilty plea to Florida state charges of procuring a child for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute. The case brought forth allegations of far broader sex trafficking and victimization of girls, but it wasn't until 2019 that Epstein was charged with federal felonies including trafficking. He died in jail in the weeks after his arrest. ...
... Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., urged Lutnick to step down after The New York Times reported the Trump ally interacted “regularly” with Epstein, according to files released by the Department of Justice relating to the notorious sex offender. Massie was the lead Republican on the Epstein Files Transparency Act that compelled the release of the Epstein files.
“He should just resign,” Massie said on CNN’s “Inside Politics Sunday.” “Howard Lutnick clearly went to the island if we believe what’s in these files; he was in business with Jeffrey Epstein, and this was many years after Jeffrey Epstein was convicted.”
He added: “He’s got a lot to answer for, but really, he should make life easier on the president, frankly, and just resign.” ...
Why is NBC afraid of the truth?
... NBC has denied editing the crowd audio, although it is difficult to resolve why the boos so audible in the stadium and on other broadcasts were absent for US viewers. ...
Sunday, February 8, 2026
Trump's corrupt state capitalism, but I repeat myself, is anti-American, anti-competitive, and advances long-standing Democrat objectives, which is one reason big business is keeping its big yap shut
When the Democrats can't get what they want, a Republican chump comes along who does it for them.
The power of existing businesses will only get stronger thanks to Trump, so mum's the word.
The Trump administration’s portfolio of equity stakes in U.S. companies has reached a scale that is unprecedented outside economic crisis or wartime....
“It is a invisible barrier to startups and new market entrants,” said Scott Lincicome, an international trade lawyer affiliated with Cato Institute. “Why would you ever want to enter a market that you know your chief competitor is backed by the U.S. government?”...
The Trump administration’s approach is a major ideological departure for the Republican Party, which has traditionally championed free market capitalism and excoriated government intervention. The Democrats have typically been the party of industrial policy and intervention in markets.
Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, for example, introduced an amendment to Biden’s CHIPS Act that would have allowed the government to take stakes in companies that accept federal funding for semiconductor manufacturing. The measure ultimately died in the Senate....
Top executives have voiced virtually no public criticism of the Trump administration taking stakes....
Before the U.S. took its stake in Intel, Trump said CEO Lip-Bu Tan was “highly conflicted” and called for his resignation over his ties to Chinese companies. The comments sparked a brief sell-off of Intel shares....
Trump bought 433.3 million shares of Intel in August 2025 at $20.47, about $3 off its recent lows around $17.66, risking taxpayer money, not his own.
America's bailouts of banks and then businesses in past crises have paved the way for Trump's full-blown state capitalist interventions in the private sector, buying company stocks with the people's money, making loans, and taking direct control
Trump is turning America into China, but all America cares about today is the Super Bowl.
The Trump administration has made unprecedented equity investments and obtained other stakes in at least 10 companies over the past year. ...
In the past, the U.S. has taken temporary stakes in companies in the context of bailouts, said Peter Harrell, who served as the senior director for international economics under President Joe Biden.
“With these companies, it’s a very different thesis,” Harrell said. “The government is kind of acting as a strategic investor to put capital into these companies so that these companies can achieve both a commercial return but also, at least in theory, some kind [of] national purpose.” ...
Saturday, February 7, 2026
Trump is setting records at Rasmussen Reports for record high disapproval at 57%, record low total approval at 41%, record high strong disapproval at 47%, and record low approval index at -20
I dunno, was it something he said lol?
To be entirely fair, these low numbers were already achieved on Feb 5, the day Trump posted the Obama ape video. The low numbers went up in the morning and reflect polling from the previous day(s).
The Obama ape video was just a coincidence.
I think the low numbers are a reaction to Trump's Monday call for federal interference in the coming elections.
Nancy Pelosi's Speakerships were a double-whammy of obscene spending unprecedented in the post-war which never delivered on the economic growth
The double whammy burger you order never looks as good as the picture.
Why everything sucks since the Great Recession: Real GDP in the 18 years since 2007 has been growing at a compound annual rate of just 2.004%
The compound annual growth rate before that, for the 60 years from 1947 to 2007, was 3.469%.
We're doing 42% worse.
It's uncanny.
Friday, February 6, 2026
We're already close to the first: As of Feb 2026, the average interest rate on the U.S. National Debt is 3.4% while the compound annual rate of nominal GDP growth from 3Q2007 to 3Q2025 is only 4.3%
One path to U.S. fiscal disaster is most alarming — and most likely
... An Everest of debt is an incentive for an inflation crisis to reduce the value of existing debt by paying lenders with debased dollars. But inflation would become baked into the expectations of investors, who would demand higher interest rates. Then R>G would bite: When interest rates paid on debt exceed the rate of economic growth, a crisis intensifies as rising interest rates depress economic growth. ... The most probable, and most ominous, outcome would be a gradual crisis. ... Nothing unsettles a middle-class nation more rapidly than inflation, a component of all of these crises. ...
Thursday, February 5, 2026
Hi yo sil . . .
... Spot silver prices were trading almost 12% lower at 8:32 a.m. ET, at around $77.42 per ounce ...
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