He's not "public option". He's Medicare For All.
Otherwise known as: Private Health Insurance For Nobody.
Wednesday, August 19, 2026
Adjusted for inflation, March 1994 diesel for $1.10 should have cost $2.50 in July 2026, but it averaged $4.95 instead
And we're pushing $5.50 in August.
Middle East tanker transits Aug 11-17, 2026: Strait of Hormuz 1.4/day, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait 8.7/day
JMIC UPDATE 086:
... IRGC attacks, hailing, and routing pressure continue, particularly for AIS-on vessels [in the Strait of Hormuz]. ... Vessels stationary for extended periods, or maintaining AIS-on while static, may still face elevated targeting risk [in the Arabian Gulf]. ... AIS-off operations at Yanbu remain the established norm. The AIS-off berth and waiting-area posture has been sustained without interruption for six weeks. ... AIS-off operations at Yanbu berths, waiting areas and approaches are highly likely to remain elevated. ...
Industrial production missed the consensus estimate yesterday, so they trotted out Larry Kudlow to tell you otherwise lol
For month over month in July, the consensus estimate was for +0.3%. Instead we got +0.2%.
Meanwhile the big picture shows, like so many indicators, that industrial production hit the big brick wall of Reaganism in 1984.
Post-war industrial production grew handsomely and its growth rate trended upward from 1948 to 1984, but not after.
Why is that?
I think it's because the incentive to invest in domestic industry went away because of the Reagan tax revolution.
Up to that time, high ordinary income tax rates had pushed owners of capital to invest in America for decades because by doing so they could take advantage of relatively much lower long term capital gains tax rates when they wanted to take income. After the dramatic Reagan cuts to ordinary income tax rates, that arbitrage disappeared. From that time onward owners of capital, now flush with cash from taking income at low ordinary income tax rates year upon year, found it more advantageous to invest abroad where low labor costs and unregulated markets promised even more fabulous returns on investment as America hobbled itself with regulation at home. The exit of businesses of all sizes from the United States to East Asia which began from this time turned into a flood after China was admitted into the WTO in 2001.
But today J. D. Vance thinks the U.S. Dollar's status as the world's reserve currency is the cause of all our problems.
If you want to know what makes me despair, that's it.
The following news story was more accurate than Kudlow.
US: Industrial Production Up Again in July as Modest Manufacturing Recovery Continues
Tuesday, August 18, 2026
Foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury securities fell to $9.299 trillion in June, from $9.371 trillion in May
Big whoop.
Year over year the value of holdings is up 2.26%, from $9.093 trillion in June 2025.
Monday, August 17, 2026
Yeah, well, the reports were "benign" but the facts weren't
This is the problem with fake economic news, which isn't meant to inform. It's meant to shape, just like fake polls.
It's disinformation, meant to blunt the bad news every time its ugly head pops up to keep stock markets from falling.
Everybody's talking the stock market book, because everything else sucks. They're afraid that speaking the truth would be all it takes to destroy confidence in the economy, when everyone who must experience the economy on the street knows it is not booming.
What rising Treasury yields are telling us
... The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond ended the week at 5.26%, the highest since June 2007, despite benign reports on consumer and wholesale price inflation. (This is unusual, as long-term yields tend to move lower when inflation becomes less of a worry.) ...
Core wholesale prices have been increasing at an average monthly rate of 4.24% in 2026. Peak before the pandemic was 2.99% in August 2011.
Core consumer inflation averaged 2.62% in 1H2026. Before 2021 there wasn't a reading that high since 2H2006 at 2.72%. Twenty years ago.
The bond market isn't blind to the facts like these reporters are, who have their heads in the sand.
Yields are rising because of persistent inflation.
Only 3.2 million vehicles in the U.S. have a current "park outside" recall lol
Reported here:
... An estimated 3.2 million vehicles nationwide currently have an outstanding “park outside” recall, according to vehicle history provider Carfax, which described the surging numbers as “concerning.” ...
“For consumers, there seems to be no easy choices,” Kane said. “Where are you going to park it?”...
Well of course the choice is easy.
Don't buy a Kia, Hyundai, or Jeep.
TLT and IEF in the bond drawdown news
SPR isn't the only thing in drawdown lol, down 49.5% since the beginning of 2022. Oil. Pffft. Who needs it, right?
Long term bond investors are getting killed, if any are left still standing. The article linked says most fixed income investors have gone ultra short.
Meanwhile the personal saving rate, which includes monies being socked away in retirement accounts, has plunged to 2.7% in June 2026. A prosperous people saves. Ours is doing something else.
Imagine being down 6.7% per year for five years straight in the "safe" part of your portfolio, or even 1%, when inflation has been raging at 4.5% on average. Real return is far, far more negative.
Here:
... The iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT), for example, has posted an average annual return of negative 6.7% over the past five years, while its 7-10 Year Treasury Bond ETF (IEF) has posted an average annual decline of 1%. ...
Nothing in this story indicates to me that Democrats or Republicans are ready to do what is necessary to fix Social Security
What the results of a Connecticut congressional primary race may mean for Social Security
The full retirement age needs to be increased gradually to 69 from 67 over the next forty years, just as it was from 65 to 67 starting in the 1980s, and a two-point increase in the payroll tax, shared equally by employers and employees, needs to be passed immediately.
Sorry, but that's the deal.
You cannot expand benefits, and you cannot tax people to oblivion to pay for a retirement system who will never have a reasonable expectation of receiving benefits under the program commensurate with what they contributed.
The $1.45 trillion spent by Social Security in retirement benefits in 2025 is NOT welfare.
Sunday, August 16, 2026
Mexico will finally pay for The Wall when J. D. Vance becomes president . . .
. . . but in pesos because J.D. will end the U.S. Dollar as the world's reserve currency.
Saturday, August 15, 2026
GAO said in 2022 the SPR was in very good condition, Trump's Energy Department came into office saying it wasn't, recent drawdowns only compound the problems in the 60 salt caverns
The damn thing will probably collapse before they're done.
Maybe instead of a ballroom next to the White House they can build some new tanks instead.
SPR depletion raises questions about integrity of caverns that store oil
... The Government Accountability Office said in a May report that “repeated partial drawdowns followed by refill can leach a single part of a cavern repeatedly, leading to undesirable shapes.”
The majority of the SPR’s caverns were found to be in “very good condition” after the 2022 drawdown, according to the GAO.
“However, every drawdown cycle expands cavern volume and reduces the spacing between caverns within the salt dome, which ultimately reduces their long-term viability,” it said.
To release oil from the SPR, water is pumped into the bottom of the caverns to displace the crude to the surface and pump it through wells into pipelines.
Seventy million barrels is the strict physical minimum needed at the top of the caverns to keep the extraction pipes safely submerged in oil rather than water, said Siddharth Misra, a petroleum engineering professor at Texas A&M University.
But “the practical operational floor for the crude inventory is between 250 million and 300 million barrels,” Misra said in an email to CNBC. At current inventory levels, “cavern integrity and overall operational capability are at an elevated risk,” he said.
When the inventory drops below 300 million barrels, the SPR loses its ability to pump oil at rapid speeds to address emergencies, Misra said. The system’s pipes and pumps could also get damaged as the oil layer thins at the top and sludge rises toward the extraction intake at the cavern ceiling, he said.
Fresh water is often pumped into the caverns during rapid drawdowns which dissolves the salt walls, Misra said. This “creates flatter, less stable roof and severely thins the critical salt pillars that separate adjacent caverns, greatly increasing the geological risk of a structural cave-in,” he said.
The SPR was originally designed for five full drawdowns. Instead, it has executed dozens of large and small releases over the past 40 years, Misra said.
“Because the system was not designed for this many cycles, the repeated injection of water and extraction of oil have caused severe cavern deformation, accelerated the rate of massive salt falls from the ceilings, and significantly weakened the overall structural integrity of the aging reserve,” he said.
Energy Department officials told the GAO that they are “holding the SPR infrastructure together with ‘Band-Aids,’ and that it is uncertain how long they will hold.” More than a quarter of the SPR inventory was “not available for drawdown due to a combination of construction outages and cavern outages” as of December 2025, the GAO found. ...
The strapped Chicoms come for the people's cash lol
Beijing is said to move to clarify tax rules stoking confusion among China’s ultra-wealthy
... Beijing last month imposed a 20% tax on offshore trusts – a structure long used by China’s wealthy families to hold hundreds of billions of dollars outside the country. The move set off a panic rush for tax and legal advice, and a scramble for cash to meet the bill.
The levy applies at nearly every stage of a trust’s life, from establishment to profit distribution and wind-up. Individuals must also declare and settle outstanding taxes on assets already transferred into such structures within 90 days of the rules’ release – by Oct. 21 – or face surcharges for late filing or non-payment.
While the rules ended decades of regulatory ambiguity about the vehicles, they have also created fresh confusion over implementation.
Trusts established after 2023 face the 20% charge at inception, but it remains unclear how many years back owners of older structures, which are subject to an annual recurring tax, must declare, said Yuan Cao, Beijing-based partner of law firm Yingke.
Advisors also warn that many trust assets could fall afoul of foreign-investment reporting rules issued in July, potentially inviting scrutiny from foreign-exchange authorities over how the money left China in the first place.
... The tax push comes as Beijing hunts for new sources of fiscal revenue. Land sales, long a mainstay of local government finances, have collapsed amid the property downturn.
... “These measures can easily create a sense that a storm is gathering,” said Neo Wang, chief China strategist at Evercore ISI, who added that these concerns may be overdone. ...
Historian Gordon S. Wood on America: a unique nation dominated by ordinary, Bible-toting people, violent and obsessed with consuming alcohol and making money, vulgar and vibrant, barbarous and boisterous ...
... one that awed and frightened some of its own citizens and many Europeans. It seemed to represent the future for all of humanity.
Here.
Michigan, Texas, and New Mexico in the news feed tonight:
Friday, August 14, 2026
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