Sep 2016-Sep 2026: -2.23% per annum nominal.
Compare VUSTX discussed in a previous post: 10-year total return per annum through 9/30/26 at -2.20%.
It's eerie.
Anyway yields at 5+% now portend better times ahead for good old American bonds, eventually.
Student riots engulf France as far-right presidential frontrunner Le Pen vows fiscal turnaround
CNBC furnishes this photograph sending the message that it is ethnic French confronting the police, not African Muslims:
They're not showing you the truth.
October 3, 2026:
Riots spread from Paris’s immigrant suburbs across France
France struggled to contain riots that grew out of school protests in Paris suburbs with large immigrant populations, with schools set ablaze, police attacked and around 5,000 people arrested.
Saint-Denis, Aubervilliers and Pantin were among the centers of the unrest in Seine-Saint-Denis, northeast of Paris. Immigrants accounted for roughly 32% of the department’s population in 2020–2021, according to national statistics agency INSEE. French-born residents with at least one immigrant parent accounted for a further 32%. ...
France’s suburbs have repeatedly been the starting point for nationwide unrest involving young people from immigrant families. In 2005, three weeks of riots followed the deaths of two teenagers of African descent hiding from police in an electricity substation. In 2023, the police killing of Nahel Merzouk, a teenager of North African descent, triggered another wave of violence. ...
And today:
... For the right, the images of crowds dominated by immigrant-descended young people burning down ornaments of the French republic without fear of the forces of order feels like an early Christmas gift. ... it is easy for voters to see crowds with few white faces in the news and interpret this as representative across urban France. Without data easily available, the truth can be whatever you want it to be.
... The protests which began in lycée Saint-Exupéry in the Créteil banlieue of Paris before steadily spreading across France, caught the government by surprise in their scale and intensity. They have also shocked the French public by the high representation of second and third generation immigrants in the protests, and by the direct participation of elected officials from Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s hard left La France Insoumise (LFI) party in the riots.
... The most shocking thing for the general public is not just the violence and the damage itself, but the openness with which Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party has aligned itself with the aims and the means of the protests.
From the very beginning of the protests, LFI politicians have been present at the school gates — something that would be seen as shocking particularly to a British audience. ...
S&P 500 rises to record high as oil and yields move lower
Yields aren't significantly lower, oil is $88 and $98, and USA gasoline is $4.32.
And it doesn't look like we're done, either.
VUSTX New All-Time Low
$8.34 Black Monday Oct 19, 1987
$7.44 Tuesday Oct 31, 2023
$7.08 Monday Oct 5, 2026
Total return, 3-years, Sep 30, 2026: +0.97%. 10-years: -2.20%.
1970-1985 sucked pretty bad though, long before the current suckiness which tastes like nothing so much as that era.
A country that doesn't work is a poor country.
But of course globalization after 1984 meant the good paying manufacturing jobs started to dry up because patriotic American businessmen relocated them to cheaper labor countries in East Asia.
😏
Dennis Hastert, disgraced former House speaker, dies at 84
... In 2013, the FBI and IRS began investigating the former speaker surrounding suspicions that he was illegally structuring bank transactions. In 2015, Hastert was indicted for structuring bank transactions to evade reporting requirements and making false statements to the FBI.
Hastert pleaded guilty in 2015 to violating banking laws by making repeated large cash withdrawals, which were revealed to be going to one of his victims. During the hearing, Hastert admitted to sexually abusing boys during his time as their wrestling coach. At his sentencing, U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Durkin called Hastert a "serial child molester," and sentenced him to 15 months in prison, a $250,000 fine and ordered him to participate in a sex offender program. Hastert was not charged with sex-related crimes, as the statutes of limitations had expired. He served 13 months in a federal prison before his release in 2017. ...
... "The last year has been about bringing together folks around our shared goals to get money out of politics, put money back in Michiganders' pockets, and pass Medicare for All," El-Sayed said in an April campaign statement.
But the Democratic nominee is facing Republican criticism after attending a high-dollar fundraiser in California hosted by Jeffrey Soros, a film producer and nephew of billionaire Democratic donor George Soros.
Jeffrey Soros and his wife, Catharine, hosted the Sept. 28 event at their West Hollywood home along with several other prominent Democratic and entertainment industry figures, including former Obama administration officials and "Pod Save America" hosts Jon Favreau, Tommy Vietor and Ben Rhodes.
A fundraising invitation reported by Fox News listed contribution levels of up to $57,800 to the Abdul for Michigan Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee supporting El-Sayed's campaign and aligned Democratic organizations. ...
CBS reported here.
China shuts hundreds of banks as Beijing moves to shore up its financial system
Russia plague: What we know about the suspected case reportedly linked to a lab worker’s death
Russia hospitalizes almost 200 people after researcher’s death from plague: Reports
The chutzpah of these people.
They mince the data for five paragraphs and then spring a zinger in the last one.
Total nonfarm was up only 29,000 seasonally adjusted in September, but civilian employment was up 406,000 you see.
It's gonna be nothing but "Jews and Arabs, Arabs and Jews" for six straight years with this guy.
... Mark Ratchford, a business school professor at Tulane University who studies consumer behavior related to home equity, says that a lot of people are doing the calculation in their head, and they are noting that if the cost of borrowing is that high, they just won’t do it. Ratchford says he is among those now feeling the pain as a consumer.
“I need to remodel my kitchen, but when I look at the price and the interest rates, I can’t afford that. I’ll just wait, that is the whole housing market now,” Ratchford said. “People are skipping cosmetic improvements and only doing the work they need to do.”
The high cost of borrowing has squashed the fixer-upper market too.
“Five to 10 years ago, people would flip houses, they would buy properties, do the work and then sell it for a profit, but that is less of a thing now. People are not buying fixer-uppers. The cost of borrowing and doing upgrades has gotten so high they can’t do it,” Ratchford said.
Even when consumers do have home equity or HELOCs available, they aren’t pouring that money into new cabinets. “If you are using home equity, HELOCs, you are not using it for home improvements, you are using it to cover credit card debt,” Ratchford said. ...
More.
Just 38.2% approve.
60.3% disapprove.
