15 Comments

It's always a good sign when the crazies eat each other. BTW, are the guys in funny hats and yellow vests police, or is that a new "gay pride" bondage kit?

Expand full comment

This makes so much more sense now, in light of Trudeau's use of new term 2SLGBTQQIA+.. L and G getting squeezed from both sides.

Expand full comment

The L and G might enjoy that!

Expand full comment

Luongo takes a well deserved victory lap with recap but also with good points regarding the Fed and the present. He has convinced me that yes the Fed wants to wrest control over the U.S. monetary policy from Europe and the steps it has taken are intended to do that.

That said, the Fed raising rates and tightening will not by itself tame inflation - and as Luongo notes, Powell knows this. To truly take care of inflation you need to do something about Energy - specifically, producing and supplying more of the carbon-based variety domestically. Until that is addressed we will be in vicious cycles of recession (from Fed tightening) and renewed inflation (after the Fed "pivot" points). And the Fed WILL have to pivot (eventually) either from the economy grinding to a halt or from the Treasury market seizing up.

What this really means is that to take care of inflation in the longer term, we need to get the Climate Change profiteers out of control of Congress, the big bill deficit spenders out of Congress, and the Biden admin out of the White House.

Expand full comment

I posted this a few days back, but to my thinking Powell has no choice but to raise rates.

Could it be that Powell has some knowledge and training in economics? The real thing? I assume he is of an age and has the means to retire. Maybe he is a person of integrity, and is willing to bear the blame for precipitating a crisis. As mentioned, Europe is past hope. Biden and Congress are in the business of forgiving loans and spending dollars with no end in sight. The Federal Reserve has somehow to monetize all this. There is much at stake. It is not only a question of fighting inflation, but rising interest rates may cause interest on the debt to crowd out discretionary spending. There could be hardships. There could be a crash. But it might just be what is necessary to save the dollar and the world economic system.

Expand full comment
Comment removed
Expand full comment

Or to blow his chances of being a JP Morgan boardmember when he retires.

Expand full comment

Alex Berenson, like Toby Young of Lockdown/Daily Skeptic in UK, is about to loose his influence by requiring subscription to comment. What had been a sizable, varied, vibrant, and informative comment section, became overnight a dead spot. Young’s blog has not recovered; neither will Alex’.

This blog, Chodov’s and Kirsch’s and many others, are where it’s at!

Expand full comment
Comment removed
Expand full comment

Yep. The US seizing Russia's dollar reserves was the shot heard around the world.

Expand full comment
RemovedAug 30, 2022·edited Aug 30, 2022
Comment removed
Expand full comment
author

True.

Expand full comment

How many of them do you think actually go all the way? I'll bet damn few. The rest lie about it.

Expand full comment
author

I won't bet against you on that.

Expand full comment
Comment removed
Expand full comment
Aug 30, 2022·edited Aug 30, 2022

Back in the mid to early 1990's, a magazine called Washington Monthly, a publication completely devoted to team blue but at least somewhat honest, conducted a very insightful poll of federal gov't workers. Washington Monthly asked these fed what percentage of the staff of their office could be eliminated with no affect on how their office accomplishes its purpose.

The answer of these gov't workers was that 1/4 of their staff could be eliminated with no problem. And these were people deeply invested in professing the importance of their work who admitted this. What would impartial parties say? 35%? 50%

Expand full comment

That was another thing that Trump and the GOP congress could have done but didn't: cut back the funding on these parasites. Even if he couldn't legally of sacked them on mass, he could have relocated them to Nome, Alaska or Chickenshit, Tennessee.

Expand full comment

Wow! Mind blowing. And it's only gotten worse. In my experience, Government workers (not all but most I have had the misfortune of interacting with) are low IQ, speak horrible English (even though it's their first and only language), classless, clueless and not personable.

Expand full comment

Wish you were in charge. Being a government employee is basically a welfare program. Over 2 million federal employees and 18 million state/local government workers. What a waste!

Expand full comment