And then there's Biden's bluster...of a different sort:
June 13: President Joe Biden said Thursday that he will not use his presidential powers to lessen the eventual sentence that his son Hunter will receive for his federal felony conviction on gun crimes.
December 1: President Biden pardons his son Hunter.
It is so sad that the American electorate is such a very infantile group, our "leaders" say what we want to hear all of the time, not just while campaigning. There are a lot of bills coming due in the next few years. When reality hits my fellow Americans upside their heads they will act stunned. I'll say to myself and anyone within earshot: We had it coming! The longer the reckoning is delayed the worse things will get. As it stands right now, defense and CMS spending need to be drastically cut. The inevitable economic crash, will be very similar to what post Soviet Union states suffered.
CMS is really bad with only 15% of the spending being covered with current Medicare taxes. It’s something close to $1T a year and defense is close to $1T a year.
It's been more than a month, but someone commented on an earlier post here that in the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, Medicaid had $400 billion in tax revenue, but paid out $2.2 trillion. Were those amounts Medicare and Medicaid combined?
Don't forget, Biden wants CMS to cover Ozempic, which would further explode the outflows in Medicare and Medicaid.
Re my comment below on how Trump ends the war in Ukraine, here's Sundance's take on Trump's strategic options for dealing with his own hardline advisers.
might say “oh five-d chess again”? but unfortunately you gotta play to the galleries. and Trump does it well. too bad the government’s inflation gauges are a joke. Bond yields eventually reveal their secrets. Im glad he is talking to Dimon. evil bankster, i know, but he is smart - kept JPM out of the GFC carnage and for a Davos/Bilderburger attendee, seems a decent man. JP bankers I dealt with were always first rate - well, it was the bond business, where 10 years ago you still sorta gotta be a man of your word in the old school style. (The bond markets’ DNA is Irish but that’s another sorry.)
“The other side of it is that the US will continue to suffer rising debt unless Trump can pull a extra large rabbit out of the fiscal hat at home …”
Trump thinks that he can TALK inflation down and with some deregulation and cutting some spending then inflation will be back to less than 2%. Trump got the high inflation started with his COVID lockdowns and money printing during the last year of his term. It took about 12-18 months for that to work its way through the economy and to be reflected in consumer prices. By then, Biden was in office and was blamed for the 10% inflation. We are now running deficits that are 7% of GDP, so Trump must tackle the deficit problem if he wants to make progress on the inflation front or it’s going to stay persistently high. Additionally, the Ukraine war and Russia trade sanctions ended the general practice of trade sequestration of dollars, and those dollars are going to come back to the US as quickly as possible, further contributing to the U.S. inflation problem. The BRICS agreements to trade in local currencies reduces demand for dollars. Threatening them with sanctions will only hasten their desire to abandon the dollar to the extent possible.
Trump thinks that talking about a problem is the equivalent to solving it. The debt and the wars must be addressed in the next year or 2026 will wipe out the Rs. A little fiscal austerity will also have an impact on a sky high stock and residential real estate market.
correct me if i am wrong but didn’t the lion’s share of the money printing come after trump was out of office, like summer of ‘20? that’s when the Fed bought HY bonds. like Ford. and of course flung trillions at the green energy debacle, in a bankruptcy court near you (or at least District of Delaware or Southern District of Texas)
Currently consumer prices by both CPI and PCE are still sub -3% — but the gauges are garbage, especially CPI, designed for an industrial, high trust economy. you’re right that it remains to keep high up in the list of potential worries - i think the last two prints were stronger than expected?
Consumers, in theory, were spared the worst of the inflation as they had locked in biggest expense — mortgages — at cheap levels, relatively speaking (3%-4%). so the drag on consumer spending not as bad as it could have been. Higher mortgages dampened new purchases but didn’t slow it down. look at the new suburbs around houston for example. and the whole industry is itching to refi that crap down to something below 8% (can’t recall the highest rate this cycle).
Did Trump really say he can talk inflation down? I can’t believe he, or anyone (even an american) say something that dumb. But anyway, here we are, paying the price for following Uncle Milton and cheering on the Private Equity Bros as they plundered and dismantled the american economy, then sold it oxy and porn. Can’t blame Putin for not wanting those folks in Russia.
The lion's share did happen after Trump left office. Obama's Economic gurus Larry Summers & Steven Rattner warned it would create inflation but Kamala was the breaking vote - she didn't care, doesn't affect her bank account.
Trump was in office during the spring of 2020 and he signed legislation with about $2T of "COVID relief" with the CARES act. He signed more legislation near the end of his term with more "COVID relief". In total, between Biden and Trump, there was $5T of COVID spending. Trump added $7.8T to the national debt.
I didn't write that Trump said he can talk inflation down. I wrote that he thinks he can talk it down, just like he thinks Russia wouldn't have invaded Ukraine had he been President.
The era of low interest rates is over. Trump will have to face this headwind as he tries to deal with the debt and inflation.
Doesn’t help that the establishment R’s in the senate are beginning to yammer their opposition to Trump. The D’s just have to stay unified and sit back and watch the establishment R’s resist and obstruct the administration. The 26 midterms will be theirs for the taking. Reason the R’s are referred to as the stoopid party.
I 100% agree w you, Mark, that Trump's bluster is entirely for domestic consumption. You may remember that it was Vladimir Putin, himself, who told Oliver Stone that he doesn't let American insults (ie, 'madman', 'Hitler', etc.) get under his skin because he knows that they are entirely for 'domestic political consumption'. So I agree: let's not let a little Trumpian indirection confuse us regarding his real goals.
I think there is also an additional nuance which might be in play. When Trump named Waltz, Kellogg, Gorka, Little Marco, etc as advisors, he pretty much disarmed his potential neocon critics. How can they accuse Trump of being soft on Putin when Sebastian Gorka insultingly refers to Putin as that thug in the Kremlin? You might say its Trump's own little psyop on the Neocons. And then, when he (inevitably) cuts a deal with Putin (which Waltz, Kellogg, Gorka, Little Marco, and not to mention Lindsey Graham will be helpless to prevent), Trump will turn around and tell the warmongers that it was their own people who cut the deal. You don't like the Ukraine peace deal? Go talk to Little Marco. Or at least, that's what he'll tell the American people.
And, as I've said here before, Putin won't care. He will either get everything he wants or the war continues.
And then there's Biden's bluster...of a different sort:
June 13: President Joe Biden said Thursday that he will not use his presidential powers to lessen the eventual sentence that his son Hunter will receive for his federal felony conviction on gun crimes.
December 1: President Biden pardons his son Hunter.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-pardons-his-son-hunter-despite-previous-pledges-not-to/ar-AA1v5yd9?ocid=winp2fpswipe&cvid=6f9e604d047e49fcb299d43a289df968&ei=13
In the meantime Andrew Weissmann reminds us of his obvious talents
https://x.com/mirandadevine/status/1863430143445799296
It is so sad that the American electorate is such a very infantile group, our "leaders" say what we want to hear all of the time, not just while campaigning. There are a lot of bills coming due in the next few years. When reality hits my fellow Americans upside their heads they will act stunned. I'll say to myself and anyone within earshot: We had it coming! The longer the reckoning is delayed the worse things will get. As it stands right now, defense and CMS spending need to be drastically cut. The inevitable economic crash, will be very similar to what post Soviet Union states suffered.
CMS is really bad with only 15% of the spending being covered with current Medicare taxes. It’s something close to $1T a year and defense is close to $1T a year.
It's been more than a month, but someone commented on an earlier post here that in the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, Medicaid had $400 billion in tax revenue, but paid out $2.2 trillion. Were those amounts Medicare and Medicaid combined?
Don't forget, Biden wants CMS to cover Ozempic, which would further explode the outflows in Medicare and Medicaid.
Re my comment below on how Trump ends the war in Ukraine, here's Sundance's take on Trump's strategic options for dealing with his own hardline advisers.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/11/29/zelenskyy-thinks-he-has-options-while-putin-has-an-undiscussed-weapon-that-trump-will-navigate/
In short, Sundance predicts he throws his advisers under the bus.
I'm about to publish a short transcript of Crooke which argues that that's just part of the "art of the deal"--throwing advisers under the bus.
the best overview of one hell of a headache. some
might say “oh five-d chess again”? but unfortunately you gotta play to the galleries. and Trump does it well. too bad the government’s inflation gauges are a joke. Bond yields eventually reveal their secrets. Im glad he is talking to Dimon. evil bankster, i know, but he is smart - kept JPM out of the GFC carnage and for a Davos/Bilderburger attendee, seems a decent man. JP bankers I dealt with were always first rate - well, it was the bond business, where 10 years ago you still sorta gotta be a man of your word in the old school style. (The bond markets’ DNA is Irish but that’s another sorry.)
“The other side of it is that the US will continue to suffer rising debt unless Trump can pull a extra large rabbit out of the fiscal hat at home …”
Trump thinks that he can TALK inflation down and with some deregulation and cutting some spending then inflation will be back to less than 2%. Trump got the high inflation started with his COVID lockdowns and money printing during the last year of his term. It took about 12-18 months for that to work its way through the economy and to be reflected in consumer prices. By then, Biden was in office and was blamed for the 10% inflation. We are now running deficits that are 7% of GDP, so Trump must tackle the deficit problem if he wants to make progress on the inflation front or it’s going to stay persistently high. Additionally, the Ukraine war and Russia trade sanctions ended the general practice of trade sequestration of dollars, and those dollars are going to come back to the US as quickly as possible, further contributing to the U.S. inflation problem. The BRICS agreements to trade in local currencies reduces demand for dollars. Threatening them with sanctions will only hasten their desire to abandon the dollar to the extent possible.
Trump thinks that talking about a problem is the equivalent to solving it. The debt and the wars must be addressed in the next year or 2026 will wipe out the Rs. A little fiscal austerity will also have an impact on a sky high stock and residential real estate market.
Good times are ahead. Get out the popcorn!
correct me if i am wrong but didn’t the lion’s share of the money printing come after trump was out of office, like summer of ‘20? that’s when the Fed bought HY bonds. like Ford. and of course flung trillions at the green energy debacle, in a bankruptcy court near you (or at least District of Delaware or Southern District of Texas)
Currently consumer prices by both CPI and PCE are still sub -3% — but the gauges are garbage, especially CPI, designed for an industrial, high trust economy. you’re right that it remains to keep high up in the list of potential worries - i think the last two prints were stronger than expected?
Consumers, in theory, were spared the worst of the inflation as they had locked in biggest expense — mortgages — at cheap levels, relatively speaking (3%-4%). so the drag on consumer spending not as bad as it could have been. Higher mortgages dampened new purchases but didn’t slow it down. look at the new suburbs around houston for example. and the whole industry is itching to refi that crap down to something below 8% (can’t recall the highest rate this cycle).
Did Trump really say he can talk inflation down? I can’t believe he, or anyone (even an american) say something that dumb. But anyway, here we are, paying the price for following Uncle Milton and cheering on the Private Equity Bros as they plundered and dismantled the american economy, then sold it oxy and porn. Can’t blame Putin for not wanting those folks in Russia.
The lion's share did happen after Trump left office. Obama's Economic gurus Larry Summers & Steven Rattner warned it would create inflation but Kamala was the breaking vote - she didn't care, doesn't affect her bank account.
https://www-foxnews-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.foxnews.com/politics/obama-advisers-biden-warning-rising-inflation.amp?amp_gsa=1&_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQIUAKwASCAAgM%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17331055347760&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.foxnews.com%2Fpolitics%2Fobama-advisers-biden-warning-rising-inflation
Trump was in office during the spring of 2020 and he signed legislation with about $2T of "COVID relief" with the CARES act. He signed more legislation near the end of his term with more "COVID relief". In total, between Biden and Trump, there was $5T of COVID spending. Trump added $7.8T to the national debt.
I didn't write that Trump said he can talk inflation down. I wrote that he thinks he can talk it down, just like he thinks Russia wouldn't have invaded Ukraine had he been President.
The era of low interest rates is over. Trump will have to face this headwind as he tries to deal with the debt and inflation.
Doesn’t help that the establishment R’s in the senate are beginning to yammer their opposition to Trump. The D’s just have to stay unified and sit back and watch the establishment R’s resist and obstruct the administration. The 26 midterms will be theirs for the taking. Reason the R’s are referred to as the stoopid party.
I 100% agree w you, Mark, that Trump's bluster is entirely for domestic consumption. You may remember that it was Vladimir Putin, himself, who told Oliver Stone that he doesn't let American insults (ie, 'madman', 'Hitler', etc.) get under his skin because he knows that they are entirely for 'domestic political consumption'. So I agree: let's not let a little Trumpian indirection confuse us regarding his real goals.
I think there is also an additional nuance which might be in play. When Trump named Waltz, Kellogg, Gorka, Little Marco, etc as advisors, he pretty much disarmed his potential neocon critics. How can they accuse Trump of being soft on Putin when Sebastian Gorka insultingly refers to Putin as that thug in the Kremlin? You might say its Trump's own little psyop on the Neocons. And then, when he (inevitably) cuts a deal with Putin (which Waltz, Kellogg, Gorka, Little Marco, and not to mention Lindsey Graham will be helpless to prevent), Trump will turn around and tell the warmongers that it was their own people who cut the deal. You don't like the Ukraine peace deal? Go talk to Little Marco. Or at least, that's what he'll tell the American people.
And, as I've said here before, Putin won't care. He will either get everything he wants or the war continues.