Hint: the big threatening factor is not that the Federal Reserve is likely to reduce interest rates too much too soon. It is, rather, the threat of a Trump-led Fed War next year...
1. Is Romney trying to reduce his security costs by saying that if he was POTUS he would imediately have pardoned Trump?
2. There is far too little enforcement of action against actual violence. The same happened with Mussolini's Black Shirts and the Nazi's Brown Shirts. Tolerance of intolerance is fine until somebody gets hurt or killed.
3. Inflation. Yes, it is a useful measure, but why do ivory tower economists fail to understand the ramiifications of Dicken's Mr. Micawber's philosophy about income and spending? If there is a transient inflation spike that raises prices to a higher plateau, but income doesn't change with it, then obviously people will notice the price level and not inflation. Reporting that actual small price declines from a year earlier also doesn't mean that the income-to-spending ratio has really improved, just that it may be less bad than it was. Plus, I could scream everytime a report talks about average incomes rather than median, and skips pasts the poorest still scraping by and needing predatory PayDay loans to "stay afloat". Having said that, California is streets ahead in quality of life compared to the UK where Tory cruelty is starting to exceed even Thatcher's. No more Tory "Wets" to tamper down excesses, just increasingly hard-right "fascists" pushing the party in the easier rightward direction.
People wave around YoY headline CPI to supposedly prove that inflation began on Biden's inauguration. The graph looks compelling, particularly to journalists who assume YoY is the only way to measure inflation - proof that it is all Biden's fault, never mind QoQ measures or that inflation in developed nations with far lower stimulus and deficits is similar to the US.
So where does future inflation lurk? Five ideas: 1) high, un-targeted tariffs; 2) chasing/arresting/deporting 5 million Hispanic immigrant workers, 3) removing Fed independence, 4) "re-negotiating' (defaulting) on Treasury security payments to foreign governments (USD falls, Treasury demand plummets, US imports aren't offset w/ US securities anymore), and 5) a war or blockade of Taiwan, which halts production of every cell phone, cloud, and AI in the US. All 5 have Trump as the instigator. The bond market assumption is that Trump either won't be President, or won't do what he says.
On #5, remember Trump said, "“Taiwan is like two feet from China,. We are eight thousand miles away. If they invade, there isn’t a fucking thing we can do about it.” Now add to that 100 or 200% tariffs on everything from China. In which case, what does Xi have to lose by blockading Taiwan?
Or tell everyone that his tax cuts are offsetting the price increases, and if not, "work harder". I don't think Trump would like price controls unless they are targeted at at goods and services his business doesn't provide, or can be hidden by corporate structures.
This shouldn't be a paid-subscriber-only extra edition, it should be an op-ed in the Grey Lady.
ETA: I meant this remark in a positive sense, but belatedly I realize you might not take it that way ...
Is this arguing only against that 5.5% today is neutral? Against the Fed making no change in the EFFR?
I think that when X says policy is "neutral", it means that X thinks no monetary instrument should be changed.
1. Is Romney trying to reduce his security costs by saying that if he was POTUS he would imediately have pardoned Trump?
2. There is far too little enforcement of action against actual violence. The same happened with Mussolini's Black Shirts and the Nazi's Brown Shirts. Tolerance of intolerance is fine until somebody gets hurt or killed.
3. Inflation. Yes, it is a useful measure, but why do ivory tower economists fail to understand the ramiifications of Dicken's Mr. Micawber's philosophy about income and spending? If there is a transient inflation spike that raises prices to a higher plateau, but income doesn't change with it, then obviously people will notice the price level and not inflation. Reporting that actual small price declines from a year earlier also doesn't mean that the income-to-spending ratio has really improved, just that it may be less bad than it was. Plus, I could scream everytime a report talks about average incomes rather than median, and skips pasts the poorest still scraping by and needing predatory PayDay loans to "stay afloat". Having said that, California is streets ahead in quality of life compared to the UK where Tory cruelty is starting to exceed even Thatcher's. No more Tory "Wets" to tamper down excesses, just increasingly hard-right "fascists" pushing the party in the easier rightward direction.
People wave around YoY headline CPI to supposedly prove that inflation began on Biden's inauguration. The graph looks compelling, particularly to journalists who assume YoY is the only way to measure inflation - proof that it is all Biden's fault, never mind QoQ measures or that inflation in developed nations with far lower stimulus and deficits is similar to the US.
So where does future inflation lurk? Five ideas: 1) high, un-targeted tariffs; 2) chasing/arresting/deporting 5 million Hispanic immigrant workers, 3) removing Fed independence, 4) "re-negotiating' (defaulting) on Treasury security payments to foreign governments (USD falls, Treasury demand plummets, US imports aren't offset w/ US securities anymore), and 5) a war or blockade of Taiwan, which halts production of every cell phone, cloud, and AI in the US. All 5 have Trump as the instigator. The bond market assumption is that Trump either won't be President, or won't do what he says.
On #5, remember Trump said, "“Taiwan is like two feet from China,. We are eight thousand miles away. If they invade, there isn’t a fucking thing we can do about it.” Now add to that 100 or 200% tariffs on everything from China. In which case, what does Xi have to lose by blockading Taiwan?
I will add that if we do have high inflation under Trump, how would he react? I suggest the same way as Nixon - price controls.
Or tell everyone that his tax cuts are offsetting the price increases, and if not, "work harder". I don't think Trump would like price controls unless they are targeted at at goods and services his business doesn't provide, or can be hidden by corporate structures.