Federal Reserve Raises Rate .75%

Well what do you expect Sherlock, you can't have $3T deficits for 3 years running without repercussions. Trump didn't want the Save-The-World-And-Give-Everyone-Free-Money bill but we got it. Then we get PPP that in most part will never be paid back. You can't keep conjuring money out of the air and I think the Biden Admin got the point. The fact is the next administration will be an impotent administration because they won't be able to pass any spending bills. They actually might have to enact austerity measures if we slide into stagflation or worse. Like I said last week, watch the Fall at the grocery store. We'll see what kind of harvest we had this year but from what I've been reading on a number of farming reports, it could be the worst year since the Dust Bowl.

 

What do I expect? I expect deficits to be lower under Democrats and they are. Yay!

As for Trump and the Save-The-World-And-Give-Everyone-Free-Money bill, Trump's objection to it was that there wasn't enough free money in it. He begrudgingly signed it but he wanted $2000 stimulus checks rather than the $600 checks he signed. Feel free to look that up.

 

You are aware that when the "Green New Deal" came up for a vote in the Senate it received zero votes. Almost every Republican voted against it and most Democrats in effect abstained by voting "present".
Ranking Member Barrasso: Senate Democrats Are Running from the Green New Deal

 

I should have also mentioned that after AOC introduced the legislation in the House it died in Committee. It never even made it to a vote and that's with a Democrat majority and Democratic leadership.

 

Inflation is a lagging indicator. And much of our inflation is supply issues caused by COVID shut downs across the globe. It's why EU inflation is currently higher than the US. Still, Trump with his uncontrolled spending put us a horrible position when COVID hit. Had Trump did shall tax cuts and spending cuts, like a true conservative, we would have been in a better spot to battle COVID, when we had to spend money.

Last I looked, oil is also a global commodity, and prices are set by global supply and demand. And gas prices around the globe have been dropping the last six weeks. When did Biden release strategic oil reserves?

As for immigration, nothing Trump did slowed down undocumented immigrants. And his cut in legal immigrants are in part a cause of the labor shortage, which is partially responsible for the inflation. We should reinstall the legal immigrant numbers, and follow a Gang of 8 plan. Spending billions on a boondoggle wall that doesn't stop anyone is a waste of taxpayer dollars. Especially when we need the labor.

Oh, and last I looked, Arizona has two D Senators and Biden won the state in 2020. Tell me again how the state feels about the border? And it's laughable to think if we don't control the border we have no country, because I guess we've never had a country, since we've never had a controlled border in our history!

 

Trump gets no reprieve from me except for the first Covid package. He should have never listened to Fauci and shut down. Overall demand would have still dropped for a short period of time and the first package would have gotten most people through it.

I’m not sure when in 2020 I first said it but I predicted that we would rue the day we made those foolish decisions and that it would take a decade to recover from the damage we did to ourselves.

Now we have shortages , inflation, a poor food harvest, and as soon as people run out out of their Covid bonuses we will have a major recession, and a period of stagflation before recovery.

On the plus side for old farts like me who preserved their capital and got out of the market as soon as Putin started massing troops at the border, we will soon be able to very safely invest my retirement savings at 6-7% or more instead of the 3% I have used in all of my modeling.

 

What trade did you have on for the announcement Gekko?

 

Damn, good for you. That’s awesome.

 

Inflation isn't going anywhere. With Boomers retiring and Gen Y and Z making home purchases, cash worth will continue to decline and honestly it's probably good long term. With our debt at 30T, inflating that debt by 30-50% over the next decade will allow us to reset and grow.

 

Boondoggle ? "A March 2021 review of the Trump work on the wall found only 47 miles (76 km) of new barriers where none had previously existed. While Trump had described the new wall as "virtually impenetrable", it was found that smugglers had repeatedly sawed through the wall with cheap power tools. Also, new dirt roads that had been used to access the wall construction served as new access roads for smugglers."

 

You may not buy globalism, but that's because you're staunch in your views and unmoved by evidence. For example, there are industries in the US where 90% plus of products are manufactured outside US borders and imported in. Like textiles, for example. What happens outside US borders effects us at home. We could potentially bring textile manufacturing back home, but at a cost. Raw materials and labor for textiles are cheaper in other countries. And if we domesticated this production, it would mean every piece of clothing on Walmart racks would then cost more. Which would mean inflation.

And Trump? He slowed legal immigration, but the Libertarian CATO Institute says it best. Trump accomplished nothing when it comes to undocumented immigration. Again, you have your beliefs. I'll go with the evidence.

Speaking of evidence, it looks like Masters will win the R primary for Senate and gave Kelly. Last RCP poll, Kelly vs. Masters had Kelly up +9. Polls can be wrong, but rarely this far off outside the margin for error. The polls favor Kelly against all Rs in the race too, by similar margins. The reason? Rs are trying to out-Trump each other, and be as far right as possible. It's turning off moderate Rs, who aren't happy with any of the choices, and will vote for Kelly in Nov.

 

The days of isolationism are in the past. We did elect Biden to represent the best interest of the US and defend the Constitution, but that doesn't mean all policies need to be domestic only, and stick our head in the sand when it comes to international politics. Maybe the US could do that 150 years ago. But now? Will never work. The world is "shrinking" every day, and the global pandemic was exactly that, global. There wasn't much anyone could have done to stop inflation when the entire world was experiencing global supply shortages. Not Biden. Not you. And certainly not Trump, who's idea of global economics includes the false belief that trade wars are easy to win.

Well, there was one thing countries that didn't experience huge inflation were experiencing. And that's a recession. Countries like Greece and Portugal, who are EU members by the way, didn't have high inflation early 2022. Because their respective economies were struggling and had no local demand. But inflation in these countries are also going up, and Portugal was just over 8% recently, and Greece 10%!

Maybe. But there is a type of R voter in Arizona that is turned off by Trump. Call them integrity matters voters, who see Trump as toxic because of Trump's history with women, how Trump treats minorities, and Trump's devotion to the Big Lie. The fact that all Arizona R Senate candidates are sucking up to Trump are turning these voters off 100% (read the AZ Republic article in the last post). These voters all see Kelly's devotion to his wife, Gabby Giffords, and Kelly's distinguished military service, and aren't afraid to cross the line and vote for a D. They did when they voted for Biden in 2020, and the R Senate candidates in Arizona are all in Trump's shadow.

Oil is a global commodity. Supply and demand around the globe effect global prices. Three things effect oil prices. Current global supply, current global demand, and future predicted demand. More supply on the global marketplace, and prices will go down. It's high school level econ. Prices went up because demand started to spike after after the vaccine hit the market, and people saw an end to the pandemic. It further spiked when Russia invaded Ukraine, and countries stopped buying oil from Russia, limiting the supply these countries could purchase. To say an increase in supply from the US releasing strategic reserves just isn't true. How much did prices fall because of the strategic reserve release is up for debate, but what's not is the effect the release had. Biden has also agreed to buy back oil for the reserves, which should also effect gas prices, because remember, future demand is one of the elements.

As for the API response? Biden does have to balance short term issues with his stated long term goals of moving away from petroleum products. A delicate balance for sure, but it is likely the world has reached peak oil already. We cannot go on forever with our increased demand for a resource that has a cap on supply. Oil isn't renewable, and the time for forward thinking should have happened years ago. But better late than never.

 

Poster asks me to do he doesn't but sure. "The vast majority of the 458 miles were constructed in places where some kind of barrier already existed "
https://www.usnews.com/news/politic...president-donald-trumps-border-wall-was-built

So it comes out the 47 or so new miles. Less than 10 miles/yr. LOL