If SCOTUS wants a special Trump constitution, they will have to write it themselves. Lower courts will not do it for them.
Retired dividend investor. Having a go at sustaining a high-income portfolio.
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If SCOTUS wants a special Trump constitution, they will have to write it themselves. Lower courts will not do it for them.
Dunno why the pop in XOMAP today, but I don't think I'll trim any, even though it's almost 5% above its call price. I'll just keep getting paid quarterly at that 8.2% annual yield, and if they do decide to yank it, I'll be sitting on some gains.
Significant outage at $KEY online banking today. Wonder if other banks are affected.
Ancient Wisdom
That Pritzker press conference was... surreal, and I think marks a significant moment of escalation in the constitutional omni-crisis. This was the governor of a state saying plainly the Union itself is being torn apart and his state is being militarily invaded by an authoritarian regime.
Pritzker: "I refuse to pretend that any of this is normal ... I refuse to fall into the pundit trap that demands we sacrifice vital constitutional rights if it's being done in the fake guise of fighting crime."
Doughy Pantload gonna Doughy Pantload.
What’s nobody talking about? That the path we’re accelerating along will see us reach 2C well before 2050 which - according to professional risk assessors - will kill more than 2 BILLION people.
Added to BME and RVT. What a big swinging dick.
Bleak out there for the farmers. If only they had a way to know T was bad for farmers.
Y'all's NFT portfolios just goin' gangbusters?
He would be delighted to default.
Knock yourselves out, kids.
Bill Sharpe made this XtraNormal vid 14 years ago. He deserved another Nobel for it. #econsky www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv4H...
lol
Guess I'll buy some more EDD. am.jpmorgan.com/us/en/asset-...
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Statement from Fed Gov Lisa Cook: “President Trump purported to fire me “for cause” when no cause exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so. I will not resign. I will continue to carry out my duties to help the American economy as I have been doing since 2022.”
UPDATE: Lisa Cook says she's not going anywhere and Trump's bid to fire her is baseless. www.politico.com/news/2025/08...
The Federal Reserve Board of Governors has been around for 111 years. In that time it has had more than 100 members (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal...). No president has ever fired (or claimed to have fired) one before.
Apropos of nothing, a reminder that German stock markets kept climbing in an almost uninterrupted fashion in the run-up to WW2. Investors are really, really bad at pricing serious institutional and political risks.
Trimmed about a third of my OBDC and stuck the dough into TRIN. Will do a similar thing with ARCC and FDUS after ARCC goes ex and before FDUS goes ex.
Trump's Presidencies have so far involved numerous Saturday Night Massacres, dozens of Watergates, and a never ending parade of Tea Pot Dome scandals. I worry that we're about to enter the "dozens of Kent State's" portion of the story.
Last week someone made this point, a lot of money people (including tech) made a very clear, very calculated decision that authoritarianism, even a corrupt kleptocracy, was better for them financially than risking Dems doing a wealth tax/tax fairness etc. It was an eyes-wide-open choice.
It is so hard to understand that not a single GOP Senator has spoken out. He really destroyed the entire party. There is nothing left.
It’s so stupid it would almost be funny, if we weren’t all in the process of becoming poor soviet peasants.
anybody else’s gyre feel wider lately
We will disintegrate and everything will be forgotten, and I am glad to have known you.
Sorry to get so political, but slavery was extremely bad.
Performative public lying is a hallmark of far right authoritarian parties
Well, for one thing it's hardly new.
Between scaring the shit out of tourists and scaring the shit out of the residents of some cities, Trump is really doing the hospitality industry so many favors isn't he
Time to cut rates! YOLO!!!!
Here is an image of the crowd of people that chased a dozen ICE agents out of Columbia Heights yesterday. I don’t see one “elderly white hippie” there. I do see a wide variety of ages, genders, and races; DC residents united in disgust at what Miller is cheering on.
USA needs the immigrants we're pushing out. #econsky paulkrugman.substack.com/p/iceing-the...
“...the weakest portion of the U.S. economy, which employs over 20% of U.S. workers, is hospitality and leisure.” Those jobs generally pay under $60,000 and may see the biggest hits when employment numbers start to worsen and tariffs start to weigh... #econsky www.marketwatch.com/story/meredi...
Did i miss a memo wtf is happening
2 bits of data from new Economist/YouGov poll..... 13% support for cutting research funding to universities. 24% among Republicans. Polling on this continues to be catastrophic for the Rs, suggests Dems should be learning far harder into standing up for science and our universities. 1/
If you thought the Dulles brothers were a nightmare: “That memo, authored by Philip Hegseth—a senior adviser to Kristi Noem who also happens to be Pete Hegseth’s younger brother—was seen by national security experts as an alarming sign of Trump’s intent to further escalate this hyper-militarization“
Did you know that the Founders were so vehemently against having a standing army that might do what Comer is calling for that they explicitly wrote into the Constitution that Congress has to reauthorize the existence of the Army every two years or the entire thing has to disband?
This is just absolutely horrific shit. Absolutely BS grifting that is going to get people killed by denying them one of the greatest inventions of our time.
Wellspent Market is a wonderful business, and they are offering bonds that pay 11% interest for 60 months, $10 minimum. (Taxable, of course, unless you find a way to put your investment into an SDIRA or something). thesmbx.com/app/auction/...
We are about to have very serious issues at every grocery store in the country. Good luck blaming this on Biden. Beef prices are making anything you saw in 2022-23 look like nothing.
The new head of US labor statistics recorded a podcast promoting Project 2025.
When Bill warns about something (in this case, crypto and the next financial crisis), one does well to listen. #econsky www.calculatedriskblog.com/2025/08/the-...
Oh cool they’re debating giving a massively important job to my dumbest enemy, a guy who once modeled over-65 employment by assuming the boomers would un-retire at an exponential rate
This dude got his PhD 5 years ago and works at Heritage - here's his unpublished diss with 1 citation www.proquest.com/docview/2452... Here's the fired Comm. of Labor Statistics with 20+ years of government economics experience and an extensive publishing record scholar.google.com/citations?us...
US effectively moving to a system where tax policy is set by the executive branch, fully adhoc, unpredictable, and bespoke per company, and based in large part on the presidents' personal relationships with the company's leadership
Cheer up. (h/t @claireberlinski.bsky.social ) www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Uuf...
Stephen Moore never fails to make careless errors, cherry pick numbers, and misrepresent the data. My friend Christooher Clarke picks apart Moore's latest dishonesty, exposing mistakes and misrepresentations that are big, embarrassing, and disqualifying. Worth watching: www.tiktok.com/t/ZT6aPQUJt/
Yes, Kevin Hassett Would Be a Very Bed Fed Chair Lying liars who lie and knowingly and deliberately say whatever—whatever—lies they believe are to their immediate advantage are not the kind of people who should chair the Federal Reserve. Any questions?… braddelong.substack.com/p/yes-kevin-...
Please watch this in its entirety Trump has installed dozens of men who follow this ideology into the highest levels of his administration, including Pete Hegseth, who leads the Department of Defense. This is the doctrine Republicans want all Americans to live by. 🧵
In other words: we are paying for the tariffs
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The MAGA-led response to the Texas floods is going great - so great that locals are still finding rotting human body parts in the debris that no one in government appears to care about picking up:
Imagine joining FEMA thinking your job was to help people in crisis.
Hey, no shit. #econsky
Horrific. mRNA vaccines have saved millions of lives and could save millions more. “I don’t think I’ve seen a more dangerous decision in public health in my 50 years in the business,” said Mike Osterholm, a UMN expert on infectious diseases & pandemic preparations. www.huffpost.com/entry/rfk-va...
Folks should watch this. It gives a very good summary of where things stand with this U.S. tariff regime.
It’s a small start, but we gotta start somehow. I am proposing a “Corruption Deflator” to be added to national statistical data going forward. Since we have an end point of data that can be relied upon, but no indication of where we’ll go from here. Deflator % TBD, as new data comes out.
lol, lmao even
Important details from this story: 1) Yet another news-break by student journalists (this time @theharvardcrimson.bsky.social) www.thecrimson.com/article/2025... 2) Harvard saying "see you in court," not "let's make a deal." 3) Per Garber, WH/MAGA leaked news of a "deal." NYT then ran with it.
Go read some Bill McBride. Every day. Even if you're not interested. Everything is quite dry and factual, and that's a good thing. You will learn things. #econsky calculatedriskblog.com
Starting to think that pissing off and terrifying all the international tourists as the labor market plunges into recession territory was not a great idea in retrospect.
One more - www.abajournal.com/news/article...
www.lawyersforgoodgovernment.org/support-pblc
Some people (specifically @lawyers4goodgov.bsky.social ) are trying to fill the gap - www.nytimes.com/2025/07/21/u...
Such rot. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/02/u...
"The widely respected economist was confirmed on a bipartisan 86-8 Senate vote, with support from Vice President JD Vance, who was then an Ohio senator, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, then a Florida senator." #econsky www.nytimes.com/2025/08/02/u...
"And if you thought this was unimportant to you, remember BLS calculates the CPI used for Social Security COLAs, as well as the headline CPI used to calculate TIPS yields. Oh, also the inflation adjustments to the marginal tax rate thresholds…" #econsky econbrowser.com/archives/202...
A Senate report reveals Elon Musk’s DOGE agency burned through $21B in six months. Cost-cutting moves like mass layoffs and axing programs like CFPB and USAID backfired—causing major losses and harsh humanitarian fallout. www.rawstory.com/doge-2673797...
Coming soon 10 mil new jobs per month and negative unemployment
Finally updated the tariff calculations to incorporate the 50% copper tariffs, 40% tariff on Brazilian imports, and 5-31% tariff on imports from 94 countries that Trump has signed over the last 24 hours—overall tariff rates rise more than 2%, and are now 16% higher than pre-Trump
The Bureau of Labor Statistics is the crown jewel of knowledge about jobs and the economy. Trump has destroyed the credibility of this extraordinarily important source of information. This should alarm everyone. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/trump-destroys-our-source-of-information
On the one hand this is probably pretty funny for most civilians and on the other hand it’s utterly fucking depressing for those who grasp the long-run implications.
“Their goal is to lessen the damage to their domestic interests and if that means giving Donald Trump some BS headline figure that makes him shut up and go away, then so be it.” #econsky talkingpointsmemo.com/news/experts...
These 7 year old words from Wiatrowski—who is now acting commissioner of BLS after Trump fired commissioner McEntarfer today—are more important than ever.
Important intervention from the previous BLS Commissioner, William Beach. Important because he was a Trump appointee (in Trump’s first term). He tears into him for firing Erika McEntarfer:
I'm mostly trying to tune out the outside world. (I gave birth a week ago.) But between Trump firing BLS commissioner & suddenly finding an opening on the Fed board, today seems like a dark turning point for the US economy. I fear we've just met 2 horsemen of the turning-into-Venezuela-pocalypse
Unquestionably the most dangerous and corrupt attack on the independence of US economic data in American history. Trump is firing the head of the BLS, a longtime civil servant confirmed 86-8 by the Senate, simply because the job numbers came in below his expectations today
This is an attack on democracy itself. No Democratic or Republican politician can be allowed to suppress the most basic facts that the reveal real-world effects of policy. Facts are the only basis for accountability, and thus a firebreak against dictatorship.
Added more BME with some morning dividends. Trying to add some stability to my healthcare allocation (which also includes HQH and HQL). Also withdrew some more money off of which to live.
The "everything's fine" lady at 00:22 is, uh,
The tariff inflation impulse to CPI and PCE is clear to see for goods predominantly imported from China: furnishings (top row) and recreational goods (bottom row). Monthly inflation is 100 - 120 bps above where it normally would be around this time of year. That's a massive inflation shock...
With month-end divs and interest, after withdrawing the bulk to live on, added some BME and PFFR. Nothing fancy there. My living expenses should be covered through August now. More divs expected later today and tomorrow.
I’m glad we had the other side of the story first
People negotiating with Trump need to understand that, whatever game they are trying to play, Trump is playing Hungry Hungry Hippos.
it is very funny how every one of these deals leaves American taxpayers paying more for goods
Behold, the leading political philosopher on the right.
I get asked all the time if the Trump Administration intends to privatize Social Security, and I always say "not to my knowledge." Welp...
"Atlanta Fed GDPNow continues to be a top performer, and you can’t do much better than averaging these two [AtlFed & Kalshi] estimates. And you can pretty consistently do better than the median result from the WSJ/Dow survey of economists." #econsky economistwritingeveryday.com/2025/07/30/g...
Had a CD spit out some monthly interest today, so put that dough into BNDX, EDD, and WIW.
There's no way financial crimes are not being committed to enrich Trump, his family, and his allies. Call volume on SPY, essentially a buy signal for the SP500, went up 10X 10 mins before his "tariff relief." Give. Me. A. Break. It's the ultimate insider trading. Impeach, indict, prosecute.
I suppose the useful thing abt Trump rescinding even the most basic attempts to deal with climate change is it clarifies the degree to which the entire Trumpist project is a suicide pact that would make Jim Jones blush.
Tapping the sign bsky.app/profile/edbu...
Trump announces an EU trade deal the same day he TACOs (again) on talks with China (which he "powerfully" asserted he'd signed a month ago). Coincidence? You be the judge.
NEW POST: Monetary Policy Is Too Tight, You Say? thefelderreport.com/2025/07/26/m...
The Quality of CPI Data Continues to Deteriorate - Torsten Sløk #econsky www.apolloacademy.com/the-quality-...