THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR SEPTEMBER 12, 2023 AT 10:11 AM
Paul R Plante, NYSPE says:
And let us be very clear on one thing here, people – this so-called crisis of these windmill companies is SELF-INFLICTED as a result of their CORPORATE STUPIDITY, CORPORATE NEGLIGENCE and CORPORATE GREED, so why should we, the American people have to bear the financial burden for their failure to conduct due diligence?
And make no mistake, that is what is about to happen!
We as a people are going to be punished for CORPORATE STUPIDITY we had no control over and no say in.
And on that note, before we go back to the Motley Fool article titled “Wind Energy Faces its First Crisis as Costs Mount” by The Daily Upside on 10 August 2023, according to a Fox News article titled “Biden staff abruptly end press conference while Biden is answering questions” by Hanna Panreck on 11 September 2023, the American DICTATOR Joe Biden is calling people like me who don’t buy into his CLIMATE CRISIS BULL**** a “lying, dog-faced pony soldier,” to wit:
“Well, there’s a lot of lying, dog-faced pony soldiers out there about — about global warming, but not anymore.”
“All of a sudden, they’re all realizing it’s a problem.”
“And there’s nothing like seeing the light.”
end quotes
We’re seeing the light, alright, and it has absolutely nothing to do with global warming.
The problem we are realizing is that we have a lying, dog-faced pony soldier in the Washington white house named Joseph Robinette Biden, Junior with an INSANE GREEN DREAM that is going to destroy our economy, which takes us back to the Motley Fool article titled “Wind Energy Faces its First Crisis as Costs Mount” by The Daily Upside on 10 August 2023, to wit:
According to the WSJ, at least 10 major offshore wind farm projects in the US and Europe worth a collective $33 billion have run into some kind of difficulty over the past few weeks.
end quote
Talk about seeing the light, alright, there it is shining very bright and very clear which takes us to a Reuters article titled “Wood Mackenzie: govts’ ‘unrealistic’ offshore wind expansion target would require $100 billion by 2026” on 18 August 2023, where we are informed as follows about the problems for us as a people being created by the lying, dog-faced pony soldier in the Washington white house named Joseph Robinette Biden, Junior with his INSANE GREEN DREAM that is going to destroy our economy, to wit:
(Reuters) – Government targets to increase wind power installations would see annual capacity additions reach 80 gigawatts (GW) per year by 2030, requiring $100 billion in secured investment in the supply chain by 2026, Wood Mackenzie said in a report.
“The supply chain is struggling to scale up and will be an impediment to achieving decarbonisation targets if change does not happen,” said Chris Seiple, vice chair, power and renewables at Wood Mackenzie.
“Nearly 80 GW of annual installations to meet all government targets is not realistic, even achieving our forecasted 30 GW in additions will prove unrealistic if there isn’t immediate investment in the supply chain,” Seiple said.
Wood Mackenzie noted that the low profit margins on offshore wind production and uncertainty about project timings resulting in very different supply-chain needs are making it hard to drum up investment in the sector.
end quotes
And of course, that takes us back to GOVERNMENT NEGLIGENCE and GOVERNMENT STUPIDITY because the supply chain issues should have been foreseen IF the Biden regime had performed a COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS of this BIDEN BOONDOGGLE, which of course they didn’t, and it is we, the American people who are going to pay that price, as well, which moves us along to a very informative article in The Telegraph on that subject titled “Anyone who thinks renewable wind and solar energy will be cheap is dreaming” by Kathryn Porter on 25 August 2023, where we have as follows, to wit:
Politicians everywhere are repeating the mantra that renewable energy is cheap, and we need to use it instead of gas (currently expensive in and near Europe) to bring down energy costs for households.
As US President Joe Biden said of clean energy before signing the poetically named Executive Actions on Tackling Climate Change, Creating Jobs, and Restoring Scientific Integrity “it’s affordable; because it’s clean; because, in many cases, it’s cheaper… [clean technologies] will ultimately become cheaper than any other kind of energy, helping us dramatically expand our economy and create more jobs with a cleaner, cleaner environment”.
end quote
And as you read that, keep in mind the fact that Joe Biden has never worked a real job in his life where he has been responsible for anything, or was ever held to account for anything; to the contrary, for his whole life long, he has been a hack politician feeding off the taxpayers, and when it comes to engineering and technologies, Joe Biden hasn’t a clue as to what he is talking about, which takes us back to that article, to wit:
The Inflation Reduction Act has been designed to make this a reality.
Lots of investment in lovely green energy and green jobs.
This sounds wonderful.
Unfortunately, renewables are not cheap.
In the electricity market, we get round that problem with subsidies.
Originally, subsidies were paid because the technology for producing renewable electricity was immature meaning upfront costs were exceptionally high, but after more than 20 years of subsidies, this is no longer the case.
Today, electricity prices are still determined for the most part by the cost of fossil fuels, so renewable electricity can be sold at much higher prices than the short term cost of production (which is next to nothing).
But even then, renewables still require subsidies.
In fact, subsidies are growing.
According to the Energy Information Administration, renewable subsidies in the US jumped to $15.6 billion in fiscal year 2022 from $7.4 billion in fiscal year 2016.
end quotes
And ask yourselves, people this important question, to wit:
WHO IS IT THAT IS REALLY PAYING THOSE SUBSIDIES AS A FORM OF CORPORATE WELFARE?
And here once again, we will pause for station identification!
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-846118
On BIDE-O-NOMICS
Re: On BIDE-O-NOMICS
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR SEPTEMBER 13, 2023 AT 5:58 PM
Paul R Plante, NYSPE says:
And before we go back to the Telegraph article titled “Anyone who thinks renewable wind and solar energy will be cheap is dreaming” by Kathryn Porter on 25 August 2023, where we had the statement therein that “according to the Energy Information Administration, renewable subsidies in the US jumped to $15.6 billion in fiscal year 2022 from $7.4 billion in fiscal year 2016,” and Joe Biden’s specious claim on January 27, 2021 before signing the poetically named Executive Actions on Tackling Climate Change, Creating Jobs, and Restoring Scientific Integrity that “clean energy is affordable; because it’s clean; because, in many cases, it’s cheaper,” which is ridiculous gibberish and Karmela Harris-type word salad, and “clean technologies will ultimately become cheaper than any other kind of energy, helping us dramatically expand our economy and create more jobs with a cleaner, cleaner environment,” let’s come forward to today on the subject of those subsidies which are coming out of the pockets of we, the American people, by going to a Reuters article titled “Treasury’s Adeyemo calls for eliminating subsidies, including to energy companies” on September 11, 2023, where we have Joe’s slow thinking, pipe smoking U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo spouting nonsense, as follows, to wit:
Sept 11 (Reuters) – The United States should think about eliminating corporate subsidies, including to energy companies, U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in New York on Monday.
end quotes
All well and good say I, cut them all out, but as we shall see, the slow-thinking Wally (slow thinking is a requirement to be a member of the Biden administration, so that NO ONE will outshine Joe) is being selective here, to wit:
Adeyemo defended President Joe Biden’s budget proposal for fiscal 2024, noting that achieving fiscal sustainability would include modest tax increases, boosting tax revenue collections and finding other ways to cut costs.
end quote
HUH?
Modest tax increases?
Pardon me, but I thought I remembered Joe Biden saying that he was not going to tax us to pay for his INSANE GREEN DREAM and all his windmills, which was always a lie, because we are footing the bill which is growing all the time, which takes us back to Wally, to wit:
“We want to be sure we have the money to pay for our priorities,” he told the Economic Club of New York.
Biden’s budget calls for boosting revenues by eliminating $31 billion in tax preferences and subsidies for oil and gas companies, who he says have failed to invest in boosting energy production, while continuing to offer targeted tax credits for clean-energy investments under the Inflation Reduction Act.
end quotes
Tax credits for clean-energy investments under the Inflation Reduction Act means those LARGE CORPORATIONS do not pay their fair share, which takes us back to Wally. to wit:
“We can also think about what we can do to eliminate subsidies,” he said.
“None of us thinks it makes sense to subsidize energy companies in light of how they’re doing in this country.”
“But there are probably other subsidies and other things we can do to make the budget more efficient.”
end quotes
What hogwash!
So let’s go back to the Telegraph, where we have as follows concerning the reality facing us as a people and as a nation, despite Joe Biden’s bull**** to the contrary, keeping in mind that Joe Biden is the quintessential (representing the most perfect or typical example of a quality or class) lying, dog-faced pony soldier, to wit:
If projects are not economic when electricity prices are at record highs, how will they work if a time comes when electricity prices are very low?
That’s the dirty little secret of the renewables game.
The very high upfront costs mean developers have to be paid lots of money, and if the money from selling electricity isn’t enough then it has to come from elsewhere.
But ultimately it comes out of consumers’ pockets, whether directly through higher bills, or indirectly through higher taxes.
That’s not all.
Developed countries built their electricity grids decades ago when electricity came from a few large power stations.
Renewable generation is built where it’s windy/sunny or has good access to water at height or moving fast (for hydro).
These places tend to be not where old power stations used to be or where consumers are.
This means lots of new infrastructure is needed to connect it all up.
Guess who has to pay for that?
Next is the issue of intermittency: wind and sun vary from moment to moment.
Individual clouds make a measurable difference to generation, as do gusts of wind.
This creates two additional challenges – one is that if there’s no wind or sun, renewable output falls – the famous California “duck curve” measures the way solar output changes through the day with a major drop at sunset, when gas power stations need to take over.
Other sources of generation (there is no at-scale energy storage solution) have to be on standby to run when renewable output falls.
But no-one builds standby anything unless it’s worth their while – and that’s another big chunk of change consumers have to cough up.
The other problem with intermittency is that electricity grids need supply and demand to be finely balanced in real time.
Grid equipment can be damaged if this balance is not maintained within narrow tolerances.
If clouds and gusts of wind change supply from moment to moment, grid operators have to use a range of techniques such as discharging batteries, getting conventional power stations to vary output, or large users to vary consumption, over short timeframes.
Unsurprisingly, nobody does any of this for free.
Another cost to consumers.
The final sting in the tail is that the grid infrastructure, despite expansion to cope with renewables, often can’t use all the renewable electricity generated.
This electricity is wasted, and the renewable generators have to be compensated through “curtailment” or “congestion” fees, again paid for by consumers.
According to consulting firm Grid Strategies, costs to consumers from congestion on the US power grid jumped 56 per cent in 2022 to an estimated $20.8 billion from $13.3 billion the year before.
Even if the wholesale price of electricity fell to zero to reflect the short-run marginal cost of producing renewable electricity, the price paid by consumers would simply be more disconnected from the wholesale price than it is today.
Consumers pay the wholesale price, plus a network cost (including congestion costs), plus a balancing cost, plus a subsidy cost, plus the retailer/supplier operating costs, plus some profits for everyone in the chain from the generator to the network owner to the network operator to the retailer.
And then some taxes on top.
And to hit net zero the whole electrical system – expanded renewables, expanded grid, backup fossil, balancing, subsidies, curtailment payments and all – will have to be expanded to multiple times its current size, as fossil fuels used directly in such things as heating and transport are replaced with electricity.
Anyone who thinks all this is going to mean cheaper energy is dreaming.
With respect, Mr President.
end quotes
Yes, indeed, dreaming the INSANE GREEN DREAM of American DICTATOR Joseph Robinette Biden, Junior, the Joe Stalin of our times in America today!
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-847159
Paul R Plante, NYSPE says:
And before we go back to the Telegraph article titled “Anyone who thinks renewable wind and solar energy will be cheap is dreaming” by Kathryn Porter on 25 August 2023, where we had the statement therein that “according to the Energy Information Administration, renewable subsidies in the US jumped to $15.6 billion in fiscal year 2022 from $7.4 billion in fiscal year 2016,” and Joe Biden’s specious claim on January 27, 2021 before signing the poetically named Executive Actions on Tackling Climate Change, Creating Jobs, and Restoring Scientific Integrity that “clean energy is affordable; because it’s clean; because, in many cases, it’s cheaper,” which is ridiculous gibberish and Karmela Harris-type word salad, and “clean technologies will ultimately become cheaper than any other kind of energy, helping us dramatically expand our economy and create more jobs with a cleaner, cleaner environment,” let’s come forward to today on the subject of those subsidies which are coming out of the pockets of we, the American people, by going to a Reuters article titled “Treasury’s Adeyemo calls for eliminating subsidies, including to energy companies” on September 11, 2023, where we have Joe’s slow thinking, pipe smoking U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo spouting nonsense, as follows, to wit:
Sept 11 (Reuters) – The United States should think about eliminating corporate subsidies, including to energy companies, U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in New York on Monday.
end quotes
All well and good say I, cut them all out, but as we shall see, the slow-thinking Wally (slow thinking is a requirement to be a member of the Biden administration, so that NO ONE will outshine Joe) is being selective here, to wit:
Adeyemo defended President Joe Biden’s budget proposal for fiscal 2024, noting that achieving fiscal sustainability would include modest tax increases, boosting tax revenue collections and finding other ways to cut costs.
end quote
HUH?
Modest tax increases?
Pardon me, but I thought I remembered Joe Biden saying that he was not going to tax us to pay for his INSANE GREEN DREAM and all his windmills, which was always a lie, because we are footing the bill which is growing all the time, which takes us back to Wally, to wit:
“We want to be sure we have the money to pay for our priorities,” he told the Economic Club of New York.
Biden’s budget calls for boosting revenues by eliminating $31 billion in tax preferences and subsidies for oil and gas companies, who he says have failed to invest in boosting energy production, while continuing to offer targeted tax credits for clean-energy investments under the Inflation Reduction Act.
end quotes
Tax credits for clean-energy investments under the Inflation Reduction Act means those LARGE CORPORATIONS do not pay their fair share, which takes us back to Wally. to wit:
“We can also think about what we can do to eliminate subsidies,” he said.
“None of us thinks it makes sense to subsidize energy companies in light of how they’re doing in this country.”
“But there are probably other subsidies and other things we can do to make the budget more efficient.”
end quotes
What hogwash!
So let’s go back to the Telegraph, where we have as follows concerning the reality facing us as a people and as a nation, despite Joe Biden’s bull**** to the contrary, keeping in mind that Joe Biden is the quintessential (representing the most perfect or typical example of a quality or class) lying, dog-faced pony soldier, to wit:
If projects are not economic when electricity prices are at record highs, how will they work if a time comes when electricity prices are very low?
That’s the dirty little secret of the renewables game.
The very high upfront costs mean developers have to be paid lots of money, and if the money from selling electricity isn’t enough then it has to come from elsewhere.
But ultimately it comes out of consumers’ pockets, whether directly through higher bills, or indirectly through higher taxes.
That’s not all.
Developed countries built their electricity grids decades ago when electricity came from a few large power stations.
Renewable generation is built where it’s windy/sunny or has good access to water at height or moving fast (for hydro).
These places tend to be not where old power stations used to be or where consumers are.
This means lots of new infrastructure is needed to connect it all up.
Guess who has to pay for that?
Next is the issue of intermittency: wind and sun vary from moment to moment.
Individual clouds make a measurable difference to generation, as do gusts of wind.
This creates two additional challenges – one is that if there’s no wind or sun, renewable output falls – the famous California “duck curve” measures the way solar output changes through the day with a major drop at sunset, when gas power stations need to take over.
Other sources of generation (there is no at-scale energy storage solution) have to be on standby to run when renewable output falls.
But no-one builds standby anything unless it’s worth their while – and that’s another big chunk of change consumers have to cough up.
The other problem with intermittency is that electricity grids need supply and demand to be finely balanced in real time.
Grid equipment can be damaged if this balance is not maintained within narrow tolerances.
If clouds and gusts of wind change supply from moment to moment, grid operators have to use a range of techniques such as discharging batteries, getting conventional power stations to vary output, or large users to vary consumption, over short timeframes.
Unsurprisingly, nobody does any of this for free.
Another cost to consumers.
The final sting in the tail is that the grid infrastructure, despite expansion to cope with renewables, often can’t use all the renewable electricity generated.
This electricity is wasted, and the renewable generators have to be compensated through “curtailment” or “congestion” fees, again paid for by consumers.
According to consulting firm Grid Strategies, costs to consumers from congestion on the US power grid jumped 56 per cent in 2022 to an estimated $20.8 billion from $13.3 billion the year before.
Even if the wholesale price of electricity fell to zero to reflect the short-run marginal cost of producing renewable electricity, the price paid by consumers would simply be more disconnected from the wholesale price than it is today.
Consumers pay the wholesale price, plus a network cost (including congestion costs), plus a balancing cost, plus a subsidy cost, plus the retailer/supplier operating costs, plus some profits for everyone in the chain from the generator to the network owner to the network operator to the retailer.
And then some taxes on top.
And to hit net zero the whole electrical system – expanded renewables, expanded grid, backup fossil, balancing, subsidies, curtailment payments and all – will have to be expanded to multiple times its current size, as fossil fuels used directly in such things as heating and transport are replaced with electricity.
Anyone who thinks all this is going to mean cheaper energy is dreaming.
With respect, Mr President.
end quotes
Yes, indeed, dreaming the INSANE GREEN DREAM of American DICTATOR Joseph Robinette Biden, Junior, the Joe Stalin of our times in America today!
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-847159
Re: On BIDE-O-NOMICS
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR SEPTEMBER 14, 2023 AT 10:20 AM
Paul R Plante, NYSPE says:
June 28, 2023, people, and a huge announcement from TEAM BIDEN titled “Bidenomics Is Working: The President’s Plan Grows the Economy from the Middle Out and Bottom Up—Not the Top Down,” where we were told by Joe that that under BIDE-O-NOMICS, Joe has proven that we can make smart investments in the American people while reducing the deficit by ensuring the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share in taxes, closing wasteful tax loopholes, and slashing wasteful spending on special interests.
Sounds rosy, does it not?
And we were further told that during Joe’s first two years as president, he presided over $1.7 trillion in deficit reduction — a larger reduction than under any other President in American history and he has signed legislation into law to reduce the deficit by more than $1 trillion over the next decade, including by ensuring the wealthiest Americans and largest corporations pay their fair share, cracking down on wealthy tax cheats, and lowering prescription drug costs for the American people by cutting wasteful giveaways to Big Pharma.
And his Budget would reduce the deficit by another more than $2.5 trillion over the next decade with additional reforms, including requiring the wealthiest Americans and the largest multinational corporations to pay at least the tax rates that many middle-class families do.
Well, the news is now out on what BIDE-O-NOMICS is really delivering for the American people, so let’s take a look by going to a Reuters article titled “US posts August budget surplus after student loan cost reversal” by David Lawder on September 13, 2023 where we have as follows:
Receipts last month totaled $283 billion, down 7% or $21 billion from a year earlier, while outlays came to $194 billion after the student loan reversal, down 63% or $329 billion.
end quote
Focus on “receipts down $21 billion from a year earlier.”
Then we have this:
With one month to go before the fiscal 2023 year ends on Sept. 30, the government’s year-to-date deficit totaled $1.524 trillion, a 61% increase over a $946 billion budget gap for the same period of fiscal 2022.
The 11-month deficit was almost as much as the White House’s latest forecast of a $1.543 trillion deficit for the full fiscal year, marking the return of rising U.S. deficits after declines during Biden’s first two years as president.
end quotes
So BIDE-O-NOMICS IS NOT reducing the deficit, at all – it is contributing to the deficit, as we see in the following, to wit:
Fiscal year-to-date receipts totaled $3.972 trillion, down 10% or $434 billion from a year earlier, primarily due to lower non-withheld individual income tax receipts, higher tax refunds as the Internal Revenue Service churned through a huge backlog of unprocessed paper tax returns, and far lower Federal Reserve earnings due to higher interest rates.
Year-to-date outlays totaled $5.496 trillion, up 3% or $142 billion, partly reflecting the student loan reversal.
The Treasury’s net interest cost for the period hit a record $808 billion, up 19% or $130 billion from a year earlier.
The weighted average interest rate on U.S. Treasury debt was 2.92% in August, up from 1.97% in August 2022.
end quotes
When that says the Treasury’s net interest cost for the period hit a record $808 billion, up 19% or $130 billion from a year earlier, what that really means is that OUR cost for interest on the DEFICITS caused Joe’s RECKLESS FISCAL PROFLIGACY, which is MASSIVE BORROW-AND-SPEND CORPORATE WELFARE is up 19% or $130 billion from a year earlier, because it is WE, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE who are paying for the debt, and that interest is a TAX on us.
And that TAX is going up because bond yields are going up, and bond yields, which is the interest paid on U.S. debt, have gone up because investors are demanding a premium to hold the debt, as the supply keeps increasing, and the supply is increasing because “TOODLES” Yellen is running a classic Ponzi scheme, where she has to sell debt today to pay for debt sold yesterday as bonds come to maturity.
And how about inflation, people?
According to another Reuters article titled “Gasoline lights up US consumer inflation; underlying trend steadily improving” by Lucia Mutikani on September 13, 2023, we have as follows, to wit:
The consumer price index increased by 0.6% last month, the largest gain since June 2022, after rising 0.2% for two straight months.
Food prices gained 0.2% for the second straight month.
A 1.2% drop in prices of used cars and trucks was offset by higher costs for motor vehicle insurance, hospital services, prescription medication as well as household furnishings and operations.
Airline fares rebounded 4.9%, reflecting higher jet fuel prices.
end quotes
That is reality, people, which takes us to a CNBC article on the same subject titled “August core inflation, excluding food and energy, rose 0.3%, hotter than expected” by Jeff Cox on September 13, 2023 where we have this, to wit:
Inflation posted its biggest monthly increase this year in August as consumers faced higher prices on energy and a variety of other items.
The jump in headline inflation hit worker paychecks.
Real average hourly earnings declined 0.5% for the month, though they were still up 0.5% from a year ago, the Labor Department said in a separate release.
end quotes
So under BIDE-O-NOMICS, while CORPORATE AMERICA is actually doing quite well for itself thanks to the FISCAL PROFLIGACY of Joe Biden and all his CORPORATE SUBSIDIES, WE, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE are taking it on the chin!
So BIDE-O-NOMICS is putting us as a nation and as a people further behind, because we clearly are not getting ahead!
So much for Joe’s plan to grow the economy from the Middle Out and Bottom Up—Not the Top Down!
It’s a load of CRAP!
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-847159
Paul R Plante, NYSPE says:
June 28, 2023, people, and a huge announcement from TEAM BIDEN titled “Bidenomics Is Working: The President’s Plan Grows the Economy from the Middle Out and Bottom Up—Not the Top Down,” where we were told by Joe that that under BIDE-O-NOMICS, Joe has proven that we can make smart investments in the American people while reducing the deficit by ensuring the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share in taxes, closing wasteful tax loopholes, and slashing wasteful spending on special interests.
Sounds rosy, does it not?
And we were further told that during Joe’s first two years as president, he presided over $1.7 trillion in deficit reduction — a larger reduction than under any other President in American history and he has signed legislation into law to reduce the deficit by more than $1 trillion over the next decade, including by ensuring the wealthiest Americans and largest corporations pay their fair share, cracking down on wealthy tax cheats, and lowering prescription drug costs for the American people by cutting wasteful giveaways to Big Pharma.
And his Budget would reduce the deficit by another more than $2.5 trillion over the next decade with additional reforms, including requiring the wealthiest Americans and the largest multinational corporations to pay at least the tax rates that many middle-class families do.
Well, the news is now out on what BIDE-O-NOMICS is really delivering for the American people, so let’s take a look by going to a Reuters article titled “US posts August budget surplus after student loan cost reversal” by David Lawder on September 13, 2023 where we have as follows:
Receipts last month totaled $283 billion, down 7% or $21 billion from a year earlier, while outlays came to $194 billion after the student loan reversal, down 63% or $329 billion.
end quote
Focus on “receipts down $21 billion from a year earlier.”
Then we have this:
With one month to go before the fiscal 2023 year ends on Sept. 30, the government’s year-to-date deficit totaled $1.524 trillion, a 61% increase over a $946 billion budget gap for the same period of fiscal 2022.
The 11-month deficit was almost as much as the White House’s latest forecast of a $1.543 trillion deficit for the full fiscal year, marking the return of rising U.S. deficits after declines during Biden’s first two years as president.
end quotes
So BIDE-O-NOMICS IS NOT reducing the deficit, at all – it is contributing to the deficit, as we see in the following, to wit:
Fiscal year-to-date receipts totaled $3.972 trillion, down 10% or $434 billion from a year earlier, primarily due to lower non-withheld individual income tax receipts, higher tax refunds as the Internal Revenue Service churned through a huge backlog of unprocessed paper tax returns, and far lower Federal Reserve earnings due to higher interest rates.
Year-to-date outlays totaled $5.496 trillion, up 3% or $142 billion, partly reflecting the student loan reversal.
The Treasury’s net interest cost for the period hit a record $808 billion, up 19% or $130 billion from a year earlier.
The weighted average interest rate on U.S. Treasury debt was 2.92% in August, up from 1.97% in August 2022.
end quotes
When that says the Treasury’s net interest cost for the period hit a record $808 billion, up 19% or $130 billion from a year earlier, what that really means is that OUR cost for interest on the DEFICITS caused Joe’s RECKLESS FISCAL PROFLIGACY, which is MASSIVE BORROW-AND-SPEND CORPORATE WELFARE is up 19% or $130 billion from a year earlier, because it is WE, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE who are paying for the debt, and that interest is a TAX on us.
And that TAX is going up because bond yields are going up, and bond yields, which is the interest paid on U.S. debt, have gone up because investors are demanding a premium to hold the debt, as the supply keeps increasing, and the supply is increasing because “TOODLES” Yellen is running a classic Ponzi scheme, where she has to sell debt today to pay for debt sold yesterday as bonds come to maturity.
And how about inflation, people?
According to another Reuters article titled “Gasoline lights up US consumer inflation; underlying trend steadily improving” by Lucia Mutikani on September 13, 2023, we have as follows, to wit:
The consumer price index increased by 0.6% last month, the largest gain since June 2022, after rising 0.2% for two straight months.
Food prices gained 0.2% for the second straight month.
A 1.2% drop in prices of used cars and trucks was offset by higher costs for motor vehicle insurance, hospital services, prescription medication as well as household furnishings and operations.
Airline fares rebounded 4.9%, reflecting higher jet fuel prices.
end quotes
That is reality, people, which takes us to a CNBC article on the same subject titled “August core inflation, excluding food and energy, rose 0.3%, hotter than expected” by Jeff Cox on September 13, 2023 where we have this, to wit:
Inflation posted its biggest monthly increase this year in August as consumers faced higher prices on energy and a variety of other items.
The jump in headline inflation hit worker paychecks.
Real average hourly earnings declined 0.5% for the month, though they were still up 0.5% from a year ago, the Labor Department said in a separate release.
end quotes
So under BIDE-O-NOMICS, while CORPORATE AMERICA is actually doing quite well for itself thanks to the FISCAL PROFLIGACY of Joe Biden and all his CORPORATE SUBSIDIES, WE, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE are taking it on the chin!
So BIDE-O-NOMICS is putting us as a nation and as a people further behind, because we clearly are not getting ahead!
So much for Joe’s plan to grow the economy from the Middle Out and Bottom Up—Not the Top Down!
It’s a load of CRAP!
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-847159
Re: On BIDE-O-NOMICS
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR SEPTEMBER 16, 2023 AT 11:25 AM
Paul R Plante, NYSPE says:
CHAOS, people!
Yes, chaos, that is what BIDE-O-NOMICS, Joe Biden’s MASSIVE BORROW-AND-SPEND CORPORATE WELFARE PROGRAM that enrichens those at the top by sucking the lifeblood out of those at the bottom, and passing it up to those in the middle, who get to take a cut before passing the bulk up to those at the top is delivering for the American people, as inflation continues to go up, not down, as we see in a CNBC article titled “August wholesale inflation rises 0.7%, hotter than expected, but core prices in check” by Jeff Cox on September 14, 2023, to wit:
Inflation at the wholesale level rose more than expected in August, countering recent data showing that price increases have tempered lately.
Final demand goods prices rose 2% in August, the biggest one-month gain since June 2022.
end quotes
Contrast that reality with this burst of blather and hoo-hah from Biden clean energy czar Podesta on August 16, 2023 in the Fox Business News article titled “Biden’s clean energy czar Podesta says Inflation Reduction Act is ‘all about’ cutting carbon pollution – WH senior adviser John Podesta said the IRA is working to eliminate ‘carbon pollution that’s driving the climate crisis'” by Kyle Morris, to wit:
Senior White House adviser John Podesta said Wednesday that the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), despite its name, is “all about” rolling back the carbon pollution that has been “driving the climate crisis.”
end quote
Is that a version of “BAIT-AND-SWITCH,” people?
Seems it to me, especially since it is not reducing inflation, nor according to John Podesta, was it ever supposed to.
So calling it the Inflation Reduction Act was a falsehood, plain and simple, just another blatant lie from an administration that does nothing but lie, day after day after day.
And other than being nothing more than just another politically-reliable Democrat party hack, who exactly is John Podesta, that he is in any way “qualified” to be Joe Biden’s “clean energy czar?”
Let’s take a look:
John David Podesta Jr., born January 8, 1949, is an American political consultant who has served as senior advisor to the president for clean energy innovation and implementation since September 2022.
Podesta previously served as White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton from 1998 to 2001 and counselor to President Barack Obama from 2014 to 2015.
Before that, he served in the Clinton administration as White House staff secretary from 1993 to 1995 and White House deputy chief of staff for operations from 1997 to 1998.
He is the former president, and now chair and counselor, of the Center for American Progress (CAP), a think tank in Washington, D.C., as well as a visiting professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center and was chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Additionally, he was a co-chairman of the Obama-Biden transition team.
In his current role as senior advisor to President Biden, Podesta oversees the disbursement of $370–783 billion in clean energy tax credits and incentives authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
end quotes
Ahhhh, yes, as Joe’s “clean energy czar,” a position he really has no qualifications for other than being a trusted party hack who will go along to get along, John Podesta is the one who hands out the CORPORATE WELFARE for Joe Biden, with no questions asked, while handing us the bill for his largesse!
Going back to that Fox article, it continues, thusly:
Speaking from the briefing room at the White House, Podesta, who was selected by President Biden to serve as senior adviser to the president for clean energy innovation and implementation in September 2022, discussed the Biden administration’s green energy efforts related to climate change.
Speaking on the subject of climate disasters on the measure’s one-year anniversary, Podesta insisted that the IRA is working to eliminate carbon pollution.
“To stop these disasters from getting even worse, we have to cut the carbon pollution that’s driving the climate crisis,” he said.
“And that’s what the Inflation Reduction Act is all about.”
Podesta’s comments came nearly a week after Biden admitted that the Democrats’ signature piece of legislation – the IRA – wasn’t as much about actually reducing the then-record-high inflation facing the nation as he originally touted to the American people.
“I wish I hadn’t called it that.”
“It has less to do with reducing inflation than it does providing for alternatives that generate economic growth,” Biden said during an appearance at a campaign fundraiser in Park City, Utah according to the press pool report.
end quotes
Generate Economic growth?
For whom?
Let’s go to a Reuters article titled “US retail sales beat expectations as Americans pay more for gasoline” by Lucia Mutikani on September 14, 2023, where we have this answer, to wit:
WASHINGTON, Sept 14 (Reuters) – U.S. retail sales increased more than expected in August as a surge in gasoline prices boosted receipts at service stations, but the trend in underlying spending on goods slowed as Americans grappled with higher inflation and borrowing costs.
Though spending remains supported by higher wages from the tight labor market, the outlook is darkening.
Excess savings accumulated during the COVID-19 pandemic continue to be run down.
Credit card balances have risen sharply, with delinquencies at an 11-year high in the second quarter, according to recent data from the New York Federal Reserve.
“We estimate that the stock of excess savings that has kept the consumers afloat has declined about 70% to $600 billion on aggregate and that excess savings for lower-income families have largely been depleted,” said Lydia Boussour, senior economist at EY-Parthenon in New York.
end quotes
From the bottom up and middle out, people, as opposed to from the top down – that is the heart and soul of BIDE-O-NOMICS – HOOVER out the money from the pockets of those at the bottom so that those at the top can continue to live in the luxurious style they are not only accustomed to, but entitled, to, as well, which takes us back to Fox, to wit:
“And so, we’re now in a situation where if you take a look at what we’re doing in the Inflation Reduction Act, we’re literally reducing the cost of people being able to make their — meet their basic needs,” Biden said.
end quote
Which is pure political BULL**** from the man who is America’s quintessential lying, dog-faced pony soldier!
Going back to the Fox article, we have more, to wit:
“Even when there is inflation there is a way to provide breathing room,” he added, citing negotiating medical prices as one example.
end quote
Which takes us to a Reuters article titled “US consumer spending accelerates; declining savings a red flag” by Lucia Mutikani on August 31, 2023, to wit:
Services spending increased 0.8%, driven by portfolio management and investment advice services, housing and utilities, restaurants and healthcare.
end quote
Healthcare is going up, not down, which takes us back to Fox, to wit:
Biden’s comments are a sharp turn from what he said in July 2022 ahead of the Inflation Reduction Act’s passage through Congress on a party line vote.
“The Inflation Reduction Act is the strongest bill you can pass.”
“It will lower inflation, cut the deficit, reduce health care costs, tackle the climate crisis, and promote energy security,” he said.
end quotes
ALL of which, as we shall see in the next installment of this series, is pure Biden BULL**** as only Joe can throw it, and now once again, time for station identification, and when we return it will be with the Reuters article titled “Fed losses breach $100 billion as interest costs rise” by Michael S. Derby on September 15, 2023, and the Reuters article titled “Biden’s offshore wind target slipping out of reach as projects struggle” by Nichola Groom on September 15, 2023, where we were informed that President Joe Biden’s goal to deploy 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind along U.S. coastlines this decade to fight climate change may be unattainable due to soaring costs and supply chain delays, according to forecasters and industry insiders, so please stay tuned and don’t touch that dial!
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-848233
Paul R Plante, NYSPE says:
CHAOS, people!
Yes, chaos, that is what BIDE-O-NOMICS, Joe Biden’s MASSIVE BORROW-AND-SPEND CORPORATE WELFARE PROGRAM that enrichens those at the top by sucking the lifeblood out of those at the bottom, and passing it up to those in the middle, who get to take a cut before passing the bulk up to those at the top is delivering for the American people, as inflation continues to go up, not down, as we see in a CNBC article titled “August wholesale inflation rises 0.7%, hotter than expected, but core prices in check” by Jeff Cox on September 14, 2023, to wit:
Inflation at the wholesale level rose more than expected in August, countering recent data showing that price increases have tempered lately.
Final demand goods prices rose 2% in August, the biggest one-month gain since June 2022.
end quotes
Contrast that reality with this burst of blather and hoo-hah from Biden clean energy czar Podesta on August 16, 2023 in the Fox Business News article titled “Biden’s clean energy czar Podesta says Inflation Reduction Act is ‘all about’ cutting carbon pollution – WH senior adviser John Podesta said the IRA is working to eliminate ‘carbon pollution that’s driving the climate crisis'” by Kyle Morris, to wit:
Senior White House adviser John Podesta said Wednesday that the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), despite its name, is “all about” rolling back the carbon pollution that has been “driving the climate crisis.”
end quote
Is that a version of “BAIT-AND-SWITCH,” people?
Seems it to me, especially since it is not reducing inflation, nor according to John Podesta, was it ever supposed to.
So calling it the Inflation Reduction Act was a falsehood, plain and simple, just another blatant lie from an administration that does nothing but lie, day after day after day.
And other than being nothing more than just another politically-reliable Democrat party hack, who exactly is John Podesta, that he is in any way “qualified” to be Joe Biden’s “clean energy czar?”
Let’s take a look:
John David Podesta Jr., born January 8, 1949, is an American political consultant who has served as senior advisor to the president for clean energy innovation and implementation since September 2022.
Podesta previously served as White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton from 1998 to 2001 and counselor to President Barack Obama from 2014 to 2015.
Before that, he served in the Clinton administration as White House staff secretary from 1993 to 1995 and White House deputy chief of staff for operations from 1997 to 1998.
He is the former president, and now chair and counselor, of the Center for American Progress (CAP), a think tank in Washington, D.C., as well as a visiting professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center and was chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Additionally, he was a co-chairman of the Obama-Biden transition team.
In his current role as senior advisor to President Biden, Podesta oversees the disbursement of $370–783 billion in clean energy tax credits and incentives authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
end quotes
Ahhhh, yes, as Joe’s “clean energy czar,” a position he really has no qualifications for other than being a trusted party hack who will go along to get along, John Podesta is the one who hands out the CORPORATE WELFARE for Joe Biden, with no questions asked, while handing us the bill for his largesse!
Going back to that Fox article, it continues, thusly:
Speaking from the briefing room at the White House, Podesta, who was selected by President Biden to serve as senior adviser to the president for clean energy innovation and implementation in September 2022, discussed the Biden administration’s green energy efforts related to climate change.
Speaking on the subject of climate disasters on the measure’s one-year anniversary, Podesta insisted that the IRA is working to eliminate carbon pollution.
“To stop these disasters from getting even worse, we have to cut the carbon pollution that’s driving the climate crisis,” he said.
“And that’s what the Inflation Reduction Act is all about.”
Podesta’s comments came nearly a week after Biden admitted that the Democrats’ signature piece of legislation – the IRA – wasn’t as much about actually reducing the then-record-high inflation facing the nation as he originally touted to the American people.
“I wish I hadn’t called it that.”
“It has less to do with reducing inflation than it does providing for alternatives that generate economic growth,” Biden said during an appearance at a campaign fundraiser in Park City, Utah according to the press pool report.
end quotes
Generate Economic growth?
For whom?
Let’s go to a Reuters article titled “US retail sales beat expectations as Americans pay more for gasoline” by Lucia Mutikani on September 14, 2023, where we have this answer, to wit:
WASHINGTON, Sept 14 (Reuters) – U.S. retail sales increased more than expected in August as a surge in gasoline prices boosted receipts at service stations, but the trend in underlying spending on goods slowed as Americans grappled with higher inflation and borrowing costs.
Though spending remains supported by higher wages from the tight labor market, the outlook is darkening.
Excess savings accumulated during the COVID-19 pandemic continue to be run down.
Credit card balances have risen sharply, with delinquencies at an 11-year high in the second quarter, according to recent data from the New York Federal Reserve.
“We estimate that the stock of excess savings that has kept the consumers afloat has declined about 70% to $600 billion on aggregate and that excess savings for lower-income families have largely been depleted,” said Lydia Boussour, senior economist at EY-Parthenon in New York.
end quotes
From the bottom up and middle out, people, as opposed to from the top down – that is the heart and soul of BIDE-O-NOMICS – HOOVER out the money from the pockets of those at the bottom so that those at the top can continue to live in the luxurious style they are not only accustomed to, but entitled, to, as well, which takes us back to Fox, to wit:
“And so, we’re now in a situation where if you take a look at what we’re doing in the Inflation Reduction Act, we’re literally reducing the cost of people being able to make their — meet their basic needs,” Biden said.
end quote
Which is pure political BULL**** from the man who is America’s quintessential lying, dog-faced pony soldier!
Going back to the Fox article, we have more, to wit:
“Even when there is inflation there is a way to provide breathing room,” he added, citing negotiating medical prices as one example.
end quote
Which takes us to a Reuters article titled “US consumer spending accelerates; declining savings a red flag” by Lucia Mutikani on August 31, 2023, to wit:
Services spending increased 0.8%, driven by portfolio management and investment advice services, housing and utilities, restaurants and healthcare.
end quote
Healthcare is going up, not down, which takes us back to Fox, to wit:
Biden’s comments are a sharp turn from what he said in July 2022 ahead of the Inflation Reduction Act’s passage through Congress on a party line vote.
“The Inflation Reduction Act is the strongest bill you can pass.”
“It will lower inflation, cut the deficit, reduce health care costs, tackle the climate crisis, and promote energy security,” he said.
end quotes
ALL of which, as we shall see in the next installment of this series, is pure Biden BULL**** as only Joe can throw it, and now once again, time for station identification, and when we return it will be with the Reuters article titled “Fed losses breach $100 billion as interest costs rise” by Michael S. Derby on September 15, 2023, and the Reuters article titled “Biden’s offshore wind target slipping out of reach as projects struggle” by Nichola Groom on September 15, 2023, where we were informed that President Joe Biden’s goal to deploy 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind along U.S. coastlines this decade to fight climate change may be unattainable due to soaring costs and supply chain delays, according to forecasters and industry insiders, so please stay tuned and don’t touch that dial!
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-848233
Re: On BIDE-O-NOMICS
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR SEPTEMBER 17, 2023 AT 7:57 PM
Paul Plante says:
As to BIDE-O-NOMICS, which takes money from the pockets of those at the bottom and passes it up through the hands of those in the middle so they can take a cut a cut, before passing the bulk up to those on the top, what Joe Biden calls wealth distribution “flowing upward,” as opposed to “trickling down,” according to an America Insider article titled “Poll Shows How Americans Really Feel About ‘Bidenomics’” by Carver Malone on 16 September 2023, we have as follows, to wit:
It’s becoming unmistakably clear that Joe Biden is completely inept at handling the economic problems that face America.
A poll from the Wall Street Journal shows that roughly 3 out of 5 voters disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy.
63% say they do not approve of Biden’s handling of runaway inflation.
end quotes
I don’t at all dispute the statistics, but I would correct that lead sentence to read that Joe Biden’s completely inept handling of our economy is what has led to the serious economic problems that face America, and its people, which takes us to a Reuters article titled “Fed losses breach $100 billion as interest costs rise” by Michael S. Derby on September 15, 2023, where we have this outcome of BIDE-O-NOMICS to consider, to wit:
NEW YORK, Sept 15 (Reuters) – Federal Reserve losses breached the $100 billion mark, central bank data released on Thursday showed, and they’re likely to go a lot higher before the red ink stops.
The U.S. central bank is continuing to pay out more in interest costs than it takes in from the interest it earns on bonds it owns and from the services it provides to the financial sector.
While there’s considerable uncertainty around how it will all play out, some observers believe Fed losses, which began a year ago, could eventually as much as double before abating.
end quotes
Talk about gross mismanagement of our nation’s monetary system, there we have it before us, in graphic black and white, and that takes us to an Associated Press article from May 31, 2022 titled “Biden plots inflation fight with Fed chair as nation worries” by Josh Boak, Christopher Rugaber and Zeke Miller, where we have this following about the blind and witless leading the blind and just plain dumb as a box of rocks, to wit:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Focused on relentlessly rising prices, President Joe Biden plotted inflation-fighting strategy Tuesday with the chairman of the Federal Reserve, with the fate of the economy and his own political prospects increasingly dependent on the actions of the government’s central bank.
end quotes
And as we can clearly see from this Reuters article above here titled titled “Fed losses breach $100 billion as interest costs rise” by Michael S. Derby on September 15, 2023, Joe Biden put our future and our fate into the hands of a bunch of politically-appointed morons who in the meantime since have run the central bank into the ground, which takes us back to the AP article, as follows:
Biden hoped to demonstrate to voters that he was attuned to their worries about higher gasoline, grocery and other prices whiles still insisting an independent Fed will act free from political pressure.
end quote
Independent Fed?
Act free from political pressure?
Not hardly, people!
Going back to that story, we have more as follows:
Like Biden, the Fed wants to slow inflation without knocking the U.S. economy into recession, a highly sensitive mission that is to include increasing benchmark interest rates this summer.
end quote
And it is the increasing of those benchmark interest rates that has caused the fed to lose so much money, and that increasing was as a result of the inflation caused by Joe Biden’s reckless economic policies which have greatly increased our nation's debt load and deficit, so we have the spectacle of the federal reserve trying to undo the harm to our economy being done to it by BIDE-O-NOMICS.
Going back to the AP article, it continues as follows:
The president said he would not attempt to direct that course as some previous presidents have tried.
“My plan to address inflation starts with simple proposition: Respect the Fed, respect the Fed’s independence,” Biden said.
The sit-down on a heat-drenched late-spring day was Biden’s latest effort to show his dedication to containing the 8.3% leap in consumer prices over the past year.
Rising gas and food costs have angered many Americans heading into the midterm elections, putting Democrats’ control of the House and Senate at risk.
Biden is running out of options on his own.
His past attempts — oil releases from the strategic reserve, improving port operations and calls to investigate price gouging — have fallen short of satisfactory results.
High prices have undermined his efforts to highlight the low 3.6% unemployment rate, leaving a growing sense of pessimism among Americans.
Tuesday’s meeting was the first since Powell was renominated in November by Biden to lead the central bank and came two weeks after his confirmation for a second term by the Senate.
It also represented something of a reversal by Biden as inflation weighs heavily on voters’ minds.
The president asserted in April 2021 that he was “very fastidious about not talking” with the independent Fed and wanted to avoid being seen as “telling them what they should and shouldn’t do.”
The White House, along with the Fed, initially portrayed the inflation surge as a temporary side effect caused by supply chain issues as the U.S. emerged from the pandemic.
Republican lawmakers were fast to criticize Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package from last year as pumping too much money into the economy and causing more inflation.
That narrative also has held some sway with leading economists who say the financial support was excessive even though it helped the job market roar back.
The administration has walked back its previous statements.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told CNN on Tuesday evening that she did not fully understand the impact that unanticipated large shocks and supply bottlenecks would have on the economy.
“Look, I think I was wrong then about the path that inflation would take,” she said.
“But we recognize that now the Federal Reserve is taking the steps that it needs to take.”
“It’s up to them to decide what to do.”
This was only the fourth meeting between the president and the Federal Reserve chair, though Powell breakfasts as often as once a week with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who also attended Tuesday’s meeting along with Brian Deese, the White House National Economic Council director.
Ahead of the meeting, Biden suggested that he and Powell were aligned on addressing inflation.
“My predecessor demeaned the Fed, and past presidents have sought to influence its decisions inappropriately during periods of elevated inflation,” Biden said in an op-ed posted Monday by The Wall Street Journal.
“I won’t do this.”
“I have appointed highly qualified people from both parties to lead that institution.”
“I agree with their assessment that fighting inflation is our top economic challenge right now.”
Biden’s endorsement of the Fed’s policies — a stance echoed by congressional GOP leaders — gives Powell important political cover for a series of sharp interest rate hikes intended to rein in higher prices.
Yet the higher rates could cause layoffs, raise the unemployment rate and even tip the economy into recession.
Amid worries that the U.S. economy may repeat the high, persistent inflation of the 1970s, the cooperation between Biden and Powell represents a crucial difference from that time and could make it easier for the Fed to restrain higher prices.
In the early 1970s, President Richard Nixon pressured Fed chair Arthur Burns to lower interest rates to spur the economy before Nixon’s 1972 reelection campaign.
Nixon’s interference is now widely seen as a key contributor to runaway inflation, which remained high until the early 1980s.
“That’s why comparisons to the 1970s are wrong,” said Sebastian Mallaby, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of a biography on former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, “The Man Who Knew.”
“The president’s essay was striking because he explicitly backed the Fed.”
Powell has pledged to keep ratcheting up the Fed’s key short-term interest rate to cool the economy until inflation is “coming down in a clear and convincing way.”
Biden, in his op-ed, indicated that the record-setting pace of job creation in the aftermath of the pandemic would slow dramatically, suggesting more moderate levels of 150,000 jobs per month from 500,000.
That, he said, would be no warning of weakness but “a sign that we are successfully moving into the next phase of recovery—as this kind of job growth is consistent with a low unemployment rate and a healthy economy.”
end quotes
So there we have Joe Biden taking full responsibility for the total mess that is the federal reserve today with his statement that he appointed highly qualified people from both parties to lead that institution, which in turn gives him responsibility for this following from the Reuters article, to wit:
William English, a former top central bank staffer now at Yale University, said he sees a “peak” loss of around $200 billion by 2025.
Meanwhile, Derek Tang of forecasting firm LH Meyer said the loss is likely to be between $150 billion and $200 billion by next year.
The Fed captures its losses in what it calls a deferred asset, an accounting measure that tallies what it will eventually have to cover in the future before it can return to its normal practice of returning its profits to the Treasury.
A money-losing Fed has not been a surprise given its aggressive campaign to raise interest rates, which has taken the benchmark overnight interest rate from the near-zero level in March 2022 to its current 5.25%-5.50% range.
The Fed bought bonds aggressively during the coronavirus pandemic and its immediate aftermath, and in just over the last year it has shed about $1 trillion in Treasury and mortgage bonds.
For some time the Fed has returned substantial amounts of money back to the Treasury, and this money has been used to lower government deficits.
James Bullard, the former head of the St. Louis Fed, said in an interview on Wednesday that he’s “worried” about the central bank’s losses and “it would be better not to do this.”
He said it likely would have been better for the Fed to have kept some of the $1 trillion it has given the Treasury over the last decade to cover the sort of losses it is now navigating, but he noted that’s not the system Congress has set up.
Whenever the Fed does stop losing money, it will take years before it is able to take the deferred asset off its books and start returning cash to the Treasury.
In 2022, the Fed handed back $76 billion, after returning $109 billion in 2021.
What’s more, those high levels of earnings were tied to the very low rates then in place.
It remains an open question whether the Fed will be able to get back to that landscape, although some in the central bank, notably New York Fed President John Williams, are optimistic that can happen.
end quotes
And there is reality, people.
Think I’m kidding?
Not a joke!
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-848917
Paul Plante says:
As to BIDE-O-NOMICS, which takes money from the pockets of those at the bottom and passes it up through the hands of those in the middle so they can take a cut a cut, before passing the bulk up to those on the top, what Joe Biden calls wealth distribution “flowing upward,” as opposed to “trickling down,” according to an America Insider article titled “Poll Shows How Americans Really Feel About ‘Bidenomics’” by Carver Malone on 16 September 2023, we have as follows, to wit:
It’s becoming unmistakably clear that Joe Biden is completely inept at handling the economic problems that face America.
A poll from the Wall Street Journal shows that roughly 3 out of 5 voters disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy.
63% say they do not approve of Biden’s handling of runaway inflation.
end quotes
I don’t at all dispute the statistics, but I would correct that lead sentence to read that Joe Biden’s completely inept handling of our economy is what has led to the serious economic problems that face America, and its people, which takes us to a Reuters article titled “Fed losses breach $100 billion as interest costs rise” by Michael S. Derby on September 15, 2023, where we have this outcome of BIDE-O-NOMICS to consider, to wit:
NEW YORK, Sept 15 (Reuters) – Federal Reserve losses breached the $100 billion mark, central bank data released on Thursday showed, and they’re likely to go a lot higher before the red ink stops.
The U.S. central bank is continuing to pay out more in interest costs than it takes in from the interest it earns on bonds it owns and from the services it provides to the financial sector.
While there’s considerable uncertainty around how it will all play out, some observers believe Fed losses, which began a year ago, could eventually as much as double before abating.
end quotes
Talk about gross mismanagement of our nation’s monetary system, there we have it before us, in graphic black and white, and that takes us to an Associated Press article from May 31, 2022 titled “Biden plots inflation fight with Fed chair as nation worries” by Josh Boak, Christopher Rugaber and Zeke Miller, where we have this following about the blind and witless leading the blind and just plain dumb as a box of rocks, to wit:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Focused on relentlessly rising prices, President Joe Biden plotted inflation-fighting strategy Tuesday with the chairman of the Federal Reserve, with the fate of the economy and his own political prospects increasingly dependent on the actions of the government’s central bank.
end quotes
And as we can clearly see from this Reuters article above here titled titled “Fed losses breach $100 billion as interest costs rise” by Michael S. Derby on September 15, 2023, Joe Biden put our future and our fate into the hands of a bunch of politically-appointed morons who in the meantime since have run the central bank into the ground, which takes us back to the AP article, as follows:
Biden hoped to demonstrate to voters that he was attuned to their worries about higher gasoline, grocery and other prices whiles still insisting an independent Fed will act free from political pressure.
end quote
Independent Fed?
Act free from political pressure?
Not hardly, people!
Going back to that story, we have more as follows:
Like Biden, the Fed wants to slow inflation without knocking the U.S. economy into recession, a highly sensitive mission that is to include increasing benchmark interest rates this summer.
end quote
And it is the increasing of those benchmark interest rates that has caused the fed to lose so much money, and that increasing was as a result of the inflation caused by Joe Biden’s reckless economic policies which have greatly increased our nation's debt load and deficit, so we have the spectacle of the federal reserve trying to undo the harm to our economy being done to it by BIDE-O-NOMICS.
Going back to the AP article, it continues as follows:
The president said he would not attempt to direct that course as some previous presidents have tried.
“My plan to address inflation starts with simple proposition: Respect the Fed, respect the Fed’s independence,” Biden said.
The sit-down on a heat-drenched late-spring day was Biden’s latest effort to show his dedication to containing the 8.3% leap in consumer prices over the past year.
Rising gas and food costs have angered many Americans heading into the midterm elections, putting Democrats’ control of the House and Senate at risk.
Biden is running out of options on his own.
His past attempts — oil releases from the strategic reserve, improving port operations and calls to investigate price gouging — have fallen short of satisfactory results.
High prices have undermined his efforts to highlight the low 3.6% unemployment rate, leaving a growing sense of pessimism among Americans.
Tuesday’s meeting was the first since Powell was renominated in November by Biden to lead the central bank and came two weeks after his confirmation for a second term by the Senate.
It also represented something of a reversal by Biden as inflation weighs heavily on voters’ minds.
The president asserted in April 2021 that he was “very fastidious about not talking” with the independent Fed and wanted to avoid being seen as “telling them what they should and shouldn’t do.”
The White House, along with the Fed, initially portrayed the inflation surge as a temporary side effect caused by supply chain issues as the U.S. emerged from the pandemic.
Republican lawmakers were fast to criticize Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package from last year as pumping too much money into the economy and causing more inflation.
That narrative also has held some sway with leading economists who say the financial support was excessive even though it helped the job market roar back.
The administration has walked back its previous statements.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told CNN on Tuesday evening that she did not fully understand the impact that unanticipated large shocks and supply bottlenecks would have on the economy.
“Look, I think I was wrong then about the path that inflation would take,” she said.
“But we recognize that now the Federal Reserve is taking the steps that it needs to take.”
“It’s up to them to decide what to do.”
This was only the fourth meeting between the president and the Federal Reserve chair, though Powell breakfasts as often as once a week with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who also attended Tuesday’s meeting along with Brian Deese, the White House National Economic Council director.
Ahead of the meeting, Biden suggested that he and Powell were aligned on addressing inflation.
“My predecessor demeaned the Fed, and past presidents have sought to influence its decisions inappropriately during periods of elevated inflation,” Biden said in an op-ed posted Monday by The Wall Street Journal.
“I won’t do this.”
“I have appointed highly qualified people from both parties to lead that institution.”
“I agree with their assessment that fighting inflation is our top economic challenge right now.”
Biden’s endorsement of the Fed’s policies — a stance echoed by congressional GOP leaders — gives Powell important political cover for a series of sharp interest rate hikes intended to rein in higher prices.
Yet the higher rates could cause layoffs, raise the unemployment rate and even tip the economy into recession.
Amid worries that the U.S. economy may repeat the high, persistent inflation of the 1970s, the cooperation between Biden and Powell represents a crucial difference from that time and could make it easier for the Fed to restrain higher prices.
In the early 1970s, President Richard Nixon pressured Fed chair Arthur Burns to lower interest rates to spur the economy before Nixon’s 1972 reelection campaign.
Nixon’s interference is now widely seen as a key contributor to runaway inflation, which remained high until the early 1980s.
“That’s why comparisons to the 1970s are wrong,” said Sebastian Mallaby, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of a biography on former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, “The Man Who Knew.”
“The president’s essay was striking because he explicitly backed the Fed.”
Powell has pledged to keep ratcheting up the Fed’s key short-term interest rate to cool the economy until inflation is “coming down in a clear and convincing way.”
Biden, in his op-ed, indicated that the record-setting pace of job creation in the aftermath of the pandemic would slow dramatically, suggesting more moderate levels of 150,000 jobs per month from 500,000.
That, he said, would be no warning of weakness but “a sign that we are successfully moving into the next phase of recovery—as this kind of job growth is consistent with a low unemployment rate and a healthy economy.”
end quotes
So there we have Joe Biden taking full responsibility for the total mess that is the federal reserve today with his statement that he appointed highly qualified people from both parties to lead that institution, which in turn gives him responsibility for this following from the Reuters article, to wit:
William English, a former top central bank staffer now at Yale University, said he sees a “peak” loss of around $200 billion by 2025.
Meanwhile, Derek Tang of forecasting firm LH Meyer said the loss is likely to be between $150 billion and $200 billion by next year.
The Fed captures its losses in what it calls a deferred asset, an accounting measure that tallies what it will eventually have to cover in the future before it can return to its normal practice of returning its profits to the Treasury.
A money-losing Fed has not been a surprise given its aggressive campaign to raise interest rates, which has taken the benchmark overnight interest rate from the near-zero level in March 2022 to its current 5.25%-5.50% range.
The Fed bought bonds aggressively during the coronavirus pandemic and its immediate aftermath, and in just over the last year it has shed about $1 trillion in Treasury and mortgage bonds.
For some time the Fed has returned substantial amounts of money back to the Treasury, and this money has been used to lower government deficits.
James Bullard, the former head of the St. Louis Fed, said in an interview on Wednesday that he’s “worried” about the central bank’s losses and “it would be better not to do this.”
He said it likely would have been better for the Fed to have kept some of the $1 trillion it has given the Treasury over the last decade to cover the sort of losses it is now navigating, but he noted that’s not the system Congress has set up.
Whenever the Fed does stop losing money, it will take years before it is able to take the deferred asset off its books and start returning cash to the Treasury.
In 2022, the Fed handed back $76 billion, after returning $109 billion in 2021.
What’s more, those high levels of earnings were tied to the very low rates then in place.
It remains an open question whether the Fed will be able to get back to that landscape, although some in the central bank, notably New York Fed President John Williams, are optimistic that can happen.
end quotes
And there is reality, people.
Think I’m kidding?
Not a joke!
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-848917
Re: On BIDE-O-NOMICS
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR SEPTEMBER 18, 2023 AT 8:57 PM
Paul R Plante, NYSPE says:
Before we go further here into the adverse consequences of the FROM BOTTOM UP AND MIDDLE OUT TO TRANSFER THE WEALTH TO THOSE AT THE TOP policies of BIDE-O-NOMICS, we are right now presented with the serious question as to whether those who comprise the politically-appointed federal reserve board have any kind of clue as to what they are doing, now that they have run the federal reserve literally into the ground so that it is losing money big time, and therefore is unable to contribute to the treasury, which causes “TOODLES” Yellen to have to issue additional debt to make up for the shortfall caused by the policies of the inept and incompetent federal reserve, itself, and that question takes us back in time to the Minutes of the Meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee on July 2-3, 1996, where we had Thomas C. Melzer, the 10th president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis from June 1, 1985, to January 30, 1998, who was an outspoken proponent of the idea that the Fed should focus on price stability (low or no inflation) as its sole monetary policy objective, speaking on the record as to federal reserve policy, to wit:
One final comment with respect to the forecast: I am concerned about how these forecasts may be interpreted.
We are asked to prepare forecasts based on what we think an appropriate policy stance would be, although the policy assumptions themselves are not published with the forecast or for that matter even requested.
If the FOMC consensus happened to be identical to the St. Louis forecast of lower inflation in 1997, would the interpretation by the public be that nothing more needs to be done to contain inflation?
There is the dilemma.
On the one hand, if we forecast accelerating inflation assuming no change in the stance of policy, we may make it easier to take appropriate actions to contain it.
On the other hand, if we forecast decelerating inflation predicated on a tightening of policy, we may make it more difficult in fact to take the necessary actions.
Either way our credibility could be damaged.
I think we should make it clear in publishing our forecasts that the outcomes are not independent of policy actions and may in fact presume some tightening actions.
Having said that, our forecasts of variables that we can influence, namely inflation in future years, are important to markets.
We ought to use every opportunity to forecast lower inflation in the years ahead and do our best to make such an outcome a reality.
end quotes
In other words, people, wing it and fudge the numbers, because it is about creating expectations, and that is it.
The federal reserve, which has not had any credibility for some long time now, uses models of what they think reality is, and models of reality are not in fact reality, and may not even be close, which thought takes us to these words from William J. McDonough, the eighth president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, on that subject of models, at that same meeting, to wit:
Our views are based on models that all of us have to use and that have the quality of thinking that past events are likely to be repeated in the future.
Intellectually, I think that is probably very sound.
However, I am having great difficulty trying to reconcile my intuition and my mind.
That may be because of my strong reaction to what I think is a very unfortunate debate going on in the country with those who consider price stability as somehow antagonistic to growth.
The higher the growth, the more we have to worry about price stability in that view.
Some of us unfortunately have contributed to that debate.
At the same time, what my intuition is telling me is that, rather like the comments the Chairman made in response to a question by President Minehan, there may in fact be developments on the cost side, on the wage side, and therefore in the future on the price side that we do not fully understand.
I think it probably would not be a very good idea for us to move policy at a time when the outlook for what we are uniquely responsible for, which is price stability, is questionable both intellectually and practically.
So, I think we must busy ourselves between now and the next meeting with trying to understand as best we can what if anything new is happening, as you suggested in your remarks, Mr. Chairman.
end quotes
And right now, the vaunted federal reserve is lost in the woods and wandering in circles, because its models, which were based on yesterday, are no longer valid today, which takes us back to Joe Biden’s claim that he is the one who appointed what he in his warped and twisted value system thought were highly qualified people from both parties to lead the federal reserve, and the question of federal reserve independence from the same Biden regime that appointed its members, which takes us to a CNN article from March 22, 2023 titled “Biden White House closely watching Federal Reserve following bank failures” by MJ Lee and Phil Mattingly, where we have the Biden regime attempting to micromanage the federal reserve, to wit:
CNN — All eyes are trained on the Federal Reserve as it prepares to announce another potential interest rate hike Wednesday afternoon – exactly 10 days after the Biden administration stepped in with dramatic emergency actions to contain the fallout from two bank failures.
Biden White House officials will be closely watching the highly anticipated rate decision – and monitoring every word of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s public comments – for any telling clues on how the central bank is processing what has emerged one of the most urgent economic crises of Joe Biden’s presidency.
The moment creates a complex, if carefully observed, dynamic for the administration’s top economic officials who have spent much of the last two weeks engaged in regular discussions and consultations with Powell and Fed officials as they’ve navigated rapid and acute risks to the banking system.
But Biden has made the central bank’s independence on monetary policy an unequivocal commitment – and has repeatedly underscored that he has confidence in the Fed’s central role in navigating inflation that has weighed on the US economy for more than a year and remained stubbornly persistent.
Even as some congressional Democrats have directed fire at Powell for the rapid increase in interest rates and the risks the effort poses to a robust post-pandemic economic recovery, White House officials have taken pains not to shed light on their views publicly.
Officials stress nothing in the last week has changed that mandate from Biden – and note that the widespread uncertainty about what action the Fed will take on rates only serves to underscore that reality.
It’s a reality that comes at a uniquely inopportune time for a banking system that has shown clear signs of stabilizing in the last several days, but is still facing a level of anxiety among market participants and depositors about the durability of that shift.
“I do believe we have a very strong and resilient banking system and all of us need to shore up the confidence of depositors that that’s the case,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said during remarks Tuesday in Washington.
Yellen said a new emergency lending facility launched by the Fed, along with its existing discount window, are “working as intended to provide liquidity to the banking system.”
For officials inside the Biden White House, Wednesday is poised to offer critical insight into how the central bank is grappling with its urgent priority of bringing down inflation, while at the same time, minimizing the risk of additional dominoes falling in the US banking sector.
Those two imperatives – bringing prices down and maintaining stability across the US financial sector – are urgent priorities for the Biden White House, particularly as the president moves closer to a widely expected reelection announcement and the health of the economy remains the top issue for voters.
Yet the Fed’s decision will come at a moment of accelerating political pressure on the Fed itself – and Powell specifically.
White House officials have made clear – with no hesitation – that Biden’s long-stated confidence in Powell is unchanged.
In recent days, White House officials have begun to cautiously suggest that they see signs of the US banking sector stabilizing, following the turbulent aftermath of the closures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.
Biden, for his part, has credited the sweeping steps his administration announced – namely, the backstopping of all depositors’ funds held at the two institutions and the creation of an emergency lending program by the Federal Reserve – as having prevented a broader financial meltdown.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to comment Tuesday afternoon at the White House press briefing on how she and other officials were watching the Fed’s upcoming decision.
“The Fed is indeed independent.”
“We want to give them the space to make those monetary decisions and I don’t want to get ahead of that,” Jean-Pierre said.
“I don’t even want to give any thoughts to what Jerome Powell might say tomorrow.”
end quotes
So, if the administration’s top economic officials spent much of those last two weeks engaged in regular discussions and consultations with Powell and Fed officials as they’ve navigated rapid and acute risks to the banking system, and if Joe Biden was taking credit, as the article says, for the creation of an emergency lending program by the Federal Reserve as having prevented a broader financial meltdown, is the federal reserve really independent of the Biden regime?
And that answer is no way in hell are they, and what is the significance of the July 2-3, 1996 Meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee?
That happens to be the federal reserve meeting where Janet “TOODLES” Yellen, then a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, having been nominated to the position by President Bill Clinton, proposed and defended the 2 percent inflation target in use by the federal reserve since that time, which target has been exceeded today because of the inflation caused by Joe Biden’s fiscal profligacy, which fiscal profligacy caused Biden Treasury Secretary “TOODLES” Yellen to tell CNN on 31 May 2022 that she did not fully understand the impact that unanticipated large shocks and supply bottlenecks would have on the economy, telling them, “Look, I think I was wrong then about the path that inflation would take.”
She was wrong big time because despite her Ph.D., she really is not very bright, which is what qualified her to be Joe Biden’s treasury secretary, that and her political reliability, which takes us to a Reuters article titled “Wall Street ends sharply lower as chipmakers and megacaps slide” by Noel Randewich and Ankika Biswas on September 15, 2023, where we had as follows on the CHAOS that is happening today as a result of Joe Biden’s ill-thought-out BIDE-O-NOMICS, which is Stalin-era CENTRAL PLANNING at its very worst, to wit:
Sept 15 (Reuters) – U.S. stocks ended sharply lower on Friday as chipmakers dropped on concerns about weak consumer demand, while rising Treasury yields pressured Amazon and other megacap growth companies.
Chip equipment makers Applied Materials, Lam Research and KLA Corp all dropped more than 4% after Reuters reported TSMC had asked its major vendors to delay deliveries.
Nvidia dropped 3.7%, Advanced Micro Devices lost 4.8% and Broadcom and Micron Technology each fell over 2%, pulling down the Philadelphia Semiconductor index down about 3% for the session.
end quotes
Yes, people, we need more CHIP FABS in America at public expense with more huge subsidies to CORPORATE AMERICA to build them, and when we return from station identification, it will be with the Reuters article titled “Biden’s offshore wind target slipping out of reach as projects struggle” by Nichola Groom on September 15, 2023, where we are informed that President Joe Biden’s goal to deploy 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind along U.S. coastlines this decade to fight climate change may be unattainable due to soaring costs and supply chain delays, according to forecasters and industry insiders, so please stay tuned and don’t touch that dial!
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-849468
Paul R Plante, NYSPE says:
Before we go further here into the adverse consequences of the FROM BOTTOM UP AND MIDDLE OUT TO TRANSFER THE WEALTH TO THOSE AT THE TOP policies of BIDE-O-NOMICS, we are right now presented with the serious question as to whether those who comprise the politically-appointed federal reserve board have any kind of clue as to what they are doing, now that they have run the federal reserve literally into the ground so that it is losing money big time, and therefore is unable to contribute to the treasury, which causes “TOODLES” Yellen to have to issue additional debt to make up for the shortfall caused by the policies of the inept and incompetent federal reserve, itself, and that question takes us back in time to the Minutes of the Meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee on July 2-3, 1996, where we had Thomas C. Melzer, the 10th president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis from June 1, 1985, to January 30, 1998, who was an outspoken proponent of the idea that the Fed should focus on price stability (low or no inflation) as its sole monetary policy objective, speaking on the record as to federal reserve policy, to wit:
One final comment with respect to the forecast: I am concerned about how these forecasts may be interpreted.
We are asked to prepare forecasts based on what we think an appropriate policy stance would be, although the policy assumptions themselves are not published with the forecast or for that matter even requested.
If the FOMC consensus happened to be identical to the St. Louis forecast of lower inflation in 1997, would the interpretation by the public be that nothing more needs to be done to contain inflation?
There is the dilemma.
On the one hand, if we forecast accelerating inflation assuming no change in the stance of policy, we may make it easier to take appropriate actions to contain it.
On the other hand, if we forecast decelerating inflation predicated on a tightening of policy, we may make it more difficult in fact to take the necessary actions.
Either way our credibility could be damaged.
I think we should make it clear in publishing our forecasts that the outcomes are not independent of policy actions and may in fact presume some tightening actions.
Having said that, our forecasts of variables that we can influence, namely inflation in future years, are important to markets.
We ought to use every opportunity to forecast lower inflation in the years ahead and do our best to make such an outcome a reality.
end quotes
In other words, people, wing it and fudge the numbers, because it is about creating expectations, and that is it.
The federal reserve, which has not had any credibility for some long time now, uses models of what they think reality is, and models of reality are not in fact reality, and may not even be close, which thought takes us to these words from William J. McDonough, the eighth president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, on that subject of models, at that same meeting, to wit:
Our views are based on models that all of us have to use and that have the quality of thinking that past events are likely to be repeated in the future.
Intellectually, I think that is probably very sound.
However, I am having great difficulty trying to reconcile my intuition and my mind.
That may be because of my strong reaction to what I think is a very unfortunate debate going on in the country with those who consider price stability as somehow antagonistic to growth.
The higher the growth, the more we have to worry about price stability in that view.
Some of us unfortunately have contributed to that debate.
At the same time, what my intuition is telling me is that, rather like the comments the Chairman made in response to a question by President Minehan, there may in fact be developments on the cost side, on the wage side, and therefore in the future on the price side that we do not fully understand.
I think it probably would not be a very good idea for us to move policy at a time when the outlook for what we are uniquely responsible for, which is price stability, is questionable both intellectually and practically.
So, I think we must busy ourselves between now and the next meeting with trying to understand as best we can what if anything new is happening, as you suggested in your remarks, Mr. Chairman.
end quotes
And right now, the vaunted federal reserve is lost in the woods and wandering in circles, because its models, which were based on yesterday, are no longer valid today, which takes us back to Joe Biden’s claim that he is the one who appointed what he in his warped and twisted value system thought were highly qualified people from both parties to lead the federal reserve, and the question of federal reserve independence from the same Biden regime that appointed its members, which takes us to a CNN article from March 22, 2023 titled “Biden White House closely watching Federal Reserve following bank failures” by MJ Lee and Phil Mattingly, where we have the Biden regime attempting to micromanage the federal reserve, to wit:
CNN — All eyes are trained on the Federal Reserve as it prepares to announce another potential interest rate hike Wednesday afternoon – exactly 10 days after the Biden administration stepped in with dramatic emergency actions to contain the fallout from two bank failures.
Biden White House officials will be closely watching the highly anticipated rate decision – and monitoring every word of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s public comments – for any telling clues on how the central bank is processing what has emerged one of the most urgent economic crises of Joe Biden’s presidency.
The moment creates a complex, if carefully observed, dynamic for the administration’s top economic officials who have spent much of the last two weeks engaged in regular discussions and consultations with Powell and Fed officials as they’ve navigated rapid and acute risks to the banking system.
But Biden has made the central bank’s independence on monetary policy an unequivocal commitment – and has repeatedly underscored that he has confidence in the Fed’s central role in navigating inflation that has weighed on the US economy for more than a year and remained stubbornly persistent.
Even as some congressional Democrats have directed fire at Powell for the rapid increase in interest rates and the risks the effort poses to a robust post-pandemic economic recovery, White House officials have taken pains not to shed light on their views publicly.
Officials stress nothing in the last week has changed that mandate from Biden – and note that the widespread uncertainty about what action the Fed will take on rates only serves to underscore that reality.
It’s a reality that comes at a uniquely inopportune time for a banking system that has shown clear signs of stabilizing in the last several days, but is still facing a level of anxiety among market participants and depositors about the durability of that shift.
“I do believe we have a very strong and resilient banking system and all of us need to shore up the confidence of depositors that that’s the case,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said during remarks Tuesday in Washington.
Yellen said a new emergency lending facility launched by the Fed, along with its existing discount window, are “working as intended to provide liquidity to the banking system.”
For officials inside the Biden White House, Wednesday is poised to offer critical insight into how the central bank is grappling with its urgent priority of bringing down inflation, while at the same time, minimizing the risk of additional dominoes falling in the US banking sector.
Those two imperatives – bringing prices down and maintaining stability across the US financial sector – are urgent priorities for the Biden White House, particularly as the president moves closer to a widely expected reelection announcement and the health of the economy remains the top issue for voters.
Yet the Fed’s decision will come at a moment of accelerating political pressure on the Fed itself – and Powell specifically.
White House officials have made clear – with no hesitation – that Biden’s long-stated confidence in Powell is unchanged.
In recent days, White House officials have begun to cautiously suggest that they see signs of the US banking sector stabilizing, following the turbulent aftermath of the closures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.
Biden, for his part, has credited the sweeping steps his administration announced – namely, the backstopping of all depositors’ funds held at the two institutions and the creation of an emergency lending program by the Federal Reserve – as having prevented a broader financial meltdown.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to comment Tuesday afternoon at the White House press briefing on how she and other officials were watching the Fed’s upcoming decision.
“The Fed is indeed independent.”
“We want to give them the space to make those monetary decisions and I don’t want to get ahead of that,” Jean-Pierre said.
“I don’t even want to give any thoughts to what Jerome Powell might say tomorrow.”
end quotes
So, if the administration’s top economic officials spent much of those last two weeks engaged in regular discussions and consultations with Powell and Fed officials as they’ve navigated rapid and acute risks to the banking system, and if Joe Biden was taking credit, as the article says, for the creation of an emergency lending program by the Federal Reserve as having prevented a broader financial meltdown, is the federal reserve really independent of the Biden regime?
And that answer is no way in hell are they, and what is the significance of the July 2-3, 1996 Meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee?
That happens to be the federal reserve meeting where Janet “TOODLES” Yellen, then a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, having been nominated to the position by President Bill Clinton, proposed and defended the 2 percent inflation target in use by the federal reserve since that time, which target has been exceeded today because of the inflation caused by Joe Biden’s fiscal profligacy, which fiscal profligacy caused Biden Treasury Secretary “TOODLES” Yellen to tell CNN on 31 May 2022 that she did not fully understand the impact that unanticipated large shocks and supply bottlenecks would have on the economy, telling them, “Look, I think I was wrong then about the path that inflation would take.”
She was wrong big time because despite her Ph.D., she really is not very bright, which is what qualified her to be Joe Biden’s treasury secretary, that and her political reliability, which takes us to a Reuters article titled “Wall Street ends sharply lower as chipmakers and megacaps slide” by Noel Randewich and Ankika Biswas on September 15, 2023, where we had as follows on the CHAOS that is happening today as a result of Joe Biden’s ill-thought-out BIDE-O-NOMICS, which is Stalin-era CENTRAL PLANNING at its very worst, to wit:
Sept 15 (Reuters) – U.S. stocks ended sharply lower on Friday as chipmakers dropped on concerns about weak consumer demand, while rising Treasury yields pressured Amazon and other megacap growth companies.
Chip equipment makers Applied Materials, Lam Research and KLA Corp all dropped more than 4% after Reuters reported TSMC had asked its major vendors to delay deliveries.
Nvidia dropped 3.7%, Advanced Micro Devices lost 4.8% and Broadcom and Micron Technology each fell over 2%, pulling down the Philadelphia Semiconductor index down about 3% for the session.
end quotes
Yes, people, we need more CHIP FABS in America at public expense with more huge subsidies to CORPORATE AMERICA to build them, and when we return from station identification, it will be with the Reuters article titled “Biden’s offshore wind target slipping out of reach as projects struggle” by Nichola Groom on September 15, 2023, where we are informed that President Joe Biden’s goal to deploy 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind along U.S. coastlines this decade to fight climate change may be unattainable due to soaring costs and supply chain delays, according to forecasters and industry insiders, so please stay tuned and don’t touch that dial!
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-849468
Re: On BIDE-O-NOMICS
The Hill
"The frightening tale of Bidenomics"
Opinion by Deborah Collier, opinion contributor
27 OCTOBER 2023
Halloween stories of horror are usually tale tales, but the impact of inflation and high interest rates is unfortunately quite real.
While President Biden continues to tout the success of his “Bidenomics” program, taxpayers continue to grapple with higher prices everywhere, sometimes being forced to decide whether they can afford food or heat for their homes, and trying to find some kind of bargain at the gas pump.
House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) explained the horrifying household impact Bidenomics has had on families across the country in an Oct. 12, 2023, press release.
The consumer price index in September increased by 3.7 percent, and the cumulative inflation rate increase under Biden is 17.1 percent.
Bidenomics is forcing a family of four to pay an additional $15,133 per year, or $1,261 per month to purchase the same goods and services they bought prior to the administration’s massive multi-trillion-dollar spending spree.
Bidenomics has also pushed the nation further into the graveyard of mounting debt.
The Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) September 2023 monthly report noted that the national debt is at a scary $33.5 trillion, and the fiscal year 2023 deficit is $1.7 trillion ($314 billion more than for the same period in fiscal 2022).
CBO also noted that because fiscal 2023 ended on a weekend, some of the federal spending that would have occurred in fiscal 2023 was shifted to fiscal 2024.
If the end of fiscal 2023 occurred on a weekday, the reported deficit would have been 28 percent larger for fiscal 2023 than in fiscal 2022, instead of 23 percent larger.
Rampant out of control spending is not only imposing massive debt on future generations, but also placing undue burdens on today’s taxpayers.
According to the Tax Foundation, President Biden’s fiscal 2024 budget proposal would have increased new revenues by $4.5 trillion over the next 10 years by repealing some of the policies in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, reimplementing the Clinton-era tax brackets, reducing standard deductions, increasing capital gains rates and reducing the Child Tax Credit amount.
The Tax Foundation projected that these tax increases would reduce after-tax income for all Americans.
These fiscal tricks would be devastating to not just families and businesses but also economic growth.
The treat for taxpayers would be for the government to stop its profligate spending habits by cutting costs, eliminating wasteful, duplicative and ineffective programs, and ensuring that every dollar spent is used to achieve the statutory mission of every federal agency rather than increasing government control over every aspect of the economy.
These proposals include the 543 recommendations in Prime Cuts 2023, which could save taxpayers $402.3 billion in the first year and $4 trillion over five years.
A new effort to get spending under control has been launched by Arrington and Budget Committee Member Jack Bergman (R-Mich.) in the Oversight Task Force.
Bergman, who will chair the task force, said that they will focus on, “reining-in wasteful spending, right-sizing the bureaucracy, and unleashing economic growth through deregulation.”
This effort to hold Washington accountable for how the taxpayers’ money is spent should shed light on why government spending is out of control, and aid in finding ways to reduce instead of increasing the financial burdens taxpayers face each day.
This Halloween, instead of worrying about ghosts and goblins, taxpayers should be afraid of the financial path our nation’s leaders have taken with their unbridled spending habits and the frightening impact of Bidenomics.
It would be a sweet treat for everyone if the future could be turned away from the darkened path of financial despair on which the nation is currently headed.
Deborah Collier is vice president of policy and government affairs for Citizens Against Government Waste.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... aeb1&ei=31
"The frightening tale of Bidenomics"
Opinion by Deborah Collier, opinion contributor
27 OCTOBER 2023
Halloween stories of horror are usually tale tales, but the impact of inflation and high interest rates is unfortunately quite real.
While President Biden continues to tout the success of his “Bidenomics” program, taxpayers continue to grapple with higher prices everywhere, sometimes being forced to decide whether they can afford food or heat for their homes, and trying to find some kind of bargain at the gas pump.
House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) explained the horrifying household impact Bidenomics has had on families across the country in an Oct. 12, 2023, press release.
The consumer price index in September increased by 3.7 percent, and the cumulative inflation rate increase under Biden is 17.1 percent.
Bidenomics is forcing a family of four to pay an additional $15,133 per year, or $1,261 per month to purchase the same goods and services they bought prior to the administration’s massive multi-trillion-dollar spending spree.
Bidenomics has also pushed the nation further into the graveyard of mounting debt.
The Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) September 2023 monthly report noted that the national debt is at a scary $33.5 trillion, and the fiscal year 2023 deficit is $1.7 trillion ($314 billion more than for the same period in fiscal 2022).
CBO also noted that because fiscal 2023 ended on a weekend, some of the federal spending that would have occurred in fiscal 2023 was shifted to fiscal 2024.
If the end of fiscal 2023 occurred on a weekday, the reported deficit would have been 28 percent larger for fiscal 2023 than in fiscal 2022, instead of 23 percent larger.
Rampant out of control spending is not only imposing massive debt on future generations, but also placing undue burdens on today’s taxpayers.
According to the Tax Foundation, President Biden’s fiscal 2024 budget proposal would have increased new revenues by $4.5 trillion over the next 10 years by repealing some of the policies in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, reimplementing the Clinton-era tax brackets, reducing standard deductions, increasing capital gains rates and reducing the Child Tax Credit amount.
The Tax Foundation projected that these tax increases would reduce after-tax income for all Americans.
These fiscal tricks would be devastating to not just families and businesses but also economic growth.
The treat for taxpayers would be for the government to stop its profligate spending habits by cutting costs, eliminating wasteful, duplicative and ineffective programs, and ensuring that every dollar spent is used to achieve the statutory mission of every federal agency rather than increasing government control over every aspect of the economy.
These proposals include the 543 recommendations in Prime Cuts 2023, which could save taxpayers $402.3 billion in the first year and $4 trillion over five years.
A new effort to get spending under control has been launched by Arrington and Budget Committee Member Jack Bergman (R-Mich.) in the Oversight Task Force.
Bergman, who will chair the task force, said that they will focus on, “reining-in wasteful spending, right-sizing the bureaucracy, and unleashing economic growth through deregulation.”
This effort to hold Washington accountable for how the taxpayers’ money is spent should shed light on why government spending is out of control, and aid in finding ways to reduce instead of increasing the financial burdens taxpayers face each day.
This Halloween, instead of worrying about ghosts and goblins, taxpayers should be afraid of the financial path our nation’s leaders have taken with their unbridled spending habits and the frightening impact of Bidenomics.
It would be a sweet treat for everyone if the future could be turned away from the darkened path of financial despair on which the nation is currently headed.
Deborah Collier is vice president of policy and government affairs for Citizens Against Government Waste.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... aeb1&ei=31
Re: On BIDE-O-NOMICS
1945
"Bidenomics Is A Joke and America Isn’t Laughing"
Story by John Rossomando
27 OCTOBER 2023
Bidenomics Defended?
Republicans have lambasted Bidenomics due to its connection with inflation.
However, a liberal economist says critics should look at its contribution to economic growth instead.
Joe Biden’s return to a Keynesian economic approach based on the idea that government spending fuels growth.
Why We Should Like Bidenomics
“Most importantly, growth recovered remarkably quickly from the pandemic recession."
"The economy returned not only to pre-pandemic trends but to pre–Great Financial Crisis trends as well, suggesting that the prolonged pain of the post-financial-crisis recession was avoidable,” Open Markets Institute Chief Economist Brian Callaci writes in The Atlantic.
“Biden’s first big legislative accomplishment was the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, which unleashed a fiscal fire hose onto the U.S. economy."
"That law was followed by more legislation that went beyond merely increasing spending."
"The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act steered investment specifically toward fighting climate change."
"The law eschews the tweezer of, say, carbon taxes, which leave decisions to the wisdom of the market, in favor of direct federal interventions.”
Callaci continued, “For example, while previous policies relied nearly exclusively on the tax code to support investments in zero-carbon energy projects, the IRA contains provisions allowing nonprofit utilities that invest in zero-carbon power generation to obtain federal grants.”
He contends that the Biden administration’s policies can build a political coalition among stakeholders including “unions, environmentalists, and rural voters, it might assemble a lasting political coalition behind its vision of green growth.”
GM Casts Cloud on Economic Green Idealism
Meanwhile, General Motors is not seeing the projected demand for the electric vehicles that underpin the Biden economy.
“We are also moderating the acceleration of EV production in North America to protect our pricing, adjust to slower near-term growth in demand, and implement engineering efficiency and other improvements that will make our vehicles less expensive to produce, and more profitable,” the letter to GM shareholders reads.
He notes that the economics pushed by Republicans since the Reagan era that called for reduced regulations and government direct interference in the economy had not yielded the sort of growth that had existed in the immediate post-World War II era.
This thinking developed at the University of Chicago under the leadership of the late Milton Friedman.
“In short, the Chicago school got virtually everything it asked for."
"Big firms grew bigger, corporations prioritized their stock prices above all else, and private-sector unions were all but wiped out."
"But 40 years of tweezing out the inefficiencies allegedly holding back the economy did not revive the growth rates of the pre-stagflation era,” Callaci writes.
“The U.S. economy grew an average of 4 percent a year from 1948 to 1973."
"During the crisis years, from 1974 to 1979, it grew more slowly, on average only 3 percent a year."
"Then came the tweezers, and growth didn’t budge."
"From 1980 to 2007, it plodded along at the same 3 percent rate of the crisis years, before falling off a cliff after 2007 — all the way down to 1.6 percent from 2008 to 2020.”
He continued, “The shareholder revolution helped hollow out the American industrial base and transfer massive wealth to financial engineers."
"And although the labor movement was defanged, the hoped-for productivity explosion never happened.”
Not Everyone Sold On Bidenomics
Critics are not satisfied and look to the impact that Bidenomics has had on inflation, which was a significant concern for Friedman, who said that inflation always was a creation of government.
Libertarian economist Vernique De Rugy looks at Bidenomics and sees it a massive enabler of inflation.
Although inflation has fallen from the height of 9% in June 2022, the costs of core commodities, including food, energy, and housing, remain higher than before the pandemic.
“By now, it's well-known that Bidenomics’ big spending has fueled higher inflation, resulted in larger-than-projected deficits and contributed to a record level of government debt."
"The most recent estimate of the full-year deficit for 2023 is $1.5 trillion, up from $946 billion last year."
"Total federal debt is now more than $33 trillion, an increase from $28.5 trillion in 2021."
"Budget tensions led the credit agency Fitch Ratings to downgrade Treasury debt based on prospects of further fiscal deterioration."
"This is not great, seeing as federal borrowing is projected to be $120 trillion in the next 30 years,” De Rugy wrote.
“The prospect of gigantic, never-ending deficits during good times is making investors nervous."
"Borrowing costs like mortgage and car loan rates are rising, as are yields on benchmark 10-year treasury notes."
"They're now above 4.3%, their highest level since 2007 — more especially heavy burdens on lower-income Americans.”
As long as inflation remains high, esoteric ivory tower defenses of Bidenomics will fall on deaf ears because voters will vote based on the pain in their pocketbooks.
John Rossomando is a defense and counterterrorism analyst and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, The National Interest, National Review Online, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award for his reporting.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets ... aeb1&ei=24
"Bidenomics Is A Joke and America Isn’t Laughing"
Story by John Rossomando
27 OCTOBER 2023
Bidenomics Defended?
Republicans have lambasted Bidenomics due to its connection with inflation.
However, a liberal economist says critics should look at its contribution to economic growth instead.
Joe Biden’s return to a Keynesian economic approach based on the idea that government spending fuels growth.
Why We Should Like Bidenomics
“Most importantly, growth recovered remarkably quickly from the pandemic recession."
"The economy returned not only to pre-pandemic trends but to pre–Great Financial Crisis trends as well, suggesting that the prolonged pain of the post-financial-crisis recession was avoidable,” Open Markets Institute Chief Economist Brian Callaci writes in The Atlantic.
“Biden’s first big legislative accomplishment was the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, which unleashed a fiscal fire hose onto the U.S. economy."
"That law was followed by more legislation that went beyond merely increasing spending."
"The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act steered investment specifically toward fighting climate change."
"The law eschews the tweezer of, say, carbon taxes, which leave decisions to the wisdom of the market, in favor of direct federal interventions.”
Callaci continued, “For example, while previous policies relied nearly exclusively on the tax code to support investments in zero-carbon energy projects, the IRA contains provisions allowing nonprofit utilities that invest in zero-carbon power generation to obtain federal grants.”
He contends that the Biden administration’s policies can build a political coalition among stakeholders including “unions, environmentalists, and rural voters, it might assemble a lasting political coalition behind its vision of green growth.”
GM Casts Cloud on Economic Green Idealism
Meanwhile, General Motors is not seeing the projected demand for the electric vehicles that underpin the Biden economy.
“We are also moderating the acceleration of EV production in North America to protect our pricing, adjust to slower near-term growth in demand, and implement engineering efficiency and other improvements that will make our vehicles less expensive to produce, and more profitable,” the letter to GM shareholders reads.
He notes that the economics pushed by Republicans since the Reagan era that called for reduced regulations and government direct interference in the economy had not yielded the sort of growth that had existed in the immediate post-World War II era.
This thinking developed at the University of Chicago under the leadership of the late Milton Friedman.
“In short, the Chicago school got virtually everything it asked for."
"Big firms grew bigger, corporations prioritized their stock prices above all else, and private-sector unions were all but wiped out."
"But 40 years of tweezing out the inefficiencies allegedly holding back the economy did not revive the growth rates of the pre-stagflation era,” Callaci writes.
“The U.S. economy grew an average of 4 percent a year from 1948 to 1973."
"During the crisis years, from 1974 to 1979, it grew more slowly, on average only 3 percent a year."
"Then came the tweezers, and growth didn’t budge."
"From 1980 to 2007, it plodded along at the same 3 percent rate of the crisis years, before falling off a cliff after 2007 — all the way down to 1.6 percent from 2008 to 2020.”
He continued, “The shareholder revolution helped hollow out the American industrial base and transfer massive wealth to financial engineers."
"And although the labor movement was defanged, the hoped-for productivity explosion never happened.”
Not Everyone Sold On Bidenomics
Critics are not satisfied and look to the impact that Bidenomics has had on inflation, which was a significant concern for Friedman, who said that inflation always was a creation of government.
Libertarian economist Vernique De Rugy looks at Bidenomics and sees it a massive enabler of inflation.
Although inflation has fallen from the height of 9% in June 2022, the costs of core commodities, including food, energy, and housing, remain higher than before the pandemic.
“By now, it's well-known that Bidenomics’ big spending has fueled higher inflation, resulted in larger-than-projected deficits and contributed to a record level of government debt."
"The most recent estimate of the full-year deficit for 2023 is $1.5 trillion, up from $946 billion last year."
"Total federal debt is now more than $33 trillion, an increase from $28.5 trillion in 2021."
"Budget tensions led the credit agency Fitch Ratings to downgrade Treasury debt based on prospects of further fiscal deterioration."
"This is not great, seeing as federal borrowing is projected to be $120 trillion in the next 30 years,” De Rugy wrote.
“The prospect of gigantic, never-ending deficits during good times is making investors nervous."
"Borrowing costs like mortgage and car loan rates are rising, as are yields on benchmark 10-year treasury notes."
"They're now above 4.3%, their highest level since 2007 — more especially heavy burdens on lower-income Americans.”
As long as inflation remains high, esoteric ivory tower defenses of Bidenomics will fall on deaf ears because voters will vote based on the pain in their pocketbooks.
John Rossomando is a defense and counterterrorism analyst and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, The National Interest, National Review Online, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award for his reporting.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets ... aeb1&ei=24
Re: On BIDE-O-NOMICS
The Hill
"Joe Biden fights the Fed"
Opinion by Liz Peek, opinion contributor
28 OCTOBER 2023
Joe Biden is fighting the Fed.
That’s the takeaway from the most recent report on the economy, showing that the third quarter grew more rapidly than expected in spite of rising interest rates.
One reason is obvious: the president and his Democrat allies continue to pump up government spending, boosting growth, even as the Federal Reserve says a slowdown may be necessary to tame inflation “sustainably.”
Investors are not happy.
Stocks are nearing correction territory, down roughly 10 percent from the highs of the summer.
There are concerns that interest rate cuts, which might propel another earnings surge and another market rally, are not likely any time soon.
Simply put, soaring government spending has put the economy on a sugar high.
In the third quarter, total real GDP grew 2.9 percent year-over-year; federal outlays accelerated, growing 5.5 percent over the year-earlier quarter.
It was the largest jump since the height of the pandemic, when Congress and the Trump administration threw everything possible into the economy to stave off a deep recession.
It worked; the U.S. experienced a very sharp downdraft when the government decreed that businesses had to shut down, but then it bounced back quickly, thanks to enormous government stimulus spending.
What has gone so very wrong under President Biden is that federal and local government spending is still growing dramatically, even though the crisis has passed.
Some of the increase in the most recent quarter stemmed from national defense spending, reflecting the war in Ukraine, which climbed 4.9 percent year-to-year in real terms.
But more consequential was a 6.3 percent boost in nondefense spending.
State and local government spending expanded 3.9 percent.
None of this is surprising.
Joe Biden has a singular approach to every issue: spend more money, even as inflation eats away at real incomes.
His administration never considers the power of free markets, never imagines just getting out of the way and letting animal spirits and the profit motive funnel investment into our most productive industries.
Instead, Biden’s White House is obsessed with directing traffic: more money for unpopular EVs and windmills, for instance, and less for necessary oil and gas production and pipelines.
The federal budget deficit has grown like Topsy since Biden took office, including in the just-completed fiscal year when, adjusting for the cancellation of the president’s student loan forgiveness, the deficit swelled to nearly $2 trillion.
That was roughly double the year-before total, and over 30 percent higher than the Congressional Budget Office expected in June.
Imagine being off by over 30 percent just three months from the end of the fiscal year.
There is no excuse for this amount of spending, and it will not end well.
With interest rates up from near-zero levels just two years ago, the interest cost of our debt is the fastest-growing part of the federal budget, projected to triple to $1.4 trillion by 2032.
Within 30 years, net interest is projected to overtake Medicare and other large federal programs.
Republicans in the House, alarmed by our swelling debt, will push for spending cuts, taking away the sugar bowl.
Most economists are looking for a slowdown next year; recession expectations have proven premature before, but it takes roughly 18 months for monetary policy to take effect.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell, arguably late to the anti-inflation party, started hiking rates in March 2022, about 19 months ago.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that the annualized real growth rate in the third quarter was a remarkable 4.9 percent, up from 2.1 percent in the second quarter.
President Biden was jubilant, saying, “It is a testament to the resilience of American consumers and American workers, supported by Bidenomics — my plan to grow the economy by growing the middle class.”
He should have said, “growing the government” — some 27 percent of the jobs added were government hires.
What the president also failed to mention was that real disposable income in the third quarter actually fell 1 percent, after a 3.5 percent jump in the second quarter.
And the personal saving rate fell to 3.8 percent in the third quarter, down from 5.2 percent in the second quarter.
When disposable income falls, the consumer is less well off.
Part of the slide was because top-line inflation ticked up.
The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index — the preferred inflation gauge of the Federal Reserve — increased 2.9 percent, compared to 2.5 percent in the second quarter.
The core rate, excluding food and energy prices, increased 2.4 percent, compared with an increase of 3.7 percent in the prior period.
The most recent read on the PCE, for October, showed inflation basically stuck at around 3.5 percent — way higher than the Fed’s 2 percent target.
Someone might ask the president, in the unlikely event that he hosts an unscripted press conference, why, if Bidenomics is such a success, the stock market is tumbling and consumers are again pessimistic.
In October, sentiment fell sharply, to the lowest level in five months, as consumers became worried once again about inflation.
With oil prices again heading higher and housing affordability the lowest in decades, it is no wonder.
We will soon be embroiled in a fight over government spending.
Conservatives in the House are determined to bring down our deficits; an embattled president is equally determined to keep the spigots wide open.
Biden continues to press for student loan relief, in his failing quest to win over young voters, and has recently proposed a $105 billion package mainly to fund the war in Ukraine.
He faces resistance on both fronts, and rightly so.
Biden and his administration have never conceded that too-high spending sparked the worst inflation in 40 years; we do not look for a sudden awakening.
Liz Peek is a former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim & Company. Follow her on Twitter @lizpeek.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets ... ac44&ei=51
"Joe Biden fights the Fed"
Opinion by Liz Peek, opinion contributor
28 OCTOBER 2023
Joe Biden is fighting the Fed.
That’s the takeaway from the most recent report on the economy, showing that the third quarter grew more rapidly than expected in spite of rising interest rates.
One reason is obvious: the president and his Democrat allies continue to pump up government spending, boosting growth, even as the Federal Reserve says a slowdown may be necessary to tame inflation “sustainably.”
Investors are not happy.
Stocks are nearing correction territory, down roughly 10 percent from the highs of the summer.
There are concerns that interest rate cuts, which might propel another earnings surge and another market rally, are not likely any time soon.
Simply put, soaring government spending has put the economy on a sugar high.
In the third quarter, total real GDP grew 2.9 percent year-over-year; federal outlays accelerated, growing 5.5 percent over the year-earlier quarter.
It was the largest jump since the height of the pandemic, when Congress and the Trump administration threw everything possible into the economy to stave off a deep recession.
It worked; the U.S. experienced a very sharp downdraft when the government decreed that businesses had to shut down, but then it bounced back quickly, thanks to enormous government stimulus spending.
What has gone so very wrong under President Biden is that federal and local government spending is still growing dramatically, even though the crisis has passed.
Some of the increase in the most recent quarter stemmed from national defense spending, reflecting the war in Ukraine, which climbed 4.9 percent year-to-year in real terms.
But more consequential was a 6.3 percent boost in nondefense spending.
State and local government spending expanded 3.9 percent.
None of this is surprising.
Joe Biden has a singular approach to every issue: spend more money, even as inflation eats away at real incomes.
His administration never considers the power of free markets, never imagines just getting out of the way and letting animal spirits and the profit motive funnel investment into our most productive industries.
Instead, Biden’s White House is obsessed with directing traffic: more money for unpopular EVs and windmills, for instance, and less for necessary oil and gas production and pipelines.
The federal budget deficit has grown like Topsy since Biden took office, including in the just-completed fiscal year when, adjusting for the cancellation of the president’s student loan forgiveness, the deficit swelled to nearly $2 trillion.
That was roughly double the year-before total, and over 30 percent higher than the Congressional Budget Office expected in June.
Imagine being off by over 30 percent just three months from the end of the fiscal year.
There is no excuse for this amount of spending, and it will not end well.
With interest rates up from near-zero levels just two years ago, the interest cost of our debt is the fastest-growing part of the federal budget, projected to triple to $1.4 trillion by 2032.
Within 30 years, net interest is projected to overtake Medicare and other large federal programs.
Republicans in the House, alarmed by our swelling debt, will push for spending cuts, taking away the sugar bowl.
Most economists are looking for a slowdown next year; recession expectations have proven premature before, but it takes roughly 18 months for monetary policy to take effect.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell, arguably late to the anti-inflation party, started hiking rates in March 2022, about 19 months ago.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that the annualized real growth rate in the third quarter was a remarkable 4.9 percent, up from 2.1 percent in the second quarter.
President Biden was jubilant, saying, “It is a testament to the resilience of American consumers and American workers, supported by Bidenomics — my plan to grow the economy by growing the middle class.”
He should have said, “growing the government” — some 27 percent of the jobs added were government hires.
What the president also failed to mention was that real disposable income in the third quarter actually fell 1 percent, after a 3.5 percent jump in the second quarter.
And the personal saving rate fell to 3.8 percent in the third quarter, down from 5.2 percent in the second quarter.
When disposable income falls, the consumer is less well off.
Part of the slide was because top-line inflation ticked up.
The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index — the preferred inflation gauge of the Federal Reserve — increased 2.9 percent, compared to 2.5 percent in the second quarter.
The core rate, excluding food and energy prices, increased 2.4 percent, compared with an increase of 3.7 percent in the prior period.
The most recent read on the PCE, for October, showed inflation basically stuck at around 3.5 percent — way higher than the Fed’s 2 percent target.
Someone might ask the president, in the unlikely event that he hosts an unscripted press conference, why, if Bidenomics is such a success, the stock market is tumbling and consumers are again pessimistic.
In October, sentiment fell sharply, to the lowest level in five months, as consumers became worried once again about inflation.
With oil prices again heading higher and housing affordability the lowest in decades, it is no wonder.
We will soon be embroiled in a fight over government spending.
Conservatives in the House are determined to bring down our deficits; an embattled president is equally determined to keep the spigots wide open.
Biden continues to press for student loan relief, in his failing quest to win over young voters, and has recently proposed a $105 billion package mainly to fund the war in Ukraine.
He faces resistance on both fronts, and rightly so.
Biden and his administration have never conceded that too-high spending sparked the worst inflation in 40 years; we do not look for a sudden awakening.
Liz Peek is a former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim & Company. Follow her on Twitter @lizpeek.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets ... ac44&ei=51
Re: On BIDE-O-NOMICS
MarketWatch
"Americans say their expenses are outstripping salaries: AP/NORC poll"
Story by Associated Press
28 OCTOBER 2023
NEW YORK (AP) — About 2 in 3 Americans say their household expenses have risen over the last year, but only about 1 in 4 say their income has increased in the same period, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
As household expenses outpace earnings, many are expressing concern about their financial futures.
What’s more, for most Americans, household debt has either risen in the last year or has not gone away.
Steve Shapiro, 61, who works as an audio engineer in Pittsburgh, said he’d been spending about $100 a week on groceries prior to this past year, but that he’s now shelling out closer to $200.
“My income has stayed the same,” he said.
“The economy is good on paper, but I’m not doing great.”
About 8 in 10 Americans say their overall household debt is higher or about the same as it was a year ago.
About half say they currently have credit card debt, 4 in 10 are dealing with auto loans, and about 1 in 4 have medical debt.
Just 15% say their household savings have increased over the last year.
Tracy Gonzales, 36, who works as a sub-contractor in construction in San Antonio, Texas, has several thousand dollars of medical debt from an emergency room visit for what she thought was a bad headache but turned out to be a tooth infection.
“They’ll treat you, but the bills are crazy,” she said.
Gonzales said she’s tried to avoid seeking medical treatment because of the costs.
Relatively few Americans say they’re very or extremely confident that they could pay an unexpected medical expense (26%) or have enough money for retirement (18%).
Only about one-third are extremely or very confident their current financial situation will allow them to keep up with expenses, though an additional 42% say they’re somewhat confident.
“I’ve been looking forward to retirement my entire life."
"Recently I realized it’s just not going to happen,” said Shapiro, of Pittsburgh, adding that his wife’s $30,000 or so of student debt is a financial factor for his household.
The couple had hoped to sell their house and move this past year, but decided instead to hold on to their mortgage rate of 3.4%, rather than facing a higher rate.
(The current average long-term mortgage rate reached 7.79% this month.)
About 3 in 10 Americans say they’ve foregone a major purchase because of higher interest rates in the last year.
Nearly 1 in 4 U.S. adults have student debt, with the pandemic-era payment pause on federal loans ending this month, contributing to the crunch.
Will Clouse, 77, of Westlake, Ohio, said inflation is his biggest concern, as he lives on a fixed income in his retirement.
“A box of movie candy — Sno-Caps — that used to cost 99 cents is now a dollar fifty at the grocery store,” he said.
“That’s a 50% increase in price."
"Somebody’s taking advantage of somebody.”
Americans are generally split on whether the Republicans (29%) or the Democrats (25%) are better suited to handle the issue of inflation in the U.S.
Three in 10 say they trust neither party to address it.
Geri Putnam, 85, of Thomson, Georgia, said she’s been following the ongoing auto workers strikes with sympathy for the workers’ asks.
“I don’t think it’s out of line, what they’re asking for, when you see what CEOs are making,” she said.
“I think things have gotten out of control."
"When you can walk into a store and see the next day, across the board, a dollar increase — that’s a little strange."
"I understand supply and demand, the cost of shipping, et cetera."
"But it seems to me everyone’s looking at their bottom lines.”
Putnam also said she sees her six children struggling financially more than her generation did.
“They all have jobs and have never been without them,” she said.
“They’re achievers, but I think at least two or three of them will never be able to buy a home.”
A slight majority of all Americans polled (54%) describe their household’s financial situation as good, which is about the same as it’s been for the last year but down from 63% in March of 2022.
Older Americans are much more confident in their current finances than younger Americans.
Just 39% of 18- to 29-year-olds describe their household finances as good, compared to a majority (58%) of those who are 30 and older.
People with higher levels of education or higher household incomes are more likely than Americans overall to evaluate their finances as solid.
About three-quarters of Americans describe the nation’s economy as poor, which is in line with measurements from early last year.
Among those who are retired, 3 in 10 say they are highly confident that there’s enough saved for their retirement, about 4 in 10 are somewhat confident, and 31% are not very confident or not confident at all.
Clouse, of Ohio, said the majority of his money had gone towards caring for his wife for the past several years, as she’d been ill.
When she passed away this past year, his household lost her Social Security and pension contributions.
He sees the political turmoil between Republicans and Democrats as harming the economy, but remains most frustrated by higher prices at the supermarket.
“Grocery products going up by 20, 30, 40%."
"There’s no call for that, other than the grocery market people making more money,” he said.
“They’re ripping off the consumer."
"I wish Mr. Biden would do something about that.”
About 4 in 10 Americans (38%) approve of how Biden is handling the presidency, while 61% disapprove.
His overall approval numbers have remained at a steady low for the last several years.
Most Americans generally disapprove of how he’s handling the federal budget (68% disapprove), the economy (67%), and student debt (58%).
The poll of 1,163 adults was conducted Oct. 5-9, 2023, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, designed to represent the U.S. population.
The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/retirem ... 2ac2&ei=15
"Americans say their expenses are outstripping salaries: AP/NORC poll"
Story by Associated Press
28 OCTOBER 2023
NEW YORK (AP) — About 2 in 3 Americans say their household expenses have risen over the last year, but only about 1 in 4 say their income has increased in the same period, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
As household expenses outpace earnings, many are expressing concern about their financial futures.
What’s more, for most Americans, household debt has either risen in the last year or has not gone away.
Steve Shapiro, 61, who works as an audio engineer in Pittsburgh, said he’d been spending about $100 a week on groceries prior to this past year, but that he’s now shelling out closer to $200.
“My income has stayed the same,” he said.
“The economy is good on paper, but I’m not doing great.”
About 8 in 10 Americans say their overall household debt is higher or about the same as it was a year ago.
About half say they currently have credit card debt, 4 in 10 are dealing with auto loans, and about 1 in 4 have medical debt.
Just 15% say their household savings have increased over the last year.
Tracy Gonzales, 36, who works as a sub-contractor in construction in San Antonio, Texas, has several thousand dollars of medical debt from an emergency room visit for what she thought was a bad headache but turned out to be a tooth infection.
“They’ll treat you, but the bills are crazy,” she said.
Gonzales said she’s tried to avoid seeking medical treatment because of the costs.
Relatively few Americans say they’re very or extremely confident that they could pay an unexpected medical expense (26%) or have enough money for retirement (18%).
Only about one-third are extremely or very confident their current financial situation will allow them to keep up with expenses, though an additional 42% say they’re somewhat confident.
“I’ve been looking forward to retirement my entire life."
"Recently I realized it’s just not going to happen,” said Shapiro, of Pittsburgh, adding that his wife’s $30,000 or so of student debt is a financial factor for his household.
The couple had hoped to sell their house and move this past year, but decided instead to hold on to their mortgage rate of 3.4%, rather than facing a higher rate.
(The current average long-term mortgage rate reached 7.79% this month.)
About 3 in 10 Americans say they’ve foregone a major purchase because of higher interest rates in the last year.
Nearly 1 in 4 U.S. adults have student debt, with the pandemic-era payment pause on federal loans ending this month, contributing to the crunch.
Will Clouse, 77, of Westlake, Ohio, said inflation is his biggest concern, as he lives on a fixed income in his retirement.
“A box of movie candy — Sno-Caps — that used to cost 99 cents is now a dollar fifty at the grocery store,” he said.
“That’s a 50% increase in price."
"Somebody’s taking advantage of somebody.”
Americans are generally split on whether the Republicans (29%) or the Democrats (25%) are better suited to handle the issue of inflation in the U.S.
Three in 10 say they trust neither party to address it.
Geri Putnam, 85, of Thomson, Georgia, said she’s been following the ongoing auto workers strikes with sympathy for the workers’ asks.
“I don’t think it’s out of line, what they’re asking for, when you see what CEOs are making,” she said.
“I think things have gotten out of control."
"When you can walk into a store and see the next day, across the board, a dollar increase — that’s a little strange."
"I understand supply and demand, the cost of shipping, et cetera."
"But it seems to me everyone’s looking at their bottom lines.”
Putnam also said she sees her six children struggling financially more than her generation did.
“They all have jobs and have never been without them,” she said.
“They’re achievers, but I think at least two or three of them will never be able to buy a home.”
A slight majority of all Americans polled (54%) describe their household’s financial situation as good, which is about the same as it’s been for the last year but down from 63% in March of 2022.
Older Americans are much more confident in their current finances than younger Americans.
Just 39% of 18- to 29-year-olds describe their household finances as good, compared to a majority (58%) of those who are 30 and older.
People with higher levels of education or higher household incomes are more likely than Americans overall to evaluate their finances as solid.
About three-quarters of Americans describe the nation’s economy as poor, which is in line with measurements from early last year.
Among those who are retired, 3 in 10 say they are highly confident that there’s enough saved for their retirement, about 4 in 10 are somewhat confident, and 31% are not very confident or not confident at all.
Clouse, of Ohio, said the majority of his money had gone towards caring for his wife for the past several years, as she’d been ill.
When she passed away this past year, his household lost her Social Security and pension contributions.
He sees the political turmoil between Republicans and Democrats as harming the economy, but remains most frustrated by higher prices at the supermarket.
“Grocery products going up by 20, 30, 40%."
"There’s no call for that, other than the grocery market people making more money,” he said.
“They’re ripping off the consumer."
"I wish Mr. Biden would do something about that.”
About 4 in 10 Americans (38%) approve of how Biden is handling the presidency, while 61% disapprove.
His overall approval numbers have remained at a steady low for the last several years.
Most Americans generally disapprove of how he’s handling the federal budget (68% disapprove), the economy (67%), and student debt (58%).
The poll of 1,163 adults was conducted Oct. 5-9, 2023, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, designed to represent the U.S. population.
The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/retirem ... 2ac2&ei=15