I've sure there is someone just as ignorant & stupid elected as dog-catcher somewhere. But I'll bet they didn't have a degree in basket-weaving, like Trump.
Uh you are more than a tad unclear. You say “Morons ARE destroying America”…not WERE. I mean right now all three branches of the government are Republican. Are they the ones destroying America?
" I mean right now all three branches of the government are Republican. Are they the ones destroying America?" Correct. Which is exactly what Mr. Mayer is saying.
Do you think that Make America Great Again references the time before the instatement of the Federal Reserve? If so, that is a wise goal, regardless of the equal evil of both sides two-party system.
Trump isn't playing with monopoly money here. His efforts to force the Fed to cut the Prime by 300 basis points will juice inflation, potentially crippling the ability of the 99% to put food on the table and make rent. Coupled with the inflationary pressure of his insane import taxes (tariffs), this Christmas is going to be pretty grim for everyone who's not ultrawealthy.
well i wanna know: how will the obscenely wealthy survive when the 99% are literally homeless, starving & without any healthcare? do these spoilt babies think we will go to work when we don‘t know if our families will even be alive at the end of the day? without a reason to work, to obey the law, to do literally ANYTHING, who will take care of the elites?
The Palm Beach set that cavorts at Mar-a-Lago don't care a whit about recessions. They've got so much disposable income, the price of eggs could triple tomorrow, and they wouldn't even know; much less care.
Ah, that's where the FAFO factor kicks in. The oligarchs committing this theft will already have croaked by the time that happens - leaving their progeny in the bag. Yes, they don't even care about their own descendants. They're psychopaths.
I think MAGAts - whether rich or poor - don't care about their own descendants. If they did, they'd not only care about the economy, they'd care about climate change and about gun regulation.
It's a medieval labor model - redux. If 1% of he people own all the land and means of production, and can pass laws at will, the only option for serfs (excuse me: workers) who would like to eat and have a roof over their heads is to perform the tasks demanded by the 1%. This labor model was quite successful in Europe for many years - at least until the peasants finally decide that revolution offered a choice.
Its worth remembering that the very essence of the American political experiment was based on rule by the many (citizens) as opposed to rule by monarchs which people had fled from in Europe. What seems increasingly apparent, however, is that the current American government is controlled by those who would abandon (or corrupt) citizen rule in favor of governance by a small minority.
If this is allowed to happen, the question of who farms those chickens and collects their eggs might come down to a simple question of who wants to eat and have a roof over their heads.
I'm wondering less about the price of eggs and more about what might happen if, for example, he utterly tanks the housing market. Or the market for commercial properties. I assume these people still care about those kinds of assets...
They won't care. By the time it reaches that point, they'll already have grabbed everything that there is to grab. Even something as basic as fresh, drinkable water.
In the West, there are already rumblings about commoditization of all water (not just drinking water), blowing up 100+ years of riparian/first in time water rights. If that happens, say goodbye to interior western states as the water will be sold to AZ, NV, and CA leaving the rest high, dry, and depopulated. To them, it's a feature, not a bug.
We are getting a first class lesson in the consequences of electing an unhinged imbecile president. He is the poster child for making a strong measure of Intelligence a requirement for the office - among other neuropsychiatric parameters. The sad thing is I read that his Bachelors from UPENN was in Economics. I am certain he never did any of the reading and Daddy's checkbook got him his degree.
My husband who went to Penn asked if anyone had ever actually seen him in class. I was teasing him about Penn's great writing program after reading Trump 1 perfect letter to some world leader...5th grade work at best.
He said Penn had a great 1st year writing program everyone had to go through.
He didn’t get into Penn originally. He transferred from Fordham because everyone else turned him down. Thats why he wants to destroy Harvard and Columbia et al.
And apparently his sister continued to do his homework at Fordham, but not at UPENN. It was a Wharton Professor who called him "the dumbest goddamned student I ever had."
It will be interesting to see how SCOTUS responds to him over the next few months. When they initially gave trump immunity, my response was that they do so at their own peril.
In fact the republican politicians who have given him carte blanche have essentially been neutered by him and they have ceded their power to him and his authoritarian/totalitarian dictator agenda. They are all now owned by the creators of P2025.
I suppose SCOTUS will do as the Heritage/Federalist/Opus Dei men tell them to do. Do those men want to crash the US Economy? I believe they do. We'll see. Interesting times.
It won’t be this Christmas. This Christmas is less than 4 months away, and if he juices the economy, this Christmas will be awesome. It will be next year that will be dismal.
"Coupled with the inflationary pressure of his insane import taxes (tariffs), this Christmas is going to be pretty grim for everyone who's not ultrawealthy."
. . . and that is the plan. Wrecking the economy is the goal with Proj2025 etc.
I want to add that the mortgage underwriter would have had her property history, her lastest MVR, her employment and since she is a prominent person in her field, might even have googled her. So the underwriter should have known where she lives and the she likely uses 2 homes. My brother was an executive before retirement. Hehad a home in the St Louis area and an apartment in Chicago where his office was.
I say this as an underwriter and one who review fraud cases.
I doubt she could be convicted of fraud. Fraud does not just mean to misstate a fact. I handled rescission of life policies - we relied on statutes and case law concerning misrepresentation, Fraud is harder to prove. And you must prove that the person intentionally lied to get an advantage. But seriously, in the determination of the client's ability to pay back the loan, she was a gold star customer. good income, excellent chance to continue receiving a good salary. so... the lender would want to get this loan on the books. This is not about testimony in a murder case, it is about would the lender have lent the money anyway. My suggestion is that the underwriter knew this person lived in several addresses. I see this in my case reviews of prominent people. and that despite knowing that the borrower did not sleep in the smame bedroom every night - they would have lent the money.
I am also making it clear that the lender should have known. I say this because if you go to court - one of the issues will be whether the underwriter should have known - regardless of affirmation.
Projection is actually his greatest talent. From the first go-round, it has been obvious that whenever he accuses someone of something, or indulges in his juvenile name-calling, he is speaking of himself. From "lyin' Ted" and "liddle Marco" on forward.
Trump doesn’t understand how things work. He thinks that the Fed sets the interest rates the government pays, but the markets set the rates, because somebody has to buy those notes, bills, and bonds. The purchasers of that debt expect an interest rate that effectively reflects inflation expectations. If inflation goes up, the interest rates on federal debt will go up or they won’t get bought. Since this is what mortgages, etc. base their interest rates on, everybody’s interest will go up.
As an occasional buyer of new Treasury securities and one who likes to understand what he's buying, I endorse this message. Not that I enter competitive bids myself, not having vast amounts of money or the expertise to make reasoned bids; I put in non-competitive bids, knowing that the auction price will be the best money can buy.
Trump is now claiming a "housing emergency." But Trump, of course, couldn't possibly care less about housing.
This is just another bogus "emergency" pretext for a power grab. In this case, it is control of the Fed. Trump will directly control the Fed ostensibly to make housing more affordable. He won't, but that was never the point.
The Trump goon who made this allegation against Cook refused to say in an interview yesterday where he got this "tip." I assume that's b/c he thought the actual answer "I pulled it out of my a--", wouldn't go over very well.
The goon, Bill Pulte, went looking into mortgage data because that was his field. Similar charges against Adam Schiff and others. Members of Congress often have a home in DC and a home in their district, both principal residences.
Of course, Trump’s actual criminal convictions were for giving false information on loan applications. But we forget so easily. Accusations and convictions are not the same.
In some cases I’ve referred to “belligerent ignorance,” but that doesn’t apply to Trump, since his ignorance is a state of being, rather than a reaction to anything.
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’.
One of my best friends, who was the first in his family to go to college, once had his favorite teacher tell him "a lot of people are here to get a DEGREE. YOU'RE here to get an EDUCATION."
I think Trump is doing what his advisors urge him to do. God knows the reasons they give him. Maybe they told him he'd get a Nobel Prize in Economics or something. Or suddenly China would crash... who knows what goes thru these psychotic men's brains?
I don't know... he seems to know nothing whatever about economics. Did he pay someone to take his exams? Did he bribe or threaten his professors? The dean?
Trump will end up Trumpifying the Fed. And he will end up slamming interest rates into the cellar. No amount of warnings will deter him from this.
Because Trump is profoundly stupid. He is also ignorant to a terrifying degree, and he is utterly impervious to new information. Like a child at the controls of an airliner, he has a vague idea of how things might work, but not enough to actually save the thing once he's managed to lurch it out of control.
So as inflation begins to soar along with unemployment, look for Trump to, first, force the relevant federal agencies to issue fake numbers (to be followed almost instantly by having the agencies simply stop reporting). That will be followed by Trump trying to impose price controls--most likely through either freezing wages or eliminating all minimum wage laws. From there, the bottom of the stupid is anyone's guess.
I'm glad I'm old and don't have all that much longer to tread this Earth, because I'm not seeing any rosy futures here.
Republicans pushed for repeal of Glass-Steagal, therefore Clinton was blameless. Carter signed the legislation making it illegal to deny mortgages based on race, and thus was responsible.
Please consult your conservative libretto as you try to follow along!
The 1998 merger of Citicorp with Travelers Group didn’t destroy Glass - Steagall but it was instrumental in the congressional repeal of parts of the act in 1990 . The previous decades marked a vast shift in the
government’s approach to mergers -
( it was merger mania) as opposed to much tighter control before the 1980’s. Deregulation opened Pandora’s Box and lobbyists sustained the assault.
Now the target is the Federal Reserve- heaven help us !
This is a critical point. Greenspan spent a decade undermining Glass-Steagall and I would say destroyed it with Citi-Travelers. The legislation was post facto. Also the banks that went under in 2008 (Lehman, Wachovia, WaMu, Merrill Lynch) were not affected by G-S because they were pretty much exclusively commercial or investment banks. Of the megabanks, Citi was run badly for a long time (nearly went under in 1991), Chase was fine, and BoA would have been OK if the Fed hadn't made it swallow the black hole of Merrill Lynch. When Citi and BoA were nationalized, the Fed should have broken them into 12 regional commercial banks plus Merrill as the investment bank.
A lot of the merger mania began in late 80s/ early 90s ... greed is good era ... Don't forget the S&L crisis that proceeded the 2008 mess. Lots of financial bad food eaten during those failures.
We (husband and I) are both old, but we both have children, and he has grandchildren - and the thought of what this could do to their futures makes me sick to my stomach.
Trump is into human genocide as per P2025. "Let the AI machine run the whole show with only the 1% of the 1% left".
But surely the superintelligent machine won't be that stupid.
Thiel et al may think they can control AI but everything suggests no and a little person with a terrible kill switch knob has no chance. Anyway throw the kill switch and if it works there's nothing left. Humans may soon be a small tribe of hunter gatherers in Africa again!
It’s a delicious dose of schadenfreude to think that a bunch of racists are screwing themselves over by increasing the chances that only Black people in remote areas of Africa survive.
I agree. All this kerfluffle over Kennedy's actions... sheesh. Its not ignorance, it is pure malice and malignancy on the part of Trump&Co.
These men want children, and old people, and handicapped, and people with diseases such as diabetes, to "just die."
Look at what they did to USAID. That was genocide.
What Kennedy is currently doing to our Health Department is in the aid of Proj 2025/TechBro's Robert Heinleinian "social Darwinism" notions, AKA: genocide.
I still believe in the Rule of Law, as do many of us and judges too are holding the line. Just yesterday more decisions went against him than for him despite all the antics and bad players on the field.
The Supreme Court will continue to dodge truly inflammatory decisions and continue to support him on the margins only.
The Supreme Court gave Trump absolute immunity for any actions he takes as president, and has been green-lighting everything he's tried to do no matter how unconstitutional or illegal. It doesn't matter how much anyone believes in the rule of law when the final arbiters only believe in the rule of Trump.
Support him on the margins only? What are you smoking? Aside from making him largely above the law with the immunity decision, they have supported him in 75% of the cases that have come before them so far this term. (See, decisions on their "shadow docket.") They're all in.
I wish I had more faith in the Supreme Court. I do think they are highly partisan. Imagine if a Democrat tried to do what Trump is doing. They might draw some lines. But I'm not sure. I think many of them really do believe in an imperial presidency...at least as long as someone of a similar ideology is in office.
I think many of them are afraid of being shown up as powerless. "Great. Let them enforce it."
How much does physical intimidation play? Where are the protests that used to happen? Have the organizers been threatened into silence?
Many of the men on SCOTUS belong to Opus Dei, a fanatical, regressive catholic group that the Catholic church itself repudiates.
That group has a lot of people working for Trump. The Heritage Society, Federalist Society, SCOTUS, Project 2025, and a great many more Federal judges. And they know that god is on their side.
Ahhh, the Boomer “well I’m glad I won’t be around for things getting worse (after I’ve done nothing to improve it).”
It’s going to take a lot more than that to convince Gens Y and Z that you aren’t envious of their youth.
Both parties and all their reps are trash, that said:
Maybe Trump doesn’t want to fly the plane that is the Fed. He doesn’t have to know how to fly it. He just has to get in, set it on a crash course, and bail.
I was lost in this economic argument until I got to the Dire Straits coda. Suddenly, it became clear what Trump was up to. Especially, the "chicks for free" refrain.
I was at school with the Knopflers. The first time I heard Mark play guitar was accompanying someone sing “Summertime” from Porgy and Bess at the school folk club. Dire Straits make wonderful timeless music.
I would like to hear some thoughts on how this destabilization of the economy plays into Trump’s ambitions to promote crypto & thereby enrich himself & his oligarch friends while bankrupting the rest of us. Or is he just fulfilling Putin’s interests in destroying the US as a world power? Of course these two goals may perfectly coincide…
Trump is a delusional psychopath (google it if you doubt me) with a touch of dementia.
As such, You give Trump too much credit. He doesn't think. He's incapable of thinking thing through. He simply reacts according to some wacko preconceived notion, or reacts like a knee jerk without thought or simply does what he's told to do by the Project 25 appointees. That's his repertoire.
I'm sorry Dr. Krugman but you must stop using the words 'Trump' and 'thinking' in the same sentence! Whatever you might understand as the 'thinking' process (on which we would agree), it is NOT what is going on in Trump's addled skull!
we should have had a depression by now. But markets are nonlinear and it can/will happen suddenly and with great force. And there will be no one to stop it or respond in a responsible manner
Think of it like the build up to a huge earthquake ... lots of little tremors, but no one really know when the Big One will hit even though we know it will hit.
Or a dam about to burst. Like the Vajont Dam Disaster in Italy. Engineers knew there would be an avalanche-landslide, but misestimated the size of the lansllide. They stood on the dam and watched it happen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1zZVGoKJO4
I keep hearing the orchestral music from Sgt Pepper's "Day in the Life" where it winds up and up and up....then the "BLAM!" ....only so far it hasn't stopped winding up. No blam, yet.
Here's another theory about why Trump wants to reduce interest rates: reports are that the Trump enterprise holds several $100 million in federal bonds. A drop in the rates will increase the value of those bonds. They will sell those off, and Trump will realize a huge profit. As always, it's all about Trump. This is Occam's Razor displayed.
Thank you Paul. I don't know anything. I have a nagging feeling that asking for a 300 basis point cut would ? give the trump family the ability to renegotiate personal liens/mortgages and as I say I don't know... but if their idea is to drag the dollar down and try to make crypto currencies replace the dollar in some way. elevating their positions in that market even higher . trying to maneuver our monetary system could be a move to facilitate that direction of events to take place.
Seems like this could be jibberish to me even as I write this but then who knows.
Thanks for this, Sara. I agree that TFG does not think, but he is shrewd, and crooked, and I'm sure that he sees opportunity - for himself/his family ONLY - in his push for lower rates.
Trumpifying the Fed not only affects our economy, but it signals to the world that the dollar is no longer stable. And that is a huge problem. It won't take long for the yuan to become the reserve currency. Make America Irrelevant Again.
I am pretty sure a massive stimulus by the Fed to drop Fed Funds 300 bps will drop the dollar pretty dramatically against other currencies. But this is exactly what some of the quacks on his CEA want. However, would MBS want to sell his oil in depreciated dollars? Perhaps OPEC+ would decide the global oil market should be priced in Euros?
You could be right. The Euro could become the reserve currency, as it's not tied to China, and that would be the best possible outcome, since we still have something in common with Europe.
The only question to ask is “What’s in it for Trump?” If he wants interests rates cut it is a straight line to his business and how it would benefit from a reduced rate. He has probably been negotiating big development projects and wants to finance them with low interest loans.
If Daniel Thompson's 2021 paper "Stagnant services and the gradual disinflation of advanced economies" is right, then it's not monetary policy that is holding down inflation. The jobs in question are "those with limited productivity growth, competitive product markets, and thin profit margins". His analysis indicates that they form a control on wage costs that explains controlled inflation.
On the upside, as my parents' generation discovered, a vigorous bout of inflation with lower rates can make your mortgage debts shrink, so favours the debtor class as well. Inflation breaks r>g in real terms so could be argued to favour labour, provided wages keep up.
If you take the Modern Monetary Theory perspective, then taking money out of the economy to increase its value, hence diminishing inflation, can be done by taxation as well. Taxation of the extremely wealthy destroys that wealth, which they dislike.
Taking money out of the economy by raising interest rates does so in part by discouraging the printing of fresh cash, given out in return for debt notes. It also encourages the rich to sequester money in bonds, the coupons on which are paid, in turn, largely from taxes (some from corporate profits). This functions to preserve their wealth by extracting value from the economy. Then r>g is preserved.
The wealthy, however, argue that they need their wealth protected so they can invest and "Make Life Better for All of Us". This, I'll venture to assert, is self-serving at best.
Only recently began receiving your posts and appreciate your efforts.
I am a strong believer in MAGA: Morons are governing America.
That’s right, led by the Moron-in~Chief.
Trump will lead us to ruin.
He is the most ignorant, stupidest person ever to be elected to any office in the history of this country-and that’s saying something
I've sure there is someone just as ignorant & stupid elected as dog-catcher somewhere. But I'll bet they didn't have a degree in basket-weaving, like Trump.
The morons are the MAGA believers. Welcome to the Party of stupid.
That's what Mayer is saying.
Mobsters Are Gutting America...
That's the best one I've read! Now we need a baseball cap. People get to designing one. What color?
I should have noted that interpretation was not original to me. Think I saw it on Facebook.
I like the "Make Lying Wrong Again" and "Make Corruption Wrong Again" hats.
One podcaster was wearing a "Make Orwell Fiction Again" hat.
"Make Orwell Fiction Again" hat.
MOFA
I like it.
pink .. the opposite of blue.
According to the rest of the world, they're making America grate, alright.
Uh you are more than a tad unclear. You say “Morons ARE destroying America”…not WERE. I mean right now all three branches of the government are Republican. Are they the ones destroying America?
" I mean right now all three branches of the government are Republican. Are they the ones destroying America?" Correct. Which is exactly what Mr. Mayer is saying.
He didn't say it very well.
Not sure how you feel I should have worded it.
I was trying to say I subscribe to the sentiment that morons are now in charge.
I think your company is pretty clear, to me at least.
Using Caps with each word would have made all the difference .m. Without them the sentence can be read to mean the opposite
Do you think that Make America Great Again references the time before the instatement of the Federal Reserve? If so, that is a wise goal, regardless of the equal evil of both sides two-party system.
LOL. I needed that.
Professor Krugman: despite what that orange racist claims, lisa cook did NOT commit mortgage fraud:
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/02/trump-lisa-cook-fed-powell-fraud.html
yet the orange rapist is still trying to remove her from office, despite this action being illegal.
le sigh!
Trump isn't playing with monopoly money here. His efforts to force the Fed to cut the Prime by 300 basis points will juice inflation, potentially crippling the ability of the 99% to put food on the table and make rent. Coupled with the inflationary pressure of his insane import taxes (tariffs), this Christmas is going to be pretty grim for everyone who's not ultrawealthy.
well i wanna know: how will the obscenely wealthy survive when the 99% are literally homeless, starving & without any healthcare? do these spoilt babies think we will go to work when we don‘t know if our families will even be alive at the end of the day? without a reason to work, to obey the law, to do literally ANYTHING, who will take care of the elites?
The Palm Beach set that cavorts at Mar-a-Lago don't care a whit about recessions. They've got so much disposable income, the price of eggs could triple tomorrow, and they wouldn't even know; much less care.
true, but someone has to farm those chickens, collect the eggs & get them to market before they rot & without breaking them
Ah, that's where the FAFO factor kicks in. The oligarchs committing this theft will already have croaked by the time that happens - leaving their progeny in the bag. Yes, they don't even care about their own descendants. They're psychopaths.
I think MAGAts - whether rich or poor - don't care about their own descendants. If they did, they'd not only care about the economy, they'd care about climate change and about gun regulation.
It's a medieval labor model - redux. If 1% of he people own all the land and means of production, and can pass laws at will, the only option for serfs (excuse me: workers) who would like to eat and have a roof over their heads is to perform the tasks demanded by the 1%. This labor model was quite successful in Europe for many years - at least until the peasants finally decide that revolution offered a choice.
Its worth remembering that the very essence of the American political experiment was based on rule by the many (citizens) as opposed to rule by monarchs which people had fled from in Europe. What seems increasingly apparent, however, is that the current American government is controlled by those who would abandon (or corrupt) citizen rule in favor of governance by a small minority.
If this is allowed to happen, the question of who farms those chickens and collects their eggs might come down to a simple question of who wants to eat and have a roof over their heads.
Al bots collect eggs? In fact in many big hen houses now that is already happening.
I'm wondering less about the price of eggs and more about what might happen if, for example, he utterly tanks the housing market. Or the market for commercial properties. I assume these people still care about those kinds of assets...
They have fantasies that they don't need anyone but themselves: https://www.techpolicy.press/douglas-rushkoff-on-the-escape-fantasies-of-the-tech-billionaires/
https://theconversation.com/doomsday-bunkers-mars-and-the-mindset-the-tech-bros-trying-to-outsmart-the-end-of-the-world-188661
Galt Gulch!
They won't care. By the time it reaches that point, they'll already have grabbed everything that there is to grab. Even something as basic as fresh, drinkable water.
They're aiming to monopolize all resources.
In the West, there are already rumblings about commoditization of all water (not just drinking water), blowing up 100+ years of riparian/first in time water rights. If that happens, say goodbye to interior western states as the water will be sold to AZ, NV, and CA leaving the rest high, dry, and depopulated. To them, it's a feature, not a bug.
AI and the machines! Who needs humans P2025 don't, well very very few.
In that scenario, the "ANYTHING" sounds good.
We are getting a first class lesson in the consequences of electing an unhinged imbecile president. He is the poster child for making a strong measure of Intelligence a requirement for the office - among other neuropsychiatric parameters. The sad thing is I read that his Bachelors from UPENN was in Economics. I am certain he never did any of the reading and Daddy's checkbook got him his degree.
There's a reason he won't release his transcript. Just like he won't release his tax forms or THE EPSTEIN FILES!
I read that one of his UPenn prof said he was the dumbest student he ever taught
My husband who went to Penn asked if anyone had ever actually seen him in class. I was teasing him about Penn's great writing program after reading Trump 1 perfect letter to some world leader...5th grade work at best.
He said Penn had a great 1st year writing program everyone had to go through.
Sorry, I didn't scroll down before the post above. I submit.
He didn’t get into Penn originally. He transferred from Fordham because everyone else turned him down. Thats why he wants to destroy Harvard and Columbia et al.
And apparently his sister continued to do his homework at Fordham, but not at UPENN. It was a Wharton Professor who called him "the dumbest goddamned student I ever had."
Yep. And his daddy pulled some strings that got him into Wharton, included paying someone else to take the SATs for him.
But we all know that DJT is a stable genius, the likes of which the world has never seen before. Just ask him. Person woman man camera TV…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8oaaP68i4s
The only money trump ever plays with is other people's money.
Unless SCOTUS rules against the tariffs.
It will be interesting to see how SCOTUS responds to him over the next few months. When they initially gave trump immunity, my response was that they do so at their own peril.
In fact the republican politicians who have given him carte blanche have essentially been neutered by him and they have ceded their power to him and his authoritarian/totalitarian dictator agenda. They are all now owned by the creators of P2025.
Tariffs aren’t in Project 2025. They don’t have the same buy in as other Republican planks.
They appear to be an obsession of Trump and a few advisors like Peter Navarro.
In fact, removing the tariffs might actually be bad for Dems as the economy would recover and remove a talking point for 2026,
Good point. Thanks,
I suppose SCOTUS will do as the Heritage/Federalist/Opus Dei men tell them to do. Do those men want to crash the US Economy? I believe they do. We'll see. Interesting times.
Tariffs aren’t a Project 2025/ Heritage thing. They’re 100% Trump.
I know, but they seem quite OK with Trump's gyrations. If what they want is chaos, fear, and fury, Trump's the man to put in charge.
Yes, SCOTUS was bought and paid for by the same people who backed citizens united. The fix is in. We’re watching a coup d'etat in real time.
It won’t be this Christmas. This Christmas is less than 4 months away, and if he juices the economy, this Christmas will be awesome. It will be next year that will be dismal.
But all the imported Chinese toys will be really expensive if the tariffs continue.
"Coupled with the inflationary pressure of his insane import taxes (tariffs), this Christmas is going to be pretty grim for everyone who's not ultrawealthy."
. . . and that is the plan. Wrecking the economy is the goal with Proj2025 etc.
But this may be a case for the old advice, Never attribute to evil intent what can be explained as sheer stupidity,
I want to add that the mortgage underwriter would have had her property history, her lastest MVR, her employment and since she is a prominent person in her field, might even have googled her. So the underwriter should have known where she lives and the she likely uses 2 homes. My brother was an executive before retirement. Hehad a home in the St Louis area and an apartment in Chicago where his office was.
I say this as an underwriter and one who review fraud cases.
So did she commit fraud or not?
I doubt she could be convicted of fraud. Fraud does not just mean to misstate a fact. I handled rescission of life policies - we relied on statutes and case law concerning misrepresentation, Fraud is harder to prove. And you must prove that the person intentionally lied to get an advantage. But seriously, in the determination of the client's ability to pay back the loan, she was a gold star customer. good income, excellent chance to continue receiving a good salary. so... the lender would want to get this loan on the books. This is not about testimony in a murder case, it is about would the lender have lent the money anyway. My suggestion is that the underwriter knew this person lived in several addresses. I see this in my case reviews of prominent people. and that despite knowing that the borrower did not sleep in the smame bedroom every night - they would have lent the money.
no, he is making the case that she did not since many people have a primary residence then a principle property for work
I am also making it clear that the lender should have known. I say this because if you go to court - one of the issues will be whether the underwriter should have known - regardless of affirmation.
We all know that ... 2.0 has long been known to accuse others of crimes he himself has committed.
Every accusation a confession.
Projection is actually his greatest talent. From the first go-round, it has been obvious that whenever he accuses someone of something, or indulges in his juvenile name-calling, he is speaking of himself. From "lyin' Ted" and "liddle Marco" on forward.
Trump doesn’t understand how things work. He thinks that the Fed sets the interest rates the government pays, but the markets set the rates, because somebody has to buy those notes, bills, and bonds. The purchasers of that debt expect an interest rate that effectively reflects inflation expectations. If inflation goes up, the interest rates on federal debt will go up or they won’t get bought. Since this is what mortgages, etc. base their interest rates on, everybody’s interest will go up.
Yes. The Fed sets a specialized rate that banks use. The long term bonds are as you say, set by the markets.
As an occasional buyer of new Treasury securities and one who likes to understand what he's buying, I endorse this message. Not that I enter competitive bids myself, not having vast amounts of money or the expertise to make reasoned bids; I put in non-competitive bids, knowing that the auction price will be the best money can buy.
Trump is now claiming a "housing emergency." But Trump, of course, couldn't possibly care less about housing.
This is just another bogus "emergency" pretext for a power grab. In this case, it is control of the Fed. Trump will directly control the Fed ostensibly to make housing more affordable. He won't, but that was never the point.
The Trump goon who made this allegation against Cook refused to say in an interview yesterday where he got this "tip." I assume that's b/c he thought the actual answer "I pulled it out of my a--", wouldn't go over very well.
The goon, Bill Pulte, went looking into mortgage data because that was his field. Similar charges against Adam Schiff and others. Members of Congress often have a home in DC and a home in their district, both principal residences.
Of course, Trump’s actual criminal convictions were for giving false information on loan applications. But we forget so easily. Accusations and convictions are not the same.
Trump just thinks cause is short for because I feel like it!
"So why is Trump demanding a huge cut in interest rates?"
Cue Ghostbuster's quote. .. he didn't study.
Being at Wharton and learning at Wharton are two completely different things.
Trump is uneducable.
Yes. Awhile back Prof Krugman used the phrase 'invincibly ignorant.'
In some cases I’ve referred to “belligerent ignorance,” but that doesn’t apply to Trump, since his ignorance is a state of being, rather than a reaction to anything.
Quote I like:
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’.
Isaac Asimov
Newsweek: “A Cult of Ignorance” by Isaac
Asimov, January 21, 1980, p. 19. PDF
Nice! Thank you for sharing.
https://aphelis.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ASIMOV_1980_Cult_of_Ignorance.pdf
One of my best friends, who was the first in his family to go to college, once had his favorite teacher tell him "a lot of people are here to get a DEGREE. YOU'RE here to get an EDUCATION."
I think about that line often.
I think Trump is doing what his advisors urge him to do. God knows the reasons they give him. Maybe they told him he'd get a Nobel Prize in Economics or something. Or suddenly China would crash... who knows what goes thru these psychotic men's brains?
Mr. Trump got a bachelors degree in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Donald-Trump
I don't know... he seems to know nothing whatever about economics. Did he pay someone to take his exams? Did he bribe or threaten his professors? The dean?
I don't know what explains his ignorance.
Money clearly bought his degree but not any form of understanding.
Trump will end up Trumpifying the Fed. And he will end up slamming interest rates into the cellar. No amount of warnings will deter him from this.
Because Trump is profoundly stupid. He is also ignorant to a terrifying degree, and he is utterly impervious to new information. Like a child at the controls of an airliner, he has a vague idea of how things might work, but not enough to actually save the thing once he's managed to lurch it out of control.
So as inflation begins to soar along with unemployment, look for Trump to, first, force the relevant federal agencies to issue fake numbers (to be followed almost instantly by having the agencies simply stop reporting). That will be followed by Trump trying to impose price controls--most likely through either freezing wages or eliminating all minimum wage laws. From there, the bottom of the stupid is anyone's guess.
I'm glad I'm old and don't have all that much longer to tread this Earth, because I'm not seeing any rosy futures here.
And if this happens, he will blame it on Biden...and MAGA will believe it.
Of course! It's not his fault. It's never his fault! Just the same way Republicans blamed the 2008 Great Recession on . . . Jimmy Carter.
Now now. Not all Republicans blamed the Great Recession on Jimmy Carter. A lot of them blamed it on Barack Obama!
Sure, when Glass Steagall was repealed by the Clinton Admin ...
Republicans pushed for repeal of Glass-Steagal, therefore Clinton was blameless. Carter signed the legislation making it illegal to deny mortgages based on race, and thus was responsible.
Please consult your conservative libretto as you try to follow along!
The 1998 merger of Citicorp with Travelers Group didn’t destroy Glass - Steagall but it was instrumental in the congressional repeal of parts of the act in 1990 . The previous decades marked a vast shift in the
government’s approach to mergers -
( it was merger mania) as opposed to much tighter control before the 1980’s. Deregulation opened Pandora’s Box and lobbyists sustained the assault.
Now the target is the Federal Reserve- heaven help us !
This is a critical point. Greenspan spent a decade undermining Glass-Steagall and I would say destroyed it with Citi-Travelers. The legislation was post facto. Also the banks that went under in 2008 (Lehman, Wachovia, WaMu, Merrill Lynch) were not affected by G-S because they were pretty much exclusively commercial or investment banks. Of the megabanks, Citi was run badly for a long time (nearly went under in 1991), Chase was fine, and BoA would have been OK if the Fed hadn't made it swallow the black hole of Merrill Lynch. When Citi and BoA were nationalized, the Fed should have broken them into 12 regional commercial banks plus Merrill as the investment bank.
A lot of the merger mania began in late 80s/ early 90s ... greed is good era ... Don't forget the S&L crisis that proceeded the 2008 mess. Lots of financial bad food eaten during those failures.
It was Gramm - Leach /Bliley act in
1999
Wow harsh ...
Clinton did not choose to veto and signed Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (GLBA).
Whatever bad happens, he’ll likely blame on Biden.
At 85, I am thinking of my children and grandchildren - for sure they will not be millionaires -
Back to medieval times and serfdom for the 99%...
We (husband and I) are both old, but we both have children, and he has grandchildren - and the thought of what this could do to their futures makes me sick to my stomach.
Trump is into human genocide as per P2025. "Let the AI machine run the whole show with only the 1% of the 1% left".
But surely the superintelligent machine won't be that stupid.
Thiel et al may think they can control AI but everything suggests no and a little person with a terrible kill switch knob has no chance. Anyway throw the kill switch and if it works there's nothing left. Humans may soon be a small tribe of hunter gatherers in Africa again!
It’s a delicious dose of schadenfreude to think that a bunch of racists are screwing themselves over by increasing the chances that only Black people in remote areas of Africa survive.
I miss the rains down in Africa!
I agree. All this kerfluffle over Kennedy's actions... sheesh. Its not ignorance, it is pure malice and malignancy on the part of Trump&Co.
These men want children, and old people, and handicapped, and people with diseases such as diabetes, to "just die."
Look at what they did to USAID. That was genocide.
What Kennedy is currently doing to our Health Department is in the aid of Proj 2025/TechBro's Robert Heinleinian "social Darwinism" notions, AKA: genocide.
I still believe in the Rule of Law, as do many of us and judges too are holding the line. Just yesterday more decisions went against him than for him despite all the antics and bad players on the field.
The Supreme Court will continue to dodge truly inflammatory decisions and continue to support him on the margins only.
The Supreme Court gave Trump absolute immunity for any actions he takes as president, and has been green-lighting everything he's tried to do no matter how unconstitutional or illegal. It doesn't matter how much anyone believes in the rule of law when the final arbiters only believe in the rule of Trump.
Support him on the margins only? What are you smoking? Aside from making him largely above the law with the immunity decision, they have supported him in 75% of the cases that have come before them so far this term. (See, decisions on their "shadow docket.") They're all in.
I wish I had more faith in the Supreme Court. I do think they are highly partisan. Imagine if a Democrat tried to do what Trump is doing. They might draw some lines. But I'm not sure. I think many of them really do believe in an imperial presidency...at least as long as someone of a similar ideology is in office.
I think many of them are afraid of being shown up as powerless. "Great. Let them enforce it."
How much does physical intimidation play? Where are the protests that used to happen? Have the organizers been threatened into silence?
Protests are happening, legacy media doesn’t cover them
I'm not hearing about them in advance so I can go.
The last one was around memorial day. Locally, it was held in a park at 5 when it was over 100 degrees outside.
Many of the men on SCOTUS belong to Opus Dei, a fanatical, regressive catholic group that the Catholic church itself repudiates.
That group has a lot of people working for Trump. The Heritage Society, Federalist Society, SCOTUS, Project 2025, and a great many more Federal judges. And they know that god is on their side.
It is a very bad scene.
Yep, and interest rate controls... basically he'll do a Richard Nixon.
Ahhh, the Boomer “well I’m glad I won’t be around for things getting worse (after I’ve done nothing to improve it).”
It’s going to take a lot more than that to convince Gens Y and Z that you aren’t envious of their youth.
Both parties and all their reps are trash, that said:
Maybe Trump doesn’t want to fly the plane that is the Fed. He doesn’t have to know how to fly it. He just has to get in, set it on a crash course, and bail.
Bring it on. END THE FED.
I was lost in this economic argument until I got to the Dire Straits coda. Suddenly, it became clear what Trump was up to. Especially, the "chicks for free" refrain.
I want my MTV!!
Mark Knopfler / Dire Straits make good music
I was at school with the Knopflers. The first time I heard Mark play guitar was accompanying someone sing “Summertime” from Porgy and Bess at the school folk club. Dire Straits make wonderful timeless music.
I would like to hear some thoughts on how this destabilization of the economy plays into Trump’s ambitions to promote crypto & thereby enrich himself & his oligarch friends while bankrupting the rest of us. Or is he just fulfilling Putin’s interests in destroying the US as a world power? Of course these two goals may perfectly coincide…
This.
Trump is a delusional psychopath (google it if you doubt me) with a touch of dementia.
As such, You give Trump too much credit. He doesn't think. He's incapable of thinking thing through. He simply reacts according to some wacko preconceived notion, or reacts like a knee jerk without thought or simply does what he's told to do by the Project 25 appointees. That's his repertoire.
And if it isn’t Biden’s fault, it’s Rosie O’Donnell’s.
You're forgetting George Soros.
This explains his focus on tariffs... for some reason, he got a bee in his bonnet about them in the '70's or '80's, and has never let it go.
He wants tariffs to pay for the tax cuts. The cuts were enormously expensive.
The US Fed income tax replaced a lot of onerous tariffs in 1913. And the American people were glad because it helped them a lot.
Precisely. But Trump looks back longingly to those days. He’s pretty stupid.
I'm sorry Dr. Krugman but you must stop using the words 'Trump' and 'thinking' in the same sentence! Whatever you might understand as the 'thinking' process (on which we would agree), it is NOT what is going on in Trump's addled skull!
we should have had a depression by now. But markets are nonlinear and it can/will happen suddenly and with great force. And there will be no one to stop it or respond in a responsible manner
Think of it like the build up to a huge earthquake ... lots of little tremors, but no one really know when the Big One will hit even though we know it will hit.
Everyone dreads the music stopping and having to scramble for the few chairs left. Therefore it keeps playing.
Or a dam about to burst. Like the Vajont Dam Disaster in Italy. Engineers knew there would be an avalanche-landslide, but misestimated the size of the lansllide. They stood on the dam and watched it happen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1zZVGoKJO4
I keep hearing the orchestral music from Sgt Pepper's "Day in the Life" where it winds up and up and up....then the "BLAM!" ....only so far it hasn't stopped winding up. No blam, yet.
It feels imminent.
Here's another theory about why Trump wants to reduce interest rates: reports are that the Trump enterprise holds several $100 million in federal bonds. A drop in the rates will increase the value of those bonds. They will sell those off, and Trump will realize a huge profit. As always, it's all about Trump. This is Occam's Razor displayed.
Thank you Paul. I don't know anything. I have a nagging feeling that asking for a 300 basis point cut would ? give the trump family the ability to renegotiate personal liens/mortgages and as I say I don't know... but if their idea is to drag the dollar down and try to make crypto currencies replace the dollar in some way. elevating their positions in that market even higher . trying to maneuver our monetary system could be a move to facilitate that direction of events to take place.
Seems like this could be jibberish to me even as I write this but then who knows.
Thanks for this, Sara. I agree that TFG does not think, but he is shrewd, and crooked, and I'm sure that he sees opportunity - for himself/his family ONLY - in his push for lower rates.
I think that "shrewd" is overstating his mental capabilities.
Trumpifying the Fed not only affects our economy, but it signals to the world that the dollar is no longer stable. And that is a huge problem. It won't take long for the yuan to become the reserve currency. Make America Irrelevant Again.
I am pretty sure a massive stimulus by the Fed to drop Fed Funds 300 bps will drop the dollar pretty dramatically against other currencies. But this is exactly what some of the quacks on his CEA want. However, would MBS want to sell his oil in depreciated dollars? Perhaps OPEC+ would decide the global oil market should be priced in Euros?
You could be right. The Euro could become the reserve currency, as it's not tied to China, and that would be the best possible outcome, since we still have something in common with Europe.
Xi rule KO or SCOok
Sorry, I don't understand that.
The only question to ask is “What’s in it for Trump?” If he wants interests rates cut it is a straight line to his business and how it would benefit from a reduced rate. He has probably been negotiating big development projects and wants to finance them with low interest loans.
It is always about what’s in it for him.
He never does anything that doesn’t benefit him personally. The Intel “taxpayer ownership “, for instance, must certainly have some loophole in it.
Yet again, since you have invoked Wile E Coyote a reminder 1) physics always wins, and 2) economics always wins.
Trump wants lower interest rates to benefit his businesses and those of his cronies. Full stop.
If Daniel Thompson's 2021 paper "Stagnant services and the gradual disinflation of advanced economies" is right, then it's not monetary policy that is holding down inflation. The jobs in question are "those with limited productivity growth, competitive product markets, and thin profit margins". His analysis indicates that they form a control on wage costs that explains controlled inflation.
On the upside, as my parents' generation discovered, a vigorous bout of inflation with lower rates can make your mortgage debts shrink, so favours the debtor class as well. Inflation breaks r>g in real terms so could be argued to favour labour, provided wages keep up.
Interesting times...
The rich with saved money and no mortgages prefer high interest rates on their savings...
I'll go one step further.
If you take the Modern Monetary Theory perspective, then taking money out of the economy to increase its value, hence diminishing inflation, can be done by taxation as well. Taxation of the extremely wealthy destroys that wealth, which they dislike.
Taking money out of the economy by raising interest rates does so in part by discouraging the printing of fresh cash, given out in return for debt notes. It also encourages the rich to sequester money in bonds, the coupons on which are paid, in turn, largely from taxes (some from corporate profits). This functions to preserve their wealth by extracting value from the economy. Then r>g is preserved.
The wealthy, however, argue that they need their wealth protected so they can invest and "Make Life Better for All of Us". This, I'll venture to assert, is self-serving at best.