122 Comments
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Kim Nesvig's avatar

Kevin Warsh is to fiscal policy what RFK jr is to medical research. Both begin with what they wish to believe, infer causal relationships that confirm their biases, and of course disregard any and all evidence to the contrary.

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Lois W. Halbert's avatar

Exactly.

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Apr 26Edited
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Sherri's avatar

Favor: If you use a shortened website name, would you tell us the website? I don't click on anything unknown unless I know where it's taking me. Security was iffy before but these days, it's going to get way worse and I'd like to view your link :) I think.

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D Stone's avatar

[Kevin walks like a duck...]

Malcolm Kramer: Every doctor I've been to has given me the same diagnosis, and I've been to twelve of the world's leading specialists.

Sam Malone: Well, maybe you'd get better news if you went to a quack.

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WinstonSmithLondonOceania's avatar

Ah, he should've checked with RFK jr. first!

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Carol Pladsen-Bloom's avatar

Old joke but a good one.

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Richard Roemer's avatar

We can handle the truth, don't sugar coat the medicine

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Stephen Brady's avatar

In tRump World, it is necessary to throttle a previously powerful economy so tRump and his buddies can have another massive tax cut. Those poor billionaires need those tax cuts to help them survive all the stagflation they will cause.

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WinstonSmithLondonOceania's avatar

Not to mention all those insider trading opportunities.

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Leigh Horne's avatar

And you're missing that taxes are the least of it for those in on Trump's grifts.

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Carol Pladsen-Bloom's avatar

Most haven't worried about "taxes" for decades. Lots of ways to evade those. This is sheer corruption, grift, gifts and right in to non-profits, coins, and offshore accounts. Basel and Cayman Islands must be giddy.

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andré's avatar

Why a minimum tax is needed for those with special exemptions.

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Priscilla Ebersole (Boston)'s avatar

Or to develop space travel to, or infrastructure to colonize Mars.

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Ken's avatar

Paul Krugman, your dedication is amazing and admirable. But really, if you’re on a bike trip, enjoy the wine and take a little rest from posting. 😂

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Joyce Nowak's avatar

Personally, I enjoy his commentary! Biking isn’t a 24 hr activity! Think he posts to keep up with the evil administration! Lots of evil there! Needs exposure!

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Ken's avatar

I also enjoy his commentary.

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Dr Jen Adjacent (Todd)'s avatar

My wife has a substack on women’s health and is currently on vacation with her sons. She is also posting because crazy bad shit keeps happening and she feels it’s important to comment so the broader public, who are less informed, can get informed. That’s a long way to say that Paul is a mensch and can’t help himself. He posts for the greater good and I am guessing that he has a need to share his knowledge. One of the many reasons we all love reading him.

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Texan By Birth's avatar

Biking includes lots of time for thought.

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ALFRED MIFSUD's avatar

Have a look at his speech yesterday at IMF. He is keen to crash the Fed Balance Sheet to pre 2008 level. Little credit to Fed managing a smooth exit from Covid without lasting inflation and highest level of employment. No worries about inflation being kick started by irrational policy decisions which threaten the dominance of the dollar.

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Jan Steinman's avatar

"threaten the dominance of the dollar."

Bring it on! The dollar's been dominant way too long.

As usual, President Backward-Talker says the opposite of the truth. The US has been sucking the rest of the world dry for far too long.

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Sherri's avatar

That has been one of its expletive goals and it's working. I remember my dad working at Chase (when it was just Chase) and buying foreign currency that was losing its value (I remember the yen mostly). I wonder what he'd say to what's going on ... The Backward-Talker lies constantly.

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WinstonSmithLondonOceania's avatar

I guess the best we can do right now is be thankful that Powell is sticking to his guns and not caving to what Krasnov wants. We'll sure miss him when he's gone. Especially if Trumpkopf installs yet another Klown in his Evil Klown Kar. This Klown Kevin Warsh likes to speak elliptically. A Very Serious Person indeed.

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Paul Olmsted's avatar

It’s not irrational expectations these days- it’s schizophrenic behavior

-

Firesign Theater had it right with

We are all Bozos on this bus

Tell Dr. Memory to “ forget it “

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Lewis Dalven's avatar

“The mainspring of this country, wound as tight as it is, is guaranteed for the life of the watch…”.

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Michael Crampton's avatar

Commenting just to note how much I love the literary references Professor Krugman. Othello a few days back and now Proust? Droppin' bombs!

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Lisa Sands's avatar

Another enabler for biggest grift in history. Our country is being ripped up by a madman and his followers. We must give our attention to every aspect of this and not give in to this intensity of destruction.

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Linda I's avatar

2 weeks ago, I wondered why market leaders weren't holding an intervention with Rump about his crazy tariff fetish. Sure enough, apparently it happened and a hold was issued (again). Every day Americans are beginning to see that Rump appointments are unqualified and dangerous. From Hegseth to Bondi to JFK to Musk, people see chaos and lack of leadership evidenced by protests. By the time Powell's term ends, I believe that Trump's power will be neutered by resistance from citizens and, more significantly in this situation, from those invested in economic stability. Follow the money (and the money people). Trump is a con and they know it. They thought they could manipulate him. Now they may realize it is better to stop him. What can WE do? Continue to resist and oppose LOUDLY and everywhere.

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Ken Kovar's avatar

I too have some hopium! 😎

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Sherri's avatar

:) :) :) I gave up on hope a while ago but hopium sounds nice.

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Sherri's avatar

And every day I wonder why the heck it took them this long to start understanding it. I was in a back and forth on Reddit with a guy who first called me a name for telling facts and analogies. I gave the person a few books to read so he'd understand what's happening. He eventually apologized which was nice. But that's rare.

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Dr Hugh D Campbell's avatar

Interesting. Your comment reveals where the power lies, for those who didn’t know.

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Lance Khrome's avatar

"unanticipated, nonlinear events can happen"

Voilà! Validated 15yrs hence...a true seer.

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TCinLA's avatar

It makes sense this guy would be the one the Traitor would put in office. Number one, it follows the tradition that each appointment is far worse than the one before, and two, this guy is dedicated to wrecking America, which is the Traitor's main goal.

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Keith Wheelock's avatar

Tom Yet another understated comment.

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Julie Campagna's avatar

Let’s also remember that the only reason we know his name is because he’s married to a Lauder, as in Estée.

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Roger Callaway's avatar

1. Impeach trump

2. Put citizen trump in jail

3. Throw the key into Mount Doom.

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TCinLA's avatar

Why not just throw the Traitor into Mount Doom and be finished with him?

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WinstonSmithLondonOceania's avatar

Better still, Mount Kilauea - unlike Mount Doom, Kilauea is real.

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WinstonSmithLondonOceania's avatar

As if we needed more evidence proving the axiom "it's not what you know, it's who you know".

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William Janis's avatar

Appropriate terse comment. Like all corrupt leaders in both business and politics, Trump surrounds himself with obsequious sycophants. Kevin Warsh will just be one more.

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Julian Bene's avatar

Warsh bitches that Powell let inflation get out of control. (He didn't.) But the point is that Trump wants the Fed to lower short-term interest rates and Warsh postures as an inflation hawk, the opposite of what Trump wishes.

OK, so he's a total opportunist and will go for easy money when he gets the job next year?

Then markets should panic and price in uncontrolled inflation.

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Ken Kovar's avatar

I hear you!

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Science Curmudgeon's avatar

Speaking of the cost of medical care, the profit model is the primary problem. Here's a simple value stream analysis:

Budget - Overhead = Service

add a for profit approach:

Budget - Overhead - Profit = Less Service

Then let the service providers (and several layers of middlemen) optimize the business:

Budget - Overhead - More Profit = Even Less Service

When a for profit business optimizes the business, the thing that gets the most effort is optimizing profit.

In value stream analysis any cash flow that doesn't contribute to desired outcome is called waste. Clearly profit is waste as far as service delivery matters.

The result is that the US has the most profitable medical care on the planet and beats number two by about a factor of three (Germany).

We need a model that optimizes quality and breadth of care, not profit.

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Ken Kovar's avatar

So true

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Jan Steinman's avatar

Hey, an alumnus!

I worked at Morgan Stanley, too.

In the 1990s, I was involved in writing software to implement some brand new things, like derivatives, credit-default obligations, etc.

We all know how well *that* went!

Bird & Fortune figured it out.

https://youtu.be/9z70BKwfSUA?si=yNufsPTgMKLmIeaP

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David E Lewis's avatar

interesting.

I traded FX options at Chase on the sell side in the 80s and then moved to a hedge fund. What basis did MS use for their option risk mgmt, Black Scholes, Cox Ross, or ...?

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Jan Steinman's avatar

I don't know those details. I was down in the weeds, writing software to allow stocks and bonds to be sliced up so they could be re-distributed and re-packaged.

As Bird & Fortune put it, great for traders' bonuses, but creating absolutely nothing of value!

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David E Lewis's avatar

I know Obama could either do Health Care or Fin sector reform but the lack of consquences for the obvious failures in risk management by firms like MS sticks in my craw.

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Newcavendish's avatar

I met Warsh a few times on business and had the distinct impression that he was a lightweight, reciting the typical anti-regulatory cant by rote, without much thought about the objectives of bank regulation, about the risks of instability, or about the real issues of specific questions of regulation. Of course, bank regulation is always about measure and balancing various issues. There are no per-se right answers, but there are conservative approaches and risky approaches (which will always be pushed by bank management interested in short-term results). Warsh is or was at least completely bought in to the latter.

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