changegonnacome

Agree - alot of talk about sticks....but no sticks so far......I think we might be pass that point anyway....I mean when you get down to it what sticks are actually left?.....secondary sanctions with very questionable efficacy and likely long lag times before they bite.......Ukraine can sustain its front lines with adequate manpower for at best another year perhaps........ Putin grinning like a cat in Alaska was a sight to behold......he looks like the cat who got the milk very sickening sight to see.....back getting red carpet treatment in the West, riding in the back of the 'the beast' with POTUS, almost universal understanding that he keeps what he currently holds and that the remainder of Ukraine moving forward will be effectively demilitarized with fuzzy security guarantees about a bazzillion miles away from NATO like article five protection. Trump blew a long time ago any strategic ambiguity around what he might do with the Ukraine portfolio.....effectively letting Putin know he would let the Ukrainians bleed out on the battlefield via underwhelming future military assistance.....and we are where are Putin dictating terms to the West and using Trump as his carrier pigeon.

Well the point of my hilarious comment is that you have control over yourself.....the old US takes a position say like an immediate ceasefire or else consequences and you stick to it and follow through.....you do what you say and say what you do.....its where credibility comes from, its how deterrents work.....Trump over and over again can't get out of his own way because rarely (if ever) does he seem to have coherent strategic plan......its freewheeling vibe diplomacy....and it seems chaotic because it is chaotic.

I'm old enough to remember that last week a ceasefire was the MOST important thing Trump said he was going to get in Alaska or else there would be severe consequences for Russia? Secondary sanctions some other undefined consequences. Remember? What Trump thinks tends to be what Putin has told him in the last 72hrs......its like Helsinki all over again when he threw his own national security agencies under the bus cause their opinion contradicted what Putin had told him. Hilarious. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/trump-threatens-severe-consequences-if-putin-blocks-ukraine-peace-2025-08-13/ "When asked if Russia would face any consequences if Putin does not agree to stop the war after Friday’s meeting, Trump responded: “Yes, they will. Asked if those consequences would be sanctions or tariffs, Trump told reporters: “I don't have to say. There will be very severe consequences."

@Cigarbutt great chart - QQQ/SPY wealth effects feeding through to the spending of the Top 20% of American's are a very real thing IMO......I cant quite think of another country where the performance of their domestic stock market has quite the same link to marginal spending in the real economy.......Trump instincts are right re: stock market......you keep it elevated and you can keep the top 20% of Americans consuming and by extension the economy keeps humming.

John can't help but feel that whats happening here (in Alaska last week & in DC today) is the final washing of the hands by Trump/the US around any further responsibility re:Ukraine & Russia.....the language from POTUS has switched from "I will have this conflict solved in no time at all" to "It's up to them now".......I think the penny dropped for Trump in Alaska......he who is in the ascendancy on the battlefield gets to dictate terms....the terms Putin has set are a very difficult pill to swallow for the Ukrainians and the Europeans....Trump knows they are unlikely to be able to agree to such terms (even though they should)......so for Trump there is no Nobel peace prize at the end of the rainbow in Kyiv ...........and so he's cutting and running as fast as he can....look at the zero mention now of enhanced US sanctions and severe consequences for Russia in 50, 12 or was it 10 days?!?!? The reason are there are no descent cards left to play for the US and the penny has dropped with Trump post-Alaska. Why? Cause Trump I think now understands whats happening on the battlefield relative to Putin demands in Alaska......Ukraine is dangerously close to being overwhelmed by Russian forces and the manpower/artillery advantage that has characterized the war for two years now moves more in Russia's favor everyday ......if a deal is genuinely on the table for 20% land concession to Russia but with fulsome security guarantees moving forward they should take it ASAP.....the Europeans + Ukraine appear to be still delusional that some more optimal outcome is available at this point......every other outcome IMO is worse than the above......the US language at the end of today's DC summit will be instructive......I suspect it will amount to a more concrete of the above something like "over to YOU Ukraine and Europe to advance the framework Peace deal I secured in Alaska because we (the United States) have done what we can here". The last card Trump can and likely will play is that he will backstop EUROPEAN security guarantees...a kind of second derivative US security guarantee where France, Germany, Italy and the UK have to own the first tranche of said defense. Post-Alaska i think Trump has a better handle on things than the Europeans/Ukraine.....they should see his hand wringing as a sign to wrap this conflict up........the best exit for Ukraine was back in Istanbul in 2022, the next best exit is now IMO (if they can get a robust security guarantee that enshrines the 80% of Ukraine left that is)......if they dont take this exit (if the exit above actually exists which I'm still skeptical of) the Ukranians and Europeans are in for embarrassing defeat on the battlefield in 2026 where Trump will stand over them and say I told them to sign the deal I got for them in 2025 but they we're too dumb to take it.

US, Russia Agreed on Ukraine Security Pledges, Witkoff Says https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-08-17/rubio-says-ukraine-ceasefire-still-on-table-as-trump-seeks-deal?sref=7zqHEcxJ If true this is quite a big deal........would like to see Russia confirm the same.....Witkoff has a habit, like his boss, of being heavily promotional when in front of a TV camera. Call me skeptical....the fact Trump wasn't waving this around at the Press Conference after the summit is very suspect......and let's be frank a US security guarantee is not what it used to be!

Well if by "first" you mean the first family taking care of stacking their banks accounts first. I guess both things can happen at once..they make personal bank AND make America great again concurrently.......but dont be confused by the order of priorities here.....its the First Family FIRST, then America First....you seem cool with that oxymoron.....I might be cool with it if I genuinely thought the second part was happening but the evidence so far is the opposite....strip away all the PR bluster that Trump is so fond of......and the economy slowed in H1 in response to Liberating Chaos Day. H1 2025 growth has come in light....maybe he catches up in his next 3.5yrs.....but the reality so far is Trump's 'genius' policy moves have slowed the economy by nearly a full 1% annualized relative to sleepy Joe's economy while running the place with the same level of insane fiscal borrowing....thats kinda a toxic mix....hopefully we're in for a Trump dividend for all the tough and excellent choices he made for us....and its boomtime USA for the next 3.5yrs....facts not feelings and we'll find out for reals (unless he continues to hack away at the statistical agencies that actually report reality versus the vibe economy that Trump works in).

Stay in your time machine - talking about Francois Mitterand from the 80's....as some bizarre mechanism by which to somehow make Trump appear less misguided with this bonkers 15% 'piece of the action'

But lets be real here.....just because one dumb thing is less dumb than other....doesn't make it not dumb.....either China is a security threat and we shouldn't sell them these chips (export ban)........or it isnt and selling chips is fine (no export ban).......what an astoundingly dumb thing to do to mix Government revenue raising with national security policy questions.

1000% My fundamental base case.....whether you believe what he's doing makes sense or not......is that the US political system by design isn't conducive to radical change most especially that which is multi-year in nature (Trump's reshoring dream etc.)........Trump is attempting to do by dictate/executive order/arcane laws....that which should be done by traditional politicking even god forbid bipartisanship.......the Trump tent pole agenda items (tariffs,reshoring & nativism) will be stopped out potentially first the courts, then by a change in Congress or eventually and most certainly by Father Time.....the science experiment will not have time to play out to its result......Trump's legacy will live up to the moniker I have for him 'Captain Chaos'.......in hindsight I think the vast bulk of whats happening will end up being pointless policy volatility that hurts steady state growth......Trump will get to say, undoubtedly, that what he was doing was working but the Democrats/deep state stopped it before it had a chance Fairly certain at this stage given projections that Trump's first gift to the United States after being elected is managing to shave a full 100bps of 2025 GDP growth off what a sleepy-Kamala Harris led 'steady as she' goes administration would have likely delivered. In an economy the size of the United States its going to be very hard to catch back up that 100bps over his last three years in office.

And what makes sense about that exactly….the 15% ‘piece of the action’ part?…first part sure…. stuff is getting to China, that’s a legitimate policy point about the ineffectiveness of export bans on these items…the leap and rational from that to the federal government getting a 15% piece of the top line on those exports is another….

Clientelism's triumph over federalism......when 'the Don' is done, it seems, whole industries will be dependent on either tariff protection or export licenses....a beautiful system of patronage, leverage and future superpac donations.....all paid for ultimately by the American people.

Yeah I think thats right.....and i should have added it above....even if you can keep inflation at 3-4% and thats a big if just given the way it can work.....the population has become attuned to the concept of purchasing power erosion now post-21/22......we've had debates as to why central banks chose 2% as their target.....I think the answer in a way is thats its low enough as to be non-noticeable to alot of the general populace........rule of 72.....2% = purchasing power halved in 31yrs.......3% = purchasing power halved in 23yrs.....thats kinda twice in your working life.....2% works much better....you wanna boil the frog slowly. Miran is a bold choice.....and I have to admit......that as much as folks dont want to admit it.....the retaliatory tariff war thesis didn't play out...most of the world just rolled over to get its belly tickled......Miran was right, the US had vast untapped and under monetized leverage to change the terms of trade....and I think he will have an unorthodox approach to the Fed....where he will argue that US treasuries are a global public good that the US has provided, at great cost, to the global financial system.....and that manipulation of the bond curve is a temporary tithing the globe owes the US for providing the backdrop to global prosperity.

Yep....if there's an 'easy' way out....and this avenue is most surely it.....this is the one that makes the most sense politically whether its Trump or Kamala or a no name democratic in the WH.....think of like fiscal Ozempic.....why do all the hard stuff in the gym (austerity, spending cuts & tax raises etc.).......when you can just take an injection of 3-4% inflation, yield curve controlled @ the 10yr to keep homeowners and prospective homeowners happy, artificially low overnight rates and a treasury that funds itself in t-bills.....the plan isnt bonkers....the difficult part, IMO, is believing you can control inflation in the 3-4% range effectively and that you have control of the WH/Congress for 8yrs instead of 2/4yrs.

I dont think this is the case......the research was focused on exploring the various edge outs that mRNA would provide for various pathogens.....defunding emerging pathogen research.....I mean how stupid and short sighted from a President who last go round was in power for a period when a million American's died.

Guess this is what happens when you elect a moron and then that moron puts other morons in charge of various federal agencies and then those morons come up with moronic ideas and because everybody above them is a moron too there is nobody competent to stop ideas like defunding mRNA research or rug pulling NIH funding. Whats crazier still, if that we're possible....is literally this is a President that presided over the most recent pandemic and a death toll of a million of his citzens .....I genuinely hope he doesn't get caught out with this stupidity.......mRNA conspiracy theorists had the luxury of still being alive cause COVID turned out to have negligible fatality rate focused mainly on those with comorbidities.....what a time to be alive.

On about every metric you can think of….he, the GOP won the congress, the senate & WH by historically narrow margins….if that’s your definition of a “dismantled” or “obliterated” Democratic Party the facts don’t agree with you….if so when the Democrats win the House by a wider margin in the Midterms…I look forward to talking about the GOP being dismantled then!

The reason is because he feel in love with the idea of tariffs in the 1980’s while running around New York and Palm Beach with Jeffrey Epstein……the rationale, the expressed strategy, the desired outcome changes day to day, minute to minute…..the answer you seek is because you think that perhaps Trump has some kind of executive faculty (he doesn’t)….he runs on vibes…..and his vibe is tariffs will make America great again….he is smart enough to plant a number of metrics by which he can measure the success…the most sure of course is revenue raised by treasury…..the tell that this whole enterprise isn’t working on the other metrics bandied about (trade deficits, inflation, manufacturing employment/output, gdp growth)…is the focus on raw $$$ collections.

Great thing about this Presidency….is how radical and consequential his actions have been so early on…..on the economy, on Iran, on Ukraine. He’s going to be around long enough and the outcome so directly a result of Trump’s actions….that we will see how dumb or how smart his approach was on all these three portfolios in a relatively short period of time…..I personally believe he has made a grave error on all three…..but hope he hasn’t at the same time……and acknowledge for each their remains an open question as to the outcome and obviously too early to tell and we all have our opinions. But I’ll posit this on the negative side what a failed Trump presidency looks like- US growth is going to lag both the Biden and first Trump presidency the annual deficit & debt to gdp ratio will expand even more as a result Ukraine will collapse under Trump’s watch and Trump will have a Biden Afghanistan moment as Russia hands Trump and the United States an embarrassing loss in what is fundamentally a proxy war between the US and Russia & not doing a JCPOA v2 will come back haunt the administration as Iran/Israel pull the US deeper into the region with ever more difficult and consequential decisions to be made…..Trump but the US admin will profoundly regret not taking a JCPOA exit when they could

Really….he left his first term in a chaotic poop and piss filled Capital disgrace pushing an election fraud…….only democratic incompetence allowed him back in…..and for his encore he’s in the process IMO of dismantling a good economy while pissing off every ally America has diminishing it in the world stage…..I won’t put a grade on his second term (onbviously too early)….but the last laugh I suspect will be history judging him the worst Prez in US history for that he needs to wreck the US economy…he seems off to a good start and 3.5yrs to go.

Or maybe Trump is such a deeply flawed human being, political candidate and political leader with a business and personal life filled with historical transgressions of laws, marital fidelity and norms….you need to ask yourself…in the realm of opposition research and then political attacks if Trump we’re a Democratic Presidential candidate…what would the GOP have done?….exactly what the GOP did to the last similarly flawed political leader Bill Clinton with dodgy business dealings and marital flings. Trump got buried by the Democrats, not because of the Democrats, but because he lived a life that deserved to be buried by whatever political party he was in opposition against….indeed in another universe as you know….Trump could have been the Democratic candidate but he cleverly spotted that the populist antiestablishment outsider position on the left was fully occupied by Bernie so he hijacked the Republican Party instead cause it was hijackable….one can imagine a world where Trump ( the political opportunist he is with no real political believes, outside tariffs)….on the stump espousing the virtues of windmills and pro-choice just as easily as he does the opposite now. I think you know that to be true deep down.

Trump playing the victim again….BLS data is a hoax designed to get Trump, 2020 election was a hoax designed to get Trump, Epstein files are a hoax designed to get Trump, Jan 6th was a false flag operation hoax designed to get Trump. When you read histories of populist con men….and see the various tricks they used to keep their supporters on-side…..you ask how the hell did they fall for it?!?…I’ve some sympathy though…the populist frog supporter gets boiled slowly in a soup of lies….by the time their leader is done with them they are in a hall of mirrors and distrust of all institutions & data….except the man at the centre…the playbook, if it weren’t so old and oft repeated, would be interesting and the falling for it for forgivable….that its such a tired old trick makes it kinda unforgivable.

Trump really is the boy who cried wolf......a victim of the deep state, a victim of New York state, a victim of Comey, a victim of election fraud, a victim of Obama, a victim of the Clinton campaign, a victim of Joe Biden and the democrats and now top it all off for the 'win' a victim of US statistical agencies.....what a crybaby.

And how a shining cities on a hill......become banana republics What a joke....what I would say is that Trump unchained as he is....just ends up getting more and more in his own way and so its kinda the upside of the 'let Trump, be Trump' idea.....its really a recipe for temporary chaos but no permanent change....this is an example.......you start messing with statistical agencies.....and well the dollar & bond market will let you know.......and then voters with 8% mortgage rates will kick the GOP out of the Congress and the Senate at the mid-terms