changegonnacome

@73 Reds how likely do you think that the letter is false?.......put yourself in Rupert Murdoch's shoes...and WSJ's...do you think the clicks on this article & resulting web traffic would be worth the defamation charges that would follow if it were....its not like President is not known to be litigious.......I can assure you then that the letter and its authenticity we're checked to something beyond a reasonable doubt......Murdoch is not in the business of signing of on articles that would tank one of his prized properties.....don't forget this is guy with a recent defamation black eye to from the Dominion voting machines case. Seems to me that if I were to assign a probability to it being real - it would be 90%/10%......of course the greatest source of all on the matter would be the only other person alive who would know for sure and thats Ghilaine Maxwell whom POTUS has always strangely had kind words for -

Its so obvious whats changed - I'm not sure the guys here get it..........the WSJ article & the bawdy letter is but a tiny snippet of the actual EPSTEIN FILES.......and the problem for Trump is clear.......the files show a deeper, more intimate, more entwined relationship between the two men than has heretofore been known.......I dont think Trump is implicated in any crimes in the files, if he we're the democrats when they held the files would have brought charges......but what I would expect is the Epstein files contain ALOT of communication and interaction in the same genre as the bawdy birthday letter and spanning the Presidents other bawdy greatest hit which is the "grab them by p*ssy" tapes...... So the Epstein files IMO contain a tonne of communications like this (emails, texts, birthday cards, notes) between the President and a convicted paedophile that one might classify as highly sexual 'locker room' talk between two guys.......it is a terrible look but I'm convinced nothing illegal is in there by logical deduction..... just alot of tasteless stuff....my other guess is that Donald maintained a friendly, continuing likely bawdy private line of comms with Epstein AFTER his 2003 conviction and even after he'd publicly kicked him out of the Mar E Lago club membership....which again contradicts his public statements on the matter. This is classic PR quandary for the President - the cover-up (not releasing the full files) is more serious than the crime, because no crime has actually been committed...... just an old man, getting caught out in a lie and where his communications with a paedo demonstrate again the true character of POTUS versus the myth. To which I'll add who actually believes the myth anymore anyway.....who doesn't know (even his supporters) that POTUS is no angel.....Trump is spending alot of political capital covering up these files, his political misjudgment is that he somehow has a sterling behavioral reputation to protect....though I will admit the Epstein case 'hits' different for his QAnon base.

Yeah I think what happened is that the contestable market for home transaction shrunk with rates.......used inventory collapsed due to lock-in and buyer demand under the affordability pillar also collapsed but not by as much......and so marketshare rose for new home builders(inside an overall smaller transaction pool). Seems to me that in a falling rate environment an inverse of the above will occur.......that there is an asymmetry in today's housing market due to supply-demand imbalances and rate lock-in depressing moves........so the elasticity of demand (buyer pool) to interest rate changes is significantly higher than the elasticity of supply (existing-home inventory). Buyers are high beta to interest rates Because of ultra low lock-in - movers/sellers are now unusually low beta to interest rates Which is to say its possible that new home builders marketshare falls but their volumes actually still go up. I'm a housing market tourist - so take with a pinch of salt.

and what would you expect a former Treasury secretary who'd most recently felt the pain of financing the treasury to do to help out the budgetary math of his replacement and his former boss (before he became independent of course)......going for cuts at the short end is obvious......you have any sense the next Fed chair is going to go for YCC......or YCC-lite which would be to pause QT...and target all roll over purchases at one point on the curve....the 10yr being the obvious number you'd like to artificially depress by purchases or forward guidance around bands the Fed deems acceptable before interventions.....going Japanese is an obvious next move for the US that cant quit 7% budget deficits!

a perfect meme.....but also go long Astronomer on the private markets......you can't buy publicity like this.

@wabuffo you watching any of Warsh interviews....most recent one on CNBC was interesting and alluded to his plan for a plan for the Fed's role....now listen you need to be careful every interview is a job interview for him right now.....but he seems to be hinting at giving the Prez want he wants on short rates (to the extent he can)....where Bessent will continue to fund the Treasury & benefit lower funding costs.....and giving the economy/housing market relief at the 10yr most likely.....in what sounds like T & Fed coordination....by stopping b/s run-off for a time and/or targeting rolloff re-purchases at that 10yr.....he's talking about a Treasury-Fed accord....but what he really seems to be talking about is a transition period of quite deep monetary and fiscal coordination to help the fiscal get its house in order.....before the Fed balance sheet can be shrunk.....and in Kevin's view its true independence restored (as he views QE/QT as hybrid monetary/fiscal activities.....we are, in practise, talking about multi-year project here Interested in your take.

Right - Donald now and in the past is not somebody you would leave your young daughter with alone for long - a low level creep....but absolutely Donald is not a peado....you really do have TDS if you think that.

I guess its a question of at least three things (1) scale of the fall in mortgage rates (2) the level of pent-up demand (& pent up supply) (3) build cost inflation.......the locked-in effect is real.....but there is a rate sweet spot where builders continue to win and the locked-in effect persists ......for example mortgage rates coming down to 5 or 5.5% expands new build TAM without unlocking the locked-in used inventory folks....indeed at 5 or 5.5%, homebuilders can buy rates down further to move product and maintain a spread versus elevated used home inventory. Big picture - I think the most important thing is the demand dynamics......and I suspect that the Trump admin having seen the power of withholding federal dollars from University's......will attempt, under its main street agenda, to do something to force state and local governments to dial down NIMBYISM....democrats are now squarely focused on this new abundance pillar as their new value prop.....it would be smart politics and the right thing to do try to take that away from them with a deep reform agenda on deregulating housing.

Homebuilders pretty beat up here.......starting to get interesting....Lennar, LGIH etc. Really dont know the space super well but I've got the following view - (1) 10yr rates are coming down (by hook or by crook) and so affordability is going to markedly increase (2) I think tariffs and kicking out homebuilding labor is going to add a few hundred bps to the price of homes it seems so some affordabilty slippage occuring here If it was just (1) I would be getting long LGIH in spades they seem the most levered to interest rates with their entry level, ex-burbs FHA customer base.....but that customer group is price sensitive and so underlying build cost inflation might really squeeze LGIH's margins (albeit one can argue that low end workers might experience strong wage growth in a tightening labor market so swings and roundabouts). Any homebuilder aficionados.......point me to a player that serves the customer perhaps a rung or two above LGIH but still has a big FHA cohort and so high beta to interest rates?

For sure - Trump I'm almost certain never did anything wrong per se as regards Epstein (if he did we would have heard about it by now)..............but he gives the impression of guy desperately trying to distance himself from it all which looks like he's guilty as hell......the reality..........him and Epstein we're rich guy friends......I'm sure both recognized each other as creatures of the same ilk.....both striving to be recognized as richer than they were, more important and more successful than they we're......they had a lot in common.......Trump's desperate wish to downplay or make their decade long friendship disappear is an ego/reputation protection exercise..... the problem is his conspiracy-fed base starts to look at that and wonder if there's something going on.......Trump is starting to find out that sometimes when you start fires its hard to put them out......as an outsider politician who put together a coalition of conspiracy....telling supporters their Government wasn't actually working for them but against them.....when you become the government it gets hard to put that genie back in the bottle. I said it earlier - but this Epstein drama - is a prelude to how the MAGA coalition ultimately falls apart without the conspiracy theorist in-chief at its core and in the WH......which is to say that it turns on itself, implodes and where everybody, at the end, accuses everyone else and each other of being a paedophile or a deep state shill. The GOP IMO has simply no idea and no plan on how to keep this raggle taggle political coalition together and so stay in power in a post-Donald era.......which is at the end of day three short years away.

If Clinton was buddys with Epstein - Donald and Epstein we're blood brothers. Breaking WSJ below, the plot thickens - Jeffrey Epstein’s Friends Sent Him Bawdy Letters for a 50th Birthday Album. One Was From Donald Trump - https://www.wsj.com/politics/trump-jeffrey-epstein-birthday-letter-we-have-certain-things-in-common-f918d796?mod=hp_lead_pos7 "Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret. Donald" You have to laugh in a way over Trump's vain attempt to distance himself from the Epstein case the last few days......thought he as acting very weird...with all the hoax stuff.......it was of course cause he was contacted by the WSJ about his "may every day be another wonderful secret" letter to Epstein for his birthday....where he drew a naked lady.....and scribbled Donald in a way that would mimic pubes......lovely. My favourite recent denial the last two days though was when he was standing beside Howard Lutnick, Commerce Sectary.......this is Howard Lutnick who shared a wall with Jeffrey Epstein in New York.....they lived right beside each other. What a weird mix of folks this administration is....one half who knew Epstein intimately and the other half conspiracy theorists who were convinced the democrats would be taken down the by the files if only they we're released.

The new format is quite hilarious too......Trump invites world leader to WH, they sit down for questions....but unlike all previous admins where questions from the gathered press had to, in the main, stay on topic i.e. the bilateral relationship between the USA & country XYZ who was visiting. Now its a free for all. Now a foreign leader sits down beside POTUS for an hour and effectively is forced to attend a Trump rally where they get asked basically no questions....and have to listen to him drone on about Jerome Powell, how even though he used to party with Jeffrey Epstein and Howard Lutnick his Commerce Secretary shared a wall with Epstein in NYC (they we're direct adjoining neighbors) that the press should stop talking about him even though he cant seem too!?!?!?? I likened it recently to inviting someone to your house so that they can watch you have a fight with your wife. Its hilarious. Look at the posture of the poor World leader above....I'm sure he started sitting up right and then slid further and further as he had to listen to stuff that has nothing to do with him.

Hate to break it to you - there is no West coiliation here..........its the United States and Israel acting unilaterally & pre-emptively against Iran. 'the West' from Berlin to Birmingham......still can't quite understand why the hell Trump tore up the first JCPOA.......and were hopeful/anxious for him to re-sign v2.0 and put an emerging nuclear proliferation nightmare to bed for a decade at least. You should look at the JCPOA - it was a narrow deal designed to stop Iran's nuclear program and subjecting them to an inspections regime that guaranteed they would not get a nuke. I didn't see any nukes getting threatened at Israel during this twelve day war so I'm going to assume the deal was successful. Starting from about the same place & much less resources.....North Korea has a bomb......and Iran does not.....black and white as you would say....on this narrow issue the JCPOA was a success.....indeed Israel's ability to open up a full scale offensive military operation against Iran is because Iran abided by the terms of the JCPOA (one can now argue foolishly on their part) Iran has been causing mischief & murder in the middle east since the revolution......nobody here is defending them or that.....but @73 Reds I'll re-state a nuanced point that nobody likes to engage with..........sometimes a low level proxy attack environment with no forward momentum on the Iran's core nuke program (as bad as it is) is actually in the BEST interests of Israel and global nuclear non-proliferation....as the alternative is much worse. You may dislike Obama & Biden.......I have serious issues with both in the realm of foreign affairs for sure......but what I think we can both agree on is that they were politicians of the first order......this is not a matter of opinion........to become the nominee of your party and to get elected to the White House, by definition, is an act of first order politicking . Ok with that idea established. I always pay attention when a politician does something that is deeply unpopular with the country, with its base and that is not good politics and will hurt their popularity and re-election chances while giving their political opponents ammunition to fire at them. Doing something deeply unpopular like that is not done lightly by politicians - every alternative path and every alternative scenario was explored and deemed to be worse, much worse. This is generally the only time when politicians are willing to do deeply unpopular things. I think most people can agree on the above two statements on top of which we can return to the subject at hand - enriching Iran by any mechanism (cash, unfreezing, sanctions relief) is just TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE politics.....it loses you votes, it gives your political enemies ammunition to fire at you.......agree? Now why did two first rate politicians (Obama & Biden) examine the situation in the Middle East re: Iran & their nuclear aspirations........and conclude that doing something deeply unpopular with the country, that would hurt their election chances, hurt their party & embolden their political opponents was in the FINAL accounting the best path forward? Answer > all the alternative options we're just WAY worse. We are now in the alternative options corridor here......and Obama and Biden will get the answer to the political question you can be sure they grappled with.....should they have given Iran money, signed the JCPOA as damaging and as bad politics as it was.....we're their advisors right that what lay behind door No.2 was just a way worse option that would potentially cost the US hundreds of billions of dollars & potentially many American lives lost to pursue an outcome that was uncertain i.e. could the US in a full scale war with Iran successfully topple the regime in time to stop them getting a bomb i.e. another forever war. We are going to find out.

I love your tone of finality as if Iran somehow now has no agency, no resources and no offensive military capabilities left nor strategic options.........I hope your right, and I'm wrong....but your wrong of course they are 95m people.....with vast oil resources......sizable military capabilities (drone, balistic, troops) and one hell of a strategic option left.....which is to mine the Strait of Hormuz and play havoc with the global economy. The reality is Iran is now a wounded tiger....doubly dangerous & doubly irrational.....at a minimum they race for a bomb and the military options to stop it just shrunk considerably....they know exactly what a B-2 bunker buster can do now.......their re-constituted Manhattan project will be buried deeper next time beyond where B-2 bombers can get too.......and as I asked @73 Reds whats the game plan now exactly to stop an Iranian Manhattan project 500ft under a mountain exactly? Giving Iran their own money in exchange for putting their nuclear program on ice & under IAEA inspection is just a terrible thing to do.......the problem was the alternative options we're worse.......Trump has just opened the door called 'alternative options' and we'll find out over his term whether the JCPOA with its $0.00 price tag, no military commitments represented a superior strategic choice.

We gave them their own money - in return we got a neutralized Iranian nuclear program.....Trump likes deal....it was a great deal...I dont like filling up Iranian's coffers with money anymore than you do.....but you are familiar I'm sure in business and life that your presented, at times, with two choices - a terrible one and an absolutely horrendous one.....sometimes you've got to take terrible choice....as its the best one available to you.........to which I'll ask you.....how do you propose to stop Iran getting a bomb now?

Did we? How can you give to somebody something that is already theirs? Another MAGA misunderstanding I fear. All thats ever been given to Iran by the United States is assets/cash belonging to them that were frozen in foreign bank accounts using our global clout and leverage. The net cost of transfers from the US taxpayer to Iran remains at $0.00....we've given Israel a lot money but thats been discussed before.......but in return for unfreezing the Iranian's asset we got to put a major problem on ICE......the story I'm telling here (which may be wrong of course) is that we won't believe how cheap it was to give $0.00 to the Iranian's to put this headache to bed when the actual bill for putting it to bed a different way arrives.....we are likely hundreds of millions if not a billion or two deep in paying for that solution right now. Yes your right I did lob Ukraine-Russia cause it so damn obvious....that like Iran.....Trump is mismanaging the foreign relations portfolio.....in his defense, what I would say, is that to a certain extent the final destination for the Ukraine-Russia conflict (Ukrainian collapse) was locked in a box when Sleepy Joe Biden egged on by Boris 'shopping trolley' Johnson refused the Istanbul peace talk off ramp and further still later didn't seek peace after the re-taking of Kharkiv and Kherson which was the high water mark of the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Ok but you assume somehow that the Chair can make other committee members vote a certain way...sure the Chairs voice matters a lot...they build consensus etc.......but its the FOMC committee for a reason....Trump scratching his Powell itch in public doesn't change short rates IMO...firing him doesn't either....in fact the remaining committee members are likely to double down on their independence.....which at the margins I think bends towards the FOMC having a slight bias towards NOT cutting rates as a public demonstration & affirmation of their independence. and of course Trump's own position on what Powell should do with rates is contradictory.....the "economy is the best we ever had" "inflation is non-existent" "full employment".......so what exactly is the case for rates being too high? Sounds like rates are exactly where they need to be on Trump's own accounting? So if you cant change short rates (as per the above re:FOMC committee).....and in doing so you push up long rates and undermine the dollar.....you can see why I class this hot air from Trump on Powell as counterproductive and in fact moronic. Explain to me how I'm wrong?

a confidence game, on top of which long end treasury rates are set in the free market..........one of the many jobs of the President of the United States is to ensure the WACC of the US (to use investing parlance) is as low as it can be........if Trump was CEO of JP Morgan where the WACC really matters and he was pulling stunts like this that drove up funding costs for the bank the board would fire him in a heartbeat.

what a moron....he is literally punching himself in the face.....guess in his first term when his inner circle plus congressional republicans had the balls to tell him how moronic his ideas were, we got 'Trump-lite'.......this time.....we're getting full fat, full sugar Trump.....turns out its not good for you!

Yeah cause sanctions are working so well against Russia as Putin run's rings around Donald.....China is Iran's sugar daddy....and they are't turning off the RMB taps anytime soon. As I've said across a few pages now.....since Trump took the bait from Bibi and sucked the US into a bilateral attack instead of cauterizing the Iran nuclear problem with a JCPOA v2....we are on a slippy slope here to escalating US military commitments.......Iran will simply take its nuke program deeper underground now......they've got the B-2 bunker buster benchmark now....if it got 50ft down....Iran goes 100ft down with its Manhattan project....then what do you do exactly? Finally I would say that Trump has really made a dogs dinner of the Ukraine-Russia situation.....politically speaking....all this boy who cried wolf stuff on ceasefires and peace with Putin because they had love-ins on the phone...... followed now by all this 50 Day ultimatum stuff with Donald signing off on more weapons.....I'm very surprised that Trump who is usually quite shrewd in deflecting responsibility away from himself has so meaningfully owned this Ukraine-Russia war......it was always going to end up his but his mismanagement of expectations once he got into office (vs. electioneering puffery) around the probability of a negotiated settlement was a gross political miscalculation.....which shows how deeply Putin, I think, had tricked him in phone calls leading up to the election and after he got elected. Regardless you can come back to this post in a couple of months or years.......but mark my words........Ukraine is shaping up to Donald's Biden/Afghanistan moment....a deeply embarrassing loss of face for the United States on the world stage....cause it looks to me like during Donald's term that Ukraine's frontline will collapse and Putin will be dictating terms to Donald/Zelensky. Bibi, the political genius that he is is most likely waiting for this outcome in Ukraine, at which point a moment of Trumpian embarrassment & perceived weakness at presiding over Russia's victory in a proxy war against the US in Ukraine.....will be parlayed into deeper, more extensive and more affirmative US action against Iran. I dont think folks realize how dangerous the world has gotten in the last 4-5yrs....and how that has only ramped up in the last 4-5 weeks.

Hope your right.....but riddle me this....how do you stop Iran from getting a bomb now if they decide to "go for it"?

Yep agree - but getting ever closer.....Fed chair matters....but the structure of the FOMC committee is such that even if Trump appointed a 0% dovish donkey it would get out-voted.......its why this jawboning of the Fed Chair is so dumb in a way......your not going to get him or the FOMC to change their view on short rates........and all things being equal (because of concerns of central bank independence longer term) your actually pushing up long rates by a few bps.......whats clear is Trump wants a fall guy if/when the economy goes bad.....god forbid its his whole tariff mess......I think one can see the frequency by which Trump brings up Powell as a kind of anxiety meter for Trump.....a very expensive one.....if this jawboning costs even 5bps on long rates, given our debt pile refi needs plus on-going annual needs, Trump is costing the US dearly to keep his Powell scapegoat on ice!

Perhaps........latest I heard today is Bessent could be both the Fed Chair AND Treasury Secretary simultaneously....quite the blurring of lines between fiscal and monetary authorities...maybe we get Allen Weisselberg....nows that a loyal guy you could get behind Anyway throw it all in a pot.......and I think with BBB passed, democratic party swings into control of the House next year with a bunch of their stupid giveaways thrown in.....the final destination is pretty clear here.......we are headed for a bout of fiscal dominance.....yield curve control, dollar devaluation, mildly elevated inflation as policy, negative real rates.....there is no political will or even an inkling of consensus that is likely to emerge to allow what needs to happen, happen....raise taxes across the board and cut spending across the board..... I'm rooting for Trump's policies to work and we get an economic boom that sees the US grow at 3%+ real.......its the last roll of the dice to 'fix' things now that the BBB is passed......the math is tough.....the algorithm of growth for the last couple of decades.....has been 1.5% productivity growth and 0.5% working age population growth......Trump immigration policies/deportations plus natural demographics just kneecapped the 0.5% bit......so you better hope these AI models + deregulation deliver serious upsides to productivity When the government that prints the dollar...... is short a few dollars itself......best to be betting with the house and getting short the currency yourself.....cash is going back to being trash very soon (maybe already has if you consider the SXY devalation this year).

Nukes will

"US inflation reaches 2.7% as Trump tariffs hit. Unexpectedly sharp June rise signals US president’s levies are pushing up consumer prices" - https://www.ft.com/content/65b1fb44-6391-4f74-82db-2d7eb6aaafa9 One swallow does not make a summer.....but actions have consequences.......the EU and Canada if the deals on offer currently are too exploitative.......would be wise to sit tight and let the monthly inflation prints deteriorate into Q4 (which seems inevitable)....the pressure on the Trump admin to wrap things up will only increase as the inflation data detoritates and the mid-terms come into focus.