rogermunibond

Druckenmiller? Please link to where he says that. He's been an inflation and debt/deficit hawk since I began reading his commentary. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-02/druckenmiller-warns-us-debt-crisis-worse-than-he-imagined?embedded-checkout=true

Bessent worked for Druckenmiller and Soros. He's no dummy. But he works for someone who Druckenmiller called a "blowhard" and couldn't vote for.

Bessent wants commercial banks/private credit to be the monetary transmission mechanism and not the Federal govt. No wonder Jamie Dimon loves him. If Bessent's low growth (adjustment period) takes too long or causes a recession, then he will be axed. Trump doesn't have the patience for a long 18-24 month adjustment. https://singjupost.com/larry-kudlow-interviews-scott-bessent-at-the-economic-club-of-new-york/

Pay attention to what Bessent says. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/07/treasury-secretary-bessent-says-economy-could-be-starting-to-roll-a-little-bit.html PS doesn't he look a bit like Homelander from the Boys. freaky

Folks this is a non-political board so let's keep the discussion civil. WSJ board hates tariffs as everyone knows. IIRC there is a bill being introduced to challenge the "State of emergency" https://www.wsj.com/opinion/donald-trump-tariffs-emergency-power-ieepa-trade-mexico-canada-33e2739a

He and his administration are incapable of reworking the current global monetary/trade imbalances. Wrong temperament, wrong approach, and wrong talent. Prior to the election Bessent said that what they were trying to do might take ten years. In the meantime, the confusion, chaos, and reduced economic activity would ensure a global depression. Trump's not stupid. He doesn't have ten years. Mexico, Canada and ROW aren't stupid either. They've called his bluff.

I'm not so hot on EPIC Systems overall. Having watched its adoption and implementation at a large hospital system, it's terrible software that requires huge amounts of in-house effort to keep maintained. The only thing is that between EPIC and Cerner neither is very good. I fully expect AI and software innovation to come for EHR, ERP, and business process software developers. What appear to be moats now because of complexity will be worn away by AI/software development streamlining the innovation of these complex systems.

https://www.ft.com/content/cd33d571-f558-4a89-83fb-2ffa271ea2df US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick has said that all goods compliant with the sweeping 2020 trade deal with Canada and Mexico will probably be granted a one-month reprieve from tariffs, in a major expansion of a planned carve-out for car imports. The policy shift comes a day after US President Donald Trump said that carmakers compliant with United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement would be granted a one-month reprieve from the 25 per cent tariffs his administration imposed on America’s two biggest trading partners earlier this week.

Are you guys operating from the same talking points? Or are your Russian bots?

If you're an oil and gas EP CEO, how are you feeling about the price of oil now? OPEC+ lifting production, possible lifting of Russian oil sanctions, with the breakeven at $50/barrel, they aren't adding rigs anytime soon.

Chancellor Merz seems to disagree with @luke He plans to push it through ASAP https://on.ft.com/43mdLAi

German is shifting bigly to spending. $528B to infrastructure spending $232B to defense Lifting debt brake and running larger >2% fiscal deficits

Strangely enough I've never seen such in the county code. Occupancy is reflected in the Fire Code but that doesn't seem really specific to residential SFHs.

I'm in a state where Section 8 income cannot be rejected when searching for tenants. It's an onerous slog. There are limits on the number of unrelated persons who can live in a home but not on the number of directly related individuals iirc.

the 30 year yield is not going sub 3% without a huge economic shock

Reviving this thread because in some respects MMT has proven itself over the last 3 years. Inflation was largely not monetary in the current episode and has come down as real resource scarcity was allayed through production/supply chain disruptions. Coordinate monetary policy with the Fed has brought down inflation, despite large fiscal deficits. Proponents of the view that US federal debt crisis is afoot like Ray Dalio haven't explained why MMT doesn't currently continue to apply. The current administration is concerned about reversing tradeable vs nontradeable economic sector growth and reversing public sector versus private sector economic growth but have they put their money where it matters most? The House budget framework is still proposing Federal deficits of $2T per year (about 6% of GDP) going out the next ten years, which is $1T more per year than advisable. And most of the Federal spending is coming from tax cuts. We've yet to see what the administration is going to do to 1) build more infrastructure; 2) build substantially more housing of all types in all regions; 3) keep inflation and prices in check other than oil.

Still waiting for someone to quote Burke

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/opec-proceed-with-planned-april-oil-output-hike-sources-say-2025-03-03/ OPEC+ approved an April production hike - gradual reversal of the 2.2 Mbd production curtailment. There's really no need for US domestic production to increase.

Pretty interesting China macro observations from Li Daokui. The tariff stuff is at the end and not nearly as interesting as the local bond debt burden issues that Beijing is tackling. Going to have to pay attention to what comes from the NPC. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2025-03-03/china-fully-prepared-for-us-tariffs-ex-pboc-adviser-video

Almost every metaanalysis of coffee has shown little to no risk for overall human health iirc. All the outlier studies that linked to cardiac events or some other issue were not replicated. Can't same the same for alcohol which does have real downsides - addiction/substance use disorder and cancer. BTW, THC use is going to be more like alcohol - there's just a small percentage of people who have risk for bad effects on THC use. Similar to the percentage at risk for SUD.

Sizeable shifts in Consumer spend and net exports There are only six subcomponents. Maybe the size of net exports decline is overestimated.