DarkRange55
We are now gods but for the wisdom
- Oct 15, 2023
- 2,065
The US government can just keep borrowing and borrowing running massive deficits that subsidizes the private sector, that subsidizes corporate profits and as long as the US can keep borrowing then this doesn't end. There needs to be a debt crisis for that and I don't know when that is or if there ever will be one.
Look at the last earnings for Meta, Microsoft, Invidia, Google, (Tesla is another story all together) have all been massively growing their profits, they've actually been delivering up to now. So it's actually somewhat justified. Not saying it will in the future. Maybe they are over investing in capex. Maybe that will weigh on future corperate profits, I don't know. But the most recent earnings have been good.
I don't think China is ahead of the US. They're a strong and big competitor but I don't think they're necessarily ahead of the US.
"People Googling help for mortgage has surpassed 2008." Well thats not the stock market. And in 2008 every institution held a bunch of loans that they thought were AAA and would never fail and because of these loans were so distributed around the economy and these institutions, it caused a collapse in a lot of banks. And then of course the government came to bail them out. I think most outstanding mortgages are doing pretty good and how much bigger is the US population now versus in 2008 since we've had waves and waves of immigration. Inflation is hurting people, thats true. But I don't think it's 2008 levels. If it's gonna be at those levels then it's gonna come from cryptocurrency. The banks have really tightened their lending standards, we'll see.
Treasury yields are actually going down, the ten years is hovering around 4 last I checked. Short term yields are coming down even more, the Fed is cutting rates. That will actually help the government's finances because when they roll over their debt they can issue short term T-bills at lower interest rates. If rates keep coming down the government will be fine and as long as it pay the interest, they can keep the debt forever. You can constantly just roll the debt as long as the interest expenses doesn't get to a huge portion of GDP, you don't have to pay off the debt. You just have to be careful about not having the debt be super high and then shave rates be super high and then have this compounding effect.
There could be some truth to that. In 2008 America caused the financial crisis. The world flooded into the dollar and treasuries for safety which lowered borrowing costs and allowed the government to basically finance its way out of the debt while everybody else struggled. We had easy money policies without massive inflation because we get cheap goods from around the world. That is starting to change so there could be potential issues going into the future. The gold thing is interesting. It's not just retail thats buying it. A lot of the revisions for the jobs were during the Biden administration. Trump didn't necessarily cause this. He's only been in charge for 8 or 9 or 10 months. Even though I didn't agree with Trump, it's not because of that.
The price appreciation of the gold is a large part of it. The dollar value instead of the amount of gold. Say central banks around the world had collectively 10 tons of gold and they didn't buy a single ounce. But if the price is going up, it's going to look like they have more gold in dollar terms. The gold price going up why it looks like they potentially have more on the books than treasuries. Treasuries actually collapsed when the interest rates went up. So if you have treasury values dropping and gold value going up you could have the same amount of treasuries and gold but from a dollar perspective thats whats causing the differential there. If they keep cutting rates the values of those treasuries on their books will actually go up. Thats a big part of it.
If we important anything the tariffs likely will raise the price.
For smaller, more volatile categories (e.g. eggs, candy & chewing gum, frozen fish & seafood), price swings month-to-month matter. The CPI data measure over 12 months, not starting from a particular inauguration or policy change. So using "day-240" suggests linking price changes to a specific policy start, which may mislead about causation. If home prices are going down and mortgage rates are going down, homes will actually be a lot cheaper to buy. So it's not actually a bad thing when home prices and rates are coming down. Days delinquent has exploded because they're making them pay their loans now. It was artificially suppressed, you can see the numbers. The government basically allowed them to defer payments and then they got used to not making payments and they adjusted their budgets and now that they have to starting making payments again they didn't plan their going to go into delinquency. Thats why you see vertical lines is because student loan payments have resumed.
"91% of US fund managers believe stocks are overvalued, thats the most in history."
The chart in reference goes back 2001 which I believe was after the DotCom Bubble popped in 2000. So a chart of 24 years that excludes the DotCom Bubble and you're trying to say this is the most overvalued stock market in history. Is it? I would say that the DotCom Bubble was pretty clownish and before the crash of 1929 was even worse because you could barrow up to 90% on margin loans so insane amounts of leverage were in the stock market, I would say that was a true bubble. This one, it's clownish we're in a clown market to a certain extent but there's actually some good things going on and there is the potential that AI could generate corporate profits into the future. Its possible. The market is pricing that in. Not saying it's going to happen but it could happen. If corporate profits explode going into the future maybe it wont look so overvalued in the future, we'll see. The aforementioned chart lists emerging markets are undervalued? If you're worried about that, I have an ETF for you haha.
In 1995 the top 10% of America accounted for 33% of all consumer spending. Today its now 50%. The top 10% is taking up more and more of the consumption as a percentage of all consumption in the US. So I wouldn't necessarily say its a good thing but its possible that the top 10% or 15% with their huge spending could prop up the economy and we could have this huge underclass where they could be struggling with student loans. Maybe they can't afford a house. But at the end of the day that doesn't necessarily mean that the entire economy is gonna collapse. It just means that a lot of people are suffering. Which I don't think is good but is a possible explanation. I will say it's true that we are loosing the middle class. Which is kind of sad but hey corporate profits, bro! But they can prop up the economy, not saying it's a good thing but it's a fact. Maybe it will become 70%, 80% and most people will live in squalor and then you got a couple of richie-richies. Maybe thats just what America becomes. I'm not making a judgement calls although I do have some opinions about that but if the top 10% can keep the consumption going, that means the economy at least for them doesn't collapse just a lot of people suffer.
If the economy gets seriously that bad thats when you would have political violence but right now it's not Great Depression levels.
I think steal is a harsh word. Were decisions made that screwed over working Americans? Absolutely. But literally stealing? I don't know about that. America is focused on corporate profits. The American government is a uniparty government, Trump is kind of an outsider, a disruptor but in some ways he's not. But there is some truth when you look at outsourcing of jobs and globalism and the decline of America as a sole superpower offshoring of manufacturing yes thats gonna hurt average working Americans.
CPA: Working people did get tax cuts from the Big Beautiful Bill. No tax on tips, overtime, child tax credits, bigger standard deductions. There are some benefits. Now richie rich is gonna get more, but you're still getting benefits, too. It's a scaling thing. Obviously, if you make more money then you get a higher standard deduction, sure, you may benefit more from the Trump tax cuts. Especially when it comes to the corporate tax cuts. But you as a working person did get benefits from this even if you don't get a refund. If the Big Beautiful Bill had never come into effect, your tax return would have showed a higher total tax under the old law than whats going on right now. And if you're low income your long term capital gains rate is zero. If you keep your income low, like say you have a couple million in stocks, but your living expenses are low and your main income is from capital gains and qualified dividends, you can actually pay zero tax on those at least federally. So you can actually live like an absolute king as long as you're not blowing your budget.
Coffee went up from bad harvests, not tariffs. It's up in Canada, too. FRED actually posts prices. Supply shocks are a big part, tariffs play some role. Offshoring and focus on corporate profits has hurt the average American but people are also partially responsible. It's a combination of both. A lot of people will complain they can't save money but have a brand new car with a massive car note.
Mexico's 50% Tariff On Chinese Cars Will Set Off Global Butterfly Effects | ZeroHedge
Lutnick: Beijing "Eating" Majority Of China's 52% Average Tariffs | ZeroHedge
ZeroHedgehttps://www.zerohedge.comArabica Coffee Prices Soar As Analyst Warns Of "Weather Disasters" Risk Denting Global ...
https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/us-tariffs-top-31-billion-in-august-a-new-record-high-5909658
https://on.ft.com/46dMhN6
US Consumer Prices Rise More Than Expected In August From Services Not Tariffs | ZeroHedge
Producer Prices Unexpectedly Dropped In August, YoY Inflation Tumbles | ZeroHedge
But tariffs add to goods prices and growth, capex, and productivity need to deliver.
Look at the last earnings for Meta, Microsoft, Invidia, Google, (Tesla is another story all together) have all been massively growing their profits, they've actually been delivering up to now. So it's actually somewhat justified. Not saying it will in the future. Maybe they are over investing in capex. Maybe that will weigh on future corperate profits, I don't know. But the most recent earnings have been good.
I don't think China is ahead of the US. They're a strong and big competitor but I don't think they're necessarily ahead of the US.
"People Googling help for mortgage has surpassed 2008." Well thats not the stock market. And in 2008 every institution held a bunch of loans that they thought were AAA and would never fail and because of these loans were so distributed around the economy and these institutions, it caused a collapse in a lot of banks. And then of course the government came to bail them out. I think most outstanding mortgages are doing pretty good and how much bigger is the US population now versus in 2008 since we've had waves and waves of immigration. Inflation is hurting people, thats true. But I don't think it's 2008 levels. If it's gonna be at those levels then it's gonna come from cryptocurrency. The banks have really tightened their lending standards, we'll see.
Treasury yields are actually going down, the ten years is hovering around 4 last I checked. Short term yields are coming down even more, the Fed is cutting rates. That will actually help the government's finances because when they roll over their debt they can issue short term T-bills at lower interest rates. If rates keep coming down the government will be fine and as long as it pay the interest, they can keep the debt forever. You can constantly just roll the debt as long as the interest expenses doesn't get to a huge portion of GDP, you don't have to pay off the debt. You just have to be careful about not having the debt be super high and then shave rates be super high and then have this compounding effect.
There could be some truth to that. In 2008 America caused the financial crisis. The world flooded into the dollar and treasuries for safety which lowered borrowing costs and allowed the government to basically finance its way out of the debt while everybody else struggled. We had easy money policies without massive inflation because we get cheap goods from around the world. That is starting to change so there could be potential issues going into the future. The gold thing is interesting. It's not just retail thats buying it. A lot of the revisions for the jobs were during the Biden administration. Trump didn't necessarily cause this. He's only been in charge for 8 or 9 or 10 months. Even though I didn't agree with Trump, it's not because of that.
The price appreciation of the gold is a large part of it. The dollar value instead of the amount of gold. Say central banks around the world had collectively 10 tons of gold and they didn't buy a single ounce. But if the price is going up, it's going to look like they have more gold in dollar terms. The gold price going up why it looks like they potentially have more on the books than treasuries. Treasuries actually collapsed when the interest rates went up. So if you have treasury values dropping and gold value going up you could have the same amount of treasuries and gold but from a dollar perspective thats whats causing the differential there. If they keep cutting rates the values of those treasuries on their books will actually go up. Thats a big part of it.
If we important anything the tariffs likely will raise the price.
For smaller, more volatile categories (e.g. eggs, candy & chewing gum, frozen fish & seafood), price swings month-to-month matter. The CPI data measure over 12 months, not starting from a particular inauguration or policy change. So using "day-240" suggests linking price changes to a specific policy start, which may mislead about causation. If home prices are going down and mortgage rates are going down, homes will actually be a lot cheaper to buy. So it's not actually a bad thing when home prices and rates are coming down. Days delinquent has exploded because they're making them pay their loans now. It was artificially suppressed, you can see the numbers. The government basically allowed them to defer payments and then they got used to not making payments and they adjusted their budgets and now that they have to starting making payments again they didn't plan their going to go into delinquency. Thats why you see vertical lines is because student loan payments have resumed.
"91% of US fund managers believe stocks are overvalued, thats the most in history."
The chart in reference goes back 2001 which I believe was after the DotCom Bubble popped in 2000. So a chart of 24 years that excludes the DotCom Bubble and you're trying to say this is the most overvalued stock market in history. Is it? I would say that the DotCom Bubble was pretty clownish and before the crash of 1929 was even worse because you could barrow up to 90% on margin loans so insane amounts of leverage were in the stock market, I would say that was a true bubble. This one, it's clownish we're in a clown market to a certain extent but there's actually some good things going on and there is the potential that AI could generate corporate profits into the future. Its possible. The market is pricing that in. Not saying it's going to happen but it could happen. If corporate profits explode going into the future maybe it wont look so overvalued in the future, we'll see. The aforementioned chart lists emerging markets are undervalued? If you're worried about that, I have an ETF for you haha.
In 1995 the top 10% of America accounted for 33% of all consumer spending. Today its now 50%. The top 10% is taking up more and more of the consumption as a percentage of all consumption in the US. So I wouldn't necessarily say its a good thing but its possible that the top 10% or 15% with their huge spending could prop up the economy and we could have this huge underclass where they could be struggling with student loans. Maybe they can't afford a house. But at the end of the day that doesn't necessarily mean that the entire economy is gonna collapse. It just means that a lot of people are suffering. Which I don't think is good but is a possible explanation. I will say it's true that we are loosing the middle class. Which is kind of sad but hey corporate profits, bro! But they can prop up the economy, not saying it's a good thing but it's a fact. Maybe it will become 70%, 80% and most people will live in squalor and then you got a couple of richie-richies. Maybe thats just what America becomes. I'm not making a judgement calls although I do have some opinions about that but if the top 10% can keep the consumption going, that means the economy at least for them doesn't collapse just a lot of people suffer.
If the economy gets seriously that bad thats when you would have political violence but right now it's not Great Depression levels.
I think steal is a harsh word. Were decisions made that screwed over working Americans? Absolutely. But literally stealing? I don't know about that. America is focused on corporate profits. The American government is a uniparty government, Trump is kind of an outsider, a disruptor but in some ways he's not. But there is some truth when you look at outsourcing of jobs and globalism and the decline of America as a sole superpower offshoring of manufacturing yes thats gonna hurt average working Americans.
CPA: Working people did get tax cuts from the Big Beautiful Bill. No tax on tips, overtime, child tax credits, bigger standard deductions. There are some benefits. Now richie rich is gonna get more, but you're still getting benefits, too. It's a scaling thing. Obviously, if you make more money then you get a higher standard deduction, sure, you may benefit more from the Trump tax cuts. Especially when it comes to the corporate tax cuts. But you as a working person did get benefits from this even if you don't get a refund. If the Big Beautiful Bill had never come into effect, your tax return would have showed a higher total tax under the old law than whats going on right now. And if you're low income your long term capital gains rate is zero. If you keep your income low, like say you have a couple million in stocks, but your living expenses are low and your main income is from capital gains and qualified dividends, you can actually pay zero tax on those at least federally. So you can actually live like an absolute king as long as you're not blowing your budget.
Coffee went up from bad harvests, not tariffs. It's up in Canada, too. FRED actually posts prices. Supply shocks are a big part, tariffs play some role. Offshoring and focus on corporate profits has hurt the average American but people are also partially responsible. It's a combination of both. A lot of people will complain they can't save money but have a brand new car with a massive car note.
Mexico's 50% Tariff On Chinese Cars Will Set Off Global Butterfly Effects | ZeroHedge
Lutnick: Beijing "Eating" Majority Of China's 52% Average Tariffs | ZeroHedge
ZeroHedgehttps://www.zerohedge.comArabica Coffee Prices Soar As Analyst Warns Of "Weather Disasters" Risk Denting Global ...
https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/us-tariffs-top-31-billion-in-august-a-new-record-high-5909658
https://on.ft.com/46dMhN6
US Consumer Prices Rise More Than Expected In August From Services Not Tariffs | ZeroHedge
Producer Prices Unexpectedly Dropped In August, YoY Inflation Tumbles | ZeroHedge
But tariffs add to goods prices and growth, capex, and productivity need to deliver.
| Country / Region | What Has Happened / Is in Effect | Current Status / Negotiations / Exemptions |
| Canada & Mexico | - U.S. imposed ~25% tariffs on most goods from Canada & Mexico starting March 4, 2025. - USMCA‐compliant goods are (or have become) broadly exempted. Over ~85% of trade between Canada/U.S. and Mexico/U.S. reportedly remains tariff‐free due to this compliance. - Retaliatory Canadian tariffs were imposed early but many were suspended when exemptions under USMCA were recognized. | - U.S. raised some Canadian tariffs further (from 25% to ~35%) for those goods not exempt. - Mexico got a 90-day reprieve on some planned tariff escalations. Talks are ongoing. - U.S. has initiated a review of USMCA, to complete by summer 2026, to assess whether to continue or modify or withdraw; issues include automotive content and concerns about Chinese inputs. |
| China | - U.S. had set up a "tariff truce" (i.e. a pause) for certain tariff hikes. - Threatened big increases (e.g. if the truce ends) from baseline rates (30% in many cases) to much higher levels. | - The truce was extended (e.g. 90-day extension). - Still under negotiation, uncertainty remains on whether further increases will be triggered. |
| India | - U.S. increased tariffs on many Indian imports, bringing many to ~50%. - The increases are connected in part to India's trade policies and its continued purchases of Russian oil, among other geopolitical considerations. | - There are warnings that many Indian export lines are "severely affected" by the tariffs. The level of impact depends on exemptions, product type. - India has responded diplomatically, and likely exploring mitigation or retaliation. |
| European Union (EU) & UK | - A framework/trade‐deal was struck between U.S. and EU around late July 2025: in that deal, many EU goods will face 15% tariffs rather than higher threatened rates, in exchange for large U.S. investment commitments by EU companies. - U.S. also negotiated a deal with Japan similarly. - For the UK, many of the earlier threats remain, but parts have been moderated via exemptions or reductions (some of which came from the EU deal context). | - Many of the details are still being worked out; documentation is patchy. Some product categories remain under threat or are in limbo. - UK still faces risk in sectors like semiconductors, though no enforcement of extreme rates (200-300%) has occurred yet. Some "partial exemptions" are in place. |
| Japan & South Korea | - Similar to EU: trade relief/agreements proposed in exchange for investment and purchase commitments. For example, tariff threat reduced from 25% to ~15% on certain goods. - Japan has committed to large investment (~US$550B) under negotiated trade deal. | - These deals are functioning but many details (product lines, timing, conditionalities) are still being finalized. - For South Korea, similar pressures, some relief, but risk of rollback or negotiation failures remains. |
| Brazil | - As of ~August 1, 2025, U.S. imposed ~50% tariffs on many Brazilian goods. Brazil has filed complaints with WTO and imposed retaliatory duties under its Trade Reciprocity Law. - The political framing from the U.S. side involves reactions to Brazil's judicial actions (e.g. against former President Bolsonaro), though trade deficit dynamics also play a role. | - Brazil is actively pushing back via legal channels (WTO) and retaliation; impact on trade flows is still evolving. - Some goods may get exemptions or reduced impact depending on negotiations. |
