With the dollar index and interest rates in downtrends, it seems the US economy is slowing absolutely and relative to the rest of the world. The slowdown, so far, doesn't look that severe and we are likely to get a rate cut from the Fed this week. Last September, the Fed surprised the market with a 50 basis point cut [...]
Nuance: A subtle difference in or shade of meaning, expression, or sound. A subtle difference or variation. The origin of the word nuance is a Latin word, "nubes", which means cloud. It is also from the French "nuer" which means "to shade". Why am I parsing the meaning and origin of the word nuance? Because we seem to have lost [...]
I've said many times that no one should pay much attention to the monthly payroll figures because they are barely more than wild guesses, something the current administration's economic team only recently discovered. Last week's report for August, by itself, doesn't mean much and will be revised so I wouldn't put much emphasis on it. What investors should pay attention [...]
When I first got in this crazy business nearly 35 years ago, an older advisor took me under his wing and shared with me all that he had learned over his 40+ year career. One of the first things he told me was that I shouldn't worry about the things that everyone else was worrying about. Those things were "well [...]
All my economists say 'on one hand' then 'but on the other'. Can't someone bring me a one-handed economist? Maybe Harry Truman but on the other hand maybe Charles Frederick Carter or on the other hand maybe it was a one-armed economist Jerome Powell's speech at Jackson Hole last Friday was widely perceived as a capitulation, an admission that rate [...]
“I think we could go into a series of rate cuts here, starting with a 50 basis-point rate cut in September". "If you look at any model" it suggests that “we should probably be 150, 175 basis points lower.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in a Bloomberg interview, 8/13/25 President Trump and others in his administration have been pushing for lower [...]
Last week President Trump nominated the head of his Council of Economic Advisors, Stephen Miran, to fill a vacant seat on the board of the Federal Reserve. Miran will fill the seat recently vacated by Adriana Kugler but supposedly only to complete her term, which ends on January 31st, 2026. I say supposedly because I suspect that he'll be there [...]
When the June employment figures were released last month, I said there was likely a seasonal adjustment problem with the numbers and that a large part of the government jobs supposedly created would likely be revised away. The employment report was reported as better-than-expected but the details weren’t as positive. Of the total of 147k new jobs reported, only 74k [...]
So if you think your life is complete confusionBecause you never win the gameJust remember that it's a grand illusionAnd deep inside we're all the sameWe're all the same So if you think your life is complete confusionBecause your neighbors got it madeJust remember that it's a grand illusionAnd deep inside we're all the same Styx, The Grand Illusion Money [...]
Jerome Powell's tenure as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve has ended. Not literally, of course, because apparently Scott Bessent has, for now, talked President Trump out of firing him. But despite that reprieve, there are now several Chairmen of the Federal Reserve, none of them named Powell. He is the lamest of ducks. A lame duck, literally, is a [...]
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