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Chili’s “birthday” was last quarter (March 13). They offered $5 margaritas as a loss leader. I went. It was packed. People downed 4-5 of those each and ordered tons of food.
https://x.com/BonkDaCarnivore/status/1912156074737643785
I am not happy with further market distortion, and certainly not happy with additional spending.
The slight deflation is driven by declining energy prices. Oil and gas prices are down. So fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve! (Another short-sighted Biden policy done for political purposes).
On another note, those price drops aren’t uniform. In the West, gasoline prices are still high.
On another note, China is ramping up its coal fired plants now that it has sort of cleaned up some of their air. They are going with the all energy sources policy that I advocate for, but is panned by people who believe magic solutions (that aren’t nuclear) exist.
Not mine, but pretty much sums up the problem. To be clear, paying taxes for non-infrastructure government generally does not improve the economy. There are rare exceptions (NASA innovations, the Internet, etc.) of stuff funded by public research that gains commercial acceptance, but a lot of what is publicly funded nowadays is not that kind of research.
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In 2010, federal spending was $3.456 trillion—14.6% of GDP.
In 2023, it hit $6.134 trillion—22.8% of GDP.
That’s a 78% increase in spending in just 13 years.
And what do we have to show for it?
Nothing.
An alternative view on tariffs and the post-WW2 trading environment.
In my view, job #1 is debt service, at this point. Between early COVID relief ($4T) and Bidenomics ($9T), the debt grew out of control. What made it worse was the Fed issued debt at 3-5 year maturities, possibly calculating that they would leave a mess for the next administration. Interest payments are now larger than our defense budget. Refinancing the debt at 4-5% versus 3% would have a compounding effect. DOGE can’t cut enough by itself. We need structural reform of entitlement spending. No one seems to be talking about the Medicaid / Medicare raid used to fund the Inflation Reduction Act / Green New Deal. The country is addicted to debt / consumer spending. We need to return to the fundamentals of capitalism – allocating capital efficiently, and to producing things.
Stanford had players transfer out after Tara retired (and lost Lauren Betts, a #1 overall recruit to UCLA). Supposedly, recruiting picked up last year and Stanford may be reloading.
https://x.com/Silascruzvento/status/1902400733275644072
I see that I wrote Andrew, rather than Anthony Weiner, but….
https://x.com/unusual_whales/status/1902383814543909173 definitely in a recession.
