Pennies from Heaven.
An Emperor's New Clothes Situation
The cost to make a penny has gone up 76% since 2021.
“President Trump said Sunday that he had asked the U.S. Treasury Department to stop minting new pennies, part of an effort to cut down on what he called wasteful government spending…It cost 3.7 cents to make one in 2024. That is up from 3.07 cents in 2023, 2.7 cents in 2022 and 2.1 cents in 2021. It costs so much more to make a penny than its value that the U.S. Mint reported losing some $85.3 million last year on the nearly 3.2 billion pennies it produced.”
"Pennies from Heaven" was written by Johnny Burke and Arthur Johnston for a 1936 movie by the same name.
"I hated Wall Street. It was so empty. People just didn't really give a shit about anything but money."
“Retail investor sentiment has reached its highest level on record by JPMorgan global quantitative and derivatives strategist Emma Wu’s lights, surpassing the meme stonk mania of 2021, while Alexander Altmann, global head of equities tactical strategies at Barclays, reports that individual exposure to the stock market stands near its highest since 1997.”
“Relative return risk is the only reason to buy something you don’t feel you should own. The pressure to not underperform is so powerful that it leads to behavioral absurdities. For instance, it is common for analysts and portfolio managers who are negative on a sector to underweight it. It would be a very aggressive and courageous posture, in a diversified strategy, to be so negative on IT as to be 75% underweighted.
Nevertheless, that is equivalent to telling one’s clients: “Because of the very great risk in technology, we’ve invested 10% of your portfolio in those stocks.””
“Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s former White House adviser and his son-in-law, praised the “very valuable” potential of Gaza’s “waterfront property,” suggesting that Israel should remove civilians while it “cleans up” the area. “Gaza’s waterfront property, it could be very valuable…””
“…your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.”
Carried Interest
“Donald Trump has made hay of the carried interest1 issue, claiming in 2016 that the “hedge fund guys are getting away with murder” and pledging to end the tax break.”
“In March 2024, President Joseph Biden released his Fiscal 2025 tax budget where he again called for an end to the carried interest loophole. This got airplay for a few days and then disappeared.”
CBDC’s are Tyranny
“The key difference with the CBDC is that the central bank will have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that expression of central bank liability. And also, we will have the technology to enforce that.”
Agustín Carstens, General Manager, Bank of International Settlements
From the Biden/Harris Administration, May 2024:
“…nearly all advanced economies and many developing countries are now governed by independent central banks whose governing bodies decide monetary policy without political input, approval, or fear of reprisal.”
Good news (for now)…
"As the penny is laid to rest, the dollar has taken its place, having lost roughly 99% of its purchasing power since the inception of the Federal Reserve, whose primary mandate was a stable currency."
Below the fold: inflation expectations, charts Greg Weldon made me look up, an academic paper, Melody Wright on the CFPB, private equity scoundrels, Dogecoin, gold, Cisco’s market cap, $29T of Fed fun coupons during the “GFC,”2 Al Green, bad sovereign wealth ideas, options action, investing in UFO’s, a scary article on Jim Jones, Dan Mitrione and USAID, a fascinating interview with DNC defector Lindy Li, and various other stuff.
I’ve already started on my next post. So many shiny things, so little time.
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