The Corruption of Money
No one asks about the balance sheet.
“Take nominal GDP less inflation - that gives you real GDP. So if inflation is being understated, as a lot of us think, that means that real growth is being overstated. Let's just say the economy is growing at 6% nominal, which includes inflation, and inflation's really four and a half percent - then you know the real GDP is only about one and a half percent. It's not that great, not that far above inflation, and I think that's why a lot of people - they look at these reports of how buoyant the U.S. economy is, and they go, ‘well, not for me.’”
Pretty good article on the USAID thing, from left-of-center Naked Capitalism: Does Trump’s Attempted “Dismantling” of Spook-Infested, Regime Change Agency USAID Herald a New Foreign Policy Era?
“Mark Ames provides maybe the simplest and most plausible explanation, especially when we consider the above rumblings about folding USAID into the State Department:”
Meanwhile…
George Washington on Fiat Currency
“If I had a voice in your legislature, it would have been given decidedly against a paper emission upon the general principles of its utility as a representative, and the necessity of it as a medium. To assign reasons for this opinion would be as unnecessary as tedious. The ground has been so often trod, that a place hardly remains untouched.
In a word, the necessity arising from a want of specie is represented as greater than it really is. I contend, that it is by the substance, not with the shadow of a thing, we are to be benefited. The wisdom of man, in my humble opinion, cannot at this time devise a plan, by which the credit of paper money would be long supported; consequent depreciation keeps pace with the quantity of the emission, and articles, for which it is exchanged, rise in a greater ratio than the sinking value of the money.
Wherein, then, is the farmer, the planter, the artisan benefited? The debtor may be, because, as I have observed, he gives the shadow in lieu of the substance; and, in proportion to his gain, the creditor or the body politic suffers. Whether it be a legal tender or not, it will, as has been observed, truly, leave no alternative. It must be that or nothing.
An evil equally great is, the door it immediately opens for speculation, by which the least designing, and perhaps most valuable, part of the community are preyed upon by the more knowing and crafty speculators.”
The last sentence reminds me of Thomas Mann in 1942:
“…there is neither system nor justice in the expropriation and redistribution of property resulting from inflation. A cynical "each man for himself" becomes the rule of life. But only the most powerful, the most resourceful and unscrupulous, the hyenas of economic life, can come through unscathed. The great mass of those who put their trust in the traditional order, the innocent and unworldly, all those who do productive and useful work, but don't know how to manipulate money, the elderly who hoped to live on what they earned in the past—all these are doomed to suffer. An experience of this kind poisons the morale of a nation.”
Compare Washington’s writing to Biden, Harris or Trump’s - or any modern politician’s - rhetoric. I asked for a “readability grade level” for the above, and this was the result:
I then asked Grok to summarize the passage “for modern readers”:
A quirk of mine (of many) is finding original sources.
I was told by Grok that Washington’s first sentence above is from Thomas Jefferson in 1813. That is false.
Trust, but verify.
The Fed's "preferred inflation gauge," PCE - which excludes food and energy, because of course -has been above their made-up 2% target now since May (actually April) 2021, almost four years.
“I think the economy is fine. I think the market goes higher. Until I see signs of recession, I'm not deviating from that position.”
Stick around for more from Dan Oliver, Grant Williams, Paul Tudor Jones, Michael Every, Joseph Wang, Melody Wright, Russell Clark, Tony Nash, Lacy Hunt, Luke Gromen, Ross Perot, Le Shrub, and others, plus gold, EV’s, Mick Jagger etc.
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