When Robert Kennedy Jr. picked Nicole Shanahan as his running mate, I didn’t know anything about her other than what I could immediately look up.  I knew that Kennedy offered Dave Smith his VP slot right after debating each other on Dave’s podcast about Israel.  Perhaps anything after that would be a disappointment.

My initial assessment of Nicole Shanahan was that she is a leftwing attorney who was married to one of the founders of Google.  This was probably a correct assessment at one time, but it wasn’t fair in 2024.  She definitely comes from the left, and she will admit that, but she is not like anything leftwing by today’s standards.

I was wrong on my initial assessment.  When someone is running for political office and I get something wrong about them, it is usually because I wasn’t harsh enough.  In this case, I can finally say I was wrong because I was too harsh and not generous enough.

To be sure, Nicole Shanahan isn’t a libertarian.  There are certainly elements of political leftism that come out at times, just as with Kennedy.  For example, they like to use the word “democracy” with a little too fondness.  And maybe they are just referring to democratic mechanisms within the rule of law.

Although libertarians don’t praise democracy, it is understandable why Kennedy and Shanahan are upset and using the word, considering the so-called Democrats have done everything possible to undermine their participation in the election.  They were rigging the whole primary process against Kennedy, which is why he changed to running as an Independent.  They certainly weren’t going to include him in any debates.  The so-called Democrats also did everything they could to keep him off of state ballots.  Now that Kennedy wants to drop his name from the swing states, the Democrats are trying to keep his name on there.  You couldn’t make this stuff up.

With that said, Nicole Shanahan has been really great for the most part when I have heard her in interviews.  It seems like she is learning on the job at times.  It’s probably not something a vice presidential candidate should be doing, but it is better than not being open minded and getting things wrong.

Libertarian Tendencies

RFK Jr. spoke in front of the Libertarian National Convention in May.  His speech was very libertarian.  I was quite surprised by the depth of it.  Even if he was pandering to his audience, most politicians wouldn’t have been capable of delivering such a speech.

RFK Jr. also gave a great speech when he announced the suspension of his campaign and his support for Trump in the swing states.  It wasn’t great because of his endorsement of Trump.  It was great when he talked about censorship, American health issues, and Ukraine.  He got it all correct.

I have disagreed vehemently with Kennedy when it comes to Israel.  He has been so good on issues of foreign policy and war, yet he seemed to completely revert to the establishment position with Israel.  If he had just taken a more neutral stance since October 7, 2023, I think his campaign would have done better, and a lot more libertarians would have supported him.

With that said, Kennedy must have seen something appealing about Nicole Shanahan, besides the fact that she has a lot of money.

I have learned a lot more about her, especially with her interviews with Ron Paul and Dave Smith.  These were more like conversations, as she wasn’t just giving scripted answers and was also learning from these two libertarian giants.

She has been great on health issues, which I fully expected from the beginning.  She understands that the government has vastly interfered with pharmaceuticals and agriculture to make us sicker.  There is nothing wrong with “big pharma” and “big agriculture” by itself.  The problem is that they are big because the government is helping them and, in the process, making us less healthy.

Beyond health issues, Shanahan has been great with Kennedy on issues of censorship.  She understands that the government is trying to shut up people who want to tell the truth or just want to express an alternative opinion.  She understands the problems with trying to censor misinformation, regardless of whether it is true or not.

Surprisingly, Shanahan has said some great things about the gold standard.  This is better than you would get from most Republicans.  I believe she has actually become somewhat of a fiscal conservative, even if she doesn’t want to completely tear down the welfare state.  You can tell that Ron Paul has had influence on her and that she is quite appreciative of it.

Like Kennedy, she has also been good on most foreign policy.  She understands the nature of the military-industrial complex and the war machine.  It was interesting that on her last podcast with Dave Smith, she even said some slightly encouraging comments on Israel that seemed to express that she didn’t back the mass slaughter of the Palestinians.  If only RFK Jr. had taken this stance from the beginning.

This only touches the surface of the things she has said.  Overall, she is an opponent of the establishment.  I was also completely wrong for criticizing her for likely being out of touch with the average American.  She said in her podcast interview that anyone with over $15 million is basically untouched by inflation, but it is really hurting everybody else.  She may have a lot of money, but she is showing empathy and understanding for those who don’t.  She understands that average Americans are struggling today.

Conclusion

I got this one completely wrong at the beginning.  Nicole Shanahan gets a high-grade mark for liberty in 2024.  She is more libertarian than some self-identified libertarians.  I am happy I was wrong on this one.  She is a great person to have on our side.  She has changed positions on political issues a lot from just 4 years ago.

I hope she continues to use her resources to spread the message of liberty.  I hope she continues to consult those who are already strong libertarians.  If she runs for president one day, I will consider supporting her.

The Federal Reserve is doing what it says according to the FOMC monetary policy statements.  Each time the Fed meets (about every 6 or 7 weeks), we hear about interest rates.  But the Fed also tells us what it is doing with its balance sheet.

The Fed continues to allow some of the maturing debt to mature and not be rolled over.  If the Fed buys a 2-year Treasury bill, it does so by creating money out of thin air.  That money essentially goes to the U.S. Treasury, but not directly.  It goes through a broker bank.

The Fed buys this debt, and the Treasury actually pays interest to the Fed on the debt, just the same as if any individual bought a U.S. Treasury bill.  Let’s say that the Fed bought a 2-year bill for $1 billion.  It would be paid interest, and at the end of 2 years, the debt would mature.  The Treasury would then owe $1 billion back to the Fed (plus whatever interest there was).  In most cases, the Fed would roll over this debt.  In other words, it would just use the proceeds to immediately buy another Treasury bill.

But the Fed’s policy of late has been to not roll over some of this debt.  The debt matures, and the money just evaporates as quickly as the Fed originally created it.  This is deflationary.

The Balance Sheet

You can get a good overall picture by looking at the Fed’s balance sheet.  In 2008, the Fed had about $900 million on its balance sheet.  That is chump change compared to now.  After the financial crisis hit in September 2008, it surged and more than doubled in a short period of time.

The balance sheet grew to over $4 trillion by 2014.  In 2018 and 2019, there was slight deflation, and the balance sheet briefly dipped under $4 trillion.  In 2019 (before COVID hysteria hit), the Fed was already starting to inflate again.  Then March 2020 hit, and the Fed went crazy again.

The balance sheet peaked at about $9.65 trillion in April 2022 (more than 10 times what it was in early 2008).  Since then, it has fallen to about $7.140 trillion.  In other words, it has fallen more in the last couple of years than what existed back in early 2008.

Even though virtually everyone in the financial community is expecting a Fed rate cut in September, the fact of the matter is that we are still in deflation mode.  The Fed is engaging in monetary deflation even though consumer prices continue to increase.

Massive Recession Ahead?

While people are saying that the Fed is going to cut rates to get ahead of a recession or to possibly prevent one, it doesn’t usually work this way.  There are many times where the Fed already began cutting rates and we ended up in a recession anyway.  Sometimes the recession had already started but it just wasn’t evident in the data yet.

It is obvious that America is in a recession now because middle-class America is struggling with increasing prices and lagging wages.  Maybe there isn’t a technical recession yet according to the data, but this doesn’t mean much to households just trying to pay their bills.

The fact that the stock market is booming also means nothing.  This primarily benefits people who already have significant assets.  Plus, even for someone who is middle income, the benefit of a rising 401k doesn’t do much good right now trying to pay the bills.

The yield curve remains mostly inverted, which it has been for all of 2023 and 2024.  This is an amazingly long time for an inversion.  When you couple the inverted yield curve with a deflating balance sheet, it sure does point to a massive recession ahead.  The big question is when it will finally happen.

Conclusion

It is interesting that the Fed has never really had a stable monetary policy since 2018.  The Fed continued to inflate in early 2022, even when consumer prices were starting to rise at a rate greater than the Fed’s supposed 2% target.  It then all of a sudden had to shift from monetary inflation to monetary deflation in 2022.

You have to wonder if the same thing will happen again.  As soon as the recession becomes evident, will the Fed shift immediately from monetary deflation and go back to monetary inflation?  This seems like a good possibility depending on how severe the recession appears to be.

This is why investing in gold and other hard assets is still a good long-term play, even if they do take a hit in a recession.  The only thing the Fed knows how to do to solve economic slowdowns is to create more money out of thin air.  Why would it stop now?

The only reason the Fed won’t return to massive monetary inflation is if they are losing control of the dollar and risking massive price inflation.  Either way, owners of hard assets will likely benefit in the long run.

With the election approaching, there is no shortage of news out there.  It started in June when the other half of the world was forced to recognize that the sitting president of the United States has dementia.

In July, Trump was nearly killed by the deep state or deep state incompetence.  But he turned his head just enough at just the right moment, or else we would be in an entirely different political landscape right now.

Shortly after that, there was something of a coup against Biden, although I’m not sure if coup is the right word, since he was never really in charge of anything anyway.  He was forced out of running.  Anyone who thought that Jill and Hunter could say otherwise doesn’t understand how politics in Washington work.  It was never Joe Biden’s choice.  He is a useful idiot of the establishment.  As soon as it was apparent that he had no chance of beating Trump, he was easily dumped.  They don’t mind keeping the dementia patient as president for several more months though.

Now the corporate media has coronated Queen Kamala as the person bringing back joy to our world.  I have to admit, she was much sharper in her speech at the convention than I thought she would be.  Maybe the right word is “shrewd”.  She knows how to read a teleprompter well, and she can minimize her cackling when the time comes.

There was one lie after another spoken in Chicago at the DNC.  Joe Biden said he took on big pharma.  Yeah, remember that time that he told 100 million Americans that they better get a jab or else they wouldn’t be allowed to work and feed their families?  That really showed big pharma a thing or two.

We had Michelle and Oprah telling us not to be greedy or take too much.  And apparently Oprah wasn’t the only billionaire there that week to deliver a message.  The party speaking out against billionaires seems to have their fair share of them.

Michelle also let us know that the only reason someone wouldn’t vote for Kamala is because she’s black or because she’s a woman.  She assured us that Donald Trump fears her and Kamala because they are successful, intelligent women.

We got to see the guy Kamala picked, who has been elevated to “Coach”.  It looks like his arm is going to fly off when he waves to the crowd.

When Kamala finally finished things off, there wasn’t much left to say.  After all, they certainly weren’t going to talk about any substantive issues.  She inserted her own lies about an armed mob storming the Capitol on January 6^th and killing police officers.  It’s really amazing when people are not just capable of lying, but uttering the exact opposite of the truth.  It reminded me of later 2020 when the Democrats were blaming Trump for the lawlessness and riots that took place in major cities.

RFK Jr.

The day after the convention was over, the political news didn’t stop.  Robert Kennedy Jr. took to the microphone to announce that he is suspending his campaign because he doesn’t see a path to victory in November.  He is also withdrawing his name from swing states so as not to help Kamala Harris.

If you live in a blue state, I would encourage you to vote for RFK Jr. just to make a statement.  Even if you are a Trump supporter, you should consider this.  I mean a really blue state like New Jersey, Washington, or California.  Imagine if Kennedy can get 10% or more in these states.  That would make a statement.

Kennedy is throwing his support behind Trump in spite of their disagreements on certain issues.  He hates the Democrats that much now, and probably rightfully so.  Kennedy was a bit naïve going into the presidential primaries thinking that he would be treated even remotely fairly by the Democratic establishment and its corporate media.

Of course, you have to give Kennedy some credit for recognizing it early and calling it out.  Bernie Sanders is still trying to figure out how he got screwed out of a nomination twice.  Maybe he is still investigating the Russians on that one.

Kennedy has said some really great things.  In his speech announcing the suspension of his campaign, he talked about censorship.  He talked about how unhealthy Americans are.  He also talked about Ukraine, and accurately said that the U.S. government helped overthrow the president of Ukraine in 2014, which provoked the current conflict.  Maybe he can educate Trump on that one.

Luckily, Kennedy did not bring up Israel, where he takes the establishment position.  Or you can call it the military-industrial complex position.  I still think if Kennedy had even been more neutral in his stance here, he would have gotten a lot more support.

We don’t know where Kennedy supporters will go from here.  Apparently, his family isn’t too happy with him, but most of them weren’t supporting him anyway.  I suspect that a tiny percentage of his supporters will go to Harris and a bigger percentage to Trump.  But I’m guessing that something like half probably just won’t vote for either one with Kennedy essentially out.

Trump

Donald Trump is certainly going to get a bit of a boost from RFK.  He is also getting the endorsement of Tulsi Gabbard.

If Trump rewards them with a position in his administration, I hope he makes Tulsi Secretary of State.  It should be a major improvement over anything we’ve had in several generations.  I like Kennedy on health issues, but I don’t think he is best suited to head up the FDA, CDC, or an advisory commission.  If Trump really wants to risk his life and that of Kennedy, he should make Kennedy head of the CIA.  Now that would be a shot at the deep state.  But changing the head of the CIA didn’t help RFK Jr.’s uncle any.  The person he fired from the CIA was probably behind his assassination.

If I knew that Trump would put Kennedy as head of the CIA and Tulsi in an important position in foreign policy, then I would likely vote for Trump.

Unfortunately, I can’t say that much good about Trump otherwise in recent times.  His campaign has not been very good at all.  It is a bit disturbing to hear him talk about the attempt on his life as he continually praises the Secret Service.  It seems like he does understand that it was an inside job, and he is afraid to say anything about it publicly.

Even on policy, he has been largely ineffective.  It is sometimes funny when he personally attacks his political opponents, but it can also be distracting.  Instead of questioning when Kamala started to identify as African-American, he should be hammering home how expensive life is.

On the foreign policy front, he hasn’t been good either.  He takes the establishment position of funding the Israeli government’s mass murder of people in Gaza.  Even on Ukraine, he hasn’t been good.  He says he’ll bring an end to the war, but he doesn’t say how.  He makes these ridiculous claims that these wars never would have started in the first place if he had been president because others would have been too afraid of him.  This just sounds stupid.

Trump has not been that impressive since the Republican Convention, but he still has a good chance of winning the election.  Despite the media hype at the DNC, there is a major problem for Kamala Harris.  She is in the incumbent party while the world is a mess and the economy is a mess.  It’s hard for her not to own some of that.

The next couple of months will be interesting to say the least.  The last couple of months have been a major piece of history that we are living through.  I’m not sure how much people recognize that.

Michelle Obama spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Tuesday night.  She is a nasty and bitter person, and every bit of it came through in her speech.

It was far worse than I could have imagined.  If you read a transcript, parts of it sound like it could be a parody written by some rightwing Republican.

If you don’t want to suffer through her speech, it starts out with some “hope” and inspiration stories.  The second half mostly consists of her telling everybody that society is racist, Donald Trump is racist, and the only reason people won’t vote for Kamala Harris is because she is a black woman.  She also assured everyone that Trump fears her and her husband because they are intelligent successful people who happen to be black.

There was originally a lot of talk about Michelle Obama possibly replacing Biden as the nominee for president.  I questioned the basis for this.  Michelle Obama may not want to be president, and we don’t really know of her ability to discuss actual political issues.  Her speeches are one giant culture war accusing everything of racism.

Barack Obama, in spite of his evilness, is charismatic, and he also understands his audience better.  It is much the same way that Bill Clinton has a way of relating to people better than Hillary Clinton.  Maybe the men in these examples are just better actors.  But Obama at least tries to be funny and offer his empty platitudes of hope and change.

Michelle Obama, on the other hand, is purely divisive and bitter.  She just can’t help herself.  It is who she is.  This is why she could never be a legitimate contender for president.  She would simply turn off too many people with her hatefulness.  What plays well to the diehard Democrats at the convention would not play well with middle America, even for those who tend to lean politically left.  The people at the convention were eating up every word she said (in a creepy way), but I don’t think this is representative of America in general.

The Worst One

Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton have both spoken to the convention.  Their speeches were certainly filled with many lies and hate.  But they did not reach the level of Michelle Obama.

I had known that Obama was this way, but I had no idea it was this big of a psychological disorder for her.  She will forever be angry at the world around her.  It is a sad situation to see, especially for someone who spent 8 years in the White House with her husband ruling over this supposed racist country.

She says that there is no affirmative action generational wealth for black people in this country.  I wonder how her daughters feel about that.  What will happen to the multi-million dollar mansions that the Obamas own?  Will they be passed on to white people?

As evil and authoritarian as Kamala Harris is, I think she is smart enough to not give this kind of a speech.  At the very least, her advisors will make sure of it.  If Harris delivers anything close to the speech that was given by Michelle Obama, she will almost surely lose the election.

Harris already comes across as a phony, probably because she is.  She has this awful and uncomfortable laugh at things that aren’t funny, yet she is reportedly quite nasty to her staff.  This is why most of them end up quitting.

But Harris has to win over swing voters and independents.  She can’t give this kind of divisive speech that was given by Obama.  She can’t just call the whole world racist and expect to win.

Lucky for the Democrats that the speeches by the most notable people have come late at night when most people on the east coast have gone to bed.  If you watch the establishment media, the clips they show of Michelle Obama will tend not to be the really bad parts where she is calling everything and everyone racist.

Again, I had no idea she was this bitter and angry inside.  She can’t even cover it up for a nationally-televised speech.  She wanted to deliver this speech.  I don’t think most people would ever want somebody this outwardly hateful as president.

Since price inflation is a problem, Kamala Harris has come out with a rather non-specific economic plan to deal with it.  She has come out in favor of price controls on food.  Why not price controls on everything else we buy?  It isn’t just food that has become expensive.

Her official announcement came on August 16, 2024.  This came a day after the 53^rd anniversary of Nixon announcing price controls, that also included an end to any ties between the dollar and gold.

It’s interesting how our high price inflation today really goes back to that day on August 15, 1971 when the dollar became a total fiat currency.  Of course, the problems started way before that time.  The Fed came into existence in 1913.  There has never been a true free market with money in the history of this country, but it was a lot closer prior to 1913.

Roosevelt outlawed the holding of gold by Americans in 1933, and it didn’t become legal again until the end of 1974.  But foreign governments could still redeem gold for their U.S. dollars, which is exactly what France was doing.  This is why Nixon was essentially compelled to end this.  The U.S. government would quickly run out of gold unless the Fed actually stopped printing money.

The Good News

Before you worry about running out and buying food while it is still available, realize that there is a lot that has to happen here.  First, Kamala Harris has to actually win the presidency.  Second, even if she does win, this would presumably have to go through Congress.

Of course, maybe Kamala learned from her mentor and her mentor’s handlers.  She can just channel her inner dictator and issue an executive order declaring price controls on food.  After all, Biden declared that about 100 million Americans would lose their job if they didn’t submit to getting jabbed in the arm.  He also declared that student loan debt would be forgiven.  When the Supreme Court overturns some of these dictatorial claims, there are no negative consequences for the executive branch.  “Oh well.  I guess we’ll try some other way around it.”

If Queen Kamala declares price controls, you can bet there will be a lot of resistance, including lawsuits.  The price controls probably won’t last long.

Price controls tend not to last long anyway because they are so destructive.  If the shelves at grocery stores are near empty a few weeks after the implementation of price controls, I think most people are at least bright enough to put 2 and 2 together on this one.

Trump has already compared the price control proposal to communism, so it will make it difficult for Trump to do something like this if he ends up as president.  Trump has his own disastrous set of economic policy proposals, but I don’t think they will include price controls on food.

Pandering

The reason Kamala Harris came out with this proposal is because it is something that people want to hear, or at least she and her campaign team think it is something that people want to hear.

It is clear that increasing consumer prices is a major issue in this campaign.  I would contend that it is the biggest issue personally for Americans.  Middle class Americans (and definitely lower class Americans) are struggling a lot.  They are having trouble paying for their basic needs.

It has not been lost on some people that Kamala Harris is the vice president now, and it is not as if she has been criticizing Joe Biden.  If she has a plan to bring down price inflation, why wait until January 2025 or later?

Trump seems to get lucky with a lot of things.  Maybe getting shot in the ear was unlucky, but I think it was more luck that he turned his head at just the right time.

Trump may think that the 2020 election was stolen from him, but I think he was done a favor.  If Trump had remained president in 2021, we still would have seen rising price inflation.  Part of it is his fault for going along with the lockdowns in 2020 and allowing massive government spending.

The whole system is corrupt, and there is almost no talk of actually reducing government spending at the national level.  How will the Fed be able to keep price inflation under control when it has to help fund these giant budget deficits?

If you want to stop food prices from going up, and maybe even to have them go down, then stop all deficit spending and stop the Fed from creating new money out of thin air at the first sign of an economic downturn.

Kamala Harris and her team know that prices are a big issue, so this is her way of addressing it.  She is pandering.  She is essentially trying to buy votes.  But there is no redistribution of wealth here.  Price controls will hurt almost everyone.  She is just counting on voters not to understand that.  She is hoping that the voters just think she can wave a magic wand and make prices go down.  She will be right with some voters.

This is just an election promise that probably won’t come to fruition even if she does win.  Still, Biden was far worse than I ever imagined, so I guess you never know.  Kamala Harris is an authoritarian, but she is also a puppet and a politician.  Her proposal for price controls is the politician in her attempting to pander to voters.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) numbers were released for July 2024, which were mostly in line with estimates.  The CPI showed prices increased 0.2% for July.  The median CPI showed an increase of 0.3% for the month.

The year-over-year CPI now stands at 2.9%.  The median CPI stands at 4.3%, which tends to be a less volatile number.

Now the financial media can run headlines that say inflation is below 3%.  Some will say that inflation has “eased”.  Some headlines will say that inflation is coming down.  The only thing that is coming down is the rate of price inflation.  But prices are still going higher.  They are still going higher at a rate greater than the Fed’s 2% target.

To say that inflation is coming down is highly misleading.  If anyone says that general prices are coming down, that is downright false.

What if I had personal debt and said that it is coming down because I had accumulated less debt than last year?

For example, let’s say I had $20,000 in credit card debt at the start of the year.  I had accumulated $5,000 of debt in the previous year.  At the end of the year, I have $22,000 in debt, which is up just $2,000.  My rate of debt accumulation went down from the previous year.  I only added 10% this year.  The previous year I had added 33% ($5,000 on top of $15,000).

Should I celebrate and tell people that my debt situation is improving?  My rate of debt accumulation is going down.

Most people would think this is insane because I am still adding more debt.  I am just making the problem worse from what it was.

The same goes for price inflation.  If the CPI is accurate and prices have gone up 2.9% over the last year, is that an improvement?  Sure, it is better that they have gone up 2.9% versus something like 6%, but that is nothing at all to celebrate.  That 2.9% is on top of the already much higher prices.

It’s not as if prices are up 2.9% from 2020.  They are up 2.9% from the already ridiculous prices that we saw in 2023.

CPI Weighting

Some people accuse the CPI data of being inaccurate.  I think that is the case too, but I also find it useful.  It is useful to see the trend on what is happening.  I don’t subscribe to what I think are exaggerations of it being vastly understated.  I don’t think price inflation is running at 15% per year.  If this were the case, prices would double in less than 5 years.  There may be some items that have doubled in the last 5 years, but that isn’t most things.

The biggest problem for the CPI for me is that it is understating some very important things like shelter (rent and home prices) and insurance.

Car insurance and homeowners insurance have gone up a lot.  For some people it has been 20% or more in just a year.  If you get a 3% raise in wages at your job, the whole thing could be eaten up just from the increased cost of car insurance and homeowners insurance.  Throw in health insurance and I think the increase in wages is all eaten up just by these things.  It doesn’t even begin to account for increased prices in cars themselves and food at the grocery store and at restaurants.

Overall, the standard of living for the average American has gone down in recent years.  Quite simply, wages have not kept up with rising consumer prices.  It is hard to keep up with car insurance premiums that go up several hundred dollars in just a year.

This has to be a factor in the coming election.  People know they are struggling.  They just don’t know where to point their finger.  Of course, the president and Congress play the role of spending the money, but the unelected Fed members are the ones who have financed the deficit spending over the years.

The Coming Fed Decision

The markets generally liked the news of the CPI.  Stock indexes were higher on the day.  They have somewhat recovered from the tumble they took more than a week ago.

The Fed has a meeting in September.  The big question is whether the Fed will lower its target rate.  With stocks having stabilized and the CPI coming in near what was expected, I don’t think there is an obvious answer.  Most likely the Fed will lower by 25 basis points.

But to decrease rates while price inflation, according to government statistics, is still running above 2%, seems to not make sense.  What happened to the Fed’s thing about wanting to average 2% over time?  If that’s the case, we should see price inflation well below 2% for several months before the Fed should consider dropping rates.

This just shows that the Fed will always side with inflation.  They don’t want hyperinflation or runaway inflation, but they always want some price inflation.

If we hit a recession and price inflation is still above 2%, the Fed will clearly go on the side of a looser monetary policy.  We aren’t even in a recession yet (that we know of) and the Fed is talking about lowering rates.

This is why it is a good long-term bet to own physical assets.  There will likely be some asset deflation in the near future as the economy goes into recession, but the only thing that Congress knows how to do is spend more money and issue regulations.  The only thing the Fed knows how to do is manipulate interest rates and create money out of thin air.

This is why we will likely never have a deflationary depression, or at least not one that lasts long.  As long as the Fed isn’t faced with losing control of the dollar, the Fed members will side with inflation as a general policy.

While we waited for the official name, we knew one thing for certain about Kamala Harris’ pick for vice president as sure as the sun would rise in the east.  From a libertarian perspective, we all knew that her pick as her running mate would be a complete disaster.  It was the easiest of predictions.

I must admit that I didn’t know the name Tim Walz.  I knew nothing about him, yet I instantly knew something about him as soon as I heard his name because of who picked him.  I knew right away he was a complete disaster.

As soon as I heard that Harris had picked the governor of Minnesota as her running mate, there was a question that popped in my head.  When did he become governor?  Was he governor in 2020?

Sure enough, he took office in 2019, which is about all I need to know on where this guy is on the scale of libertarian to tyrant.  He is far on the tyrant side.

Virtually all state governors were bad on COVID, meaning they were bad by imposing authoritarian dictates which had no basis in law or morality, let alone common sense.  While almost all governors were bad to some degree, some were worse than others.  Minnesota was more on the worse side of things.

Walz actually had a program where people in Minnesota could report on their neighbors for violating the authoritarian measures that he had illegally imposed.  There’s nothing like big brother to make sure you are following orders.

What Else Happened in 2020?

Sometimes our memories are short, but this is the other major reason my eyes opened wide as soon as I heard Minnesota.  That was ground zero for the riots of 2020.  You can call them protests, and perhaps some of them started as protests, but they turned into riots.  Minneapolis saw major property destruction and theft during this time under Walz’s watch.

Walz stood with the rioters and against the property owners (the victims).  This is all you need to know about the man.  When it counts, he sided with the evil people trying to cause chaos and destruction of our civilization.

Let’s also remember that Kamala Harris herself chimed in and supported freeing the violent criminals who actually did go to jail.

These two are like a pair made in heaven for the authoritarians out there.  They believe in not having police when there are violent criminals causing mass chaos, but they want the full force of the police when it comes to enforcing their dictates.

Tim the Progressive

Like the word “liberal”, the word “progressive” is not accurate.  These people are anti progress.  Anyway, many people are lumping Tim Walz in what is now called the progressive camp.

Perhaps this is correct to a degree.  There might be some similarities between him and Bernie Sanders.  But even here, I think that Bernie Sanders or AOC is probably a little less bad than Tim Walz.

At least Sanders and AOC sometimes show signs of being pro peace when it comes to foreign policy.  Sure, they will tend to fall in line with the establishment on some things like funding Ukraine.  And they definitely do not emphasize their message enough when they are actually right.  But at least there are glimmers of hope when it comes to Sanders and AOC on foreign policy.

You can take it to the bank that Walz will be just as bad as Kamala Harris on foreign policy.  Maybe he’ll throw the left a bone every now and then with his rhetoric, but he will side completely with the military-industrial complex when it comes to actual policy.

Conclusion

As expected, Kamala’s pick for VP is a complete disaster in almost every way.  I can understand why she picked him.  She wanted someone who came across a little soft spoken and a man of the people.  This is why the establishment media has tried to sell Walz as a military man and a coach and a family man.

Maybe he really is all of those things, but that doesn’t change his authoritarian ways.  I’m sure there were many brutal dictators throughout history who were good to their own family.

Of course, Walz will encourage your son or daughter to surgically change their gender identity, and he’ll let your business burn to the ground if it is in the name of social justice, but he will protect his own family.

There is nothing good coming from this Harris/ Walz ticket.  It is a continuation of Biden/ Harris, without the dementia.  At least with the other candidates in the presidential race you can find a few good points.

The timing could not have been worse for the Federal Reserve, which kind of makes it hilarious for those of us who criticize the Fed and the whole central planning game in general.  If I take delight in any of this, it is not because I wish economic pain on the general public.  That pain is already baked in the cake.  I just want to ridicule the so-called experts, including those at the Fed.

The FOMC finished its meeting on Wednesday, July 31, 2024.  The policy statement said that the Fed would hold its target federal funds rate steady.  There were indications that the Fed was ready to drop its target rate in its September meeting as long as price inflation showed signs of subsiding more.  On that day, stocks rose.

Starting the day after, stocks started to plummet.  It only got worse over the weekend, and Monday was a huge down day for stocks and most other assets.  In such a short period of time, the entire conversation changed.  There is talk of recession again, and pundits and investors are wondering if this is just a blip down or the start of a bear market.

With it, there are a lot of calls for the Fed to step in and reduce rates.  But this is where it is quite a predicament for the Fed.  If the plunge in stocks was just a short event that spanned three business days, then the Fed can live with that.  That is the scenario they are hoping for.

The problem for Fed officials is if this continues at all.  In order to have a rate cut now, the Fed would have to have an emergency meeting.  But then you are using the word “emergency”, which can only serve to panic investors.  If the Fed doesn’t have any kind of emergency meeting, then it would have to wait until its next scheduled meeting on September 17-18.  We’ll find out if there is more trouble on Wall Street before that date arrives.

The Fed would prefer to do nothing at this stage, but if there are really bad economic signs out there, Fed officials also don’t want to get accused of “doing nothing”.  They do not handle this criticism of doing nothing as well as libertarians do.

Yields

Both long-term and short-term market interest rates have come down since August 1.  The yield curve had already turned positive when comparing the 2-year yield and 30-year yield.  In other words, the 2-year yield, at least for now, stands lower than the 30-year yield, which is the way it typically works.

But the yield curve has been mostly inverted for all of 2023 and so far in 2024.  Even now, the yield on the 30-year is lower than the 3-month yield.  This screams recession, but the recession does not typically come or become evident until after the yield curve “uninverts”.

Sometimes it isn’t clear which is the dog and which is the tail.  The reason short-term yields will likely go down from here is because the Fed is will for down short-term interest rates by lowering its federal funds rate.  This will eventually make the yield curve “positive”.  But the Fed is only likely to do this because of fears of a recession.  It certainly isn’t because price inflation is fully under control.

So maybe the yield curve just turns positive or is no longer inverted because the market knows a recession is coming, and the Fed is essentially forced to act and lower short-term rates.  Either way, we can see how things quickly change and that we could be looking at a recession sooner than was imagined by most just a week ago.

At the beginning of 2023, I thought we would get the downturn before the elections in November 2024.  If you asked me a week ago, I would have said that the Democrats may be out of the woods in terms of a major crash before the November elections.  Now it is not so clear.

Either way, the economy is bad.  Middle class America knows it’s bad because their wages are not keeping up with the rise in consumer prices, including insurance premiums.  But at least the Democrats could point to a strong stock market and pretend GDP numbers showing a good economy.  A continuing fall in stocks would ruin that line for them.  The public tends to credit or blame the party in the White House for the economy.

Bitcoin and Gold

I can’t end this without mentioning Bitcoin and gold.  They were both down when stocks tumbled, especially on Monday.  But while gold was down maybe 1 to 2 percent, Bitcoin was falling heavily.

Don’t be surprised by the fall in the gold price.  A deep recession will drag almost all asset prices down, as there is a rush to liquidity.  But gold will hold up better than stocks.  It will not go down as much in percentage terms.

Bitcoin on the other hand is extremely volatile.  Maybe it will have fully recovered by the time you read this.  But the broader point is that Bitcoin crashed with stocks.  In fact, it went down even more in percentage terms.  I believe this indicates that Bitcoin is part of the speculative bubble.

Incidentally, there was just a Bitcoin conference where Donald Trump delivered a message in an attempt to get Bitcoin enthusiasts in his camp.  But there was less attention given to Edward Snowden, who warned that people who transact in Bitcoin should not expect privacy and that all transactions are recorded.  Doesn’t this defeat one of the primary reasons given for using Bitcoin?

Most people buying Bitcoin with their dollars or other currency are not planning to transact in Bitcoin.  Their only plan for a transaction is to convert it back into dollars or some other currency in order to make a profit.  Bitcoin is not money, and it never was money, and it likely will never be money.  It is part of the speculative bubble created by many years of loose monetary policy from the Fed.

Conclusion

Time will tell if this was just a blip down or the start of a bear market.  Either way, the yield curve is still inverted and is screaming that a recession is coming.  I’m not sure why investors are just now starting to realize that.

It will be interesting to see if the bottom falls out before the November elections.  Either way, the statistics can’t cover up what the average American is feeling.  Americans know where they stand when paying their bills each month.  It doesn’t come from GDP numbers.

The 2024 summer Olympics in France has not been short of controversy.  It started right away with the opening ceremonies that seemed to mock Christianity.

It is bizarre how those who want to tear down Western Civilization directly try to attack Christianity.  Perhaps this isn’t as big of a story as what some Christians want to make it, but they are right to point out the hypocrisy of it all.  If the people in charge of putting on the show had openly mocked Islam or Judaism, do you think we would have seen the same reaction from the media and the establishment in general?  To ask the question is to answer it.

The opening ceremonies were not all bad.  There was some great artistry and performances, and it is always a delight for most people watching to see the athletes.  In this case, instead of walking into a stadium, they came through on a boat on the river.  Unfortunately, because of the push for transgenderism and the mocking of Christianity, the opening has to go into the “bad” category.

Gender Controversy

Of course, the opening ceremonies weren’t really the start of everything, as there were decisions made beforehand, which included allowing boxers to compete with females who had been previously banned from competing with women in international boxing.

It culminated when an Italian woman resigned from her fight less than one minute in.  Her opponent seems to be a biological male, although there is some controversy about the biology.  Maybe this really is that one in a million person who was born with mixed up chromosomes and DNA and there is no clearcut gender identity at birth.  But they should be able to do a chromosome test, and you would think that having XY chromosomes would prohibit the person from boxing with females.

However, we live in bizarro world, where the evil people are trying to tear down civilized society.  The fool speaking on behalf of the Olympic committee said that the individual met the qualifications they had in place to compete with females.  But that doesn’t address the problem.  What are your rules?  Your rules are idiotic and evil.  It is evil to allow someone to compete with females just based on what it says on their passport.  That’s the whole point.  I’m sure the Olympic committee did follow their own rules, but their rules are evil and stupid.

It was already a joke when we saw biological males competing with females in weightlifting, swimming, and track.  It is completely unjust.  Now we are talking boxing, which is just plain dangerous.  If a woman dies or suffers a serious brain injury, are the committee members going to be prosecuted for negligent homicide?

It is also interesting that they do all of this invasive testing of athletes for performance-enhancing drugs, yet they don’t really care about the testosterone levels of someone competing with females.

This whole episode is definitely in the “ugly” category.  The only good thing is that it may have woken up (not “woke”) some more people.

Russian Athletes

Another decision made long before the games had ever begun was not allowing Russian or Belarusian teams to compete.  Individual athletes, in some cases, could compete, but not under their country’s flag or uniforms.  They had to compete under the Individual Neutral Athletes delegation (AIN).

It wasn’t just a matter of competing under another name.  These athletes had to be vetted by the IOC before competing.  In order to qualify, they could not have funding or links to military or state security agencies.  Worst of all, they could not have supported the war in Ukraine.

In other words, if some athlete from Belarus or Russia had just posted something on social media that was sympathetic to the Russian government regarding the war in Ukraine, this could shatter all hopes and dreams of competing.  Forget all of the years of hard work and dedication in your sport.

This is the most political and hypocritical garbage anyone could come up with.  They will only allow certain athletes to compete based on their political viewpoints.

What about every other athlete from every other country.  Do Israelis or Americans get banned for supporting the mass bombing of innocent people in Gaza?  Do Americans get banned if they supported George W. Bush or Barack Obama?  There were wars and invasions by Americans in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria.  The U.S. government helped starve people in Yemen.

Oh, and let’s not forget that the U.S. government supported a coup against the democratically-elected president in Ukraine in 2014, which led to the slaughter of thousands of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine and directly contributed to the war that is happening there now.

Were all Olympic athletes heavily vetted to make sure they didn’t support any wars?  Maybe you think that is an unfair comparison.  Actually, it is unfair.  At least there were rational reasons for the Russian government to go to war in Ukraine.  They didn’t want NATO missiles on their border.  They wanted to stop the slaughter of ethnic Russians.

Can the same be said for all of the American wars of the last 25 years?  Was Iraq, Syria, or Libya ever a threat to Americans?

I’ll put this in the “ugly” category as well.  The Olympics are supposed to be a time of peace and bringing people together.  The IOC banning of athletes in this way does the opposite, which I believe was the intended purpose.

The Athletes

Put this in the “good” category.  I have enjoyed watching the athletes.  I enjoy most of the sports, including some of the more obscure ones.  I like watching badminton and table tennis.  I’ve seen a little bit of fencing.  I have watched a lot of swimming as well as some of the team sports.  It is an opportunity for athletes to showcase their greatness.  All of their hard work is not seen, but they are recognized during this short period of time.

I really enjoy the sportsmanship.  It isn’t always there, but generally I see mutual respect out there.  They were trying to hype up the rivalry between Australia and the United States in swimming.  But a rivalry can just mean people competing hard.  I saw two female swimmers – one from each country – talking before their race against each other.  They respect each other, and they are friends.  They try to beat each other in the water, and after it is over, they embrace.

I would encourage all athletes to be respectful towards each other regardless of country.  I want to see an Israeli and Iranian congratulate each other after a competition.  I want to see a Russian and Ukrainian hug each other.  It would have been nice to have Russian athletes there to give them the opportunity to do so.  I know this doesn’t always happen.

I see these athletes in a similar way to the people of a country.  The government is not the country.  You can disagree with your own government or governments elsewhere.  It doesn’t mean you have to be enemies with the people who live under that government.

This is exactly why the IOC and the powers-that-be didn’t want Russians at the Olympics.  They were afraid to see an American and a Russian embrace after competition.  For the establishment in the West, the Russians have to be the big, bad enemy.

It reminds me of the story from World War 1 on Christmas day when opposing sides came out from behind the lines and made peace for a short period of time.  They buried their dead.  They shook hands and played soccer.  The soldiers were not really enemies of each other.  They were fighting for their governments.

This is why I still like the Olympics, in spite of the bad and ugly things that have gone on.  It is a chance for greatness for the athletes, and it is also a time for peace and friendship.  Instead of shooting at each other, these athletes can compete and then shake hands or hug after it is done.  We need more sports and less war, and the world will be a better place.

The FOMC released its latest monetary policy statement.  As was widely expected, the Fed maintained its target for the federal funds rate between 5.25% and 5.50%.

Jerome Powell said that a rate cut in September is on the table if the inflation data continues to move towards the Fed’s 2% target.  It’s notable, but not surprising, that the Fed would even consider rate cuts until price inflation goes below 2%.

The American consumer has been hammered the last few years.  While the rate of price inflation has gone down, prices still continue to go higher on top of the major increases that have already happened.

I continue to believe that the Fed knows that there is a great risk of a major recession, market crash, and possible financial crisis.  Otherwise, why would they be talking about rate cuts while price inflation is still above their target?

The Balance Sheet

The Fed’s balance sheet continues to come down from its all-time high in 2022.  While the federal funds rate tends to get the most attention, the Fed’s balance sheet is perhaps just as important.

The Implementation Note from the latest policy statement shows that the Fed will continue to reduce its balance sheet.  It will continue to not roll over approximately $25 billion per month in Treasury securities and $35 billion per month in mortgage-backed securities.  This means that the Fed’s balance sheet should continue to go down somewhere near $60 billion per month, which isn’t an insignificant amount.

Sure, it isn’t a lot when compared to the massive money creation that happened in 2020 and 2021.  Still, it means that eventually something has to give.

When Ludwig von Mises wrote about the Austrian Business Cycle theory, he stated that even a reduction in the rate of inflation will eventually bring on the bust.  With the Fed actually reducing its balance sheet, this means we are not going to hyperinflation any time soon, and it means that there will be a bust of some sort.  This is what happens after a prior expansion of money and credit, and I think it’s safe to say that this expansion was too big to grow our way out of it.

In other words, if you have a small expansion of the money supply but growth and productivity far exceed that, then there probably won’t be any bust.  Perhaps prices won’t come down as much as they would have without the money expansion, but it seems to be painless enough.  That is not the case today because of how massive the money expansion was in such a short period of time.

Don’t Forget the Inverted Yield Curve

The yield curve is still inverted.  It was inverted for all of 2023, and it remains inverted today.  This means that longer-term yields are actually lower than short-term yields.  This has generally been a reliable indicator of a coming recession.

It is crazy that the yield curve has remained this inverted for this long.  If the severity and length of the inverted yield curve is any indication of the severity and length of the recession, then we should be in for a doozy.

Unbelievably, stocks soared before and after the Fed announcement.  It seems that almost everything is good news for the stock bulls these days.  Gold also soared, but that is a more recent thing, as gold has not had the huge run up that stocks have had since 2009.

It’s quite incredible that the Dow is nearing 41,000, while the Nasdaq is getting close to 18,000 again.  These gains for stocks are massive.  Just a return to the mean will mean a major crash in stocks.

If the Fed doesn’t step in quickly and aggressively when the fall starts to happen, I think we could easily see a 50% crash or more.  This might happen even if the Fed does step in quickly and aggressively.

Don’t Ignore the Bears

I sound like a broken record.  And I know the criticisms of people who sound bearish.  They say that the bears are eventually right but that you miss out on all of the gains in the meantime.

I can’t stress enough just how risky these financial markets are right now.  Americans are already hurting because of higher consumer prices and wages that won’t keep up.  But the people who own significant assets are a bit more optimistic because everything seems to be going higher with no end in sight.

What happens if stocks crash by 60%?  How optimistic do you think most of these people will be at that point?  The year 2008 wasn’t that long ago, but people have short memories.  How many hopes and dreams will be shattered when the much-hyped U.S. index fund takes a massive hit and doesn’t recover within months?

Again, I think the people at the Fed know the significant risks out there.  They are willing to accept a massive drop in stocks.  They are less willing to accept a financial crisis and bank failures.