Month: October 2024

Despite the Fed's September rate cut, along with promises of more, 30-year mortgage rates began rising abruptly in early October and spiked above 7% today:

What’s going on? Mark Zandi explains:

First, the strong economy is even stronger than anticipated, causing investors to re-think how quickly the Fed will cut rates. Equally important is investors’ rising expectation that former President Trump will win re-election (look at betting markets). Investors are taking Trump at his word and believe if he wins it will lead to higher tariffs, immigrant deportations, and deficit-financed tax cuts in a full employment economy, all of which means higher inflation and more government borrowing. The recent surge in mortgage rates is a clear indication what investors believe a Trump victory would mean for the economy and the nation’s fiscal outlook.

This is apparently what the MAGA cultists want. Trump has been crystal clear about his economic plans, and it's equally clear what those plans would lead to. Trump already produced one inflationary surge—justified by the pandemic—and now he plans to follow the same playbook again, but with no justification at all this time around. Anyone who votes for him should be careful what they wish for.

The Atlanta Fed has published its final forecast of third-quarter GDP before the official numbers are released tomorrow. Following a disappointing export report this morning, their model now projects a Q3 growth rate of 2.8%.

This is Schönlaterngasse in Vienna ("Street of the Beautiful Lantern") near the Jesuit church and the Gutenberg monument. The Truth and Dare bar is up ahead, and it was a nice night so people were congregating outside.

Noted without comment:

The job market continued to normalize in September:

Unfilled job demand—openings minus hires—has receded from its 2022 peak and dropped another 430,000 last month. It's now close to its normal pre-pandemic level.

Note that unfilled job demand is the main driver of migrant surges into the US, so this is good news for the likelihood of illegal immigration remaining low.

It's only 209 weeks until Election Day 2028. Get cracking, people.

The white working class has been trending Republican for a long time, but Donald Trump seems to be doing especially well with them this year—and especially among men. Why? A bunch of reasons, but this is probably one of them:

The US is energy independent, but for economic and strategic reasons we continue to import a moderate amount of crude oil. Most of it comes from Canada, followed by Mexico. Here are imports from OPEC, nearly all of it from Saudi Arabia these days.

Let's do some arithmetic. On October 3rd I received an 80 gram dose of Talvey. It has a half life in the body of 8.4 days. So the effective amount remaining is:

• October 3: 80 grams
• October 11: 40 grams
• October 20: 20 grams
• October 28: 10 grams
• November 6: 5 grams
• November 14: 2.5 grams
• November 23: 1 gram

How low does it have to get before the side effects go away? I figure 5 grams in the best case, 1 gram in the worst. Then add a couple of weeks for my taste buds to regenerate and we get a target recovery date of November 20 - December 7.

Fuck. I hope my adventure in playing amateur doctor turns out to be wrong.

The 2024 CES pre-election survey, based on a huge sample of nearly 80,000 adults, puts Kamala Harris ahead of Donald Trump 51-47% among likely voters. She's ahead 52-46% among very likely voters. Here's their breakdown by age and gender:

Harris is tied or ahead with every single group except one: old men, where she's behind by 12 points. But what can you do about that? This is the core Fox News demographic, and they've been told for years that Kamala Harris is a radical leftist fanatic who's determined to let in a ravaging horde of Mexicans who will destroy America. There's not much hope of ever getting through to them.