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We are on the Verge of Economic Catastrophe




This guy? I hope a different

Allen Howard Weisselberg (born August 15, 1947) is an American businessman who was convicted of tax evasion in connection with his role as former chief financial officer (CFO) of the Trump Organization. Weisselberg served as a co-trustee of a trust set up in 2017 by Donald Trump before Trump's inauguration as president of the United States. In 2022, Weisselberg pleaded guilty to 15 criminal charges including grand larceny, criminal tax fraud and falsifying business records.[1] In January 2023, he began serving a five-month jail sentence[2][3] and was released the following April.[4] A ruling which was handed down in February 2024 also resulted in Weisselberg being permanently banned from serving in financial control function of any New York corporation or business, and also banned him from serving as a director or officer for any New York corporation or business for three years.[5] In 2024, he pleaded guilty to perjury and was sentenced to another five months in prison, which he immediately began serving in April 2024.[6][7]


OMFG! I hope this is a joke
 
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This guy? I hope a different

Allen Howard Weisselberg (born August 15, 1947) is an American businessman who was convicted of tax evasion in connection with his role as former chief financial officer (CFO) of the Trump Organization. Weisselberg served as a co-trustee of a trust set up in 2017 by Donald Trump before Trump's inauguration as president of the United States. In 2022, Weisselberg pleaded guilty to 15 criminal charges including grand larceny, criminal tax fraud and falsifying business records.[1] In January 2023, he began serving a five-month jail sentence[2][3] and was released the following April.[4] A ruling which was handed down in February 2024 also resulted in Weisselberg being permanently banned from serving in financial control function of any New York corporation or business, and also banned him from serving as a director or officer for any New York corporation or business for three years.[5] In 2024, he pleaded guilty to perjury and was sentenced to another five months in prison, which he immediately began serving in April 2024.[6][7]


OMFG! I hope this is a joke

It’s a fake news story.


Not that it makes any difference.
 
I hope she sues the holy hell out of him for some of the things he said about her. The stupid fuck doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut.
The GOP fully supports him and controls all three branches of government. I fail to see what a lawsuit can accomplish.
 
It’s a fake news story.


Not that it makes any difference.
Wow, I thought George Conway was trustworthy.
It was a joke. Conway posted a joke.
Well, fuck me right up my bunghole.
 
It’s a fake news story.


Not that it makes any difference.
Wow, I thought George Conway was trustworthy.
It was a joke. Conway posted a joke.
Well, fuck me right up my bunghole.
No thank you.
 
It’s a fake news story.


Not that it makes any difference.
Wow, I thought George Conway was trustworthy.
It was a joke. Conway posted a joke.
Well, fuck me right up my bunghole.
No thank you.
Party pooper.
 
This thread is in the Politics/US_Potus group, but some of us have been using it to predict future economic trends. Economic catastrophe? Quite probably, for some values of 'catastrophe', but we can't be sure When, Where and Why.

The U.S. is, arguably, sabotaging its own economy. BUT Trump's program has a sharply negative effect on other countries as well. The Dollar will be weakened, but so will most other major currencies. The prognosis for gold is good. When or if a cryptocoin collapse will come is uncertain.

As the latest job figures show a slowdown is in progress, with perhaps a 50% chance that a technical recession will strike sometime in 2025-26. With tariffs, consumer prices will rise faster than wage hikes; American confidence in the future, and foreigners' confidence in the Dollar, will falter. Will the stock market sustain a long-term bull market, or will we just see brief hiccups?

Increasingly I am coming to realize that the U.S. financial system -- and perhaps that of other countries as well -- is a "house of cards" being propped up by insiders. Banks are under-water on major investments, but with Uncle Sam promising there'll be no failures, banks muddle along. The relationship is symbiotic, with big banks obligated to buy U.S. Treasury debt and thereby help keep those interest rates in check. The Fed is likely to resume QE and IIUC, Bessent's Treasury has already bought (to hold temporarily) bonds with otherwise-low demand.

This "scratch my back" attitude extends to the stock market and income distribution. Asset prices continue to rise while real wages stagnate, and transfers are cut drastically. For those reasons, the stock market may be propped up systemically. And perhaps the same for crypto-coins as well. Of course ordinary Americans are in for tough times -- that much is certain.

There are wars in progress, and a variety of further conflicts will develop -- military wars, cross-border hacking, etc. Weather and environmental crises are increasing. The future would be perilous even without Trump.

What about Interest Rates? Some economists think raising interest rates due to increased cost of commodities or imports is wrong-headed, that it is specifically increases in WAGES that demonstrate "over-heating" and require interest rate hikes to cool the economy. (Of course this is anathema to liberals. And with labor having little negotiation power wage hikes are unlikely.)

TL;DR: I dunno. I celebrate my ignorance by just posting FRED graphs, They offer two versions of a graph: The screen-shot itself and an interactive. I'll show both. The graph I've chosen may be over-busy: There are five functions displayed:

* Green - Corporate Profits (as a share of the economy)
* Brown - The "Buffett measure of stock market overpricing." Multiply by ten, so "20" is "200%."
* Blue - Inflation Rate
* Red - Productivity Growth
* Yellow - a form of interest rate

fredgraph.png


* "Green" Profits. To unclutter the graph I start at 1975 but under Eisenhower and JFK profits were about 6%. They got as high as 8½% in the late 1970's, then fell to 5% until the Clinton boom when Profits rose briefly as high as 7%. Profits fell again, but rose under Bush-43 reaching a record-setting(?) 11%. High Profits became the norm; 12% under Obama, almost 13% under Biden.

* Brown (Buffet measure) set a record in 2020: total market cap of US stocks divided by GDP = 200%. It would take two years worth of GDP to purchase all the stocks on U.S. stock exchanges. Not only are P/E ratios very high, but "P" is arguably inflated, being more than two times the post-WW II norm. I don't know what FRED doesn't show this past 2020. This metric continues to rise and is now 225% or so.

* Blue (Inflation) was very high during Carter and early Reagan, but otherwise has been almost pegged to the 2% target; except that it was (an untroubling) 4%-6% during much of Biden's term.

To save clutter I deleted "Real 1-Year Interest rate". It was about 3% under Bush-41, 2% under Clinton, average 1% under Bush-43, negative under Obama getting as low as Minus 3% in 2018 and Minus 4% early in Biden's term. It then soared up to 8% briefly in 2023 and is now a bit less than 1%.


 
Multiple independent reporting says manufacturing is loosing jobs.


His tariffs on processor chips can cripple manufacturing.
 
Multiple independent reporting says manufacturing is loosing jobs.


His tariffs on processor chips can cripple manufacturing.
The man has no understanding of the modern economy, but if you dare to make this point . . . Well how dare you question him, he’s a billionaire! Are you a billionaire?
 
Agreed on Trump of course, he is very simple minded.

Steel, aluminum, copper, and electrical-electronic components are critical the economy.

These tariffs are insane. No way to tell how bad it will be. Reports are demand is dropping as prices go up. Eventually it ripple through the economy. Restaurants and small bu8sness revenue drops.

I am not an expert in economic theory but I am well versed in manufacturing and supply chains. Everything is connected.
 
Selling chips to china with an export tax plus the stupid tariffs is the perfect way to own the libs for not allowing people to say naughty words at city council meetings.
 
The market is in denial. PPI up, import prices rising. CPI is going to be an issue and alongside with job numbers trending downward, the economic outlook feels bumpy. But the market just wants to pretend it isn't going to happen. The economy otherwise doesn't appear to be in bad shape which is in part why the market wants to stay up, but Trump is sabotaging it.
 
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