Being unsustainable isn’t the same as breaking within the lifetime of the people making the decisions. The average US senator is 66, and that’s young compared to the current Supreme Court or the sitting President.
Maybe Trump is secretly for "the green agenda" and this was all part of the plan to stop oil.
He had that big falling out with Elon so that he can't be accused of pandering to him when electric car sales go through the roof.
I have also heard that this is really "big oil's" plan, they always manage to cause a huge price spike just when green energy is about to take over the market, somehow this stops the green revolution and forces everyone to go back to using fossil fuels.
But unlike in the old days, US wins from higher prices. Even consumers wins (because they make more money on average, and their imported goods are cheaper because balance of payments shifts in US favour because of oil exports).
Voters are furious because of psychological factor of gas prices (purely psychological, it has nothing to do with economy or people's purchasing power). It bites politician's asses real hard.
So, Trump undermined himself by launching that war - but others are fine.
Do they make more money on average? Does any additional income cover the increase in cost of living? Becoming psychologically poor is much harder than becoming psychologically rich. I doubt that balance of payments goes anywhere near your average Joe’s pocket.
It absolutely does because balance of payments = exchange rate, and average Joe is poor and consumes disproportional part of imported goods vs the rich.
Eh, how is this self-inflicted, when you have a radical has-been-empire blocking a global arteries by waging relentless proxy wars. Stop it with the "only white people can be actors on the global stage"-ism, the us basically clashes with Iran once every president (directly or indirectly) - and not by choice.
This administration wants lower rates. Also this administration does everything it can to increase inflation such as tariffs and starting another endless war in the middle east.
How is it failure? You use your military to force trade to occur using your tokens. You control the supply of said tokens. You leave some other loser holding the bag for your debts. You win.
The way this administration works is that anyone in a decision making position has been swapped for a self-serving yes-man who will do whatever Trump wants. Anyone they can't replace who won't deliver is briefed against or investigated until they quit or can be fired. Facts that might influence the decision play no part in the process.
The easy acceptance of this authoritarian governing style has been one of the most damaging to the idea of democracy. America's democratic institutions have great marketing but many of us outside the country and not subjected daily to that marketing have long known it is an particularly weak form of democracy and open to corruption, demagoguery and populism. Americans have a susceptibility to authority and hierarchical normalisation, has left them open to this.
The yield curve has always been controlled by the Fed, and this remains the case. No one has lost control. The yield curve is the time path of short run rates, adjusted by risk. So, for example, if the market thinks inflation will rise -- for example because of a foolish war against Iran -- then they will sell the long dated bonds because they know the fed will hike rates in the future, making the long dated bonds less valuable, and they want to get ahead of that. If, on the other hand, they think inflation will be too low, they will bid up the longer dated bonds because they expect the Fed to lower rates in the future, making the long dated bonds more valuable. The entire bond market is fixated on trying to guess what the Fed will do next, so that is why they peer at the economic data and try to guess in which direction the Fed will move and when. That is the opposite of "losing control" of the yield curve.
The problem is Bessent trying to control something that he has never had any control over, by jawboning the market and doing silly things like trying to intervene. Bessent is the Treasury secretary. Treasury does not, and never has, controlled the yield curve. Whatever games he plays buy buying and selling bonds has only a short term psychological effect on the market, and soon people brush it off.
The Fed controls the yield curve, not Treasury.
Bessent is a hedge fund guy that is really not well suited to the role he is playing. Now, they want to put Bessent in charge of economic sanctions against Iran, when we shouldn't even have any sanctions against Iran. The US is sanctioning the world's top oil producers, and then complaining about oil shortages.
Incoming unhinged POTUS rants and demands in 3…2…1…
But you know what, I’m glad to see that the fed is still operating independently. The doomer in me thought they’d fold to Trump, especially right before the midterms.
There appears to be more and more people throwing back against Trump; after the courts recently again said no to his need to plaster his name on the Kennedy Centre, he went a wailin' to his supposedly in pocket Kennedy Centre board:
But even that is not providing him comfort these days. Representative Joyce Beatty (D-OH), an ex-officio member of the Kennedy Center board and the member who sued over his takeover of the center, explained to Symone Sanders-Townsend of MS NOW that Trump called into the board meeting after the court decision and “went into a tantrum.”
While most people appear to have refused to confront Trump to his face—Maine governor Janet Mills’s “We’ll see you in court” was so rare it made headlines—Beatty took him on. She recounted: “It was the most unprofessional thing that I’ve ever witnessed or been a part of it.” But after he called her “an obstructionist” and “dumb” and said he thought she was “incompetent,” she retorted: “I know you’re incompetent.” Beatty appealed to the chair to stop Trump’s unprofessional behavior, but when he continued to berate her, claiming it would be her fault if someone were killed at the center, she responded: “You’re already killing people, we’re at war.” And when he talked about what a great developer he was, she “reminded him that he had more bankruptcies than anybody in the room.”
“I mean, it really went there,” Beatty told Sanders-Townsend. “I was not going to let him bully me, intimidate me. And the facts stand for themselves.”
Indeed, these days, facts across the board are challenging Trump’s image of himself.
This is one thing that gives me a sliver of hope for our future relations as European, please keep 'civil disobedience' up to these unhinged oligarchs for better future of us all.
The only reason we have to choose between inflation and expensive loans is corporate profits can't ever go down. It's perfectly possible to freeze margins and ban increasing prices unless a business proves their costs went up, but to enforce that you would need to a) have a competent administration and b) not be scared to piss off your billionaire donors.
Allowing stock buybacks and not taxing dividends heavily is a choice. Not breaking up monopolies is a choice. Inflation comes down to high oil prices and corporate greed powered by weak competition. Starting wars is Trump's fault. Subsidizing big oil instead of setting price controls is also his choice, as is doing everything he can to slow down EV adoption that would reduce demand.
There are a lot of SKUs to regulate. The cost of the bureaucrats checking the requests for basic "my price is going up because my inputs went up" price rises would be staggering. Also it would disincentives any price drops being passed on.
This is basically self inflicted, as usual messing up in the Middle East always ends up with consumer paying the price for their ruler's stupidity
"Oh no, my drinking water tastes like crap after I pooped in the well"
Except the person doing the pooping doesn't drink from the same well as he's got his own private reserve supply.
Oh, in the end, when the hoovervill goes marching- they do..
You mean he has his own private supply of poop that is involuntarily tapped into at any random moment?
We can’t afford healthcare because they revoked the subsidies but at least we now also can’t afford gasoline too!
> We can’t afford healthcare because they revoked the subsidies but at least we now also can’t afford gasoline too!
But we can easily affort 500+ million per day for faraway foreign wars! That, no problem.
While this isn't the best way to address the issue, the US is way too dependent on gasoline/diesel for transportation. It's not sustainable.
Being unsustainable isn’t the same as breaking within the lifetime of the people making the decisions. The average US senator is 66, and that’s young compared to the current Supreme Court or the sitting President.
Maybe Trump is secretly for "the green agenda" and this was all part of the plan to stop oil.
He had that big falling out with Elon so that he can't be accused of pandering to him when electric car sales go through the roof.
I have also heard that this is really "big oil's" plan, they always manage to cause a huge price spike just when green energy is about to take over the market, somehow this stops the green revolution and forces everyone to go back to using fossil fuels.
But unlike in the old days, US wins from higher prices. Even consumers wins (because they make more money on average, and their imported goods are cheaper because balance of payments shifts in US favour because of oil exports).
Voters are furious because of psychological factor of gas prices (purely psychological, it has nothing to do with economy or people's purchasing power). It bites politician's asses real hard.
So, Trump undermined himself by launching that war - but others are fine.
Do they make more money on average? Does any additional income cover the increase in cost of living? Becoming psychologically poor is much harder than becoming psychologically rich. I doubt that balance of payments goes anywhere near your average Joe’s pocket.
It absolutely does because balance of payments = exchange rate, and average Joe is poor and consumes disproportional part of imported goods vs the rich.
Eh, how is this self-inflicted, when you have a radical has-been-empire blocking a global arteries by waging relentless proxy wars. Stop it with the "only white people can be actors on the global stage"-ism, the us basically clashes with Iran once every president (directly or indirectly) - and not by choice.
Iran is a pain in the ass, but the latest round of escalation was started by Israel and the USA.
This administration wants lower rates. Also this administration does everything it can to increase inflation such as tariffs and starting another endless war in the middle east.
The administrations choices are fairly binary now.
Inflate away the $40Trillion+ debt they can never pay back
Or
Hard default on the debt, and be the one holding the hot potato as the union breaks up.
Fed is trying to thread the needle between the two and keep the music playing as long as possible.
> Fed is trying to thread the needle between the two
Not really, inflating it away is the only possible choice.
There is one obvious choice here, the policy is inflation and always has been.
From the adminstration
Fed independance is about tempering that policy so UST still has buyers.
yet many "third world" countries managed to pay their debts just fine. some even more than once in recent history.
American exceptionalism even in failure?
How is it failure? You use your military to force trade to occur using your tokens. You control the supply of said tokens. You leave some other loser holding the bag for your debts. You win.
The way this administration works is that anyone in a decision making position has been swapped for a self-serving yes-man who will do whatever Trump wants. Anyone they can't replace who won't deliver is briefed against or investigated until they quit or can be fired. Facts that might influence the decision play no part in the process.
The easy acceptance of this authoritarian governing style has been one of the most damaging to the idea of democracy. America's democratic institutions have great marketing but many of us outside the country and not subjected daily to that marketing have long known it is an particularly weak form of democracy and open to corruption, demagoguery and populism. Americans have a susceptibility to authority and hierarchical normalisation, has left them open to this.
The purpose of a system is what it does.
The government has fully lost control of the long-term Treasury yield - this is their attempt to bring it back under control.
I expect to see the president fire the Fed, nationalise it and make the rates negative, collapsing the economy.
The yield curve has always been controlled by the Fed, and this remains the case. No one has lost control. The yield curve is the time path of short run rates, adjusted by risk. So, for example, if the market thinks inflation will rise -- for example because of a foolish war against Iran -- then they will sell the long dated bonds because they know the fed will hike rates in the future, making the long dated bonds less valuable, and they want to get ahead of that. If, on the other hand, they think inflation will be too low, they will bid up the longer dated bonds because they expect the Fed to lower rates in the future, making the long dated bonds more valuable. The entire bond market is fixated on trying to guess what the Fed will do next, so that is why they peer at the economic data and try to guess in which direction the Fed will move and when. That is the opposite of "losing control" of the yield curve.
The problem is Bessent trying to control something that he has never had any control over, by jawboning the market and doing silly things like trying to intervene. Bessent is the Treasury secretary. Treasury does not, and never has, controlled the yield curve. Whatever games he plays buy buying and selling bonds has only a short term psychological effect on the market, and soon people brush it off.
The Fed controls the yield curve, not Treasury.
Bessent is a hedge fund guy that is really not well suited to the role he is playing. Now, they want to put Bessent in charge of economic sanctions against Iran, when we shouldn't even have any sanctions against Iran. The US is sanctioning the world's top oil producers, and then complaining about oil shortages.
well thats one way to get out of having to pay back your loans :-|
Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49731356
And the dot plots suggest no rate decreases until 2028.
Meanwhile Bessent is buying long dated bonds and selling short dated, betting the yields will go down.
Dear US, try not to take the rest of the world with you when. You implode.
Incoming unhinged POTUS rants and demands in 3…2…1…
But you know what, I’m glad to see that the fed is still operating independently. The doomer in me thought they’d fold to Trump, especially right before the midterms.
There appears to be more and more people throwing back against Trump; after the courts recently again said no to his need to plaster his name on the Kennedy Centre, he went a wailin' to his supposedly in pocket Kennedy Centre board:
~ Letters from an American (September 16, 2026) https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-16-202...At this point, people don't even care about his rants.
This is one thing that gives me a sliver of hope for our future relations as European, please keep 'civil disobedience' up to these unhinged oligarchs for better future of us all.
Move on. When someone tells you who they are, multiple times, listen. Don’t act like you’re in an abusive relationship.
The only reason we have to choose between inflation and expensive loans is corporate profits can't ever go down. It's perfectly possible to freeze margins and ban increasing prices unless a business proves their costs went up, but to enforce that you would need to a) have a competent administration and b) not be scared to piss off your billionaire donors.
Allowing stock buybacks and not taxing dividends heavily is a choice. Not breaking up monopolies is a choice. Inflation comes down to high oil prices and corporate greed powered by weak competition. Starting wars is Trump's fault. Subsidizing big oil instead of setting price controls is also his choice, as is doing everything he can to slow down EV adoption that would reduce demand.
There are a lot of SKUs to regulate. The cost of the bureaucrats checking the requests for basic "my price is going up because my inputs went up" price rises would be staggering. Also it would disincentives any price drops being passed on.