Let us know when you buy lol
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Pyramids, Temples/Mosques/Cathedrals, Stadiums, The Great Wall of China, Bitcoin, (and now AI) were all designed to utilize as much energy and the potential for energy as possible.
Keeping the populace OCCUPIED in these endeavors is essential for the managers/elites/nobility/parasites to skim energy off the top of these activities in the form of decadence, (especially for themselves) and plays to the vanity and desire for magical thinking of their populations.
The wealthy are not the most productive members of society, they are the aggregators/managers of what is produced, and as can be witnessed now, they have become parasites, as is always the case as complexity and regimentation increases.
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No doubt you are already composing your thoughts about the impact of proposed (?) new U.S. sanctions on the shipment of Russian petroleum. I look forward to your analysis and discussion of the potential impact on petroleum product prices and inflation.
From the above, this curious reasoning:
“The Biden administration has long avoided stringent measures on Russian energy exports, fearing a spike in global oil prices. However, a drop in gas prices and diminishing inflation has created an opportunity for Biden to tighten sanctions.”
https://apnews.com/article/eu-russia-sanctions-ships-ghost-fleet-a6049e2258ab049ec901a21b107289d4
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Uhh, just asking, most of this relates heavily on europe, I dont see such effect on US, people can drive their trucks or EVs whichever they can afford and want to do. But in europe, EVs/renewable energy has been somewhat catastrophe, I still dont see UK/Germany wake up since 2022 electric price surges to change policies to fit this non fossil hype and more sanctions + more countries cut from cheap russian fossil energy means more brutal price spikes in european markets. New capacity is possibly years away.
Although this could be “manufactured crisis” as LNG didnt sell as well as expected last winter(23/24). So I could expect some FED/other governmental big money interjection to bump prices in markets to create new panic for natural gas.
I was just quoting the article’s crap reasoning. I think whatever the U.S. contemplates, it’s effect on other countries is not high in its list of considerations (Nordstream 2). Yes, if petroleum prices rise (not including Nat Gas as I believe Russia does not ship natural gas by water) and inflation increases, what will be experienced as a relative cold in the U.S. will be a bad flu in Europe.
And somehow Europe continues to look to the U.S. for their rescue.
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PhilH it seems you ought to be able to leverage/monetize/extort that financial ability?
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I wish. Guaranteed, no matter what I do, the market will do exactly the opposite. The only thing I’ve done well on, buying and selling real-estate. Looking back, maybe I should have put all my money and effort into that. I did advise a young couple circa 2001 to start investing in housing, and they have done very well. At one point I moved a bunch of money out of my corporate 401k into an IRA, and that worked out well, but I didn’t invest back into the market, which cost me a ton of growth.
Well then, time for reverse, reverse, reverse, reverse, reverse
psychology so that the “markets” don’t know what-the-hell to do.
Michael
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Efficency Chris, you missed the point here. (I am still listening to the video but will likely get interupted here in a few and didn’t want to forgot to post this.)
Here are some illustrative assumptions I am making up to carry any reader through my logic:
If I have an outlay for SSI of 1,007B$ and an obligation to pay out 600B$ to benifactors where the overhead to do so cost me 400B$ and I more than halve that overhead so say 1B$, I effectively cut the budget of 399B$ annually. You don’t even have to remove Functions of the government to do so, yet some Functions will ideally be eliminated or replaced/displaced/or beefed up with something existing or more effective. (Efficive = more bang for our buck while still being fit for purpose and fit for use)
In Education for example, the States and local muncipalities pay public educator salaries and not the Fed.
Love your work, I think you missed the whole point of the “E,” in D.O.G.E though. This isn’t an all or nothing type solution. There will be lots of nuances here to succeed.
My point in posting this was ideally to help reframe our thoughts from a “How can we?” aproach which in my mind has more value yet takes way more effort to ruminate on over any nay saying.
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Yet another option might be to publish the same video content in two formats via two unique links.
Public link with the ad content included
Member link only viewable or accessiblable by paid members.
Pros:
Same post and same thread service both viewerships keeping the conversations tidy.
Cons:
It costs the video providers/hosts double the disk space to hold the video, but they likely have de-dup at a block level turned on anyway.
It might skew the viewership numbers for back end reporting and viewship reporting which will take a bit of math to adjust where necissary.
Thanks, William. But the point here is one man’s ‘efficiency’ is another man’s job being cut, or sacred Congressional pork herd being trimmed.
Can we cut the government’s spending, by a lot? YES! And I say do it fast and furiously.
But let’s be clear…that will result in a trimming of GDP…which Trump predictably won’t be too keen on.
As I say in trading, there’s what should happen and what will happen.
For DOGE, there’s what should happen and what will happen. I’m keen for the drama.
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I guess we can add coffee beans to the list too. Looks like 2025 is going to be a more expensive year to be un-depressed but still be able to maintain that nervous and jerky feeling (and glucose spike) while enjoying a venti macchiato.
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It is time we redefine GDP to be the output of the country adjusted down for government spending and not inclusive of government spending. If we did so, I think it would be obvious to everyone that “right size” government is quite small and cutting aggressively now is better than cutting later - even if it’s goosing some numbers.
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GDP as it is currently conceived is a pretty meaningless metric.
Unemployment is as well. In the Great Depression, government employees were counted as unemployed because it was understood that the productive private sector had to produce enough to cover the cost of government employees! I completely agree with that interpretation.
Economic stats as a whole need to be overhauled and redefined.
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Hear hear!
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I looked into this idea a little bit and unsurprisingly, I’m not the first person to have similar demands. Do you happen to know of a good place to get reliable private sector GDP or else combine a few numbers to get it?
I noticed the FRED has a copy of the GDP report and publishes: Gross Private Domestic Investment (GPDI) | FRED | St. Louis Fed
and:
Government total expenditures (W068RCQ027SBEA) | FRED | St. Louis Fed
Which is kind of interesting to me, because I thought $20T was our GDP number, so if Private is $5.3T, Government is $10.3T, where’s the other ~$4T?
Does our government really outspend private sector by double? That’s incredible.
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Chris, thanks for your balanced response.
I consider myself to be a pragmatic optimist with a big helping of attitude from, “If I see something that needs to be done and find myself wondering whose job it is to do it, if I don’t find an obvious competent owner of said job, well then it means it is my job for now.”
We have many bright minds here.
So, what would it take to encourage, enlighten, shore up, and accelerate Trump and the other non-uniparty memebers to stay the course durring these difficult 2 years of cutting and 4 years plus of rebalancing Gov. workers into more rewarding diciplines?
I am guessing it’ll be the People in the, “Goverment is of the People for the People…”
If I tweek this just a bit, it works here too:
"…that those let go shall not have left in vain– that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth” (U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863) It is one of the best known speeches
Original:
"…that these dead shall not have died in vain– that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth” (U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863) It is one of the best known speeches
William…
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Shadowstats, perhaps?
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Ah! This is the work for 2025 for all of us, myself especially.
We use “X” and all other forms of public discourse and persuasion to build the court of public opinion sufficiently that there’s political air-cover to do the right things.
As we know, doing the right things will be painful, economically and personally for many people, which means they will be unpopular.
Unless…
Unless they are framed in the right way, with a clear vision of why taking some pain now is better for all of us in the future. People will get behind things they understand that have a payoff, even if those things are temporarily unpleasant.
Trump et al will do what they can do from their perches, and we’ll do what we can from our bleacher seats.
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Answering @waudettehotmail-com :
Toward the end of my two stints in government work and my one mil subcontractor, there were moments of clarity each time, that I didn’t have when leaving private sector work.
Accomplishing actual positive change within the existing (dysfunctional) framework takes an inordinate amount of effort. The more you can conform to the current crappy structure, the less friction, and less effort.
(It’s like trying to walk from one side of the concert venue to the other. You can take some time and groove effortlessly around the edges, or charge straight through the mosh pit; choose your own path according to your strengths).
One of the times I left gov, I went straight back to private sector the next weekend. That was a mistake. Making things happen in a business is a different approach. I did better after 4 months off, but will suggest splitting the difference.
Offer a severance package with a string attached- that the gov employee CANNOT seek gainful employment until that equivalent earning time has passed (2-4 months).
Yes, I am advocating free money for former government workers to NOT work. (Maybe it’s welfare/social security benefits. Not caring.)
The objective here is to give these folks time to find their way in the physical world. Let them experience for themselves the outcomes of whatever they choose to do with their time -Doritos or deadlifts -and the time for their minds to readjust to Action:Consequence without the convoluted intermediary of bureaucracy muddling up the feedback.
After they’ve “graduated”, I think they’ll be in a better position to evaluate their skills and abilities, how they can reintegrate to society.
Also think military retirees adjusting to civilian life would have some insight into the challenges we the public and the recovering cogs will face.
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