Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

Liberation Eve

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There are three looming events this week. The first, happening now, is a trio of special elections which will act as a political referendum on the new administration. The notion that a quarter billion dollars would be spent on a single seat in a small state’s supreme court is astonishing, but that’s the world we live in. The second happens tomorrow, which is when all the tariffs ostensibly kick in. Third, there’s the jobs report on Friday before the opening bell.

In the meanwhile, let’s look at a few charts. The first, EFA, has a clean gap at 82.29. It’s amazing to me that this fund, which represents worldwide equities outside North America, was at its highest point in the history of humankind just days ago. Anyway, I just shorted a big block with a stop at 82.35.

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Bessent’s Shrinking Checkbook

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Here is the symbol FR:WTREGEN, which represents, in simple terms, the checkbook for the United States. It has received some monster injections, from time to time, from their buddies over at the Fed, but it’s on a path, once again, to needing an injection through accounting gimmickry. The word on the street is that the government will once again be completely broke by September unless there’s yet another insane program/bailout from Congress. We are truly a pathetic, and fallen, republic.

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Does Trump Realize What America Is?

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Trump appears to be using a 1970s, or worse, 1930s playbook; and those playbooks did not work even though the US had a large industrial base at those times

Note: I started writing on similar themes to this back in 2004, with FrankenMarket Lives.

Progress

Donald Trump appears to have some sort of fantasy about what America is. I share his pride in this country as it was in the WWII era and maybe beyond, into the 1970s. I am, shall we say mature of age as well. Not nearly Trump’s age, but old enough to remember the inflationary angst of the 1970s and interested enough in economics to know about the post-bubble Great Depression of the 1930s.

I write now as a former manufacturing person. As the threat of Japan’s industrial rise grew steadily in the 1980s, we had to abandon the old ways of doing things, like men cranking handles in a profession (precision machining) that was more craft than labor. In short, in this new globally competitive reality it was “automate or die”. We automated. That was progress. America’s industrial base, following the likes of Japan, progressed even as its gross industrial base contracted under global pressure and yes, the productivity of automation.

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The Best and the Brightest

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When I was a lad, I honestly assumed that the top leadership in government must be comprised of the most intelligent, accomplished, well-spoken, and wise men in our nation. Now, as a not-lad, I realize that they’re basically a bunch of 7th graders. It’s sickening we are forced to pay taxes for this clown show, but the threat of prison always looms for those who don’t submit to the extortion.

Thanks, Gavin!

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Here is a map showing the change in state income taxes over the past quarter century. A handful of states have 0% income tax, which I find enviable. Here in California, we pay up to 13.3% (!!!!!) tax, and keep in mind, that is NOT TAX DEDUCTIBLE thanks to the blue-state-hating tax act of 2017. We pay high taxes, yes, but at least we get a high speed rail project that’ll never see the light of day.