Our tale begins at the Garrod Farms Estate, a small winery well south of San Francisco.
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.
The Idiotic Premise
Here is my understanding of what Trump’s administration thinks about the Fed, the Economy, and the Market:
- Jerome Powell is incompetent;
- The U.S. economy is like a huge pile of oily rags that is just needing something to light it in order to really catch fire, and that “something” is lower interest rates;
- Powell should be lowering rates massively, but he’s refusing to do so for political reasons;
- Once Trump installs one of his sycophantic cronies to head the Fed, the slashing of rates can begin;
- At which time the economy will be fabulous and the stock market will rush into the stratosphere since, you know, it’s like totally cheap and massively undervalued right now.
Every single one of these things is dead wrong, yet people are too stupid or too politically loyal to dare think or say so. Probably stupid, for the most part. In any case, time will prove this entire thesis to be fantastically incorrect, and I will endlessly refer back to this very post.
(more…)Good Friday
It’s an exciting pre-dawn, since yesterday was a fantastic day and today has all the markings of another one. Ever since Bessent pranced onto the stage and giggled about the China/U.S. trade deal (red oval below), which led to the market’s last orgiastic spurt higher, equities have been puking all over their lapels. It’s a delightful change. Duke agrees!
Is There a Dr. in the House?
One Nuclear Bomb Can Ruin Your Whole Day
Like many of you, I grew up during the Cold War. For my entire childhood, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. were the bitterest enemies, and there was always a lurking fear that someone would press “the button” (wherever it was) and bring all life on Earth to an end. It didn’t make for a great atmosphere, although in retrospect it at least helped most politicians in our own country more-or-less get along with each other. Few things unite a people more than a common enemy.
