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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.
You mean he has his own private supply of poop that is involuntarily tapped into at any random moment?
Oh, in the end, when the hoovervill goes marching- they do..
More like the people drinking the water are being told about the eventual pooping, ask for it anyway, then drink with a scowl.
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.
Imported goods which have been made more expensive by tariffs?
This is just wrong.
The overwhelming amount of expenses is for domestic products; lumber, food, services, rent, etc. Cheaper foreign shit isn't going to be meaningfully felt by the majority.
The part where the rich come in, is that the rich will disproportionally feel the upside of selling the fuel. The people on below average wage are just going to see prices rise and meager savings dilute, long before their wages grow.
Thats not to say the US isn't going to be well of as history's largest energy producer ever, but the reshuffling is going to be extremely painful for a majority of Americans.
I mean, it's rather absurd to claim that "a net exporter country loses out because of increase in price of the commodity in question".
All of that depends on the strength of the Dollar, If the US is to deindustrialise as it aims too it needs a weak dollar. Secondly theres the Petro-dollar which depends on the Middle East states Reinvesting their profits in the US to keep the dollar strong I don't know if you checked but I don't think they are going to be making any money in the near term. So looks like the dollar will be falling anyway. Further to that there is the global debt system which largely relies on buying US treasuries if countries get squeezed by the coming inflation, theres the chance these get dumped on the market and if that happens I believe the term is "Well, Fuck."
Typo for "reindustrialize"? Is the idea to move people from well paying comfortable services jobs to uncomfortable repetitive lower paid factory work by forcibly lowering their standard of living?
De-industrialize, which should not be a new surprising word, as the appalachian factory belt (now mostly rusted out buildings) has existed for decades.
I'm trying to imagine your painted scenario in a positive light ie; "everyone has well paying comfortable service jobs."
Do you feel that the rest of the world will just allow itself to become the "butler" of the US, so we can all make $50 usd an hour doing easy jobs? Of course not. As the dollar weakens, and imports rise, we only get skewered more, while our "comfortable service jobs" become worthless.
No, because the US are the slowest to electrify their grid and transportation.
Can you prove any of that? Most stuff I see online are people complaining how they can't afford anything anymore.
We can’t afford healthcare because they revoked the subsidies but at least we now also can’t afford gasoline too!
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.
Haven't you heard that thanks to Trump and the Republicans, the start-stop engines are now banned and gas stoves are back? Have you heard the cries of joy every time this has been mentioned in Republican rallies?
But we can easily affort 500+ million per day for faraway foreign wars! That, no problem.
Also apparently a $5000 “dividend” for everyone if we just “do the right thing”. I thought you had to be profitable to pay a dividend, but apparently not. Oh also, that $1.5T will magically not add to the debt or come from tax dollars.
Isn't that the textbook definition of buying votes?
Yeah. And? :)
Apparently not.
https://www.readtangle.com/trump-dividend-midterm-promise/
This is an asinine decision that essentially makes vote buying totally legal. We see this trick with the recent Supreme Court decisions that essentially make racial gerrymandering legal again by just making the crime impossible to prove by accepting any other justification at face value.
I mean, if you really believe that, then no politician would ever be able say something like "I'll work to get you free health care".
They did not revoke "the subsidies." The ACA subsidies are still in place. What was allowed to expire was the temporarily increased COVID subsidy levels, which were sold as a temporary emergency expansion. If they had originally passed a genuine and permanent ACA expansion, rather than an expiring one, there's likely nothing that could have been done to "revoke" it by those currently in power.
Maybe you mean this, but it's important to be clear about the distinctions we don't mislead people, and then someone tells them the whole truth, and then they wonder what else we were wrong about.
Well if that consoles you, the US government has just approved gifting mega-bombs to Israel for another $2.8 billion. Several news call it a "sale" but it's actually a gift since most of the money comes from the US government anyway.
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.
It was blatantly obvious Iran would do that if attacked. This has been known for decades.
The only thing previously stopping them holding the strait "hostage" was the threat from the US of doing an "Operation Praying Mantis v2" and destroying their navy and attacking them.
And when the US did that anyway, they had nothing to lose.
And Iran attacked. Relentlessly every day up to that war. It does not get into western news much. But in Lebanon. In Yemen. In iraq. In ghaza. There proxies marched and attacked. The west is to weak, to wait for another pearl harbour.
The damage Iran did to the various US bases around the gulf is now visible to everyone, I just saw the images on CBS.
I am no fan of Iran but the white people in question literally went there to wage war with the so called has-been-empire and got their butts spanked, despite EVERYBODY warning them for years this would have been an unwinnable war
It does make one wonder how many nations off China's coast are taking notes on how to asymmetrically shut down waterways even against a giant modernish navy. Or Singapore and neighbors... If the world cops can't guarantee safe trade anymore things are going to get strange, and not in a good way.
Took me a while to understand that you were not referring to the US here.
"Oh no, my drinking water tastes like ~~crap~~arsenic after I ~~pooped in the well~~deregulated business interests"
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.
well thats one way to get out of having to pay back your loans :-|
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.
Sanctions against Iran play an important and justified geopolitical role. Iran has been a complete menace to the Middle East by propping their proxies and de-facto taking over at least 5 different countries and serving as one of the supporting pillars for Russia in its war. We have not seen the last of this war, too early to call the results. Trump is not backing down and we may see a Venezuela like situation at the end which would have massive geopolitical implications (of course there are other much less favorable outcomes too).
I think your phone autocorrected Israel to say Iran. Also you provided no evidence for your claim, you just kept repeating the claim over and over instead of backing it up.
Iran is the source for the Islamic justification for suicide bombing (suicide is forbidden in the Quran and thus 'innovation' was needed to justify it). That alone puts immense amounts of blood on their hands. They invented this justification for their own religious and geopolitical aims (getting the US out of the ME). They are interventionists who want to be the spiritual centre of Islam, they are the opposite of passive actors in their region.
The bigger question is whether the other Gulf states (that we ally with or support) are any better and whether or not they deserve sanctions too. The West is clearly not in a place within the ME to preach morals, but that doesn't mean countries like Iran don't deserve sanctions.
Pure lie. The inspiration for suicide bombings comes from the Israeli and their fascination for Samson, and the Irgun praised suicide attacks for decades after their dissolution. The "Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners" was an Israeli proxy in Lebanon who started suicide bombings before the Hezbollah. It was quickly adopted by all sides - including secular nationalists - in the Lebanese civil war because it worked. Sunni and secular nationalists don't listen to Shia scholars.
They are an oppressed minority in all of Islam, the majority Sunni have always wanted to exterminate all of them. Iran is the only Shia country, their only safe refuge, similar is Israel for the Jews. You tell disgusting lies. If anything, it is the Saudi - the very good friends of the USA - who are the expansionists and interventionists.
The market controls the yield curve, at least if the Fed doesn't choose to create hyperinflation.
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.
There is one obvious choice here, the policy is inflation and always has been.
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.
From the adminstration
Fed independance is about tempering that policy so UST still has buyers.
Fed policy is explicitly controlled inflation (2% target).
2% inflation isn't going to inflate away the debt any time soon. It's basically as close to zero as can be realized without going under.
Not really, inflating it away is the only possible choice.
Can’t inflate it away for the same reason we can’t stop climate change. We would have to stop the behavior that caused the problem in the first place, and we all know that’s not going to happen. Remember during Clinton’s presidency the government ran a surplus and started paying down the debt, and there were news articles worrying about the future disappearance of treasury bonds? The party of “fiscal responsibility” took care of that problem in no time at all.
Or just fail for 4 years like every Republican administration since the 80s and wait for a Democrat to fix the economy...
You're missing choice #3 - spend more money on stupid shit, cut taxes some more, pile on more debt, blame Obama Hussein Hunter Biden for the debt as the opening salvo of the third-term run in 2028.
You give the people in charge too much credit regarding any long term thinking or goals in general.
Or thinking
They definately think.
The thinking process is just line their pockets with as much as possible before they lose their position to someone else.
Once you understand that everything is rational. If not desirable.
The goal is to win the next election but I think the populace is to blame for this more than anything.
The populace is who is too interested in winning politics as a sport that the politicians have really no choice other than to focus entirely on winning the next election.
If the voters treat politics as a constant form of sports entertainment, constantly checking the latest news and events, then voters are actually the fundamental problem as to why the politicians can not do anything in terms of long term planning.
I always hear this accusation of people treating politics like sports, but what do you want? It's a FPTP system, which favors entrenching two parties. In order to maintain the backing (funding, importantly) of one of those two parties, candidates can't fall too far out of line. If you can't get your outsider preferred candidate above 50%, considering there is also likely another main-party candidate with significant policy overlap, you get nothing.
If you want to reduce the spectacle, replace FPTP with a better system that eliminates the need for primaries, and get rid of Citizens United. Good luck.
Not that I'm a fan of this administration, but inflating away remaining our only option is not related to Trump. It was the only choice for the past administrations since at least the subprime crisis; probably even since the Iraq war. My 2c.
Or you could, you know, raise taxes. There’s policy solutions to these problems they just happen to be painful in a way that is easier to point to.
You could also reduce spending on military. The U.S. accounts for 42% of the global military budget. Virtually every empire in history has fallen due to overspending on an excessively large military.
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 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.
Are any cost drops being passed on as lower prices?
Americans across the political spectrum will call you a communist for this, as they do whenever rent controls are brought in.
What you suggesting goes against the foundational and existential code of the United States of America.
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.
Some care enough to pay $100K to get them before everyone else.
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.
He didn't, oddly enough. He said he "disagreed with it" but had confidence in the central bank. Basically that he had no problem with it. This suggests to me he thinks he'll benefit from it somehow.
He did say he would be an awesome Fed Chair, can he appoint himself?
Don't lie.
Interest Rates in the United States should be 1%, or less, because we are the Best Credit in the World — BY FAR. Our Country is BOOMING with new Investment! If we stopped Trading with every country that we have a Deficit with, which is most of them, we would make, at least, 1.5 Trillion Dollars a year. The word “Deficit” is nothing more than a fancy word for LOSS. We are “carrying” almost every country in the World, and that cannot go on any longer. LOWER THE INTEREST RATES FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FAST! President DONALD J. TRUMP
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1172826433186...
He is demanding 1% rates and to cut off all foreign trade because that'll somehow make $1.5T.
Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49731356
And the dot plots suggest no rate decreases until 2028.
No rate decreases until a “real” recession, but yes, early 28 sounds about right.
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.
But if you bring everyone down with you, You don't have to pay anything to anyone.
It's not like Donald Trump didn't use this exact strategy already when he had to get out of debt from his private ventures.
So Trump spent weeks on a fake fraud investigation into Powell to try and force him out because he would not cut the rate, fails at that, then finally gets his choice in place and the dude raises rates almost immediately?
The rate decision is based on the FOMC votes, not the FED chair. The FOMC decides the policy, the FED implements the policy
This wont do absolutely nothing whatsoever to bring down inflation. Interest rates don't open the Straight of Hormuz, don't increase production of oil or any other commodities. the only way interest rates affect anything is when they meaningfully decrease investment, consumption, in other words a recession or depression.