Wednesday, September 14, 2022

MARKETS Sept 14, 2022

 

MARKETS

Nasdaq

11,633.57

S&P

3,932.69

Dow

31,104.97

10-Year

3.418%

Bitcoin

$20,315.39

Meta

$153.13

*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 10:00pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean.

  • Markets: Stocks crumbled like a Nutri-Grain bar following a hotter-than-expected inflation report, because it all but confirms a massive interest rate hike by the Fed next week. As is typical when investors get spooked by looming rate hikes, tech got whacked the hardest: Every single stock in the Nasdaq 100 fell yesterday—the first time that’s happened since March 2020.

Inflation will not go gentle into that good night

Breaking Bad GIF of Walter White saying Breaking Bad/AMC via Giphy

The August inflation report was more disappointing than NFL kickers on Sunday, teeing up another gigantic interest rate hike from the Fed next week.

Consumer prices in August increased 0.1% from the previous month and 8.3% compared to a year ago—more than anticipated. Economists had expected inflation to continue its downward trend from July, when prices didn’t increase at all, but apparently we can’t have nice things.

So what happened?

The popular theory was that plummeting fuel prices would push costs down across the economy. And gas prices have plummeted—they fell 10.6% in August, and as of Tuesday they’ve dropped for 91 consecutive days. Some of you may have even glimpsed a $2 figure when filling up.

But the deflationary fumes wafting from gas stations have not spread to other sectors. Core CPI, which removes volatile food and gas prices, jumped 0.6% last month, driven by price increases in rents, new cars, medical care, and other areas. Food prices also spiked in August.

The Fed is on deck

August’s hot inflation data bolsters the central bank’s plan to hike rates by 0.75 percentage point at its meeting next week. While that may seem like a tiny number, it will spur a considerable increase in borrowing costs for individuals and businesses. (Remember, the European Central Bank had never hiked rates by 0.75% until it did last week.)

But Fed Chair Jerome Powell, whose job description is to get inflation to 2%, sees no other option than to continue jacking up three-pointers. In his much-hyped Jackson Hole speech last month, Powell said that even though sustained interest rate increases will bring “some pain” to Americans, letting inflation rip for longer would be even worse. Due to inflation’s stubbornness, the chances of Powell bringing the pain likely increased yesterday.—NF

Friday, September 9, 2022

The Border Comes to Sanctuary Cities

 PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

Shot:

Ward 1 is the most diverse ward in DC with the largest immigrant population. I support all of our residents. My priority is keeping our residents safe and making sure they know their rights when ICE comes. Learn more about my work to protect and serve our immigrant residents here.

The District is a sanctuary city, which means our law enforcement does not cooperate with ICE. The Metropolitan Police Department’s policy is that it will not enforce civil immigration laws, which only create a strong divide between the police and community members. MPD officers are also prohibited from asking about residency and immigration status.

“Statement on Recent ICE Actions in Ward 1,” Office of DC Councilmember Brianne K. Nadeau, June 25th, 2019.


Chaser:

“The governors of Texas and Arizona have created this crisis,” Nadeau claimed. She said that they weren’t getting any help from the federal government. She said that they’d “learned from border towns.” “In many ways, the governors of Texas and Arizona have turned us into a border town.”

First, no, the governors of Texas and Arizona didn’t “create” this crisis — Joe Biden did by his horrible border policies that are just allowing people to flood across the border. Texas and Arizona are just trying to make Democrats finally acknowledge it is a crisis. Now, people like Nadeau are doing exactly that when they only get several thousand people in their city, as opposed to the hundreds of thousands that have flooded small border towns that don’t even begin tdso have the capacity or facilities that D.C. does. If that is a “public emergency” for D.C. what is it for the border towns? She’s acknowledging by her very comment how bad it is in border towns and she’s upset that it’s happening to D.C. Why weren’t they upset when it was happening to the border towns? Because it didn’t impact them. Meanwhile, Joe Biden and his team aren’t helping them, just like he hasn’t helped the border towns. Just to be clear, D.C. isn’t even approaching anywhere near how bad it’s been for border towns.

“D.C. City Council Member Delivers Hilarious Take on ‘Emergency’ in D.C. From Busing Illegal Aliens,” Nick Arama, Red State, today.

Earlier: Sanctuary Cities Seethe as Illegal Immigrants Actually Arrive.

The surest sign that public policies are simply virtue signals is when the messages don’t cost anything. The easiest way to tell when that signal starts to fail is to watch politicians flounder as the costs start to rise and voters demand relief.

It was free—and meaningless—for progressive churches to post banners calling themselves “nuclear free zones” during the Reagan era. Their dwindling congregations loved it. It was free, after George Floyd‘s murder, to post woke catechism signs on your front lawn, proclaiming “In this house, we believe: Black Lives Matter, women’s rights are human rights, no human is illegal” and so on. Maybe the neighbors gave you high-fives. And for years it has been free for deep-blue cities to proclaim themselves “sanctuaries” for illegal immigrants. That’s changing now that voters want some sanctuary for themselves.

Changes like this happen when voters realize the old virtue signals actually entail serious costs—and that they will have to pay them. That is exactly what’s happening in New York City and Washington D.C. now that Texas governor Greg Abbott is sending those cities a few busloads of illegal immigrants from his state.

These progressive bastions were silent when the Biden administration flew planeloads of illegal immigrants to suburban airports in the middle of the night. TV coverage was prohibited, and the arrivals were secretly dispersed. Abbott’s buses, by contrast, arrive downtown greeted by local TV crews. Now you can hear the politicians screech.

Related: Democrats Discover Only The Federal Government Can Solve The Border Crisis.

UPDATE: Democrat mayors prepare to be next targets on Governor Abbott’s sanctuary city list.

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Thursday, September 8, 2022

Republican Target Points for 2022 Campaigns

 PJ MEDIA VIP ROUNDUP: Don’t forget that VODKAPUNDIT promo code if you’ve been thinking of 

joining us.

Matt Margolis: Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Scheme is a Winning Issue for Republicans. Here’s Why. “No other issue this cycle has enraged middle and working class voters more than this.”

Stacey Lennox: It’s Time for Republicans to Give Democrats a Taste of Their Own Medicine. “To help our feckless Congressional Republicans, here are some obvious strategic moves.”

Yours Truly: Trans Madness: Start With Grooming Children for Stripping, End With Surgically Mutilated Teens. “Thanks — if that’s the right word — to City Journal’s Christopher Rufo, I learned this week that the city government of Boise, Idaho is ‘hosting a festival featuring child drag queens as young as 11 years old.’ The events are sponsored by Citibank, Hewlett-Packard, Target, and Wells Fargo.”

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MARKETS: YEAR-TO-DATE Sept 5, 2022

 

MARKETS: YEAR-TO-DATE

Nasdaq

11,630.86

S&P

3,924.26

Dow

31,318.44

10-Year

3.199%

Bitcoin

$19,746.47

Oil

$89.20

*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 8:00pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean.

  • Markets: US stock markets were closed yesterday so investors could spend an extra day at their beach houses, but OPEC still managed to keep energy traders glued to their phones. The oil producing alliance and its partners (a group known as OPEC+) made the surprise decision to cut production targets by about 100,000 barrels per day come October. They aren’t happy that crude prices have been dropping, but consumers might be, since US gas prices may soon fall below $3, analysts say.

Sunday, September 4, 2022

Demagogue Biden's MAGA Speech

 ED MORRISSEY:

 Biden’s soulless screed a smokescreen for what really ails the nation.

Last night, the same president who almost exactly a year ago disgracefully abandoned 14,000 Americans and tens of thousands of our allies to the Taliban decided to lecture the US on “the continued battle for the soul of the nation.”

Let that sink in for a moment or two.

In that speech, Joe Biden tried to take the high ground for democracy against authoritarianism — just a week or so after eviscerating the constitutional check on the presidency by claiming the executive branch has the authority to print and appropriate between $600 billion and one trillion dollars to transfer debt from Biden’s base voters to the rest of the taxpayers.

Let that one sink in for another moment or two. Especially after Biden described “the work of my presidency” as returning the US to the founding documents of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

Joe Biden isn’t the solution for what ails the American soul. He’s not even really the main disease of what ails the American soul. Joe Biden is a demagogue who floated to the top of a morass that has been building for decades, and who only sees the problem to the extent that it benefits or harms Biden’s interests.

Read the whole thing, which is now un-paywalled from the Townhall VIP program.

Related: 

Infographic: “American Unity,” a Speech by Joe Biden.

Friday, September 2, 2022

National Address 09/01/22 Biden the Tyrant / Demagogue

 JIM TREACHER: 

Biden Wants to Unite Half the Country Against the Other Half.

Why is this Alzheimer’s patient yelling? It’s like America is a lawn and he wants you off it.

If the Republicans don’t use footage of this crazy old man screaming in front of a blood-red hellscape, they deserve to lose.

I mean, just look at this:

* * * * * * * *

I’m not a big MAGA fan, but this stuff is just nuts. Biden’s polls are tanking, his administration is panicking, and now he looks and sounds like a tyrant in a bad movie. He says he wants to unify the country by destroying anybody who disagrees with him. He wants to stifle dissent to quash “fascism.” It’s at least as crazy as anything Trump has ever said.

It’s time to start seriously talking about impeachment.

Oh, that’s coming: The Democrats damned Biden by impeaching Trump.

Today, Biden is walking back his rhetoric from last night:

Assuming he hasn’t simply forgotten what he said last night, that’s a curious retraction. The president had a career defining visual last night, on par with Gerald Ford stumbling, Clinton posing next to Monica Lewinsky, Obama in Muslim togs, or an out of touch Richard Nixon walking on the beach in bluchers. Why is he backpedaling now? Why did he give the speech in the first place?

B