The American government has averted the crisis of another shutdown (shocker). On Saturday March 23rd. the Senate approved a $1.2 trillion spending package. Naturally, markets usually surge after these events and some commentators expect exaggerated outcomes like inflation will be at 20% come summertime. Now, “all Powell can do is talk and by summertime, inflation will be so horrific he won’t know what to do” they say.
Great. All the more reason for Powell to hold rates higher, if not raise them again before the election.
Huge thanks to Bostic here at the Atlanta Fed making my point. Originally, the market was under the impression the Fed planned on 3 rate cuts this year. Now just 1?? Perfect. This is how they ease into rationalizing a raise if they have to.
"I'm definitely less confident than I was in December" that inflation will continue to fall towards the Fed's 2% target, Bostic told reporters. Price increase concerns led him to scale back this year's rate-cut outlook & push back the likely start date, he added.
Thanks, Chief.
The truth is that Powell can raise and he’s not even considering lowering. His action speaks louder than his words and his words are cover for his actions. Naysayers and market ninnies and corporations who rely on ZIRP to not only profit but exist in the first place can cope harder.
At the risk of creating a straw man, those that argue “Powell is stuck. He can’t raise rates because the economy is already in the gutter. He can’t lower it or inflation will be 30-40%” miss the point entirely. Firstly, people like Danielle DiMartino Booth argue we’re already in the gutter. Perhaps it’s not a recession by technical definitions, but the average Joe is struggling.
However, commentators made the same argument about Powell merely raising rates 1% off of 0, and the economy didn’t go in the gutter. Instead, we had a bloodbath of bad actors like SVB and large swaths of capital being pulled out of ESG investment. Raising rates again will send the right things in the gutter that deserve to be, including preventing the democrats from stealing the election and maybe undoing some of the pork passed in the recent spending bill (one can only hope).
On a technical level, rasing rates has helped the Fed get back to “normal spending” levels despite the trillions they’ve printed since COIVD.
If you look at M2, it goes back to the trend when you raise rates. It seems that a continual trend in raising rates (or at least holding them where they are, which is what Powell decided March 20th. and continual QT) higher for longer would move below this trend despite the recent spending bill. Seems to have been the case since the last imminent government shutdown. Looks like we’re on the right path.
And Powell is undoing that damage by keeping rates high and shrinking the balance sheet every month.
Even if the Fed’s balance sheet isn’t the end-all-be-all Holy Grail of revealing economic recovery, it’s still a critical variable to measure the accomplishments of Powell’s Higher For Longer policy nonetheless in comparison to every other central bank in the world.
Sure, shrinking the Fed's balance sheet has no true material effect on average Americans. It’s more so about balancing out the banking sector. However, a safe banking sector eases the minds of Americans and prevents bank runs. This is precisely why the creation of the FDIC helped save the US and restore the economy during the Great Depression. As we all know, it’s all a confidence game. You can’t say managing perspective and sentiment of the American people with numbers and reassurance DOES NOT matter. As much as we hate it, that’s reality. America is the only country that has the capital, collateral, and credibility to pull that off.
Remember, you don’t have to be good, you just have to be better. Even if it’s all just numbers on a page, people react to numbers…
I’m still under the impression that the End Game, though not here, is certainly on its way. That End Game being a monetary reset of some kind (be it gold, bitcoin, a basket of commodities, what have you). When? Well unfortunately nobody knows, but the time is not yet ripe despite a ticking clock. However, everything Powell has accomplished sets the US up for it. You can’t throw gold out on the yield curve and let its price appreciate without the other steps of raising rates and shrinking the balance sheet. It’s all part of the strategic formula. You can’t do it over night. That’s why it took forever to get off LIBOR and onto SOFR.
Luongo makes the argument that compared to the rest of the world, the US has all the capital they need to weather the storm of a liquidity crisis. Sure, they may re-monetize gold to some extent to offset balance sheets and provide liquidity where needed, but I don’t believe that’s the only option. Powell recapitalized the banks by raising rates as well. Is there not enough money in the system to keep the powerful and responsible actors standing strong?
A counter to this point might be that the big banks were ALREADY strong, and that killing the small banks is a massive problem. those aren't "weak" globalist players they're the main creators of small business credit you kill the American economy fucking them over even more. To this, I say great. Most are probably fine. They got burned, but are still standing and fixed their balance sheets and the ones that died were intentionally taken out by the Fed and had M&A deals done to them rightly so. Again, we don’t know how many used the BTFP program, and not that many may have because the program required them to raise capital and pay back the loan from the Fed at prevailing rates.
That’s how the discount window works…
This is precisely why the BTFP was NOT a “bailout.” Additionally, the Fed’s decision to do away with the said stigma of the discount window will ensure that banks are well capitalized and raise lending and collateral requirements. This will only further safeguard the banking sector.
Taking Candace from a Baby
Candace Owens was “fired” from the Daily Wire due to supposed “antisemitism.” The reason isn’t all that clear, but it’s further pushed the envelope on the public questioning of Zionism, the “JQ”, and its effects on Americans. I’m not gonna tell the whole story from start to finish. You can look up some solid breakdowns of what happened here from Nick Fuentes and the recent podcast appearance from Corey J. Mahler which I’ll include below.
https://rumble.com/v4kxqy0-america-first-ep.-1307.html
https://www.forrestmaready.com/fmshow-006/
It’s still interesting Candace’s contract ended on normally formatted dates that are standard for these types of gigs (so I’ve learned from a lawyer on Twitter, but lawyers are jokingly called liars for a reason, so take that with a grain of salt for now). However, allow me to introduce some nuance to the conversation. I think this was coordinated to some degree where both parties benefited from the drama
This is just bread and circus goy slop.
Has the JQ further entered the zeitgeist? Yes.
Is that a net positive? Yes.
But why has it been allowed?
1. For them to have more excuses to silence dissenters and push the envelope on censorship.
2. They thrive off antisemitism because it lets them play the victim and makes them that much more powerful.
They have the amount of hubris to think they’ll get away with canceling as many dissenters as possible. Just look at the recent bills passed in 35 states. They thrive off of this drama.
Even if you don’t care about the drama (which if anyone is commentating on it publicly, you do), its purpose is being fulfilled. They’ve reached their objective. Even if people disagree with it, it causes division and chaos between classes and cultures both domestic and international.
Some people would prefer chaos because it would call for the transition to happen faster. You might think you do, but you really don’t. You want it done on a sovereigntist’s terms, not a globalist’s. They want civil war because they win in that scenario.
A new faction that simply takes power and negotiates terms with the old regime (like how Putin handled the oligarchs), is what you want, and that’s what we’re getting with the PayPal Mafia/America First/Powell’s Fed & Wall Street regime that’s backing Trump and boosting his DJT stock. He has real fuck you money now because of this faction.
The enemy knows Trump will win and are being forced to make deals now and get what they can during his 2nd term. They best examples that reveal this are:
1) the decision on both sides to let Biden win in 2020 because chaos would ensue from the left if Trump won and we’d get the dreaded “chaos” scenario because the normies of the world needed to be further exposed to how corrupt the government is
2) Simon & Schuster declined to offer Biden a Book deal after his presidency, which is the equivalent to denying someone a gold watch after having climbed to the top of the corporate ladder. Also, Victoria Nuland was essentially fired from her position given the legal language in the resignation letter from Blinken (don’t just go off the pleasantries that were said in media sound bites)
The country is ready for a new regime, but that doesn’t mean the globalist enemies won’t go down with out a fight and leave a poison pill for Trump when he enters office (like a war, which I’m unsure of the likelihood of that happening as of this moment).
Understood correctly, we don't want a civil war or revolution, we want new elites to take charge of the system and change it. However, governments and the systems that operate a nation’s constitution are cyclical and it’s about time we transition back into something that look monarchical. We’re approaching our due date.
Moon Math Priced In?
Lastly, April 20th (haha! 420 🤣) is the Bitcoin Halving. I’m personally starting to wonder how much is this thing priced in. Moreover, how high will Bitcoin’s new all time high even be? Seriously, how much does this thing go up? How far does it go past $100k and why? I’m not trying to be a moon boy maximalist in denial here. I’m being serious. What variables will impact this and why?
I’m wondering if the Halving is already priced in and a nothing burger, but it’s impossible to say. A college of mine (shout out, PD!) argues because e printed 44% of all dollars that exist since Covid, nothing has quite adjusted yet. Humans have not encountered something rarer than gold and 99% of the world don’t own/understand Bitcoin. So people who are saying the Halving is priced in already while the ETFs have only just started & Barry Silbert has supposedly just finished selling his heart’s desire are “retarded.”
On the contrary, I feel like it might already be priced in at a level where institutions wanna keep it at a reasonable buying level, but I guess that’s wrong because it’s assuming they didn’t already buy the dip the last 3 years.
However, companies could not buy BTC until recently thanks to recent changes in accountancy rules. Plus there are more ETFs coming, along with the international kind of ETFs coming online like in Hong Kong. Perhaps we have only just started a bull run as those buying the ETFs will be disclosed in the quarterly reports on come April 2, and any big names (likely) will result in a pump that breeds confidence to others, especially retail.
Now that companies can buy it now, I think institutions like BR & JPM wanna sit on the price under $100k for now, and not let their customers get scared too soon when it hits $100k and not let companies feel the like they missed out. They want them to FOMO in before $100k. Plus, the after effects of the halving I think happen 6 months to a year afterwards, which is funny because it fits the whole (monetary policy happens on a 6/12 month lag 😂). That’s my assumption.
I think it’s very likely the powers that be are already playing games to keep Bitcoin at an equilibrium with gold. I agree with my colleague that if they do cut rates when Trump gets into office, you double the price in a few weeks at best so you go to $200k quickly. However, if they revalue gold, BTC follows too… THAT is what is NOT priced in currently, as most aren’t aware of the revaluation incoming of an entire monetary system. Let’s see if I’m wrong.
Happy Easter, everyone.
Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.
Christ is King! 👑
~ Mr. Pseu
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