Biden/Harris: A Presidency for All Americans

[Commando]

Not dementia!

Thanks, Doc!

[Uncle Ted]

Joe knows how it is to lose an house in a fire…

Embedded Tweet

OMG, he nearly lost his cat and his corvette (not to mention all those documents he likes to stored in the garage next to his corvette) in a small kitchen fire!

[Jeff Lebowski]

Embedded Tweet

[Jeff Lebowski]

Biden has a really dumb habit of trying to relate to people by sharing what he thinks is a similar experience. I get what he is trying to do, but far too often it makes him look clueless and out of touch.

[falafel]

Biden has a really dumb habit of trying to relate to people by sharing what he thinks is a similar experience. I get what he is trying to do, but far too often it makes him look clueless and out of touch.

Probably because he is out of touch. But most of the political class are out of touch with regular people. Some are just better than others at hiding it.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Probably because he is out of touch. But most of the political class are out of touch with regular people. Some are just better than others at hiding it.

I mean, comparing a small kitchen fire (who hasn't had one of those?) with the worst fire in the US for the past century? Unreal.

[Maximus]

it is really dumb. step down joe.

[falafel]

I mean, comparing a small kitchen fire (who hasn't had one of those?) with the worst fire in the US for the past century? Unreal.

Lol, yes It’s a really bad gaffe from a guy who has a history of bad gaffes.

[Clark Addison]

I give him a pass because of the dementia

[falafel]

I give him a pass because of the dementia

He really thought the house was a total loss. The sad thing is, he never actually had a corvette. :sad:

[Jeff Lebowski]

I give him a pass because of the dementia

[Maximus]

image0.jpg?width=735&height=1140.jpg

[Jeff Lebowski]

Biden is going to join the UAW picket line. First time in history a sitting US president has done such a thing in a labor dispute.

What an idiot. This reeks of desperation.

[Applejack]

Biden is going to join the UAW picket line. First time in history a sitting US president has done such a thing in a labor dispute.

What an idiot. This reeks of desperation.

When an entire national election hinges on the way Michigan votes, it makes a lot of sense.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

I'm not sure if any of this is actually making it to the national news, but what's happening in the bond market right now is cause for considerable concern. It's getting absolutely murdered. There's this famous James Carville quote about wanting to be reincarnated as the bond market because then he could finally intimidate everybody. This started last year with the short term bonds, then the 10 year started getting scary last fall. There was that British pension almost-disaster that occurred around that time. The 10 year started to get bid mysteriously around that point -- the speculation is that central banks loosened things up at least temporarily to get past the British pension mess.

The yield curve has been inverted for well over a year and it was severely inverted most of this year until recently. It was inverted everywhere along the curve, back in May the 30 yr vs 1 month was inverted by almost 200 bp, which is totally crazy. The yield curve is not a sign that a recession is happening -- but it almost always portends a recession is coming. When the curve starts returning to normal, i.e. the long bonds first start moving towards parity with the short term bills/bonds and then start claiming higher yields, is when things start hitting the fan. That's what seems to be occurring right now. The 10 yr and 30 yr are both up 60 bp over the last two weeks. We saw something similar last October and into early November.

Along with the speculation regarding the central banks' response to the British pension crisis, one thing we do know is Janet Yellen drained the Treasury General Account significantly earlier this year -- this may have actually started towards the end of last year, I don't remember. But the point is, Yellen delayed the inevitable with this action and probably made things worse. She injected liquidity into the markets/economy right when the Fed was trying to get inflation under control and also suppressed the amount of treasuries being sold which lowered bond rates temporarily. The idiotic stock market went bananas in the Spring and Summer and has since started dropping.

What's interesting are the similarities in the Nasdaq between the dotcom boom and bust along with the Covid easy money boom and [potential] bust. The Nasdaq lost 37% of its value in two and half months in the Spring of 2000. It then proceeded to gain back 60% of that loss over the next three months. In 2022, the Nasdaq lost 36% of its value. Over the first 6 and a half months of this year, it gained back 70% of what it lost from the peak. It has since lost over 30% of the loss it had reclaimed by mid July.

Perhaps it shouldn't be that interesting given the fact that the S&P returns during the six month period between the second October and third April of every presidential term (1st or 2nd), on average, absolutely dwarfs the other 42 months. This is from 1928 through 2022 at least, but it certainly held between October 2022 and April 2023. This is absolutely astounding. Basically, over the past 90+ years it made much more sense to buy bonds during the first two years of any presidential term. This absolutely coincided with Yellen's draining of the TGA and injection of liquidity into the economy. This chart includes 1928 through 2012. It doesn't tell the full story because it breaks it down by years, but look at the graph between around October of year 2 and April/May of year 3, it averages almost a 20% return. It also lacks three different terms, but 2014-2015 (around 20%), 2018-2019(around 11%) and 2022-2023 (around 18%)

saupload_Weakest-part-of-Presidential-Cycle_thumb1.png