Brewing Storm

Inflation has not been beaten. Despite the Fed’s efforts to bring them down, interest rates are going up. Since the rate cutting cycle began in September, long-term interest rates are up about 100 bps

Source: Getty Images

Thursday, January 2^nd, 2025

Bill Bonner, writing today from Baltimore, Maryland

Should old acquaintance be forgot

And never brought to mind?

As we left 2024, we left behind a jolly, wacky year... and many unanswered questions.

Gold rose 27% over the 12 months. That alone endeared the year to us. We raise a glass... and sing a maudlin chorus.

But other things made us glad to see 2024 go.

For months, the Democratic leadership, in collusion with the mainstream press, assured the nation that its president was on the ball. Sharp as a tack. Then, when said Commander in Chief appeared in a TV debate it was clear — even to the investigative journalists! — that they had been lying. His mouth open as he sought to remember his talking points, the president erased all doubt as to his competence. He made Donald Trump seem sane and sensible in comparison.

This should have provoked an important question: If no one was at home in the White House, who was running the country?

But that same team of brave news hounds that managed not to pick up the scent of absenteeism in the Oval Office also managed to not ask the critical question... how does a democratic republic function when its elected chief is AWOL? And why do people bother to vote if it doesn’t make any difference whether their chosen jefe is on the job or not?

That question would have revealed that Joe Biden was never really in charge... and that it’s not the voters who actually decide the direction of public policy, but the elite insiders. So, the press left it alone... which is what it does with all important matters. Instead, it turned to a ‘floating island of garbage’ and other distractions to prove that all Republicans are mean racists... that is, until Joe Biden took up the garbage theme himself, applying it to nearly half the voters.

By this stage in the election cycle, November was approaching hard and fast and Democratic heavyweights had already seen the crash coming... and already taken action to avoid it. For weeks, they had been steadfast in their support of Biden, claiming after the debate that “anyone can have a bad night.” Then, suddenly, they stuck a knife in his back, forcing him to admit that he was washed up.

This was, of course, a great opportunity. Thoughtful voters sat on the edge of their chairs. Instead of two unappealing candidates — one a reckless jerk, the other a pathetic ghost — they might finally have someone they could feel good about voting for. After all, there are some 45 million registered democrats, surely they could find one of them who was smart, and likable... who could champion the party’s goals and consistently support its programs. Instead, the honchos put forth Kamala Harris, a DEI hire who had either no idea what those goals were... or a complete inability to sell them to the public.

The dumbness didn’t stop there. In the following presidential debate — Harris vs. Trump — all the Republican had to do was to explain why his policies would be better than those of Ms. Harris, who had none at all! But Mr. Trump chose instead to focus on Haitians allegedly eating the pets of the people of Springfield, Ohio (where no incident of such pet-o–voria was ever recorded).

Perhaps the strangest, and most pathetic, thing of all was that neither of the two dared to mention the great storms brewing right off the coast. Haitian immigrants might enjoy a stew made with Fluffy the cat... or not. A man might pretend to be a woman and enter the girls’ shower room. And Donald Trump’s “God Bless the USA” bible may encourage the goodwill of the Almighty... or not.

The effect they have on our lives is minimal. But the feds are already paying more in the interest than they do on defense. They owe $36 trillion already and are now borrowing at the rate of $10 billion/day.

This puts America’s fiscal house on the edge of a very loose, sandy beach... with a hurricane approaching. And a real debt crisis, with or without a real war... would send the whole rickety capital structure tumbling into the surf.

Inflation has not been beaten. And despite the Fed’s efforts to bring them down, interest rates are going up. Since the rate cutting cycle began in September, long-term interest rates are up about 100 basis points.

The problem is so obvious that even Donald Trump and his merry band of misfits must see it coming. But they see it as an ‘efficiency’ issue... a cosmetic challenge that can be met with a little nipping and tucking here and there. Musk and Ramaswamy have been appointed to wield the scalpel. And the press, missing the point as usual, will howl and whine at every petty incision.

What a show!

And don’t forget taking back the Panama Canal... buying Greenland... invading Mexico... tariffs... deportations... the Ukraine and the Levant!

Yes, dear reader, 2024 is gone. But at least we have 2025. A plot that defies easy understanding... with a star-studded cast of clowns and grifters. So, pull up a chair.

Regards,

Bill Bonner