Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted
On 7/21/2025 at 5:32 PM, tbone_ said:

But they tend to think long rates stay high due to the deficit and tariff based inflation that is coming.

The other issue is a lack of credibility. Long term rates are a function of the sense that the American banking system is independent and neutral to politics. 
 

19 hours ago, Thetexashammer said:

I am not as sold as I was on "Fed Independence".

Firstly, why should we have rogue agencies? It seems like a failed model of governance

This is political horseshit. While the Fed has always been political, it has also always been independent. That’s not a “Rogue agency” that’s an independent central bank operating in a free market.

19 hours ago, Thetexashammer said:

Second, the bigger picture is that the Fed has failed in every way, why would I even care if they are independent? 

Well, it managed to keep a fiat currency operating as the world’s value reserve for 50 years, allowing people like you and I to enjoy tax cuts and fairly stable prices over a long period by exporting debt to other countries and getting imported tangible goods in return, so it seems pretty successful to me.

If that looks like failure to you, I’m curious what you think a successful central bank looks like. 

I’m old enough to remember when I was on Hornfans shouting from the rooftops about position of the dollar and the the exploding debt while you were caping for the 2003 Tax cuts and increased structural deficits as far as the eye could see, not to mention the Iraq war. 

If you really want to do this take it to the Cloak Room. And bring your shine box. 

  • Hook 'Em 4
  • Like 1
  • Haha 1
Posted

What kind of dollar loss would qualify the fed as a rogue agency? Would $1 trillion do it? Is that enough to be "rogue"? Obviously I would say yes.

24 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

The other issue is a lack of credibility. Long term rates are a function of the sense that the American banking system is independent and neutral to politics. 
 

This is political horseshit. While the Fed has always been political, it has also always been independent. That’s not a “Rogue agency” that’s an independent central bank operating in a free market.

Well, it managed to keep a fiat currency operating as the world’s value reserve for 50 years, allowing people like you and I to enjoy tax cuts and fairly stable prices over a long period by exporting debt to other countries and getting imported tangible goods in return, so it seems pretty successful to me.

If that looks like failure to you, I’m curious what you think a successful central bank looks like. 

I’m old enough to remember when I was on Hornfans shouting from the rooftops about position of the dollar and the the exploding debt while you were caping for the 2003 Tax cuts and increased structural deficits as far as the eye could see, not to mention the Iraq war. 

If you really want to do this take it to the Cloak Room. And bring your shine box. 

I wasn't on Hornfans, friendo.

Posted (edited)
5 minutes ago, Thetexashammer said:

I wasn't on Hornfans, friendo.

You’re not The Texas Hammer from Hornfans? Cheerfully withdrawn, in that case. 
What does a successful central bank look like to you?

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
Posted
9 minutes ago, Thetexashammer said:

What kind of dollar loss would qualify the fed as a rogue agency? Would $1 trillion do it? Is that enough to be "rogue"? Obviously I would say yes.

Obviously not, no, because I understand what it is. And to be clear I’m not saying that the recording of unrealized loss as a deferred asset is good but I understood what led to it, and what it means in terms of monetary policy. you don’t seem to understand what the loss is that you are talk about. You’re acting like the “loss” was the result of mismanagement or malfeasance.

Posted (edited)
18 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

You’re not The Texas Hammer from Hornfans? Cheerfully withdrawn, in that case. 
What does a successful central bank look like to you?

I was on Shaggy, not Hornfans.

No central bank. 

11 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Obviously not, no, because I understand what it is. And to be clear I’m not saying that the recording of unrealized loss as a deferred asset is good but I understood what led to it, and what it means in terms of monetary policy. you don’t seem to understand what the loss is that you are talk about. You’re acting like the “loss” was the result of mismanagement or malfeasance.

Yes, what led to it was the transfer of your money and mine to wealthy bankers because we wouldn't want them to be made uncomfrotable.

Holy shit did you just call it a deferred asset? I was a CPA, I get double entry bookkeeping, but you just indict yourself as one of the fraudsters when you do that. 

Edited by Thetexashammer
  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted (edited)
42 minutes ago, Thetexashammer said:

I was on Shaggy, not Hornfans.

No central bank. 

Yes, what led to it was the transfer of your money and mine to wealthy bankers because we wouldn't want them to be made uncomfrotable.

Holy shit did you just call it a deferred asset? I was a CPA, I get double entry bookkeeping, but you just indict yourself as one of the fraudsters when you do that. 

I generally dislike the fed but fear ANY president controlling it rather than a team of economists will only make it worse.

I missed the $1T transfer that prompted this debate but I appreciate the back and forth. Can you expand?

Edited by B00M
  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
3 hours ago, Thetexashammer said:

No central bank. 

But as it happens, in this moment in history, the global economy revolves around monetary policy set by central banks, and the United States Federal Reserve is the most successful central bank in history.  The fact that you believe a counterfactual alternative reality without central banking would be better doesn’t make it less so. 
 

3 hours ago, Thetexashammer said:

Yes, what led to it was the transfer of your money and mine to wealthy bankers because we wouldn't want them to be made uncomfrotable.

No. It was the transfer of tangible goods from overseas and the value of future productivity TO you and me, in exchange for exported and punted debt. And that’s a problem, but we we’re the beneficiaries. 
Again, plenty of room for criticism here but your understanding of victimhood is backwards. 

3 hours ago, Thetexashammer said:

Holy shit did you just call it a deferred asset?

I didn’t- the fed recorded it that way. Try to keep up.

 

  • Like 1
Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, B00M said:

I generally dislike the fed but fear ANY president controlling it rather than a team of economists will only make it worse.

I missed the $1T transfer that prompted this debate but I appreciate the back and forth. Can you expand?

Lyn Alden has a good explanation. Bottom line, you will read that it is an "unrealized loss" and this is true but irrelevant. It is a real economic loss of a trillion dollars.

The reason I am not impressed with "political independence" is that we are going into an inflation death spiral. And the fed has already caused inflation with QE and balance sheet expansion. They don't even include money supply in their Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium model. I don't think presidents should have a money printer, but I don't think anyone should have a money printer. And the idol worship around the fed, and their general lack of understanding of the economy, it's a farce. The fed doesn't set rates, the market does.

That said I am tactically long bonds. Rates are mostly based on inflation and growth expectations. Both are currently falling. 

Edited by Thetexashammer
Posted (edited)
3 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

I didn’t- the fed recorded it that way. Try to keep up.

 

So you think it's an asset. What is the nature of this asset? Bonds, stocks? What is it?

The money is gone. To engage in fake accounting to pretend you didn't lose a trillion dollars is to commit fraud. It's that simple. There is no "asset" there. The proper accounting is the write down your assets, not pretend you still have the money. Nobody disputes it is a true economic loss.

Edited by Thetexashammer
Posted
3 hours ago, B00M said:

I generally dislike the fed but fear ANY president controlling it rather than a team of economists will only make it worse.

I missed the $1T transfer that prompted this debate but I appreciate the back and forth. Can you expand?

Here’s the short version: during the pandemic the Fed purchased a shitload of low- rate treasuries and MBS to stimulate the economy. 
When the economy recovered there was an inflation spike and rates were raised, which means those assets on the aged balance sheet were marked down, and the value of that markdown was about $1T, recorded as a deferred asset.
What that represents is the book value of the securities the Fed owns vs the current market price.

Posted (edited)
10 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Here’s the short version: during the pandemic the Fed purchased a shitload of low- rate treasuries and MBS to stimulate the economy. 
When the economy recovered there was an inflation spike and rates were raised, which means those assets on the aged balance sheet were marked down, and the value of that markdown was about $1T, recorded as a deferred asset.
What that represents is the book value of the securities the Fed owns vs the current market price.

And in exchange, we received the gift of almost 50% inflation. I think you buried the lede.

The growth in money supply around 2020-2022 posted above was caused by the Fed. The same fed that ignores money supply as a causative factor in inflation. The retardation in that $2.5 billion building is astronomical.

The Fed is "independent" but this will do nothing to stop the impending death spiral/money printing. In actual fact they are accelerating it.

Edited by Thetexashammer
Posted
13 minutes ago, Thetexashammer said:

So you think it's an asset. What is the nature of this asset? Bonds, stocks? What is it?

Maturing treasuries and MBS. 
 

 

14 minutes ago, Thetexashammer said:

The money is gone. To engage in fake accounting to pretend you didn't lose a trillion dollars is to commit fraud. It's that simple. There is no "asset" there. The proper accounting is the write down your assets, not pretend you still have the money. Nobody disputes it is a true economic loss.

See my post above re assets. Who are you arguing with? Again I get that you don’t like having a central bank, but you do, and they manage the supply of a fiat currency. They inject liquidity into the economy and then take it out. 

Posted
Just now, Bozo_Casanova said:

Maturing treasuries and MBS. 

If I am a company, and I declare that I own $2 trillion of securities, but I actually own $1 trillion, I will get put in jail. That is fraud. Hell, why not claim $100 trillion in assets. You seem to think accounting can be done without reference to economic substance.

You are embarrassing yourself.

Posted (edited)
28 minutes ago, Thetexashammer said:

The reason I am not impressed with "political independence" is that we are going into an inflation death spiral.

Im not sure that’s true. We are certainly in a big debt cycle, but a bunch of deflationary signs are beginning to appear that could be significant. And as long as the dollar is the world’s reserve currency we will have less inflation than the rest of the world, just like we did in the transitory spike period. 
in other words, we have real problems on the horizon. Inflation could be the least of them. 

 

28 minutes ago, Thetexashammer said:

The fed doesn't set rates, the market does.

We certainly agree on that at least, but the issue here is that the Fed knows that. The political actors who want to control the Fed don’t. 

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
Posted
1 minute ago, Thetexashammer said:

If I am a company, and I declare that I own $2 trillion of securities, but I actually own $1 trillion, I will get put in jail. That is fraud. Hell, why not claim $100 trillion in assets. You seem to think accounting can be done without reference to economic substance.

Your hypothetical company is not the Fed. 

  • Like 1
Posted (edited)
On 7/23/2025 at 9:40 PM, Thetexashammer said:

In lieu of your TDS, you might try and understand the system and how it works. The money printing is driven by government borrowing and spending. the nearly 50% inflation we just experienced under Biden doesn't leave me feeling comfortable that if a Democrat is in charge we can trust them to guarantee stable prices. Which party do you trust to guarantee stable prices? Also, please show your work where this "independence" didn't decrease the value of the dollar by 99% over the last 100 years.

I don't care about parties.  There needs to be some form of buffer between monetary policy and pure politics.  That applies in a general case.

Trump is a spastic shitmonkey that will do anything that is politically expedient.  So it applies about x100 with him in office.

Also, 50% inflation under Biden?  GTFO with that.  You need to unplug from your toxic media.

Edited by TwiceHorn
  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted
30 minutes ago, Thetexashammer said:

And in exchange, we received the gift of almost 50% inflation. I think you buried the lede.

What?  It's as if you don't understand the whole "transaction".  Yes, it was paid with inflation.

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
27 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Im not sure that’s true. We are certainly in a big debt cycle, but a bunch of deflationary signs are beginning to appear that could be significant. And as long as the dollar is the world’s reserve currency we will have less inflation than the rest of the world, just like we did in the transitory spike period. 
in other words, we have real problems on the horizon. Inflation could be the least of them. 

As stated, I am VERY long bonds at the moment. I am expecting turbulence in August/September.

The only thing holding up the index of leading indicators is the S&P500, the index is already mildly in recession territory. When the index drops, investors (fingers crossed) will start to feel the economic decline. It's been very gradual, but also very real. Chipotle just reported that customers are holding back. Home builders are down, home prices are down, retail spending nominally flat. Airlines in recession. This is not what prosperity looks like. Ergo, limited price increases.

Rates are coming down, and it's due to lower growth and lower inflation.

 

Posted

Lower growth rate expectations and lower inflation expectations are the only reason long rates will come down. Meaning, people have to want bonds again. It’s always supply and demand. Right now there is more supply than demand.

You never really hear about the fed unloading the bonds from QE in the news, but doesn’t that have to have an effect on supply?

I never fully understand why so many focus on the fed rate policy. Personally, I think the fed serves a very useful purpose. But they don’t set long rates. Look at last September as an example. 50bp cut, 10 year goes up 100bp.

Posted
8 hours ago, Thetexashammer said:

home prices are down, 

Literally yesterday:

Quote

The median price of a home sold in June was $435,300, up 2% year over year and another record high for the month of June. That is the 24th consecutive month of annual increases.

Housing data

  • Like 1
Posted
9 hours ago, Thetexashammer said:

Lyn Alden has a good explanation. Bottom line, you will read that it is an "unrealized loss" and this is true but irrelevant. It is a real economic loss of a trillion dollars.

The reason I am not impressed with "political independence" is that we are going into an inflation death spiral. And the fed has already caused inflation with QE and balance sheet expansion. They don't even include money supply in their Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium model. I don't think presidents should have a money printer, but I don't think anyone should have a money printer. And the idol worship around the fed, and their general lack of understanding of the economy, it's a farce. The fed doesn't set rates, the market does.

That said I am tactically long bonds. Rates are mostly based on inflation and growth expectations. Both are currently falling. 

Thanks! I like Lyn so that was a fun read. 

I do struggle to blame the central bank for the looming debt/inflation crisis, though. I feel like the blame falls at the feet of congress for allowing the debt to GDP to rise year after year for decades, to the point where even modest interest rates essentially double the deficit.

Is your position that the fed could have used higher short term interest rates the last 20 years to reduce congress’s spending before it got to this point? Or that the fed should’ve never bought treasuries?

It feels like a teenager with a drug problem and a parent that loves them, that won’t let them crater and end up living under a bridge, which eventually leads to everyone living under the bridge. 

Posted (edited)
28 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Literally yesterday:

Housing data

Which is driven by the high end of the market as sales are actually down. 

Sales of previously owned homes in June fell 2.7% from May to 3.93 million units on a seasonally adjusted, annualized basis, according to the National Association of Realtors. Analysts had expected a drop of just 0.7%. Sales were unchanged from June 2024.”

Sales continue to outperform on the higher end of the market. Homes priced below $100,000 dropped 5% annually. Homes priced between $100,000 and $250,000 rose 5%. And homes priced above $1 million jumped 14%.”

Foreign buyers purchased $56 billion worth of existing homes in the United States between April 2024 and March 2025, up by 33.2% from the previous 12 months, per NAR”

Edited by ChickenSandwich
Posted (edited)
43 minutes ago, ChickenSandwich said:

Sales of previously owned homes in June fell 2.7% from May to 3.93 million units on a seasonally adjusted, annualized basis, according to the National Association of Realtors. Analysts had expected a drop of just 0.7%. Sales were unchanged from June 2024.”

Sales continue to outperform on the higher end of the market. Homes priced below $100,000 dropped 5% annually. Homes priced between $100,000 and $250,000 rose 5%. And homes priced above $1 million jumped 14%.”

Foreign buyers purchased $56 billion worth of existing homes in the United States between April 2024 and March 2025, up by 33.2% from the previous 12 months, per NAR”

"homes priced $100-250k" is describing basically the entire US residential housing market for the not "high end of the market". Those still rose 5%. And I'd bet the houses in the tranche above that rose in price too, since I just sold a house in that range for almost 15% more than I bought it 5 years ago

The foreign and domestic buyers buying purely as an investment vehicle are the far greater issue driving home price inflation. They bought an asset and goddamn it they're entitled to a fucking profit so home prices MUST go up

Edited by Captainant
Posted (edited)
10 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Also, 50% inflation under Biden?  GTFO with that.  You need to unplug from your toxic media.

Also it takes a very special accountant to acknowledge the political independence of the Fed yet blame a particular president because they're a trained grievance monkey, and the appointment of the Fed Chair predates the president they blame anyway. 

Edited by Chopper
pronouns
  • Like 1
Posted
11 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Also, 50% inflation under Biden?  GTFO with that.  

I thought he might have been referring to the cumulative price rise over Biden's 4 years, but even that doesn't track.  I don't have it in me to dig too deep, but the average annual inflation from 2021-2024 is reported as being 4.7%, 8.0%, 4.1% and 2.9%.  This works out to a net price increase of 21%.  (Yes, it's a crude calculation.)

Alternatively, one can look at the median consumer price index between Feb 2021 & Jan 2025 and find that it increased . . . 21%.  Huh.  Whodathunkit.

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, Captainant said:

"homes priced $100-250k" is describing basically the entire US residential housing market for the not "high end of the market". Those still rose 5%. And I'd bet the houses in the tranche above that rose in price too, since I just sold a house in that range for almost 15% more than I bought it 5 years ago

The foreign and domestic buyers buying purely as an investment vehicle are the far greater issue driving home price inflation. They bought an asset and goddamn it they're entitled to a fucking profit so home prices MUST go up

14% increase on $1 million= $140k which is equal to a 5% loss on 11 $250k homes etc

5% increase on $250k = $12,500

The high end of the market is absolutely skewing these statistics 

Edited by ChickenSandwich
Posted
4 minutes ago, ChickenSandwich said:

14% increase on $1 million= $140k which is equal to a 5% loss on 11 $250k homes etc

5% increase on $250k = $12,500

The high end of the market is absolutely skewing these statistics 

You kinda have to account for sales volume in those segments, though.

Posted

https://www.noradarealestate.com/blog/will-the-texas-housing-market-crash-as-prices-drop-across-the-state/

https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/florida-home-prices-dropping-top-cities-miami/

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-07-24/housing-tracker-for-june

What's happening, in addition to the high end staying high, but with new homes is that the big builders are offering incentives that used to be worth 2% of the sales price, and now are worth 12% of the sales price ( I can't recall which one is doing this). However, the actual "sales price" doesn't change. 

 

Posted

So 3 of the biggest recent boom states are seeing a correction and this means nationally home prices are dropping, even when the data clearly suggest otherwise?  OK.  Statistics, how do they work?

Posted (edited)

Jimmy you are out of your depth. You are the nonplayer character. You are the designated bagholder. You have my sympathy.

But I want to contribute to the thread, so I am providing employment numbers below. Perhaps you could explain to connection of employment to home prices?

image.thumb.png.eb6d3146d8a595c256075dc804fa3aa9.png

 

From April to June, over two months, the US lost 600k jobs. Hourly wages are also down. Of course both employment reports were reported as "great outcomes" from mainstream media sources. The Fed, if you follow this, is also echoing the "going gangbusters" narrative. Nobody wants people like Jimmy to get their knickers in a bunch about the economy.

Edited by Thetexashammer

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



×
×
  • Create New...