Thanks, Bill.

Is getting clarification on gov't regs when "clarification" means getting regulated actually going to boost cryptos? It will, if it is effective, bar a lot of corrupt activity that is likely happening in the crypto market now (such as price rigging?) and may take away a few customers who use crypto to evade the law (such as to evade taxes or to launder money). Regulations will seek to cover all those things, which will reduce the number of customers and the number of transactions while increasing the cost of managing cryptos.

It is simplistic to write as if the only factor driving interest on bonds up faster is inflation. Look at the numerous people who KNOWINGLY purchased bonds with negative real interest, meaning that they knew, once inflation was factored in, the interest on their bond would actually be negative. That shows there are other major factors in what people will pay for a bond and, therefore, where its interest can go than just inflation. People were scared and were willing to take calculated losses from inflation on the belief that those bonds were the only safe place to stand. Inflation is only one factor that drive interest rates in bond. Fear, as described above, is another. Therefore, if you have reason to believe fear will be rising, you have reason to believe upward momentum in interest rates will back off. The biggest factor of all is supply and demand. It's quite simple, if you have a massive supply of bonds to sell and cannot attract anywhere near enough buyers to raise all the money you need, you're going to have to up your interest game. Inflation being anticipated down the road only means you have to up it for that, too. So, when it comes to momentum, if you can look down the road and see that the supply of bonds is burgeoning AND you can see that the demand for bonds from the largest buyer of bonds (the Federal Reserve) is decreasing, you KNOW (even in an inflation neutral setting) there is going to be upward momentum building in interest rates. Of course, if you can know that inflation will go up or down, you should factor that into your assumptions about the momentum of bond interest as well.

While you are right that the tax reduction is priced in in terms of earnings per share after taxes, I don't see that you have factored in how the tax savings will also be used for additional stock buybacks, reducing the number of shares in the denominator and increasing the demand for shares. I also don't see how you've factored in how the income-tax cuts will increase before-tax earnings by increasing everyone's buying power. There are more dynamics at play, so I think the market has more room to run (even though I hate this tax plan).

Great questions -- especially the notion that the reversal of QE could cause money that is already tied up in stocks to move to other areas of the economy. It is the movement of money, not the storage of it, that causes inflationary effects on prices.