This is a must read. The personal income destruction of the Great Recession is telling for sure. The charts, in order, are easy to understand and tell a real story.

I am for cautious lending but this is tight money. People will complain about your idea no less than about easy lending in the last decade. And pile on Keynes. He was for banks exhibiting countercyclical behavior. That would be refreshing seeing how the Fed refuses to do so and made the housing crash into the Great Recession.

I understand this. But cheap steel makes manufacturing in the USA more affordable. Put tariffs on steel and US manufacturers are toast. Look at the guys that make the nails. This is not complex, but Trump has people sucked in.

So, the negative tariff of steel helps US manufacturers compete in the world. You must want to make them non competitive. Again, basic rule of John Mauldin, don't tariff raw materials or the party is over.

I have been told Netflix is charging overdraft fees. It used to work like a debit and now it acts like a bill. People get Netflix, often, because they cannot afford cable. They need to be careful, especially in the USA where membership is maturing.

Well, I am not the author, but seems to me like selective tariffs are permitted within a generally free trade world. If China has young industries or if the US wants to protect a few industries, tariffs could be ok. However, as John Mauldin has said, tariffs that are placed on raw materials, like steel and aluminum, raise the cost of production and hurt American manufacturers. www.talkmarkets.com/.../john-mauldin-discusses-what-could-go-wrong

The radicals in the administration have lost it on many fronts. I lost brain cells watching Trump and Putin. Economics is much more complicated than that.

Even George Selgin, hardly a conspiracy buff, almost comes out and agrees with my conspiratorial view that the Fed liquidates when it chooses. Truth is, IOER was a policy of tightening, not of loosening! Maybe that is why it will never adopt NGDP Level Targeting, lol. I was astonished at this Selgin article and happy he wrote it: www.alt-m.org/.../the-feds-recent-defense-of-interest-on-reserves/

Ah, interesting point. But investors were fooled by mispriced risk in the housing bubble. Investors were fooled by the dot com bubble. Investors are fooled by the shale bubble. Investors are fooled by the stock market bubble. Investors still can fear, and that sets up well for bonds if necessary. After all, the Fed is in the business not mainly to buy bonds, which it does, but to sell bonds!

I think bond demand is up except for this current period. The author is saying that if demand wains the Fed will force increased demand for bonds at the expense of stocks. That is not an unreasonable assumption IMO.