I am fairly sure that Trump will fall back onto traditional ways of stimulating the economy, like maybe an eventual housing bubble. That would hurt main street but would help his cronies.

It is very difficult to drain the swamp when gold in the swamp is treasury debt. Since debt is gold, nothing much can be done. Banning the use of treasury debt as collateral would have to be accomplished. But that could ruin the economy as well unless people were willing to use commodities as collateral. Or we could dispense with collateral or use mortgage bonds as collateral and turn back to the wild west mentality of the last decade.

The only reason that makes sense is that the Fed wants to sterilize some other stimulus, like infrastructure stimulus. But so far that is not even happening. Also, the Fed could return the money gained to the treasury, and maybe there is a big shortage of bonds. Bond demand is still massive, despite bank efforts to pretend like it isn't.

In California, you have to have a driver behind the wheel. I am not driving on a freeway with trucks with no driver behind the wheel. How many of you would get in an airplane that had no pilot?

Nice article. Toggle should be a term better left to electronics.

Well, the researcher said construction zones will never be ironed out. Merging into traffic will likely never be ironed out. They want to install this technology everywhere without those things being, fixed for one reason, to make some money, IMO. People won't used the technology but Musk and his friends will dance to the bank. IMO it is just a scam.

Labor is on the declining end of GDP profit. And the elite are hiding money. The Mauldin position seems to not help in solving those two problems. I think the Mauldin view makes the solutions harder to come by.

This would be helicopter money, base money given to government, unless government has to trade bonds for it. Government should not have to pay anything for base money from the Fed. If the Fed requires bonds in return that is not right. And it is sterilized, so it will do little as the government will be constrained elsewhere.

Treasuries are in massive demand, QE or no QE, so, probably no great increase in interest rates. Remember, when bonds are used as collateral, and rates rise, prices fall. Margin calls are made for more bonds! So, the Fed is more concerned about bonds than the US economy.

Sales commissions are going down too. Restaurant sales, meaning tips, are down too. There is a multiplier effect. Easy loans but tight money on main street is a problem as rents and housing goes up in speculation.

It is good to know that the economy may not accelerate if consumer spending does pick up. Thanks for pointing that out, Mish.