The actual disturbance is that Congress is not going to cut spending.
Never.
Not Democrats. Not Republicans. Not anyone.
Elections mean nothing when it comes to deficit spending.
Agreed, but one party pledges to cut the deficit and campaign on it but when push comes to shove they lied during the campaign .
Although, one party and president did run a surplus and a balanced budget as late as the early 2000s.
Yet some continue to believe one side will do it after doing the opposite before. Then Lucy moves the football and they get surprised again.
I stopped trying to kick the football.
The bond market will force it to happen. Moody’s lowering the credit rating may be the first warning shot. When the bond buyers stop buying and demand higher rates to buy, then the guvmint will have to come clean.
That rating effects a lot. Companies who buy treasuries as part of their credit portfolio will also have their credit rating lowered. My company, Northwestern Mutual, has always been a an AAA company. Now, they won’t be because US Treasuries aren’t AAA.
Ahhhh…the old ‘run it so badly someone will have to clean it up’ plan is finally going to happen. Again.
I don’t think the stock market is going to respond well to the change in credit rating either.
Very apt analogy.
So, per DOGE we are now looking at 150 billion savings.
The most recent cost cutting projection from Musk said DOGE could save $150 billion in a year, which is a significant decrease from his earlier projection of $1 trillion.
In overall big picture… not very significant.
And that will cost you $.25 for that analysis.
To think that covid programs are still place is an insult to every tax payer.
I can think of some more insulting things taxpayers are currently or are being asked to pay for.
Apparently it is too difficult for Congress to perform simple budgeting, something all businesses and households do.
It would seem that Revenues could be forecast. They are somewhat steady and increase at a predictable rate.
The required Entitlement spending can also be correctly forecast. That is Social Security and Medicare.
Subtract those two from Revenue and you have the remainder of the spending.
Our Congress does not do this. Indeed I doubt that any Congressperson could actually explain what they are doing and why.
Yea, get back to the office and get to work!
Working as a team is not a novel idea.
Too many would tell you their job is performative and about building their brand.
So, now a corporation is banned and risks being punished from checks notes passing down the indirect taxes charges on their products to their customers as a result of tariffs?
So we all want no more free markets and want the government to enact price controls?
What is the name for that kind of system, its on the tip of my tongue?
Idiots… companies don’t eat tariffs. They charge markup on them and customers pay the tax plus profit.
Always remember that passing along Tariffs as price hikes is merely a theory.
Consumers decide. If an item changes price from $100 to $130 the item has no guarantee to sell. None of them do.
If items won’t sell at the higher price they eventually go down in price until a buyer emerges.
If consumers refuse to buy then Walmart tells the Exporters it cannot pay the tariff since they cannot regain that extra cost.
The marketplace will determine all this. We routinely choose not to buy certain things because we deem the price to be too high.
We may see the Exporters eating the tariffs just so they can sell their products.
Stuff is going to get more expensive one way or another. Either we buy more expensive foreign stuff with tariffs or more expensive American stuff. Costs go up either way. Not to mention American companies will have costs go up too from tariffs.
Walmart has a net profit margin of less than 3%/year. They can’t eat this. It’s just not feasible.
The low cost stuff will get more costly. You may think that’s a good thing but it will happen.
There are studies on how tariffs impact prices out there too. It’s not like we’ve never seen them before.
Exporters do not pay the tariffs nor are they optional.
In another life I worked in consulting and worked with Walmart and their vendors. Walmarts model is predatory in nature both to vendors and customers in that tney will squeeze the most out of both.
Vendors/importers are squeezed and their margins if they want to sell in Walmart are razor thin. They have no choice to pass it on, walmart will pass it to its customers.
This is delusional. The item isn’t going to go down in price to shift for tariffs. Companies aren’t going to offer products at a loss. They just won’t offer the product anymore. Like come tf on.