“I do think markets were pretty savvy this time: They kind of priced in some sort of resolution, but because we’re taking a tail risk off the table, we’re getting a bit of relief here,” said Mona Mahajan, senior investment strategist at Edward Jones.
No, if markets were savvy, they would have never feared a default in the first place since it is completely illegal, and the US can easily prioritize debt by partially shutting down government … as it has done in the past. The fact that the media still covers this as “avoiding the nation’s first default” shows how pitifully low-voltage their thinking is as they follow the path of least resistance and simply parrot all talking points officials generate, even when the official is the perennially errant Janet Yellen, who never had any business talking about “default” because that made the nation’s treasurer the true credit risk because she was alarming credit-rating agencies into believing the US treasurer might actually put the nation’s debt at bottom priority and not pay it!
No one questioned any of it. The prospect of default was accepted by the entire mainstream media. It is beyond pathetic how almost none of the supposedly brightest minds in the financial media saw their way through this political canard, used by each side to save their favorite government spending while pretending to be concerned about the nation’s astronomically growing level of debt.
There was nothing savvy at all about markets not immediately questioning that artificially created threat, not even asking Yanet what business she had yellin’ “default” in a crowded theater, versus stating clearly that she would simply cancel payments of foreign aid or stop funding vaccine research by the CDC/NIH, and WHO until the ceiling got raised and/or the budget cut to live within the nation’s means. The comics at The Babylon Bee today see more clearly than financial media or the nation’s leaders: “With Last-Minute Debt Ceiling Bill, Government Narrowly Avoids Fiscal Responsibility.” Whew! That was a close call. We almost had to start living within our means!
In another example of the useless hyperventilating, grossly exaggerating financial media, CNBC reported “Treasury yields jump” after a jobs report that greatly exceeded expectations. At first, I wasn’t even going to include this ridiculous story because the so-called “jump” in Treasury yields was an entire two basis points (0.02%). That is smaller than a typical day’s action where moves of +/- .08% are easily common. CNBC should have said “Treasury yields barely wiggled….” That would have been a true headline, rather than clickbait. (They were right, however, about the big difference above expectations for new jobs, which keeps another possible Fed rate hike on the table.) I included the headline just to show how these guys are not the sharpest knives in the lightbulb drawer. The “jumping yields” are about like their claim of narrowly averting a “default” that was never even remotely on the table.
No one in the mainstream media even has the mental wattage to call their competition out on this stuff. But this is why you have The Daily Doom to simply call things as they are, hence its name, even when the dimwits are not saying it. In fact, especially when. Now, you’d think people would support a publication calling it all like it is, and an entire 15 out of 900 subscribers actually do. (Thin margins to live by; but heck, that’s almost two basis points … a mere wiggle.)
Speaking of not having enough energy to light up a dim lightbulb, the weather is becoming an increasingly important metric in our ongoing economic collapse – particularly the lack of water. In China, continued sweltering heat is stressing the power grid with heat while leaving hydro low on the ability to deliver; but, hey, electric vehicles! Surely, China’s move into the EV fast lane will help … just as conversion to all-electric transportation within a decade will help former Governor Jerry Brownout’s California, a state of upheaval that is already unable to supply enough electricity to its ever-expanding sanctuary cities of crime and no punishment. While California did get some lucky reprieve from drought this year, Phoenix, which also got a good dose of liquid this year, says its ground water is still drying up to the point that new bans on housing construction are going into place. Even the Panama Canal is drying up, forcing limits and higher fees on shipping that will be putting upward pressure on prices as the limits add to supply-line problems that have been slowly abating.
Yes, here at The Daily Doom, we try to keep an eye on all the factors that show as trends that are likely to contribute to our economic troubles, and we try to ignore the ones or adjust perspective on the ones that are purely noise … like a US sovereign debt default, even though that would have made good “doom porn.” We try to keep the information transmission lines charged with truth.
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