It has been a light news day with very little from the warfront but a few jolts on the economic front. The US10YR Treasury yield jumped up 13 basis points to take a position it hasn’t held since 2007. Its sudden spike to a yield of 5.139% intraday (settling at 5.116%) was its swiftest rocket ride in 18 months:
Bottom line, “you can’t fool or hide in the bond market – unless the Fed gets inflation under control the long end of the curve is going to continue to come under pressure.”
… warned the bond vigilantes.
Other Treasury tenors also came under stress. As a result, mortgage rates leaped 15 basis points today to hit a national average of 7.12% for a 30YR mortgage.
In response to the Treasury moves, stocks shivered a bit today. A couple of articles below from Motley Fool point out some of the flashing red lights showing up in the stock market.
Cheap eats
If the soaring fuel prices and continual slow climb of inflation are hitting you hard, your federal government has worked out some helpful solutions for you, and this is why we pay these department heads the big bucks: Don’t eat beef. Chicken is cheaper.
That is so helpful because I’m sure that, without the USDA secretary’s deep research into this matter, most of us would not have figured out that we could save money just by switching from beef to chicken. Glad to know she’s on this, working out innovative solutions that will help all of America.
The department’s Phase Two Inflation Combat Plan is switch to bugs and grubs.
Because, after all, worms are cheaper still.
Secretary Brooke Rollins obviously graduated from the Marie Antoinette School of Economics:
“We have more people eating beef than ever before, but if it is too expensive — unlike fuel, Benny — you can eat chicken, pork, salmon, eggs. There are other sources of really good protein, and all of those prices are coming down as well. (The Winepress)
The ranchers who are currently cutting back their cattle herds because they cannot afford to feed them will be glad to know she’s helping them out by switching the citizenry over to eating chicken. Cow milk is going up, too, for the same reason that beef is rising: Fertilizer costs and diesel costs are making feed expensive. So, maybe the USDA chief will suggest we switch over to drinking chicken milk.
Comedian Henny Youngman: “Doctor, it hurts when I go like this.”
Doctor: “Then stop going like this.”
There. Inflation solved. You may now return to your dinner.
Oh, and this just in:
Given the administration’s tough brainwork on solving the inflation they are creating for us by telling us we can live with less, I think any level of intelligence would seem like “super intelligence” to them. After all, Trump says he is the highest IQ president ever, even though a poll I read today said 92% of Americans think he’s “DUMB.” O.K., the poll carried out by The Mirror, not the most polished source of news or all that brilliant, itself, but their poll might be on to something. After all, Trump still hasn’t figured out that US tariffs are paid for by Americans by way of higher prices on the final imported goods, even though he chose to help lower the soaring price of beef by eliminating his beef tariffs on Brazilian and Argentine beef.
Regardless, I want you to notice how hard Trump is trying to pitch the benefits of AI. It looks a lot like the way he endlessly pumped the benefits of his warp-speed Covid vacs. I imagine Team Trump cares about the average citizen enough that they have already worked out a solution to the employment disruptions that are expected from AI:
“If you are losing a high-paying job, remember there are lesser jobs you can take thanks to our alien deportation program.”
Problem solved.
I hope others who have followed me for a year or more will do likewise. And thank you, again, to those who have and to those who are sharing articles and/or liking and “restacking” them to try to help each article they like show a level of interest that gets Substack’s attention. (Now I know why so many content publishers say, “Please remember to hit that ‘like’ button.” I always thought it was just so the articles would look popular to other readers trying to decide whether to read them, not because sites are counting the likes to see which articles to promote in their feeds, though it makes sense they would.)
If you’ve followed me for a year or more, you are clearly getting actual value out of The Daily Doom (that or you are using your time as poorly as the USDA), and there are a lot of you, as The Daily Doom now approaches 4,000 subscribers (but only 166 paid subscribers). It’s hard to make a go of this with that slim pickin’s in that latter number, but the slow build recently says it is worth continuing to try to build toward a supplemental retirement income. So, please think about ponying up for the guy who keeps doing his best to try to help you make some sense of the madness. I may not be right all the time; but, at least, I always think I am. (Well, I do try to admit when I was wrong.)
I will be taking a week of vacation, starting on Thursday, but I will try to do some writing even during vacation. In my “about” info, I have stated, “Since this is a one-man operation, there will usually be no publication on holidays and up to three weeks vacation per year—plus sick days, but only if I’m really so sick that I just can’t do it. I try to be very disciplined about this.” I also try to be very up front about that.
