Tag Archives: Budgets

The price of debt.

That is what I am looking at, the price of debt. You see, they are all hailing that the US economy is strong. One voice (Goldman Sachs), the one that lost it all in 2007 told the world that America would be strong at 2.5% (somewhere I read it). To all it sounds nice and I like nice, but I also query a system that is to my (non-economic view) is rigged. As we see images all over the place on how good things are supposed to be, consider:

We see the setting as tax collected. For 2023 is was “The US government collected nearly $4.7 trillion in gross taxes during the 2023 fiscal year, which is a 15.5% decrease from 2022. The IRS collected taxes from a variety of sources”, now for some it is a little more then milk money. And that sounds nice, but the other side has “As of October 2024, the United States government’s monthly interest rate on its debt is 3.3%. The average interest rate for 2024 is 3.32%, and the total debt is $35.46 trillion.” Consider the simple setting of 3.32% of $35.46 trillion. This gives us $1,170,180,000,000 dollar annually. Which would be ‘liveable’ were it not for the simple fact that this is ONLY interest. The debt remains. And now we have a problem. You see the interest is is a simple 24.89% of the entire taxable revenue and it was 15.5% less from 2022. Do you now see the problem? 25% of all taxable revenue goes to the banks that carry the debt. The federal government spent $6.75 trillion in FY 2022. This means that they spend over 30% to much, more than they had and if there was no debt we could argue, but at this setting we are faced with the simple fact that $6.75 trillion was spent over an available amount of $3.5 trillion, which is getting worse and worse. As such we could surmise that the debt will increase with a little over 3 trillion over spending over last year alone. As I see it America is done for. And the setting worsens with the optional crushing of Google in 2025 (by breaking up that firm) which give Huawei their first global win. Then the defence industry is losing more and more revenue to China and this sets a larger premise. In that setting we see on one hand “The A&D industry generated $425 billion in economic value, representing 1.6 percent of the 2023 nominal GDP in the U.S.”, yet in this we already seeing revenue shifting to China in this year alone and more revenue goes to Europe. For Saudi Arabia alone this sets the bar at “In 2024, the Saudi Arabian defense budget is worth $71.7 billion and will grow at a CAGR of more than 8% during 2025-2029.” Yet other sources give us that “Saudi Arabia estimates military spending will be 15 percent lower than budgeted this year” as such we could surmise that this implies that Saudi Arabia by itself would spend $10 billion less. Not a biggie you say, but the other side is that China now has a little over 10% on that slice of delicious gunpowder baked pie. Making the loss for America more. As such we see an annual loss of $16 billion in one year alone from one customer. As such, what would be the books on India, Japan, Taiwan, Pakistan and Indonesia? If we see these picture, we see a dangerous escalation towards some fictive nil revenue for America. Fictive because that will never happen, but as the largest players seek economic stability they will spend less and take other jobs ‘in-house’ as the expression goes and America has been too reluctant to appease to that state of mind. And now China will step in to offer just that. As I see it, the question on the dollar setting was wrong. We are given “As of March 2024, over half (52.9%) of Chinese payments were settled in RMB while 42.8% were settled in USD” against the tariffs threat by president elect Trump. The actual question would become “How long could the US Dollar keep standing?” You see, as the debt becomes a millstone around the neck of the US administration, we need to consider that some nations will seek shelter from the fallout that this setting. In 2017, on March 17th I wrote ‘The finality of French freedom’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2017/03/17/the-finality-of-french-freedom/), I set the comparison of the Euro like a barge kept in balance by 4 strong economies. UK, France, Germany and a combined economic anchor. The UK was lost and there was a setting when the French anchor would be lost too. The Euro could not survive a setting with two anchors. A simple equation. Now with the Dollar under attack the Euro could face near certain scuttling. As such the Dollar has an influence there. China seemingly doesn’t care, but the other players who make up a combined anchor might switch sides when they merely look at their own currency. And the debt? They will not care. And as such the dollar faces a lot more than the bully tactics of choice. They will need to up the game by a lot, because when one goes, so will the other and that puts the livelihood and liveability of 784 million people at the markers. 100,000 of them will do fine, but that represents a simple 0.01275348% of people who are likely to make it (outside of the EU and USA), so when were that good statistics? 

The price of debt was always there, but the media has been eager and willing to hide those facts through BS and spin and soon when the people catch on (the other 99.987% of people), the live of playing the media courtesan will be one of the most dangerous of them all. People remember. And it was a simple equation for the media. “You can fool all the people some of the time, you can fool some of the people all of the time but you can never fool all of the people all of the time” A simple setting I knew to be true as early as the early 80’s. So how long did they have at most? Some are already falling in the bad light and when the people realise that they weren’t eating potatoes, but turnips. They will become massively enraged. 

A simple setting I have known to become reality at some point. So when are we given the goods? When the interest of the debt of America is shown as a setting against the budget and at this time it is around 25%, Americans need to realise that budgets need to diminish by at least 30%, so at what point do the people realise that the simplicity of the matter is that their money is about to be gone?

Have a lovely day.

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Bread and games

We seem to ignore the past, yet a lot of our lives revolve around the bread and games of the matter at hand. Yesterday, the LA Times (at https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/herocomplex/la-et-hc-star-wars-episode-9-wrap-photo-20190215-story.html) gave us the first image of Star Wars IX, part nine, the final part of the entire saga. Principle filming and photography finished yesterday, the cast is done. They are all in a state of upper excitement, perhaps some anxiety too. JJ Abrams is all over the place (in joy) and why should he not be? A trip that started in 1977 propelling Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford to heights never imagines before, that trip that started so long ago has been completed. For good measure we saw the added Rogue One and Solo added to the fold. And there is much to celebrate, a whole score of actors added the fold down the line and even if some were not immediately recognised in America, it is people like Peter Cushing, who was the Hammer House of Horror prodigal son, as well as one of the Dr Who players who added to the shine of the Star Wars making an epic story truly epic. Now we need to wait until Christmas to see the finalised version on the big screen, dozens of special effects experts will be wielding their mouses and pens to make magic reality and make the impression of special effects fade away and show us something that DARPA might have actually created, we can no longer tell the difference, the effects have been that stunning for a little while now.

Yet it is not just Star Wars, even if that is the most visible one. We are weeks away from Captain Marvel, soon to be followed by the conclusion of infinity wars (Endgame) and that s just for starters. When Jon Favreau started the Jungle Book in 2016, he might not have had a clue on what he started, but he did start something. In that same trend we will see in 2019 Lion King, Dumbo and Aladdin. Disney just woke up from slumber and is watching billions come their way. We should have reservations on Aladdin, not because of Will Smith, merely because of the shoes he has to fill, the role Robin Williams played was more than legendary, they broke the mould when he was done and it is one hell of a shadow to live up to, I do not envy Will Smith for doing so, yet I applaud his approach to the challenge.

The movies of 2019 will be comic book driven, Joker, New Mutants, X-men, Hellboy, they will all make an appearance, as will Frozen 2, It part 2 and many more. Many of us are planning our calendar one film at a time, trying to see as many as we can, this is how many changed the approach to their lives.

Even as some give us: “the Cost of living in Australia is 3.40% higher than in United States“, than we get “Rent in Australia is 10.04% lower than in United States“, which is massively bogus (as I personally see it). I found more than a dozen 160 square meter apartments in inner city places (not in LA, SF or NY mind you) that are close to 50% cheaper than in Sydney or London. And yes, when you add those (as well as Malibu, the Hamptons and a few other places, the rental prices tumble in the other direction), in addition, the rent in Australia merely seemed lower, the numbers are a little to skewed for my liking, the truth is simple. The cost of living is up all over the place, even now, yesterday I noticed that beef was up 10% that is the way the impact goes when food is thoroughly looked at. We might see the price of beer and think that it is not that expensive, but when the price is based on the need to buy 24 instead of a singular bottle, the scale shifts and not for merely one article, too many articles have speculatively been ‘loaded’ that way. It is not merely in Australia, the UK, many places in Europe, they all have an increased cost of living whilst the incomes have been frozen, in some cases for more than two years. When we see a source give us Levis 501 Or Similar at $98,24 (AU) whilst shops at the same time have prices that vary from $119 to $249, you know that there is a selective weighting in place, or merely some aggregated average that included ‘myworstonlineshopdotwhereever‘, one item already changed the cost between 21% and 154% (if we included the most expensive solution). That is where we are at least 21% more out of pocket for one item. There are a lot of prices that are on the mark and some might even have a seasonal nice discount. So when we are confronted in that stage of live, the bread and games we face matter, they matter a great deal. A list that includes a cinema ticket for less than $20, which is often enough wrong by at least $5, so how does your cost of living add up? How do the small items like popcorn and lemonade add to the pressure of your budget?

This month seems to be all about news on how places have a cost of living that is lower than their national average. Initially it sounds great for those living there, until you realise the other news (not really given to the reader) where we see: “Columbia area named 25th most dangerous in America“, yes there is a drawback to everything. So in one of the places where I was looking, I got treated to: 3 crimes in this area. What? Are you flipping kidding me? Three crimes over the last 4 weeks and one was the disturbance involving an unwanted person. How is that for pristine living? It is not actually that rosy for the entire city there were reported 135 thefts, 106 assaults and 138 arrests, which when you consider it includes Fraud, Forgery, threat complaints, and loads of drug incidents (which mostly includes having a joint) we see a place that Sandra Dee would happily call home.

These are all elements that impact out cost of living, the paths we take to get safely from work to home, the places where we buy stuff, where we get medication and groceries. It is all too some degree connected and the bread and games we have to escape it all is very much part of our lives. For a while we had true escapism via Netflix, and even as that part is not as shiny as it was, the financial geeks still see Netflix as the escape mechanism for most of the players. In that we need to recognise that Netflix over the last year has risen 45.63% since February 14, 2018 and is up trending, we need to see that St. Valentine is definitely in play in all this. You might not find live there, but many watchers are losing their hearts on the feeling of momentary bliss. This feeling relates to the big screen as well. As we seek more ways to escape the stagnating lives we lead, we see that the cinema and the home screen are the two reliable paths to follow (apart from gaming that is).

The question is how will this go on? As the movies come, we see consistent continuation, yet there is another problem. You see even as we see that 300,000 jobs were added, the direct impact is not seen, not in the workflow and not in the US reduction of debt. Others have stated this before me, and it is an important part. The workforce in the US is changing, yet I am not convinced that this is limited to the US, it is a global change. We see more and more that there is a high tier and a low tier of workers, yet the middle tier of workers seem to have been gone. The low tier is all there is in many places and that is where the problem resides. The low tier is definitely growing and more jobs, but they are often minimum wage jobs, there is no room for quality of life, merely contending with the cost of living and whilst most parents both work to make ends meet, we see a family break in place and the only glue left are the bread and games. The view that Reuters gives with ‘the economy was running out of workers‘ is not wrong yet it is not accurate either. Most companies are focussing on cheap labour where possible and that part is now running low. I personally believe that this shifting trend will push itself into the commonwealth and Europe as well. The middle group is either reduced to the lower group or merely pushed into retirement (for as long as that exists). I predict that there will be a rude awakening when we see that the low groups have little tax to pay, but the government have been overspending for too long being in the wrongful believe that the middle tier comes back (any day now they think), the moment that they realise that this will not happen, we will see a collective 68 thousand billion dollar debt that has no place to go, because adjustments that had to be made 4 years ago were never made. They had to be made before that but I reckon the point of no return was passed 4 years ago and now we see the essential need for bread and games. The governments do not want to people to wake up and see that there are no options left, the corporations want the bread and games so that people will not realise that they ended up with a really shitty deal in the end and the rest is looking forward to finding any kind of a solution where they end up in the high tier and they are willing to sell their soul to get there, the lower tier is just a road to nowhere and nothing.

This is exactly why politics is shifting in the US, with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her social agenda, we get to see the direct impact of the size of the lower tier, everyone wants her impact and the true stage where people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez never has a chance in politics is now gone, greed driven America pushed the middle tier, the buffer of reason away, now we see the high tier (a few thousand) versus the low tier of millions and now Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has the platform she needed. So as we see Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez versus Bill Gates who actually made a really good case (not a console case mind you) and his correct vision gets to be blasted away by the millions who have had no quality of life for the longest of times. Now that the middle tier dissipates they have no future to look forward to either and now we see that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has a growing platform. And it is in that light where we see that Dutch Historian Rutger Bregman in Davos (at https://www.news.com.au/finance/money/wealth/dutch-historian-who-called-out-billionaires-at-davos-goes-viral-becomes-social-media-star/news-story/45d75de96d5161ed3bf9205d79a0c063) makes not one but three points. He mentions at 0:53 ‘What must Industry do to prevent a broad social backlash?‘, and now we see happen exactly that, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the upcoming broad social backlash that none of the industrials wanted, and they did this to themselves.

If she comes with Eisenhower methods (read: solutions), she will be the bane of industrials and the darling of the working class for 2 presidential elections and generations to come. The danger of bread and games, when the games become less rewarding and the bread turns stale, people start considering the bad place they were in. That setting was shown and basically proven by the Roman poet Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis well over 1900 years ago. Interesting that the industry forgot their history lessons, it might not lead to profit, but they could have avoided monumental losses, a harsh lesson that they might get to learn in the two years ahead.

Change is valuable; it lets the oppressed be tyrants!

 

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