It may take a gigantic bond bear market and much higher interest rates before anyone in Trump’s administration starts chopping the defense budget. From David Stockman at davidstockman.substack.com:
Well, you can say this much about the Donald’s off-the-wall pick of Fox’s weekend news commentator, Pete Hegseth, for Secretary of Defense: At least it wasn’t a hard-core neocon like House Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala), Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) or the horrid Senator Tom Cotten of Arkansas. Better a cheerleader for patriotism and valorization of the military than war-mongering interventionists like those three blemishes on the Republican brand.
Well, maybe. Yet what this insensible pick also shows, if any more proof is needed, is that Donald Trump is a clueless, lightweight political demagogue who has no intention of bringing the Empire Home. Nor does he have the remotest chance of making the American economy great again. That’s because if you don’t dismantle the war machine and slash the hideously bloated national security budget by upwards of $500 billion per year, the already debt-saturated US economy is going to be KO’d by an exploding public debt.
For want of doubt, however, here is the Donald’s rationale for selecting a guy to run the $1 trillion/2.9 million employee Pentagon who has never managed anything bigger than a household of three successive wives and the accumulation of seven kids:
“Nobody fights harder for the Troops, and Pete will be a courageous and patriotic champion of our ‘Peace through Strength’ policy…Pete has spent his entire life as a Warrior for the Troops, and for the Country…With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice—Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down.
What unmitigated breast-beating rubbish!
For crying out loud, the last thing America needs is another Warrior for the Troops. Instead, what it really needs is a Fearless Slayer of the sacred cows and obese pigs of the military/industrial complex who gorge themselves at the Pentagon’s trough.
It needs a George S. Patton or R. Lee Ermey who have left the building.
Bolshevik enemedia was on about interest rate hikes.
A discussion about the ‘flations with Harold the Brain’s lovely wifey said first time home buyers who can’t afford it in the first place will pay 12%, their old casa went on the market recently.
Until Brandon uses his lazerz to shoot down the TrumPutinHilter orbital inflation satellites, it only gets worse. (s/)
Sad news, Lady Kaka and the fabulous simply divine Elton John won’t be performing for Teflon DJT, I’m sure the markets will suffer. (/s)
Breaking from Sugarloaf:
Green Eyed Lady (Extended Version)