Mike McGlone has an interesting perspective on Bitcoin versus Gold.
Gold $3,000, Bitcoin $70,000?
Is there good reason for reversion lower? My bias is leaning that way, especially if the US hashtag#stockmarket reverses some of last year’s almost $12 trillion advance, about 40% of GDP.
Bitcoin approaching $150,000 in 2025 might suggest another $12+ trillion year of US stockmarket wealth creation, inflation and Fed tightening. Heading toward $50,000 could coincide with some typical deflation following the inflation and put the Fed at ease. Up about 10% since Bitcoin first closed above $100,000, gold may sniffing out a bit of risk-asset normalization. So it appears gold is winning.
Full disclosure: I own both. Plus silver. And a house.
The US deficit for the first four months of fiscal Year 2025 is $838 billion, up $306 billion. Adjusted, the increase is more like $157 billion to $225 billion.
The federal budget deficit totaled $838 billion in the first four months of fiscal year 2025, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. That amount is $306 billion more than the deficit recorded during the same period last fiscal year. Revenues were $11 billion (or 1 percent) higher, and outlays were $317 billion (or 15 percent) higher.
The change in the deficit was influenced by the timing of outlays and revenues, which decreased the deficit during the first four months of fiscal year 2024 but increased it during the same period this fiscal year. Outlays in October 2023 were reduced by shifts in the timing of payments that were due on October 1, 2023, a Sunday. (The payments were made that September.) Outlays in the first four months of 2025 rose, on net, because payments due on February 1, 2025, a Saturday, were made in January. If not for those shifts, the deficit so far this fiscal year would have been $750 billion, or $146 billion more than the shortfall at this point last year. Part of the deficit increase in 2025 also arises from the postponement of some tax deadlines from 2023 to 2024 (described below), which boosted receipts in 2024.
Outlays in the first four months of fiscal year 2025 were $2.4 trillion, CBO estimates, $317 billion more than during the same period last year. If not for the timing shifts discussed above, outlays so far in fiscal year 2025 would have been $157 billion (or 7 percent) greater than outlays during the same four months in fiscal year 2024. The discussion below reflects adjustments to exclude the effects of those timing shifts.
Maxine Waters is an unhappy girl along with most Democrats about Trump and Musk looking into USAID.
Most of the job gains in the past few years, and especially 2024, were a mirage, and following the dramatic August 2024 preliminary data revision which vaporized 818K jobs (which had never existed in the first place.
Over 1 Mmillion foreign-born workers found a job in January … but virtually no native borns.
And in the longer view, you can see the Biden/Harris effect after 2021.
Biden/Harris were economic heartbreakers. For the middle class, not for the Elizabeth Warren/Bernie Sanders class who made out like bandits under Biden’s corrupt leadership.
Big pharma owns Bernie, Liz, Chuckie, Patty Murray, Warnock and Wyden.
As expected, the Trump Administration levied tariffs against Canada, Mexico, China, etc. The short-term result? Gold is stable, Bitcoin fell. Or as Gene Autry sang, “South of the Border (Down Mexico Way)”.
The stock market? Down -1.53%.
And then we have the doom porn about Mexico’s “impending” collapse. The Peso is declining, and Senator Chuck Schumer is getting hysterical about Mexican exports to the USA for Super Bowl Sunday. He incorrectly claimed that most beer is imported from Mexico and avacados for guacamole. Avacados are also grown in the USA, Peru, etc.
Bear in mind that Mexico is like California where the Left holds a supermajority. Hence, Mexico employs destructive economic policies (it could only be worse if California Governor Gavin Newsom was President of Mexico. But Mexico’s impending collapse is years in the making and Trump’s tariffs were only the last nudge over the cliff. Mexico COULD try to get control over the drug and human trafficking cartels, stop illegal immigration and stop the flow of fentanyl.
Wow. Money printing by The Federal Reserve went will after the Covid outbreak in early 2020. So did Federal spending. Unfortunately, politicians are addicted to Federal spending. And Senators like Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) are trying to obstruct any spending cuts by Trump and his DOGE.
Well, M1 Money printing is UP 365% since Covid while M2 Money printing is UP 40%.
Federal current expenditures are up 45% since the Covid outbreak. But were never returned to normal spending levels.
New York senator Chuck Schumer is opposed to Trump’s efforts to cut Federal spending. Is Senator Schumer REALLY the political boss of Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party’s political machine that played a major role in the politics of 19th-century New York City and State?
US Existing Home Sales rose for the third straight month in December (longest streak since late 2021), rising 2.2% MoM and up 9.3% YoY – the best annual shift since June 2021. However, despite the last rebound, for all of 2024, sales reached the lowest since 1995, when the US had about 70 million fewer people.
And with the lowest existing home sales since 1995, we have mortgage purchase applications at the lowest level since 1995.
Why? The median price of EHS has exploded under Biden.
Mortgage rates are hovering around 7%, same as around 1995.
The Visual Capitalist calls most unaffordable cities as least affordable. San Jose California and New York City are the two most unaffordable cities in the USA. According to household spending.
Fortunately, I live in Columbus Ohio. the 18th most affordable city in the USA.
Much of the difference amongst cities is land use and construction restraints. And booming/dying local economies.
As a sad reminder about the last four years, Pete Buttigieg will leave his post as Transportation Secretary having spent $7.5 BILLION to build 8 EV charging stations.
I can’t wait for Billions Biden, The DC parasite who selectively shoves billions of dollars to his friends and nothing for the others. For example, bailing out the LA wildfires but stiffing the people of North Carolina and Florida for hurricane/flood damage. And funding Ukraine while real wage growth is negative. And heavy investment in green energy, the ultimate fool’s errand.
Let’s start with declining real wage growth under Biden/Harris (blue line). Meanwhile, Federal government spending (dashed green line) continues to grow causing inflation.
Meanwhile, Biden/Harris and Congress left Trump with the largest budget deficit in history. Like endlessly funding Ukraine and illegal immigration.
Leaving American taxpayers with growing Federal debt of $36+ trillion. And unfunded liabilities of $226 trillion, over 6 times the national debt.
The US will hit its debt ceiling the day after President Trump is inaugurated, and Yellen said that the Treasury will launch “extraordinary measures” to stave off the threat of a national default. Bear in mind, Janet Yellen personally oversaw total debt increase by a staggering $15 trillion. Way to go, Janet!
I wonder how Trump’s Treasury secretary will handle this? At least better than Janet Yellen, I hope!
Confounded Interest - Anthony B. Sanders 
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