6:46 AM "As bonds yield higher". Out of 39 trillion (should be 40 by now) debt, "only" about 32 is "publicly held marketable debt". At current yields the interest rates for the 32 trillion debt cannot be one trillion as shown in the 7 trillion US Federal Spending budget which would mean an average rate of 1/32=3.1%. Not talking about the principals (buy back at maturity).
Those money ought to come from somewhere and coincidentally there is almost one trillion missing at Medicare.
7:33 Question. What is Federal Reserve doing with 6.3 trillions in notes and bonds part of national 32 or 40 trillion debt and why do Americans pay interest for it.
If we apply an interest rate of 5% to 6 trillion dollars we get about 300 billion a year or almost 1/3 of total debt servicing of 1 trillion budget of 7 trillion Federal Spending Budget. What is Federal Reserve doing with that money?
Federal Reserve was created as a backup in case of financial crisis. However nowadays it generates (constant) profit for private entities, drawing from interests from public debt.
1:00 AM Ăștia au trecut la treabă și acum se iau și de contabilul singuratic! Ce aspirații poți să ai dacă pui în portofel 119 de miliarde și te păcălești singur că ai pus 199? Păi ce altceva e Ministerul de Finanțe decât contabilitatea țării? Singura chestie e că sunt mincinoși.
Oamenii nu sunt niște cifre, ci niște vaci bune de muls de 65% din venit! În SUA impozitele și contribuțiile sunt fix la jumătate! Și ăștia bagă la apărare 13%, nu 5% cât ar vrea Nicușor! 3,2 trilioane la pensii și îngrijiri medicale seniori!
Ce e Legea Bugetului altceva decât cifre?
(Și totuși, cum calculezi deficitul (o cifră), fără bilanț contabil sau fără o balanță venituri-cheltuieli centralizată (de) pe ministere?. Ceva ce tot românul ar vrea să vadă publicat undeva, poate chiar în Monitorul Oficial?)
Nu, o țară nu e un SRL, o țară e un sac fără fund care nu are nevoie de bilanț contabil ci doar de politicieni să dea din clanță și de câte ori vorbesc, țara mai pierde niște milioane. Și ei vorbesc, tot timpul. Și acum se bagă, să le ia apărarea, Mihai Radu. Un crop care arată mai mult ca un buzz_gore bulicios.
Și au trecut 5 zile de când din_escu nu a spus unde a știut de operațiunea Pânza de Păianjen cu o zi înainte!
6:12 Dacă Japonia deține 1.1 trilioane în obligațiuni, atunci cine deține restul de până la 36? Câte investiții directe și cât pământ și imobile au cumpărat japonezii de 50 de ani de când exportă Toyote în SUA (Și Honde și Nissane și Subaru și Mazde și Acure și Lex_US și Infinity și Mitsubishi și toată lista).
6:30 Căutam vârsta lui Andrei Dumitrescu, să-i găsesc asemănarea, și am dat peste altceva.
3:30 Friday market high. As i said, it is customary for the market to end high on Fridays and continue on Monday (on "news" from weekend). Today was on strong job reports, "Musk temporarily making up with Trump", other bunch of lies.
But there is something i need to share. For almost four hours, Tesla shares traded at 300.5 ± 1.5, that is less then 0.5% variation. How is that possible, in a free market, that is not controlled with AI driven, high speed, high frequency (thousands of times per second) trade algorithms? (should ban those, they are discriminatory against small ordinary traders who can't afford them).
Then it all went out of range of those capabilities, with the usual high volume trade (bottom chart) at the end (end beginning) of the session. But it was enough to drag the whole market up all day.
Another weird thing, the big selloff (red in the bottom chart) until i woke up yesterday after my morning sleep.
4:35 I wrote these days (last time this morning) about the enormity of taxes for Romanian employees, that together with the sales tax (TVA or VAT) amount to a burden of 65% of their income.
Today i saw this news, that came after i mentioned that in the US Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid amount to 2 trillion, quoting from memory. However, i was kinda wrong, the three combined amount to a staggering 3.2 trillion (1.6 trillions SS, 1 trillion Medicare and rest Medicaid), of which Medicaid is partly funded by states. After i wrote that, i see this news.
No amount or reviews of SS and Medicare income could possibly make a dent in that amount.
Which got me mad enough to do the same calculation for the US. Total wages of an US employee in one year amount to 63,795. Multiplied by the number of employees, 163.9 million, we get... 10.45 trillion.
The contribution for Social Security and Medicare on payroll slips combined is...
BTW just remembered something. If we divide the total amount paid to Medicare from budget (about one trillion, see table below) partly financed from that deficit, to the number of recipients (abut 68 million) and months in a year, we get an amount of over one thousand (a month) competitive to pay any private insurance, not just average, while with Medicare it is difficult to find a doctor because of bill slashing and have to go to an "advantage" plan for prescriptions...
This big fraud only could count for almost one trillion cause i don't believe Medicare pays more than 20% of that amount to cover bills... A bit more than the amount still paid by the recipients.
However they now unleashed the DOGE to scare the recipients.
5:35 US debt clock, world debt clock. Question. Where all these money go, if every country (state, government) is in debt?
506 trillion yen is 4.5 trillion dollars. Apparently, Japanese companies don't need to operate on short term loans like the American ones from FED, a semi-private institution. Nevermind that.
5:44 M-am prins. Ce face Iohannis pentru dvs., în SUA se spune "charmoffensive". Și încă ține, după opt primi miniștri
6:00 Cațavencii
4:41 It smells really bad like mold inside and no amount of chlorine helps. So i went outside to pick garbage. A new type of item, used baby's pad, not far from where the mat has been (there was a perceptible stench around it, pretty similar to what i have in the apartment right now). The more traditional half full 16 oz water bottle with a cap and the neck facing my apartment. Many others, most on the (redwood, sequoia) mulch, some on grass. I was not alone. When i picked a small toy, a kid showed, etc.. There are some bushes next to the upper garages, in the furthest coin of "the court" as i call the enclosure between buildings and garages visible from my windows, smell like dog poo, but never been able to find any.
5:20 Just lowered my blood sugar from over 300 to 200, after eating a meal including a few small pieces of cucumber. With all the money spent every year for grants, 80 billions handed to individuals, including 30 to students, rest up to 500 billions (half trillion or 1/6 of the annual 3.2 T budget deficit) to firms, and they still don't know why cucumber lowers blood sugar, not to talk about some medicine based on it or God forbid, a cure for diabetes.
1:11 AM Here's what i figured on my way back from Lucky Eagle.
If US national debt is 39 trillion and debt is mostly treasury notes, bills and bonds, what is the interest payed by US on that debt? 4.5% of 39 is roughly 1.75 trillion, not 1 trillion as google says.
But it's not only the interest. When they mature, these notes need to by bought back by the government. My head is spinning. Total US budget is roughly 7 trillion as of right now. Maybe this is the (solving of the) mystery as where 1 trillion missing from Medicare goes.
11:35 Cu ocazia asta am aflat că instrumentele de împrumut ale statului american poartă o dobândă de aproximativ 4.5% la sută pe an (la un volum de peste 39 trilioane dolari) în timp ce aceleași instrumente din România (certificatele de trezorerie) plătesc deținătorilor aproximativ 7% pe an (la un volum de un sfert de trilion dolari).
Pentru că isărescul nostru e mai șmecher ca al lor nu-i așa. Mai catolic decât papa, mai capitalist decât Greenspan.
3:22 Ce spuneam eu că B1 e postul lui Băsescu. Be Number One! (La europarlamentare), Votați PIMP (sau PUMP, mișcare, ce PeSDe și PLN). !
Aia mai tristă din stânga (POV) e "nevasta"? Udrea e populară?
Mda dacă nu era băgat tricoul puțin în pantaloni doar la mijloc nu apărea cuta aia. Cât despre mărul lui Băsescu, seamănă mai mult cu niște gheare, excavator, colți de vasilisc draculă sau măsele cariate.
2:15 Trump working on a miracle, trying again to piss the Russians, because the refinery in Romania (which has 5000 employees) following most recent sanctions needs to be taken over by Romanian State.
So here we are, after retiring half of the Americans soldiers in Romania now Trump has given Romania the task to enforce his sanctions.
BTW. It would not be the first time in history when a country deals with both belligerents.
2:30 PM In the meantime Trump has changed his mind about retiring troops from Romania. Nevermind that, the title of the news in the video is misleading. But watch the reaction on Orban's face and generally his body language, like dominating the whole meeting.
To put it plainly. Hungary has a major interest in Romania and hopes that Russia will do the job for them. Trianon Treaty has split multi-national (Austro) - Hungary in its Hungarian majority and non Hungarian majority territories and now they want them back with the price of wars.
Some of them territories are in Ukraine etc., the reason for the war in Ukraine and previously in Yugoslavia, the reason Orban supports Putin though Hungary is a member of NATO and Trump, an undead Hungarian piano player with at least two identities in US works on both sides.
3:05 Could it be most of the 40 trillion American sovereign debt fake? In the next few hours/days i'll try to compare all the debt ceiling increase vs deficit. Actually, it is not that difficult, all i have to do is add the deficits since Reagan when there was no major debt and today and compare to 40 trillions. How many years is that?
Ok i hope these numbers taken from here are real, it looks like there is a (big) difference between deficit and debt increase per each year and per total. Looking to figure that one out. Ok so the interest is included in the second column.
Deficit to GDP ratio (last column) is the traditional but not a good way to express deficit (to the public) because GDP is enormous (though is surpassed by debt), it makes it look small, it should be expressed as deficit to budget ratio as it seems natural because it's a budget deficit (difference between budget spending and revenue).
I was looking for the numbers in 2024 and 2025 not present in the source to finish the sheet above but i ran into some very interesting things. Great Recession of 2009. Refinancing of 2025.
So we're looking to a historical double debt increase this year, or 6 times higher than that of 2009, the reason the 5 trillion increase in July did not suffice. So we will have something like 10 in that column for 2025 or one quart of the total US debt. Would that make an unheard of approximate 25-30% fiscal (real) deficit (fiscal deficit to GDP ratio).
But this one we can't blame on Trump. It's "maturing" of short term high interest debts contracted during pandemic. In other words, pandemic profiteering.
However should not be that high. Keep searching.
Did government shutdown helped any? Maybe, with raising public awareness.
Total market capitalization is the sum of market capital of all listed companies. For the whole market the sum is $62.8 trillion as of July 1st. S&P 500 is a list of 500 companies that together represent 53.3 trillion as of today. We may say S&P 500 is quite representative for the whole market.
Today came Mr. Powel who is the head of an entity called Federal Reserve, a bank ("of last resort, created after the great recession to deal with financial crisis"), and said they are (only) thinking about an interest rate cut and the whole market went up some one and a half percent (everybody became 1.5% richer that is).
S&P 500 (man is so hard to write because of & sign) index is a weighed (by capital) average of all stock prices in the list and today it rose some 1.5%. Unfortunately i cannot find the value of the rise of the whole market cap of 62.8, all i could find was the current value of S&P, 53.3 though it should follow closely the index. (So yesterday market cap should have been something like 1.51% less).
Which means everybody who owns stock in the US market today is 1.51% richer. 62.8 trillions (last known value) by 1.5% = 945 billions. Almost one trillion have been added today to their capital out of nothing or Powel's words). One of the wonders of capitalism.
How is that possible. I mean, someone's 401k should not depend by daily market fluctuations, right?
Unfortunately, there's more to it. Biggest ten firms listed on S&P have market cap in the trillions, which count for about 40 % of the whole market cap, though their assets (real selling value) are hundreds of times less. As of today, the most "valuable" firm in the world is Nvidia, with 4.1 trillion market value which BTW rose today with 1.7%.
(As for AI, count the number of contradictions in the answers (of google AI) or the number of different answers at different times for the same questions).
It is all an illusion, if not a Ponzi scheme, with the biggest listed firms being over evaluated hundreds of times (through successive daily fluctuations over the years). However, it is there where retirement money or 401 k are for most Americans. Japanese money are in real estate or whatever that is. Land.
All firms traded on the stock market do loan money especially for short term purposes and the banks loan from FED. So how much money does FED lend to banks to have such an influence on the market?
In other words, FED deals with financial crisis every 5 or 10 years, rest of the time is in standby and manipulates the market mostly with rumors many times a year if not on daily basis. BTW, could or did they do anything about the dot.com bubble of Y2K?
I guess their only purpose is keep the market over inflated so people put more of their retirement money in it.
And yeah, instead of dot com bubble we are living nowadays the AI bubble led by Nvidia.
6:18 Simpatiile lui Trump. Departamentul de Război. România are probleme. Secretarul General al NATO vine în România. Gigi Becali a donat 2 milioane. Ioana Gheorghe.
Yeak i know. Americans think it's a British accent, British think... whatever,... But can you understand what he's saying?
8:18 Nvidia market cap passes 5 trillion. How come it does not have two different share classes, like Alphabet. Voting, what? Jenseng is there to stay.
12:30 AM I could never understand until today how Medicare Advantage plans work.
For people with Medicare, the cheapest type of insurance seniors can have in the US through a life long mandatory contribution (until retirement) on their payroll, there is no coverage for medications prescriptions unless they enroll separately into what they call Medicare pard D and pay more and generally doctors run away from people with Medicare because they slash their bills more than a half, sometimes to next to nothing.
3% of gross salary is not much, some would say.
There are countries in the world where people pay more for mandatory state insurance (in the UK is called National Health System or NHS) but over there the privately insured are a minority and also health care cost less.
Healthcare for retired seniors in UK is free with NHS and for a supplemental private insurance the cost is around 150 pounds a month (about 200 dollars). Similar situations in other advanced countries like France and Germany etc. with universal health care.
And here come the MIB for profit Medicare Advantage plans, a "middleman" between the insured and Medicare. With those, you don't have to pay extra to enroll in part D (prescriptions), though there's a monthly penalty of maybe up to 100 dollars if you did not enroll into it (directly or through advantage plans) right when you got Medicare, per reason you deteriorated your health by not having it.
One of the Medicare Advantage plans is Humana, and they even used to give you back a monthly allowance on a card that kinda matched that penalty and everyone was happy.
However this year Humana cut that one while increasing all copays. At Humana, maximum allowable for insulin by example is 35 dollars a month which sometimes is enough and sometimes not though they pay without blinking for much more expensive medications like pioglitazone.
BTW many people like me in the past think insulin is very expensive and delay using it which is devastating for your health. 5 pens of Lantus with 300 units each (i use up to 40 units a day) which in combination with other meds lower my BG to about 200, cost about 250 dollars.
Today i figured the mystery. The cost for prescriptions in Medicare Advantage plans is covered by huge government subsidies paid to them Medicare Advantage plans like Humana. Question. Why don't they pay those subsidies directly to Medicare so people could have prescriptions without the "middleman"?
And here's the answer. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (states run health program for those with low income) account for about 3 trillion of the total 7 trillion in 2025 US spending budget. Medicare alone accounts for 842 billions. If we divide it by 59 million number of retirees and 12 months we get...
To that we should add the premiums (185 + whatever, part D). Average cost for a private insurance in the US is...
Some states have on top of that health programs covered by their own budget.
6:09 AM I think it is safe to say, in his wisdom (a steady genius) Trump is chasing his own tail in Canada. Of all major US trade partners, Canada is the most balanced.
3:10 When was that, two weeks ago when Trump said he is worried about communists taking over the country, but yet he favors China vs Canada in trade relations. More than that, though US imports 200 billions more than it exports to China instead of selling them cars to help balance the deficit, Tesla manufactures them in China.
The real reason? I always thought it was a good thing for us to buy iPhones from China because they could be cheaper ("because of cheap labor there") however i just discovered on the long term that is very bad for US trade balance and ultimately debt, because being made in China they are brought as imports and that adds to the trade deficit that turns to debt which interest is for now is covered by burdening the budget (one trillion) and stealing from Medicare (another trillion).
3:50 But i bet Ford and Apple are not the only us firms that manufacture in China and then import their products in the US. There are probably many more smaller firms and probably the same situation in Mexico and they are all imbalancing the trade.
And do you want to know the real cause of all these? I read a few days ago of a guy whose rent in San Francisco went from 3000 a month to 9000 a month.
I believe US is among the very few countries in the world that do not put a cap to rents.
Otherwise they could easily find the young people here that would be willing to work in those factories if only they cold afford the rent on a minimal or just above minimal wage.
5:20 Last of the summer wine. They are moving more stuff to the cars. However bass stopped just a few seconds ago when we were already dressing to leave for the day and i came to write here.
11:55 Sometimes i feel like Nicholas Cage in the movie. Discovering and re-discovering National Treasuries. Never heard about this book though.
5:12 Scott Bessent with George Soros once broke the Bank of England using insider information which BTW is a crime but that was one billion. Now he is breaking the US Budget that measures in trillions.
About half trillion on Medicare only, who knows how much on Medicaid and all others chapters.
4:16 Eaton HR Director is visiting the site after last week's announcement. She holds the position since November, after the nomination of the new CEO in September.
Funny how the stock climbed 25% after and then it got back down to the same level.
Today Angela had a doctor ordered blood drawing appointment and could not go to the meeting with the first half of her team that was scheduled in an email Friday at 3:45 after she left at 3:30. She will go tomorrow with the other half.
8:37 While i was doing this match there was a thunderstorm and the power went briefly off several times. I have the PC and monitor on a backup power supply however the router and switch not. It did not get saved properly. Lucky me i checked one more time, after about a couple of hours or after i finished i did this one. They try to prevent that too (double checking) by yelling obscenities in the parking lot.
I would never believed myself if i didn't see. I had no hopes in searching but did it anyways. Both senior officers at Eaton, in highest positions, CEO and DBA. It looks like it has all been taken over, starting with HR manager here, supervisor, and then CEO and DBA.
I wish my days were twice as long so i could search for all big corporations and all politicians in the US.
5:05 Honestely i believed they were approving the budget last night because it the time when they are doing it Romania. It was something else, i don't know exactly what. My brain was seriously scrambled by her walking on top yesterday for so many hours. Increasing the caps i guess for the next decade or so.
However looking at the process i saw there is already a proposal. I bet most people don't know anything about the whole process, from the beginning to the end or the amounts or what are they used for.
Because it is absolutely not spoken about in the news and really difficult to search and find the amounts online and especially we can't know the breakdown on those amounts per chapters. I am doing all these because i have accidentally found an obviously built in enormous fraud in Medicare chapter of the budget which is perennial and transcends "partisanship".
The situation is blatantly similar to that of the budget in Romania which i am following for years. There is no breakdowns or accountability of the spendings at the end of each (fiscal) year for the "discretionary spendings" (in the US) and the amounts are astronomical compared to what is seen being done.
BTW the budget is being approved before the beginning of the fiscal year. No matter what Trump, others think are doing, the current government has to act until then according to the old budget, at least for the "mandatory spendings" because is law. But i bet the new one is no different. Anyone knows where is this "Trump budget proposal" and how can be read online?
Trump talks a lot however all he can do is actually written in the budget for every fiscal year.
7:05 Aproximativ de un an nu mai pot să intru pe site-ul Camerei Deputaților, cdep.ro. Este singurul site de pe tot internetul pe care nu pot să intru.
Am vrut să intru să văd cum au votat partidele Legea Bugetului pe 2025, cu un deficit prevăzut în lege de 142 miliarde lei sau 7% din PIB "Bugetul este construit pe o creștere economică de 2,5% și un deficit bugetar de 7% din PIB. ".
Dar nu pot, m-au blocat, așa că... m-am dus la site-ul Senatului. Așa am aflat că la data votării legii respective în Senat, președintele Senatului era domnul... Ilie Bolojan. Da știu el doar număra voturile acolo dar nu am auzit să spună ceva. Acum însă vrea măsuri de reducere a deficitului bugetar, care este stabilit prin lege...
În partea de jos a acestei pagini se vede că "S-au înregistrat 254 de voturi pentru și 192 de voturi împotrivă." (din 465).
Cu alte cuvinte, ei au stabilit prin lege acest deficit pentru a se împrumuta și a veni acum cu noi taxe și alte măsuri de împovărare.
Pagina de căutare a votului electronic la Senat.ro nu funcționează așa că am încercat o căutare google, dar tot ce am găsit este această lege. Se poate vedea mai jos că există votul pe partide nominal așa cum există pentru fiecare lege. Aș fi vrut doar atât. Să văd cum a votat... Bolojan.
Dacă puteam să intru pe site-ul Camerei Deputaților puteam să aflu imediat.
Din această pagină pompoasă de pe site-ul USR rezultă însă că PNL-ul a votat în întregime Legea Bugetului deci putem bănui că și Bolojan, care acum se luptă să ia măsuri împotriva legii votată și semnată de el!
În matematică se numește reducere la absurd. În politică, e normal.
Singura soluție este abrogarea mai întâi a Legii Bugetului semnată de Bolojan și scrierea alteia, cu alte cheltuieli și alt deficit.
9:05 I wanted to say it for a longtime but never found the words. Do you know what is wrong with the perennial, traditional bipartisanship in the US, that is dividing the population in twoparties parts equal in numbers, always in opposition about anything (important) ? The most wrong part if it is half of Americans think the other half is wrong. Or so THEY want us to believe.
And the only bad or ugly thing about the Big Beautiful Bill is the whole budget is probably fake (based on what i proved about Medicaid and Medicare, with more than one trillion out of 7 being fraud).
5:35 Nu cerceta aceste legi!
Bolojan a ocupat într-un răstimp de 6 luni 3 cele mai importante funcții în stat plus cea de președinte al PNL. (Chemați Cartea Recordurilor!). Deși în unele ocazii a manifestat un complet analfabetism economic și mai tot timpul o încăpățânare de buldog.
Președinte al Senatului, pe când a votat cu tot PNL-ul (și Președinte PNL) și parafat legea cea mai importantă, adică cea a Bugetului de Stat.
Președinte (interimar) al României când a supravegheat aplicarea ei, cu depășirea, spune el a deficitului "legal" (deși baza de calcul, adică execuțiile bugetare ale ministerelor nu există).
Iar acum ca Prim Ministru, țipă latră jos și tare că nu sunt bani pentru aplicarea ei deși a uitat că este creația lui... Și în loc să taie cheltuieli fantastice inexistente de genul 96 miliarde la Ministerul Muncii (în afară de 155, pensiile), vrea taxe sporite și biruri.
Nu vi se pare că totul e o fază de tipul "el centrează, el driblează și (după un timp) tot el dă cu capul"?
Întotdeauna am avut câte un om providențial în România. De data asta, l'état, c'est Bolo.
10:20 I recently wrote about the speculations on stock market and the difference between total "value" of a stock and the real or intrinsic value of that stock. I also remember relatively recently there has been an announcement saying Microsoft has passed the three trillion threshold.
Then it came the shocking news of the amount of fining of Trump in a civil lawsuit.
BTW it always puzzled me since the day i came to the US and saw the news about civil case of OJ Simpson. I mean, the family has been awarded a large sum of money based on the claim he killed her though he was acquitted in the parallel criminal trial.
All civil lawsuits give money rewards for the damaged part. In the case of Trump, it was for the intentional super evaluation of his assets in order to get loans, and there is a name for it. Fraud. (though i don't see where the damage was for the State of New York).
Fraud is a crime. How come the prosecutor and the judge and us all can ignore the fact crimes have been committed?
Everybody knows. There is no sign of equality between the intrinsic value of a stock and the sum of the shares of that stock. I am not sure exactly what that intrinsic value means. Ok so it cannot be greater than assets. What is the current value of the assets of Facebook (meat whatever)?
It is about the same value it went 20% up that day. So only 1/5 (or less) of its stock value is covered by assets. Same goes for Apple, google, Amazon, Nvidia, Tesla, Microsoft etc..
As you can see, the difference between assets (minus liabilities whatever) and the market value is what they call a bubble. Only the five the magnificent 7 mentioned above account for a seven trillion or more bubble.
So we can see stock market is no much different than a Ponzi scheme. People buy shares hoping they will go up and one day they could sell them to other people for a profit. It is called speculation. But it is all legal and institutionalized while Ponzi schemes are not.
But if tomorrow for some reason a large enough number of holders would decide to sell all at a time (probably) around 10% of any of the seven, the whole thing will come crumbling down (bubble will burst).
The opposite is happening in Japan. Do you know where the difference is coming from? All of your Toyotas and Hondas and Nissans and Subarus etc. etc. etc......
