Sam Bomes

Golfer, @NHLBruins fan, Payments and Liquidity mgmt. Graduate of @ElonUniversity. Views are my own. @godslovenyc @getbackstop

[Dow @mark_dow]

All these takes--and pretty much all the takes that are critical of Powell are implicitly or explicitly blaming him for Covid inflation.

I say three things to this:

One, every country on earth had roughly similar inflation with much less stimulative policies. And we had better growth, a faster bounce back, and a better labor market than all of them.

Two, even if you think the Fed was late to hike by a few months, how much lower do you honestly think inflation would have been if they hadn't been? Higher rates weren't going to unblock cargo ships or restart chip manufacturing.

Three, even if you think Covid was only responsible for 50% of the inflation (which I think is far too low), with annual inflation of 4.7%, 8.0%, 4.1%, 2.9% for 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024, cumulative inflation over target ascribed to policy would only be an extra 1.4% per year--a price, even at the inflated attribution to fiscal and monetary policy, well worth paying for the best recovery of any economy on the planet plus a soft landing.

Sry, Powell did an excellent job.

[Jessica Riedl 🧀 🇺🇦 @JessicaBRiedl]

“Why aren’t you cheering Trump & DOGE? I thought you wanted spending and deficit cuts!"

Because I’ve been doing this for 25 years and can’t be tricked by gimmicky nonsense. Trump’s first term added $8 trillion in enacted spending hikes and tax cuts to the deficit - half of which was unrelated to the pandemic. This time around, Trump has proposed roughly $8 trillion more in tax cuts and spending hikes over the decade. And right now, a GOP Congress is preparing to abandon most reconciliation cuts and instead add $325 billion this year in new spending. We’re headed towards $4 trillion deficits within a decade.

So, no, I don’t get excited when DOGE cancels $1 billion in govt contracts. Or saves $3 billion in federal workforce reductions out of a $7,000 billion budget. Not when Trump and Congress are also preparing to add $800 billion more annually in proposed new tax cuts and spending.

And no, the huge savings are not coming. Even (unrealistically) eliminating 20% of the federal workforce would save $60 billion, and overhauling federal systems to sharply reduce payment errors may save perhaps $80 billion (and is probably unlikely too). For all of DOGE’s bluster, administrative and executive reforms would at best save 1-2% of federal spending and offset only a small fraction of Trump’s red ink agenda.

That leaves trying to unilaterally impound spending such as USAID—which is wildly illegal—or actually going to Congress to pare back spending the constitutional way. But Trump has already taken Social Security, Medicare, defense, veterans, border (and interest) off the table, which is 2/3 of all spending and is driving deficits. And the GOP Congress seems ready to give up on cutting the remaining one-third of spending. Want to cut spending and the deficit? How about they stop passing budget-busting bills. Don’t brag about your coupon-clipping frugality at the same time you are buying a $250,000 Ferrari. I’m not going to cheer Trump and DOGE for adding “only” $750 billion to deficits instead of $800 billion. We’re still going backwards.

I’ve spent decades studying the federal budget. I know that $7 trillion(!) behemoth inside and out – where the money really goes, and where the savings opportunities lie. So I can also detect bullshitters who talk tough about trillion-dollar spending cuts without doing their homework. It’s the ones who claim most spending goes to undefined “waste,” federal salaries, immigrants, foreigners, Ukraine, or non-working welfare recipients. It’s the ones who claim we can easily balance the budget or cut $1 trillion without specifying exactly what line-items to cut. Or that we can return to 2019 spending levels for each program, which means a 20% inflationary cut, defaulting on the federal debt, and kicking off every senior who has since retired into Social Security and Medicare. It’s all hot air and empty bluster. Tough talk without following through on anything substantive. Just wait until you see the final deficit numbers in October.

And this is why GOP movements to cut spending always fail. They make absurdly ambitious promises without doing their homework, understanding where the money goes, and specifying real plans to fix it. You can’t significantly cut the deficit just by cutting waste, firing bureaucrats, and defunding immigrants and foreigners. There are no easy short cuts. You have to stop cutting taxes and then address Social Security, Medicare, defense, and a lot of other popular programs. Wake me when the GOP goes there.

So, no, I will not get excited about a couple billion in DOGE savings on one hand while Trump pushes Congress to add $8 trillion over the decade in tax cuts and spending with the other hand. I’m not that gullible.

[David Frum @davidfrum]

The main argument for a Strategic BItcoin Reserve seems to be that Bitcoin holders worry about an impending shortage of greater fools and need the US government to act as the greatest fool of last resort.

[Dow @mark_dow]

Trump wants to govern by might over right, personal interest over rule of law, conspiracy over reality, fiction over fact, division over unity, fear over aspiration.

His cabinet & VP refuse to support him.

Our enemies all support him.

He's flagrantly broken laws, leveraged violence to overturn our Constitution's most critical process, and amassed a strong track record as a sexual predator.

The merits and demerits of whomever the dems put forth really doesn't matter in this context. We can fix bad policy.

There is no excuse for not knowing all this by now.

[Lilium @Lilium]

In a key step towards the industrialization of our novel electric jet technology, we’re pleased to share that the team is kicking off the assembly of the Lilium Jet’s revolutionary electric propulsion system at our dedicated propulsion facility.
#Lilium
https://t.co/kkaNTrKgKB

[Ray Delahanty | CityNerd @Nerd4Cities]

They’re just SO CLOSE to getting it

[Sam Bomes @SamBomes]

@SheWolsch Scores when’s he wants. Clearly didn’t want to

[Hensley Lab @SCOTTeHENSLEY]

We developed a new multivalent mRNA vaccine against all known influenza virus subtypes. Our study describing the vaccine was just published in @ScienceMagazine. 1/n
https://t.co/HxTKm47EC3

[Terrible Maps @TerribleMaps]

If Great Britain was located next to Japan

[Seinfeld Current Day @Seinfeld2000]

collab of the year

[Sam Bomes @SamBomes]

https://t.co/olAXz0UEkJ

[Scott Hechinger @ScottHech]

This is astonishing, yet not surprising. If it feels like you're far less safe in NYC than ever before, it's not bc shootings are up. It's because the media (fueled by lies & fearmongering by NYC Mayor Eric Adams) is up. Look at this chart. Red line is shootings. Grey is media.

[Nate Silver @NateSilver538]

Biden got a lot of COVID relief, an infrastructure bill, a gun bill, and had a progressive Supreme Court justice confirmed and didn't have too many problems with his cabinet nominations. All with a 50-50 Senate. The narrative about how his legislative agenda failed is dumb.

[Donald Shoup @DonaldShoup]

A new analysis finds that streets take up about 18% of urban space in major U.S. counties. That’s $959 billion worth of land. https://t.co/DzjQWm8ZmF via @citylab

[Jeff Berardelli @WeatherProf]

Global temperatures from 1880-2021. @NASA visual using @ed_hawkins Warming Stripes.

[David Zipper @DavidZipper]

"It's not my duty as Mayor to make sure you have a parking spot. For me it's the same as if you bought a cow, or a refrigerator, and then asked me where you're going to put them."

- Miguel Anxo, Mayor of Pontevedra, Spain
https://t.co/fWNX7a6hra

[Acyn @Acyn]

Seems like Psaki came prepared for this question

[President Biden Archived @POTUS46Archive]

My statement on the reported Supreme Court decision draft.

[Caleb Watney @calebwatney]

Full report here
https://t.co/JdQjgFW8i4

[Alexander Gabuev 陳寒士 @AlexGabuev]

For those who try to make sense of what's happening and WHY it's happening, I can't recommend enough this piece by my @CarnegieEndow colleagues @andrewsweiss & @eugene_rumer published in early November 2021. Unfortunately, it ages well. https://t.co/h8Nk62kbbo