More Fed, tariff handouts, coffee, tea and barbecue

More Fed, tariff handouts, coffee, tea and barbecue

The BLS strikes again reporting North Carolina jobless claims last week at 205. The actual number was 19,335. Whoops.

The president has asked for and is receiving an expedited hearing on whether he can fire Fed governor Lisa Cook. Two lower courts have said that he can’t. As noted all the judges who voted to leave Cook on the Fed were democrat appointees. The sole dissent was by a Trump appointee who appeared to dissent only on the grounds that a dismissal could not await a hearing if the person in question were continuing to make decisions. That seems to say that the person accused should recuse themselves while the decision is being adjudicated. Sounds reasonable to me.

Don’t you just love all the people on the Fed board making decisions regarding monetary policy when only one (Waller) is trained in the subject? No wonder policy is so disjointed. This gives further support to my contention that the Fed should be separated into two parts: one dealing with monetary policy and the other with bank regulation and supervision. All of the current governors – save Wallace – would be on the regulation/supervision board. Waller and 6 new appointees would be on the monetary policy board.

Why all the concern about the democrats shutting down the government over the stopgap spending bill now being debated? They are in the minority in both houses. How can they shut down anything? Only if a few republicans side with the democrats can this happen. Didn’t Obamacare pass without a republican vote? Why can’t this happen with the republicans in the majority?

The democrats want the health care extensions enacted during Biden to be extended moaning that if not millions of people would be affected. Weren’t the extensions put into place as a temporary measure during the pandemic?  Just goes to show that once enacted, it is difficult to repeal anything.

The duty free program on African exports to the US is set to expire soon. It looks as if the administration has not gotten around to deciding whether to renew it or whether to negotiate with each African country individually. Meanwhile the tariff on Kenyan exports is a “low” 10 percent. I wonder if the 10 percent is because Kenya is probably our closest ally in Sub-Saharan Africa? Anyway I have a personal interest because my Jockey underwear are from Kenya.

Talk about mixed statements! The president of the Minneapolis Fed, Neel Kashkari, sees two more 25 basis point reductions in the Fed Funds target rate by year end. If that is the case then why didn’t he push for a 75 basis point cut and get it over with? On the other hand, there is a Fed observer who puts more weight on inflation than on unemployment and argues for a rate increase.

The Fed’s Wrong Move

The 50 percent tariff on Brazil is starting to bite. Don Bacon (R-Neb) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) are introducing a bill to exempt coffee from Trump’s tariffs. Bacon said “Why are we tariffing American citizens on something that we don’t even grow? It doesn’t make sense.” I wonder what the Kona coffee growers have to say about that? Since I am not a coffee drinker I am most affected by the 145 percent tariff on tea from China and the 50 percent tariff on India. Maybe Kenya will be the beneficiary of the tariff wars on tea too. And yes, Don Bacon is on the House Agriculture Committee.

Agriculture is one of the sectors hardest hit by Trump’s tariffs. It is a double whammy. First, their equipment costs have increased and second, their market has shrunk mainly because of the Chinese. What to do? Bail them out with the tariff money of course. This is a repeat of the first Trump term where farmers received a billion dollar bailout. Agriculture secretary Rollins is saying that there are discussions to use the tariff revenues to bailout the farmers. Special treatment for farmers? You bet! Got to keep those farm states voting republican.

Californians represented by the few republican congressmen are outraged that Newsom is trying to gerrymander them out of their representatives by combining their district with those in the bay area. Too bad they can’t ever secede.

Speaking of secession, a lot has been written about how conservatives want to secede from liberal states but little about whether progressive cities want to secede from republican-run states. Surely Austin and Houston might like to leave Texas. Tulsa might want to leave Oklahoma. Memphis, Nashville, Kansas City (Mo) and Atlanta also might want to secede from their republican-controlled states. But they, like their suffering brethren in democrat run states must continue to toil under unsympathetic state leaders.

Trump is going to send the national guard into Memphis to sample the barbecue (I prefer Kansas City’s) and visit BB King’s Blues Club. Actually I was shocked to find out that Memphis, not Chicago has the country’s highest rate of violent crime. In a signing at the White House creating the law enforcement task force, there were the two US senators and Tennessee governor Bill Lee. News reports appear to say that Lee was “blindsided” by the president’s actions and just flew to Washington at the last moment to be at the announcement. True or not, missing were any officials from Memphis itself. Memphis mayor Paul Young said he was not happy with the announced deployment of the national guard in his city. But he said that he hoped that at least the feds and the governor would keep him informed about what they were doing in his city saying “The authority to call the National Guard lies with the governor and the president, and, so as mayor, my goal is to make sure that if they are indeed coming, that we have an opportunity to drive some of the decisions around how they engage in our community.” 

Just like with DC, it will be interesting to see what happens to crime when the Feds leave. But in the meantime, how bout them ribs?