Yes, this is special.
Due to a bunch of scheduling conflicts this week, my writing schedule has been thrown out of whack but I know many of you just can’t get by without some of my witty banter.
So here goes.
There are actually two things on my mind today and the first one has just got me perplexed.
It’s about Donald Trump and the impending (sort of) Grand Jury indictment that may (or may not be) handed down today. It is potentially one of the dumbest things I have ever seen regarding Donald Trump in a very long time. DA Alvin Bragg is attempting to do something that the Southern District of the US Attorneys office refused to do. The DOJ didn’t want to go down this road either and here you have a spineless ultra Liberal District Attorney. A guy who won’t prosecute armed criminals and cares way more for the criminal than he does the victim. A guy who is on such shaky ground that he is relying on one of the biggest liars in American History (Michael Cohen) as his top witness. A guy who is ignoring 3/4’s of the ADAs in his office and is going forward. It is beyond stupid.
There are a couple of questions I have and I am not sure why these questions are not being asked. One, Why are they trying to indict someone past the statute of limitations? How does that work? Maybe I am missing something here but the alleged event took place in and around 2016, seven years ago. Riddle me that Batman.
Two, do Bragg and the rest of the conspiratorial Democrats not realize that any indictment of Former President Trump will fail along with the fact that this will embolden the base he once had and bring them firmly back into his camp? A camp that was emptying out pretty quickly.
The guy is trying to make a name for himself and along with that Socialist Leticia James in Albany they will do way more harm than good with this poorly played out witch hunt. Let’s face it. Everyone wants Trumps head on their mantle. Everyone has tried, everyone has failed. I am no fan of Donald Trump but enough is enough. Go back to figuring out how you stop the bleeding in New York. Go back to doing your jobs and putting criminals back in jail and make New York safer.
Now the Fed.
Always one to admit my error I will admit that I was wrong about the Federal Reserve pausing. Jerome Powell knew going in that he would be second guessed no matter what he did and he did what he thought was in the best interest of the country and the Fed’s number one mandate right now, is to slow inflation. Can’t fault him and he was pretty clear that the Fed is closer to ending this rate hike environment than he previously mentioned.
No reading between the lines here and at this point I am not going to jump down his throat about ignoring a potentially bigger problem, the banking system. The Fed and it’s enforcement group of banking regulators failed to look at the bigger risks of some of these institutions and you would think that would be priority number one of the Federal Reserve, apparently, it’s not.
Ever the cynic, I think the Fed is actually ill prepared to make that regulatory push into the books of these systemically unimportant banks. Yes, they will send the cavalry to look at Citibanks books but when it comes to banks like First Republic and Silicon Valley Bank, who did they send? What oversight was there? Yes, they were warned but apparently, warnings from regulators doesn’t carry as much weight as it used to or maybe, having some member of your board of directors on the board of the branch of the Federal Reserve that regulates you prevented that Branch from coming down hard. I don’t know. Things always seem a little too cozy in California.
So, the Fed deems inflation a bigger risk and I suppose they are right because any bank failures or near bank failures will just be refunded by the Fed. The FDIC will eventually be on the hook for hundreds of billions of dollars it doesn’t have should we see more and more failures and the Fed will just keep writing checks. I guess Chairman Powell knows that the only way left to get inflation under control is by increasing interest rates and the shrapnel from those rate hikes can be triaged with more and more Fed money.
Great article. A man after my heart;) Welllll I agree on most of the article, excellent insight questions on the fed and the indictment!! Thank You!