“I’m shocked, shocked, to find that gambling is going on in here.”
—Casablanca
We interrupt our regular coverage, minute by minute, of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs confrontation with the justice system…to bring you these updates.
First, we have a tense and dangerous situation developing here at the ranch.
Our son-in-law, who runs the place, came back from a round-up in the high valley with some distressing news. He reports:
“It looks like one of our cowboys has been riding more than horses, if you know what we mean. It’s a long story. But Ariel [another of the cowboys, names changed to protect privacy] was handed a court order to stay away from his girlfriend, the mother of his two children.
“She accused him of domestic violence,” explained our informant. “What could I say? I don’t know what was really going on. And I didn’t expect to be a marriage counselor or police officer.
“There was probably more to the story. Rumor is that Ariel was fooling around too. Remember last year, He had been accused of raping the Ebenisto’s daughter [Ebenisto is another employee]…The charge was dismissed after the woman said it was consensual.”
But tensions were already running high yesterday. Then came this new twist. “People accuse each other of domestic violence a lot around here. And when Ariel had to move out [the other cowboy] moved in.
“This is a disaster. They’re all related. And they’re ready to go at each other with knives. And what can we do? We can’t have this kind of thing…it’s too dangerous and disruptive. They all work with each other every day. But we can’t fire the whole team. Nobody else is going to come up here to do this work.”
Stay tuned…
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is jangling international trade, jittering international institutions, and jumbling customary arrangements at home and abroad.
They’ve also brought public discourse to a new low. The president routinely describes public figures as ‘fools’ or ‘low IQ’ or ‘losers.’ Not surprisingly, other commentators and political leaders retort that Trump is an ‘idiot’ or ‘demagogue’ or ‘dictator.’
For our part, here at the Bonner Private Research headquarters, we stick to the high road. We won’t indulge in such low-brow attacks. “Jackass” describes most of them all fairly well; no need to go further.
But the thing the Great Disruptor is not disrupting is the thing that most needs it — the Deep State’s control over the empire…and its downward slide. The budget tells the tale. As we saw yesterday, the interest on US debt is already more than the entire ‘security’ budget. Niall Ferguson pointed out that this is generally the ‘point of no return.’
But instead of raising the alarm, Mr. Trump proposes a big jump in money to the firepower industry, as if spending more on ships and tanks would make the interest payments appear smaller.
And instead of focusing his energy on serious budget cuts, Mr. Trump brought in Elon Musk, who made an astonishing discovery: the feds are wasting money!
We watched an amusing news show in which the Fox TV commentator joined a DOGE board meeting. Musk and his earnest young lieutenants dutifully told what they had found: dysfunctional accounting systems…loans to people who had not been born yet…scammy foreign aid programs where almost all of the money never left the DC area.
We were shocked…SHOCKED!
DOGE claims $160 billion in savings…down from the original $2 trillion target. But researchers have only been able to verify about $60 billion in real cuts. And while this DOGE looks under the seat cushions, the trajectory of the last 25 years — towards more debt, more government, and bigger deficits — continues undisturbed.
Spending is running 10% ahead of the last year of the Biden team…with a deficit for the last twelve months above $2 trillion. There is so much razz-ma-tazz in the Republicans’ ‘Big, Beautiful’ budget numbers – treasures and booby traps buried in its 1,116 pages – analysts are still studying it.
The Congressional Budget Office’s baseline figures told us the feds will collect $67 trillion in revenue over the next ten years and spend $89 trillion. That would give us a debt of $58 trillion…and annual deficits edging up to $2.5 trillion a year. If everything goes according to plan.
But everything won’t go according to this plan. Instead, something truly shocking is likely. The 2017 tax cuts will be extended, while many of the Republicans’ cost reductions will never happen.
And then, investors and savers – seeing federal debt turn upward in a ‘hockey stick’ pattern, will demand higher rates of interest. The debt will likely soar past $60 trillion, with deficits over $3 trillion per year.
Regards,
 |
Bill Bonner,
For The Daily Reckoning Australia
