Free Republic

Here’s how the system works. The Treasury determines the amount of money it needs to pay out for all government liabilities, including the interest on maturing bonds, as defined by law.

They sell bonds to the Federal Reserve money center banks. The central bank (Fed) deposits funds in the accounts of the member banks sufficient to buy all the bonds. The member banks deposit the funds in the Treasury account.

They then auction the bonds to other banks at a slightly higher price, allowing them to make a profit. The non-member banks offer them to anyone worldwide with cash who needs to park their money with no risk.

For accounting purposes, outstanding bonds are classified as debt. This is a fiction. They could buy back the bonds at any time by requesting the funds from the Federal Reserve to do so.

As long as the Treasury only pays in dollars and never borrows currency from another country, inflation is determined by the economic equilibrium between supply and demand, interest rates, and taxation.

The decision to provide retired seniors with a guaranteed income is a political and moral one, not an economic one.

Why would the head of a nuclear watchdog group assume Iran’s motives were peaceful when they won’t allow them to see for themselves? He’s either an idiot, or part of the deception.

If Anthropic buys a book and scans it into its training data, this has been ruled fair use by a U.S. federal court. Judge William Alsup determined that training AI models on copyrighted books that were lawfully acquired—such as by purchasing and then scanning physical copies—is “exceedingly transformative” and protected under the fair use doctrine.

If Bush and Schwartzenegger had found Saddam’s WMD they would have been considered heroes. There was widespread consensus at the time that the WMD existed and it was appropriate to neutralize it based on the risk factor. The mistake was to then think that we could invest US lives to democratize people that were not culturally ready for it.

Isolationism is not an option in a world with ICBMs and nuclear bombs. The evidence for Iran’s nuclear weapons program and solid and the risk of doing nothing is greater than neutralizing it now. What we don’t want to repeat is the exercise in nation building. We can offer to facillitate a peaceful transition, but we can’t change a culture to a Western democracy.

That must have been what the court told Eisenhauer when he sent Alabama National Guard troops to push George Wallace aside and protect those black students. Oh wait...that was “good” use of National Guard troops. Does precident mean anything to these robed clowns?

Over time, as Congress gave the president expanded powers on its behalf to enact tariff policies, opponents to several tariffs laws argued the statutes were an unconstitutional congressional delegation of authority to the president. Known as the non-delegation doctrine, the question of how much of its authority Congress can grant to the president and the judiciary goes back to the time of Chief Justice John Marshall.

See you in the Supreme Court.

There is no amount of spending cuts that could ever retire the national debt or even balance the budget. The Treasury could convert all the bonds to dollars and zero out its accounts tomorrow if it decided to, but it offers a reliable way for big money to park their excess dollars and keep the dollar the reserve currency of the world.

The problem has never been about debt. The Federal Reserve is like the Bank of Monopoly. If the Treasury needs dollars to pay its obligations, the Fed gives its members dollars to buy anything the Treasury sells to raise funds.

The problem has always been about spending the government funds in ways that promote growth, peace, security, and stability. What the politicians do is take from one group and redistribute wealth to their donors, causing inflation. If leaders understood how to make beneficial choices for the country’s good, we’d look like Saudi Arabia and Dubai rather than San Francisco and New York.

How do you know this is really Xi Jinping? He’s used body doubles when he was concerned about security.

I never understood the mentality of people who buy rocks to “protect” their money. Gold has no intrinsic value other than its use in electronics, doesn’t pay interest, doesn’t produce goods or services, and is fueled by the greater fool” theory of value.

I know “Ole’ King Cole was a merry old soul”, King Midas loved to count his gold in the counting house, and Goldfinger spent his whole (shortened) life trying to acquire more, but these seem like the pursuits of miserly misfits with no understanding of the purpose of wealth.

Gold, Bitcoin, Bonds, and other fixed-income assets are vehicles for storing excess capital until it can be put to work. They are like batteries, helpful in powering something real to meet human needs, but otherwise inert.

He needs to be prepared. He can have an opposing view on the program, but he can’t let them misinform people with their canned spin. Fox is trying to expand the tent, but they aren’t doing it smartly.

I understood that the right-seat pilot was the flight instructor doing a check ride on Lobach. He was responsible for taking command of the aircraft if he perceived an unsafe condition. He would announce, “My aircraft” and Lobach would immediately hand over controls to him. He should not have relied on her compliance with his instructions.

This is orchestrated short-selling of the 10yr by enemies supporting China to drive up rates and trigger a recession in the US. This is in retaliation for the massive recession hitting China as their exports pile up at the docks, and they have to lay off millions of workers.

Typically, yields decrease in a bear market as people flee to safety. This increase is highly suspicious.

The Fed must defend the 10yr just as it did when the Wuhan bioweapon attacked us. They can have the member banks buy bonds from the short sellers and force them to liquidate. Powell can’t pretend to be “neutral” when the US Treasury is under foreign attack.

If he says it publicly, it’s public knowledge, not insider trading. Schiff is as dumb as a sack of bricks.

AI did it.

Someone forwarded their contact information to Waltz with Goldberg’s number instead of his own. That person’s phone needs to be examined. If other people received his correct number in the past in their contacts, then his phone was hacked.

There is no legitimate reason anyone in the Trump administration would have Goldberg’s number in their contact list.

Dalio is a fossilized monetarist who doesn’t understand how money works for a country like the United States that issues its own currency. Government debt creates a surplus in the real economy, as every dollar created must be accounted for in either public or private accounts. This is called Modern Monetary Theory, but is really just double-entry bookkeeping. The discount interest paid by the Federal Reserve on dollars held either as currency or as bonds is arbitrary and serves as a brake on inflation. They are obligated by law to create the necessary money to meet the government’s obligations.

Dalio and other gold bugs use the “debt crisis” as a “noble lie” to constrain the government from overspending and creating inflation. His model is applicable to individuals, cities, states, and businesses that don’t issue their own currency. It doesn’t apply to the Bank of Monopoly also known as the Federal Reserve.

IP addresses and domains can be blocked from access if they are the source of illegal activity. This practice is known as IP blocking or IP banning, and it’s a common method used by websites, online services, and network administrators to prevent access from specific IP addresses or ranges.

The Republican leadership should enact new rules requiring a breathalyzer test before voting.

The Babylon Bee bought Newsweek. This was not widely reported.

The film industry is so afraid that it even ran an ad for Cinemastreamers during the Oscars. This company streams movies in buildings that seat hundreds of people. The screen is completely automated and requires no interactive controls. You can even buy snacks like popcorn and soft drinks while streaming.

It’s a novel idea, but the problem is that it costs a family close to $100 to go to a Cinemastreamer building. Also, you can only view one stream at a time and can’t flip selections until you find something worth watching. I don’t think it will survive as a product.