Posted on 08/17/2026 11:25:40 AM PDT by Miami Rebel
Treasury yields were higher on Monday as traders looked ahead to the latest FOMC minutes due later in the week.
The 30-year Treasury yield, which is typically sensitive to geopolitical events, advanced more than 4 basis points to 5.311%. It reached its highest level since June 2007.
The 10-year Treasury note yield — the main benchmark for mortgages, auto loans and credit card debt — was more than 2 basis points higher at 4.724%.
The yield on the 2-year Treasury note, which typically reacts in line with short-term Federal Reserve interest rate decisions, rose more than 1 basis point to 4.182%.
One basis point equals 0.01%, or 1/100th of 1%, and yields and prices move inversely to one another.
Monday’s moves comes as investors await July’s FOMC meeting minutes, due Wednesday, for further insights into the Federal Reserve’s latest monetary policy decisions and potential future rates trajectory.
Bond yields rose during Friday’s session after retail sales fell by a surprise 0.6% last month, which came after a flat producer price index print month-on-month in July.
The Fed voted 9-3 to hold rates steady at between 3.50% and 3.75% for the fifth consecutive meeting on July 29. The three dissenting committee members — Beth Hammack of Cleveland, Neel Kashkari of Minneapolis and Lorie Logan of Dallas — instead called for a 25 basis point hike.
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Trump is requesting $1.5 Trillion for next year's defense budget.
What’s the request for social spending?
Social spending, has been far more than anything the constitution actually requires for decades now.
Start working on Social Security before it gets to the point of insolvency by phasing in changes gradually which, along with other entitlement reform, will significantly improve the budget outlook.
FOMC——the Federal Open Market Committee, branch of the Federal Reserve that decides
US national monetary policy, including setting interest rates and managing the money supply.
Yup. We are still operating on Pelosi’s budget numbers along with the embedded COVID spending sent to states because of the continuing resolutions. Congress is less afraid of cutting a dollar of spending than they are of maintaining $2 trillion deficits.
Social Security, Medicare, and Defense are the Big Three when it comes to federal spending.
The government providing military is actually in the constitution.
Providing for people’s retirement and medical insurance is not.
The goal should be a 10 trillion reduction over a decade.
It simply cannot continue. It will continue as long as the market believes they can be paid. Has anyone asked DSA how they will address the deficit? The interest payments are a problem
I had hopes we could address spending with DOGE. But no one was serious. I do think we’ve crossed the Rubicon. A2029 crash?
We need sound money.
To be exact:
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
Congress also has the responsibility to coin money, and to regulate its value.
The last real coinage ended in May 1965.
That’s about a fourth of the actual inflation rate.
How does one go about providing for the common detense and promoting the general welfare?
That's for Congress to determine, as per the procedures outlined in Article One.
Yes, they used "welfare" to claim cradle to grave life support was constitutional. These are rather generic clauses which, unfortunately, has opened the door to spending that will bankrupt the country.
Article I section 8 is a bit more specific:
Section 8: Powers of Congress
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
To establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
To establish Post Offices and post Roads;
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards and other needful Buildings;-And
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
For whatever reason, we were NOT far-enough gone.
So maybe now we are closer and they are trying to take over.
The good news is that Milei has given us a roadmap out of hyperinflation and collapse leading to Communism, and other countries in Central and South America are turning hard right, along with quite a in Western Europe.
We may have only one more chance. And if we watch what happened and what IS happening in Argentina, we may need to appeal to refinance our debt, or default on some of it.
Certainly, if ANY economy in THE WORLD is POWERFUL ENOUGH to EARN its way out of this mess (with strict austerity measures like Argentina) it is the good ole USA's.
Let us hope that POTUS will for a few days or weeks stop his manic monologues about how great he is and how great the economy is, and do some BUDGET CUTTING of some significance, a la Milei.
I swear, the mere hint that SOMEONE is doing anything about the national debt will be such a huge shot in the arm to the world economy that you would see instant good effects ripple through the economy. Instantly.
But I am not holding my breath.
No one in our Government has enough integrity to even try to do this. No one. Not Trump. Not anyone.
They will all sit and watch our currency dissolve and watch the lifes' work of hundreds of millions of people disintegrate, and watch our country go Communist, RATHER than stop with the circuses and bread.
They are all JUST THAT worthless and cowardly.
It will be an issue the next election for sure and one that plays to Rubio’s strengths especially with the entitlement programs on the fast track to insolvency.
“Keeps getting better dont it?
Unbelievable.”
____________________________________________________________
By driving up the interest rates, Trump has reinvigorated the government bond market.
That may not be a very strong selling point in November.
“Start working on Social Security before it gets to the point of insolvency by phasing in changes gradually which, along with other entitlement reform, will significantly improve the budget outlook.
____________________________________________________________
Social Security would immediately be in the actuary black if we simply removed the income cap on earnings.
Cuts? I’m for elimination. Social Security is a tax, nothing else. Eliminate the Social Security welfare, eliminate the tax.
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