Daniel Alpert

Trump gathered his Generals and Admirals to rant like a madman? Leaders acting out of control in front of the people who control their military forces has lead to coups elsewhere.
And the US military pledges an oath to the Constitution, not a king!
www.nytimes.com/live/2025/09...

The senseless murder of Charlie Kirk has been swiftly transformed by MAGA into its own 1933 Reichstag moment.

Today MAGA will hold its version of the 1934 Nuremberg Rally.

**Beware of calls to place absolute power with Donald Trump.**

The timeframe may be compressed, but the history rhymes.

Trump: "Grab what ya want."
The motto for his presidency...
[The merch room off the oval office.]
www.instagram.com/reel/DNmdJmd...

Trump’s Efforts to Control Information Echo an Authoritarian Playbook

Trump's Friday sacking of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics marks our ext to an Orwellian world. Big Brother Trump seeks to turn the publisher of non-political data into a "Ministry of Truth" to produce his propaganda.

Open your eyes, America!

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/u...

Opinion | ‘1984’ Hasn’t Changed, but America Has

Wait! Trump's logocracy is banning "1984," "Brave New World* and "Animal Farm" from Red State school libraries and reading lists?
The very volumes that helped topple Communism are now feared by Republicans, because they describe Trumpworld too closely?
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/o...

Opinion | ‘1984’ Hasn’t Changed, but America Has

Wait! Trump's logocracy is banning "1984," "Brave New World* and "Animal Farm" from Red State school libraries and reading lists?
The very volumes that helped topple Communism are now feared by Republicans, because they describe Trumpworld too closely?
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/o...

AI killing jobs?
See this response from a not-too-complex task I asked from the "powerful" Perplexity engine.
It bullshitted!
I then asked it to perform the same function using its Deep Research setting and it admitted it could not becasue of the Fed required API authentication.
AI is not there yet!

Dear Media,
WTI Crude in the mid-to-low $70s does not constitute an oil spike or a "surge in energy prices." At worst it is a reversion to the mean. But after adjustment for inflation, it is just plain cheap, historically.
Just have a bunch of futures traders ginning up some vol.

CNN to air George Clooney’s ‘Good Night, and Good Luck’ Broadway play live on June 7 | CNN CNN will exclusively televise actor George Clooney’s record-breaking Broadway show “Good Night, and Good Luck,” on Saturday, June 7, the network announced Thursday.

Whatever your political persuasion, you should be watching this remarkable achievement on June 7th. It has the capacity to Bring America Together Again.

CNN to air George Clooney’s ‘Good Night, and Good Luck’ Broadway play live on June 7

www.cnn.com/2025/05/15/e...

A very different trade for US assets now than was seen earlier this month:
1) US economic data is crap;
2) US bonds responding to the above with a strong bid.
3) US equities gaining on lower bond rates and earlier value destruction.
4) US$ weaker on economics, not capital flight.

Wall Street is seeing right through the Trump 2.0 spin | CNN Business So, what happens now that President Donald Trump has art-of-the-dealed his way out of his own centerpiece economic initiative because it nearly broke financial markets?

Volatility is a traders friend...normally. But this ain't normal.
As I noted to CNN's @allisondmorrow today, it's pencils down on the buyside until there is more clarity on the misbegotten Trump temper tantrum tariff.
Markets see no end game in all this.

www.cnn.com/2025/04/10/b...

Further, compare China's need for imports, when they last strengthened the CNY 20 years ago, to today. The have a straw into cheap Russian oil now. They control rare earth metals, and ore that they import is on sale. They can take the CNY over 8 without breaking a sweat IMHO.

...but the Japanese government will pressure its central bank not to unduly antagonize Trump. Japan will try a charm offensive with him first (a la UK's Starmer) in hopes of better tariff treatment. But, eventually, the BOJ will enter the fray and weaken the yen, too.
#TradeWar >>

And the basis trade is collapsing, leading funds to repay JP¥ based lines as they bail out of $ stocks and bonds. The yen is strengthening to a point where it will cause export problems for Japan, too, on top of the #Trumpiffs. The BOJ will be under pressure to intervene here>>

Overnight, China allowed the Yuan trading band to widen to 7.35. The 84% retaliatory tariff from China is nothing compared to this resounding shot across the bow. They are signaling intent here: to use their fully controlled currency to force open export markets. >>

Musk Hopes US, Europe Move to Zero-Tariff Free-Trade Zone Elon Musk hopes for a “zero-tariff” system between the US and Europe that would effectively create “a free trade zone,” he said on Saturday, days after levies set by US President Donald Trump sent glo...

Naughty Elon.
You're going to get yourself thrown off Trump's island.
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

I'm watching CNBC. These anchors are so angry. They really didn't believe he'd do it. They're actually just now, 10 years into this shit, realizing he's a maniac hellbent on revenge and there's no grand plan for the markets. Better late than never but holy shit.

There are 33m companies in the USA. Only 21k employe 500 or more. And they only make up 23% of workers.

Trump and Elon are ignoring the more than 32m entrepreneurs that can't afford to build a new factory or pay tariffs or absorb cancelled contracts.

A year of market gains wiped off the board.
Yep. Only HE can do it.

Dan Alpert on X: "And here is the #BLS data: Non-farm payrolls: 228,000 Private: 208,000 Government: 19,000 Unemployment: 4.2% Revisions from priors: -48,000 Blowout! But will be viewed as the last hurrah." / X And here is the #BLS data: Non-farm payrolls: 228,000 Private: 208,000 Government: 19,000 Unemployment: 4.2% Revisions from priors: -48,000 Blowout! But will be viewed as the last hurrah.

I am on the fly today and my Jobs Day posts are on that other site. x.com/DanielAlpert...

Take a look.

Cross posting is tough! But I will do what I can.

A good day to recall this bit of wisdom (on 9/11 Memorial):

Near the top of Trump's tariff menu is Fiji. Presumably so because of the vast US imports of WATER from that island manufacturing behemoth. Need to protect American water bottling jobs?
Make America Wet Again!
#MAWA ha-ha-ha

Since President Lame Brain did his thing yesterday, the US$ has tanked against all major currencies. Yet crude oil, a $-based commodity, has - counterintuitively - also cratered, just when those long oil should be asking more for it in the now-weaker $. Why?
A: Recession risks now loom far larger.

Musk Set to Get Access to Top-Secret U.S. Plan for Potential War With China

Fox meet henhouse www.nytimes.com/2025/03/20/u...

Lutnick urges Fox News viewers to buy Tesla stock, raising ethics questions The commerce secretary’s promotion of Tesla was the latest move by a Trump administration official to bolster support for Elon Musk’s car company.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick decided that Elon Musk's financial situation was so desperate that he would break the law to help him www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202... A truly noble act of civil disobedience.

Musk Set to Get Access to Top-Secret U.S. Plan for Potential War With China Giving Elon Musk access to some of the nation’s most closely guarded military secrets is a major expansion of his role as an adviser to President Trump and highlights his conflicts of interest.

Any member of the military cooperating in this is committing treason. Any civilian cooperating under orders of the president is involved in a criminal conspiracy.
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/20/u...

The Trump Stock Market

After averaging between 30K and 60K per month, the Challenger corporate layoff number for last month (and this does not include government jobs) skyrockets to 172,100. Canary in the coal mine?

And they said Biden has lost it...
#Gaz-a-lago