Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Republicans do not trust women.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

The willow is too close to the house.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

This really is a full service blog.

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Ripping Yarns Open Thread: Tales of Intrigue At Marred-A-Largo

Ripping Yarns Open Thread: Tales of Intrigue At Marred-A-Largo

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But it may be that ‘Anna de Rothschild’ was just another two-bit grifter, not even a ‘real’ foreign asset! How embarrassing for the would-be aristocrats who cluster to TFG’s Potemkin resort… In case you missed this story at the end of Adam’s Ukraine update last night, from the Post-Gazette, “Inventing Anna: The Tale of A Fake Heiress, Mar-A-Lago & An FBI Investigation”

For a time, Anna de Rothschild boasted of her family roots to the European banking dynasty, donning designer clothes, a Rolex watch, and driving a $170,000 black Mercedes-Benz SUV.

A pivotal moment for the woman who was fluent in several languages took place last year when she was invited to Mar-a-Lago, where she mingled with former President Donald Trump’s supporters and showed up the next day for a golf outing with Mr. Trump and Senator Lindsay Graham among other political luminaries.

But the 33-year-old woman was not a member of the famous banking family, and is now a subject of a widening FBI investigation that has delved into her past financial activities and the events that led her to the former president’s home…

A year before the FBI’s spectacular raid of the former president’s seaside home, the woman whose real name is Inna Yashchyshyn, a Russian-speaking immigrant from Ukraine, made several trips into the estate posing as a member of the famous family while making inroads with some of the former president’s key supporters.

The ability of Ms. Yashchyshyn — the daughter of an Illinois truck driver — to bypass the security at Mr. Trump’s club demonstrates the ease with which someone with a fake identity and shadowy background can get into a facility that’s one of America’s power centers and the epicenter of Republican Party politics…

Little information is public about Ms. Yashchyshyn, who once worked for a suburban Miami business that specializes in providing pregnant Russian mothers the option to have their babies in the U.S. to gain citizenship, court records show.

But when a bitter court dispute erupted last year between her and a close associate with whom she once lived, the details of her whirlwind trips to Mar-a-Lago and other activities over the past several years began to surface and soon reached the attention of federal agents.

Valeriy Tarasenko, 44, a Florida businessman who was raised in Moscow, said he met Ms. Yashchyshyn in 2014 and allowed her to live in his Miami condo so that she would watch his children when he traveled on business…

He said he has met twice with FBI agents and spoke to them about multiple trips she made to Mar-a-Lago and what he claims were her efforts to make inroads in the Trump family and look for new streams of money.

She used “her fake identity as Anna de Rothschild to gain access to and build relationships with U.S. politician[s], including but not limited to Donald Trump, Lindsey Graham, and Eric Greitens,” he said in a court affidavit in Miami…

Ms. Yashchyshyn, an officer in two Florida companies founded by Mr. Tarasenko — both devoid of any assets — claimed that whatever steps she took to gain money were directed by him.

“[E]very single move that I did, I’ve been told by Valeriy to do so,” she said in a deposition. “[A]fter a few incidents like that, I realized that he’s using me for his lifestyle and for his needs.”…

In 2015, Ms. Yashchyshyn became president of a Miami charity, United Hearts of Mercy — the same name of a charity founded by Mr. Tarasenko in Canada five years earlier.

The Miami entity was promoted on social media as a vehicle to help impoverished children but was actually a source of illicit funds for organized crime, according to a statement by a certified public accountant for the charity that was provided to the FBI…

So far, the FBI’s questioning appears to hint at a widening criminal probe into a network of people that includes Ms. Yashchyshyn, who traveled under various aliases while mingling with politicians and wealthy businessmen…

Steve Benen, at MSNBC:

… A club guest told the newspaper, “What I’m trying to understand is how did they allow this? How could someone keep coming back — at that level? This is Mar-a-Lago.”

Well, yes, and therein lies the point.

Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, who actually chaired the Senate Homeland Security Committee for six years, downplayed the seriousness of Trump’s scandal last week because, as the Wisconsinite put it, Mar-a-Lago is “a pretty safe place” and “a secure location.”

But as we discussed soon after, there’s overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In 2017, for example, just months into Trump’s presidency, Politico reported, “President Donald Trump relishes the comforts of his Mar-a-Lago estate for repeated weekends away from Washington, but former Secret Service and intelligence officials say the resort is a security nightmare vulnerable to both casual and professional spies.”

A few months later, ProPublica tested security measures at the private club and marveled at how vulnerable it was. The piece quoted one cybersecurity expert who said hackers could use Mar-a-Lago’s network to remotely turn on the microphones and cameras of devices connected to the network. “What you’re describing is typical hotel security,” he said, but “it’s pretty concerning” that an attacker could listen to sensitive national security conversations…

Can’t blame Mr. Strozok for the schadenfreude.

Reader Interactions

154Comments

  5. 5.

    Ken

    the only screening at Mar a Lago appears to be the questions “Will you work for minimum wage?” or “Has their membership initiation check cleared?”

    Possibly also “How hot is she?”

  6. 6.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    my Le Carré addled mind can easily see her as an agent recruited/managed by the adoption agency and/or the Russian she ALLEGEDLY worked as a nanny for, especially since IIRC adoption was the cover story for the meeting in trump tower with Junior

  7. 7.

    Baud

    It destroys the arguments of Ron Johnson and others that MAL is “a pretty safe place” and “a secure location

    Johnson’s arguments are self-destroying by virtue of them coming from Johnson.

  8. 8.

    waspuppet

    Remember when Michaele and Tareq Salahi got into a state dinner they weren’t invited to and people FREAKED THE F OUT for like a year? Because I sure as F do.

  9. 9.

    Another Scott

    I don’t think this amounts to much either way. It’s effectively an indication that the judge wants to hear from DOJ and is going to have a hearing. I assume DOJ will say the search is done, so there’s no search left for a special master to oversee. But we’ll know more soon. pic.twitter.com/8U6l50zqtq

    — Orin Kerr (@OrinKerr) August 27, 2022

    Kerr is a law prof at Cal. If you haven’t seen the recent thread of him schooling some Twitter former USA, it’s a thing of beauty.

    Judge Kerr is on the bench pic.twitter.com/oxHaALNHvm

    — Lawrence Hurley (@lawrencehurley) August 27, 2022

    Kerr also says that while he’s no expert on education policy, he wouldn’t be surprised if there are successful challenges to Biden’s canceling student loan debt (citing Roberts’ SCOTUS striking down pandemic-related EOs).

    :-/

    Gotta have a Blue Wave this November. As always, too much is at stake to be complacent.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  10. 10.

    David 🌈☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Ver ‘re Nuklar codes and Moose and Squirrel, darlink?

  15. 15.

    SpaceUnit

    I imagine random strangers wandering into Mar-A-Lago at all hours of the day and night believing they’re at Taco Bell.

  21. 21.

    Alison Rose 💙🌻💛

    I guess she could just be wearing a golfing outfit, but it’s giving slight “Catholic school girl” vibes. Yick.

    OT for something much more pleasant: I bought that little crocheted Patron that Adam had mentioned in one of his Ukraine posts, and he is THE CUTEST LITTLE BUDDY! Honestly, it’s incredibly well-made and a pretty darn good likeness, and it made me so happy to open the package today.

  24. 24.

    Another Scott

    @Baud: Ah, excellent point!

    Still, the fact that we have to even consider a challenge shows how much work we need to do to move forward.

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  26. 26.

    Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)

    @Baud: That’s what I was wondering. Maybe the private lenders would have standing because they are losing future unearned profits?

  28. 28.

    WaterGirl

    @Another Scott: When I was 13, my mom accused my 2 sisters and I of staying up and night planning how to make her crazy.  We didn’t, it just came naturally.

    But I think these people literally stay up at night trying to figure out how to keep other people down.  That’s fucked up.

  29. 29.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: I wonder if the Dems have to think that through as they create these programs, and have to craft things so that no one has bullshit standing who can tear down what we are trying to build.

  30. 30.

    David 🌈☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    @Baud: ​
      Hey, your spanish is pretty good. perfect word order.

    I knew it, you’re a spy

  31. 31.

    Ken

    @Another Scott: I’m still imagining the judge asking who might be appointed as special master, and the DOJ responding that, given the classified materials involved, there are only two people who are cleared; one is already overseeing the DOJ’s handling of the materials, and the other is busy being President.

  32. 32.

    Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)

    @Baud: I guess I don’t know enough about loans, but I thought the Govt. just guaranteed loans that were made by private lenders. And they got the profits. Or is that an old system?

  33. 33.

    japa21

    @raven: ​
      I have to admit. I succumbed to the temptation sometime in the past week or so. I am so ashamed of myself I will now go and do proper penance. Only half kidding. I tend to feel the same way you do.

  38. 38.

    Chetan Murthy

    @geg6: IIRC, there are still private loans, not backed by the Feds.  And those loans also are not dischargeable in BK.  And of course, Biden’s exec action doesn’t affect those.

  39. 39.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Baud: ​
     

    Johnson’s arguments are self-destroying by virtue of them coming from Johnson.

    It is known.

  48. 48.

    Mai Naem mobile

    Where the fuck were the Secret Service? I am now betting the USSS was compromised as well. Jeezus. The agency needs to be turned inside out and the TFG IG needs to be taken care of now. The TFG USSS idiots who were disparaging Cassidy Hutchison need to be canned and the DOJ needs to keep an eye on them instead they also decide to look for a non extradition treaty country.

  49. 49.

    JPL

    @Mai Naem mobile: trump’s secret service needs to be reassigned to Alaska, and an uncompromised staff needs to replace them.   Since trump enjoys enticing the secret service, maybe change them every few months.

  52. 52.

    Kent

    The funny thing is that Mar a Lago isn’t actually Trump’s legal home.  Due to zoning or some such he isn’t legally able to use it as a permanent residence.  I forget the exact details.

    What it ACTUALLY is is an event venue where people throw parties.   Trump throws a bunch but lots of other groups rent it out too, partly to curry favor with Trump.   So it is basically not surprising at all that sketchy people can come and go.  Half the people in Trump’s orbit are sketchy.  Actually correct that.  MOST OF the people in Trump’s orbit are sketchy.

  53. 53.

    dmsilev

    Shifting Narrative alert:

    Once unthinkable, Democrats now see narrow path to keeping the House (WaPo):

    Democrats are voicing growing confidence about limiting losses in the House and potentially even salvaging their majority in the midterm elections, with candidates and allied groups making moves to capitalize on a backlash to abortion restrictions, signs of improvements in the economy and opposition to Donald Trump.

    After months of gloomy predictions, Democrats are investing anew in flipping Republican seats. They are also directing more money to protect a roster of their own endangered incumbents — a list party officials said noticeably shrank since the spring. And they are trying to frame contests around abortion rights, putting Republicans on the defensive for strict opposition to the procedure in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

    And even if we do fall short, we’ll at least get to watch Kevin McCarthy long for the days of Paul Ryan’s disciplined leadership…

    Yet several Republican strategists have expressed concern about winning the House with only single-digit margins, which would make it harder for Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to easily ascend to speaker and could complicate the party’s ability to rally for even routine partisan votes. Those same strategists had hoped earlier this year to win a margin of 20 or more on the backs of a soured national mood and rising inflation.

  54. 54.

    Elizabelle

    @dmsilev:   Unthinkable by who?

    Despise these pundits/reporter types.   They should all be pulled off DC press corpse reporting, and assigned two months of reading up on the 1920s and 1930s.  They should read everything they can by William Shirer, and consider how far short they fall.  Monkeys would have a better chance of typing out Hamlet.

    They are ignoramouses.

  56. 56.

    Elizabelle

    @dmsilev:   Ah.  It’s Annie Linskey and Michael Scherer.

    Say no more.  Despise the first, and I think the second is rather questionable, but cannot remember precisely why.

  57. 57.

    piratedan

    @dmsilev: and we haven’t even had any one in the press corpse connect the dots between two failed impeachment votes and their actions on the 2020 election and the J6 events.

    If the DOJ is going to indict 45, I see no reason to hold back on any sensitive fee-fees on the other side of the aisle and if they broke the law, kick them the fuck outta office and prosecute them.

    wonder how that will play against the talking point that bacon costs more….

  58. 58.

    jonas

    @Mai Naem mobile: ​
      I don’t know that the SS detail is necessarily accompanying former presidents 24/7 in their homes and such like they do the sitting president. I actually drove/biked by Ronald Reagan’s home in Bel Air, CA on a couple of occasions years ago and sometimes you would see a guy in a suit (obvs SS) by the gate and sometimes nothing — you wouldn’t have known it was Reagan’s home if you weren’t a local. So I’m sure they have a secured perimeter and everything that they monitor somehow, but unless he’s going out in public, I don’t think they’re standing next to him all day, looking over his shoulder when he’s in his private residence and all that.

  61. 61.

    dmsilev

    @Elizabelle: Look at it this way: if even Linskey is starting to admit that Democrats Are Doomed might not be quite so certain, things must be looking up.

  62. 62.

    Sure Lurkalot

    I wish the media would stop calling Mar-a-Lago an estate or Trump’s home or residence. He converted it to commercial use in the 90’s, a few years after he bought it. “The Feds raided my home” only serves to feed the rubes.

  63. 63.

    Leto

    @Another Scott: per reporting, the FBI had a special master on the team to evaluate in real time the documents that were taken. They knew the bullshit Trumpov would pull and already had a game plan for it.

  66. 66.

    Scout211

    @JPL: I don’t know, I just read an article  discussing what would happen if F-POTUS were sent to prison.  Apparently, he would still be entitled to secret service protection, even in prison. They would have to follow him into prison.  LOL.

  67. 67.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Elizabelle:

    They should all be pulled off DC press corpse reporting, and assigned two months of reading up on the 1920s and 1930s.  They should read everything they can by William Shirer, and consider how far short they fall.

    Obligatory Upton Sinclair quote: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary membership in the Village depends on his not understanding it.”

  68. 68.

    mrmoshpotato

    It’s somewhat amazing that this shit gets worse with the bastard out of office.

    Congrats to all of the shit-for-brains who just couldn’t bring themselves to vote for her.

    I should go watch some baseball to keep from having an aneurysm.

  69. 69.

    Mike in NC

    Looking forward to the day when the media reports on “the smoking ruins of Mar-A-Lago”.

  73. 73.

    Chetan Murthy

    @mrmoshpotato: Perhaps this is no consolation, but I don’t think it’s getting worse.  Rather, we’re finding out more about the shit, is all.  It was worse during his Reign of Error, only we didn’t know all the details: now, we find out more details, so it … *feels* worse.

    If we can just keep the bastards away from the levers of power, it might even start to get better.  But hey, that’s up to normies and whether they can contain their fear of trans kids in bathrooms and bestiality in books that got the National Book Award.  Those people, if you know what I mean.

  75. 75.

    Leto

    @Kent:

    The funny thing is that Mar a Lago isn’t actually Trump’s legal home. Due to zoning or some such he isn’t legally able to use it as a permanent residence. I forget the exact details.

    Trump Can Legally Live At Mar-A-Lago, Palm Beach Says

    TOPLINE: Town officials in Palm Beach, Florida, will not block former President Donald Trump from living at his club Mar-a-Lago, the Palm Beach Daily News reported Friday, after residents in the town had objected to Trump moving in after he left the White House due to the terms of the 1993 agreement establishing the club.

    The town attorney basically bowed to pressure. Another casualty of the Midas Shit Touch. The article lists all the key facts, etc…

  79. 79.

    Old Man Shadow

    Mar-a-lago is quite secure. We have a very thorough background check for members. By which I mean, if their check doesn’t bounce, they have an impeccable background.

  80. 80.

    jonas

    @Leto: ​
     

    The town attorney basically bowed to pressure.

    As flush as I’m sure a tony city like Palm Beach is, the last thing they wanted was a years-long protracted legal battle with their most infamous resident over a variance issue like this. I’ve been told that in Palm Beach if you’re a member of Mar-a-Lago everyone automatically assumes you’re a nouveau-riche idiot asshole looking for some place to show off your complete ignorance of how to spend money tastefully. Or, more recently, some foreign agent looking for access to Trump.

  81. 81.

    Suzanne

    @Ken:

    Possibly also “How hot is she?” 

    The fact that Trump and his cohort are still swayed by something as prosaic as a woman’s hotness to do illegal shit…. It seriously feels like something made up. Like…. ass is not that hard to get, dude. Even hot ass. Jesus Hussein Christ, these people are fucking dumb as shit.

  87. 87.

    Chetan Murthy

    @geg6: Sorry, I’d forgotten.  Just wanted to clarify in case somebody read that and thought there were only federal loans.

  88. 88.

    JPL

    @cope:  I know who he is, but just wondered what he is doing now?   Since McConnell said he would resign if they didn’t retake the Senate, I hope that Mitch joins him.

    Next year we could say McConnell, cuz why not.

  90. 90.

    jonas

    @TS: ​
      He soon realized that far from destroying the Republican party as he once predicted, Trump would completely assimilate it and decided to become his most devoted lickspittle in order to maintain his power and influence. Just your routine complete cowardice and lack of principle that so many Republican pols have displayed ample amounts of the past six years.

  91. 91.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    Does WordPress have the capability to fry someone’s device into oblivion when they are so proud of  comment #1?

  92. 92.

    Leto

    @jonas: that’s the thing though, they’d been in a long protracted battle because they didn’t want the motherfucker back. It was an absolute shit show anytime he was in town because they had close all the routes down for his lard ass to get in and out, and it wasn’t like some quick 10 min thing. Routes were closed for up to an hour or more. It was a major disruption for everyone involved, so they tried to enforce the actual legal agreement in the contract.

    What I do know is that I want his next address to be either a cemetery # or a federal prison address. Preferably in reverse order there.

  93. 93.

    dmsilev

    @JPL: According to Wikipedia, ‘In his post-Senate career, he served as a director on the board at now-defunct company Theranos. He currently hosts the A Second Opinion Podcast.’

    Theranos, huh. Can’t say that shocks me.

  94. 94.

    Chetan Murthy

    @cope: Whenever I see “Frist” as the first comment, I think of him, and contain the urge to hock a loogie.

  97. 97.

    Ken

    @Suzanne: One notable recent example being Giuliani’s cameo in the Borat movie.  In retrospect, that scene was identical to the honeypot trap in any number of spy novels and movies, generally followed by the scene where the foreign agents screen the film for the politician and tell him who he’s now working for.

  98. 98.

    Suzanne

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    They serve alcohol (yes really), so with enough booze you could almost forget you’re at a Taco Bell. Almost. 

    In Demolition Man, Taco Bell was a luxury destination because it survived the Franchise Wars.

    There are times I think that movie was oddly prescient. Though I still don’t know how to wipe my ass with the three seashells.

  103. 103.

    Suzanne

    @Ken: As a longtime spy novel reader, I can remember reading plots with honeypot traps when I was a teenager, before I had much experience with doods, and thinking, “Nawwww, they can’t be dumb enough to fall for that, can they?”. I was disappointed to get older, get more experience with men, and find that yes, apparently, some of them really are that dumb.

  106. 106.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @jonas: but that’s what so ridiculous about this right?  The USSS didn’t talk to this idiot about not living at MAL or having a separate office or something. There were USSS members who were his pals and they couldn’t tell him ‘no’ and they couldn’t run a basic background check on some woman who’s hanging around the FPOTUS for more than just a single selfie minute.

  107. 107.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Spanky: I once read something about men over a certain age: that any young woman who was paying them attention, wasn’t there for their svelte physique: it was their money or power.  And men who didn’t understand this were chumps.   And, of course, deluded.

    There are a lot of older men who “fancy their chances”.

  112. 112.

    raven

    @Spanky: My bride has has some really sucky experiences with the care for her broken foot. She’s on the University hmo and we can’t wait for December to get her off that shit and onto medicare (and the $$ we’ll get to pay for the supplement).

  118. 118.

    Ruckus

    @Elizabelle:

    Don’t forget, they are hired by someone/some company. They get paid and keep their jobs writing certain ways. That doesn’t mean they don’t agree with what they say, just that their job is writing what they are told. Yes they may be the shit they sound like, or they may have just sold out for a decent pay check. They aren’t pulling that barge or toting that bale, it’s not a bad job, pay is decent and as long as your writing is up to the requirement of the job it’s likely a better gig than many others. They appease the boss, not the customer.

  119. 119.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    What did you guys think of Powell’s remarks at Jackson Hole on Friday?

    “The successful Volcker disinflation in the early 1980s followed multiple failed attempts to lower inflation over the previous 15 years,” Powell said. “A lengthy period of very restrictive monetary policy was ultimately needed to stem the high inflation and start the process of getting inflation down to the low and stable levels that were the norm until the spring of last year. Our aim is to avoid that outcome by acting with resolve now.”

    […]

    “Without price stability, the economy does not work for anyone,” Powell said Friday. “Restoring price stability will take some time and requires using our tools forcefully to bring demand and supply into better balance. Reducing inflation is likely to require a sustained period of below-trend growth. Moreover, there will very likely be some softening of labor market conditions.”

    To bring down inflation, in other words, the Fed expects the economy to slow down.

    People will lose jobs. Many already have.

    Wage gains, so robust in recent years, may slow.

    “These are the unfortunate costs of reducing inflation,” Powell said. “But a failure to restore price stability would mean far greater pain.”

    These are the prices the central bank is willing to pay to bring down inflation. A payment the Fed has failed to make in a timely manner before. And one it won’t make late again

  124. 124.

    Chris T.

    @mrmoshpotato:

    It’s somewhat amazing that this shit gets worse with the bastard out of office.

    I don’t think it’s actually getting worse. It’s just getting less covered up.

  125. 125.

    prostratedragon

    Before reading the thread, I’ll assume that someone has pointed out that an actual upper-crust crowd should quickly have sussed out a phony Rothschild, of all people.

    A tune, by Horace Silver, that is one of several dedicated to an actual Rothschild, Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter:
    “Nica’s Dream,” Wes Mongomery quartet

  126. 126.

    WaterGirl

    Hey, does anyone know what time of day NotMax is usually around?  I suck at time zones, and I want to put up the pics from the NYC meetup at the intersection of NotMax and the NYC peeps.  Though I guess since he’s in NYC, he’s on Eastern time.

    I guess I’ll put up the post now.

    Adam’s post just went up, so I’ll put the post up around 10pm.

  130. 130.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @prostratedragon:

    Rothschild (well, the eponymous bank) is mentioned in the Lord Chancellor’s “Nightmare Song.” From Iolanthe (Gilbert & Sullivan).

    The shares are a penny,
    And ever so many
    Are taken by Rothschild and Baring;
    But just as a few
    Are allotted to you,
    You awake with a shudder despairing.

  133. 133.

    Chris T.

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    What did you guys think of Powell’s remarks at Jackson Hole on Friday?

    The Fed is trying to pull the PCE numbers (an estimate of how much people are paying to live their lives, and the averaged-out yearly increase if any) to around 2% when they’re currently around 6% (and coming down at the moment). To achieve that, they keep raising the federal funds rate, which indirectly raises the cost of borrowing money, which in turn even more indirectly decreases the amount of money chasing however much supply (of goods and labor) there really is, which in theory brings down inflation and hence the PCE numbers.

    The fact that chairman Powell “sounds hawkish” scares short-term investors into yanking money out of various marketable instruments so that the Dow and S&P and so on drop sharply. Then over the next few weeks, reality settles back in and things go about the way they probably would have anyway. This is all just noise: pay no attention to it! (Unless you’re about to start living on savings-and-investments anyway, or about to close on a mortgage.)

    Overall, it means that in the next year or so, jobs may become somewhat scarcer and obtaining raises—whether by demanding more at your current job, or doing a lateral move to a higher-paying job—will probably become somewhat more difficult. That is, there will be a bit of activity “at the margin”. But that’s where all the activity is anyway.

  134. 134.

    Fake Irishman

    @geg6:

    I seem to recall that reform was passed through with the reconciliation bill that passed as part of the Affordable Care Act.

  135. 135.

    Lyrebird

    @waspuppet: I remembered that too but couldn’t remember their names.  Nice catch.  I’m serious, it’s too bad the MSM didn’t hire you to help out!

  137. 137.

    Another Scott

    @Chris T.: +1

    The investment banksters get upset when the DJIA doesn’t go up 20% every year while inflation simultaneously stays under 2%.  :-/  So, they panic when the market moves up – thinking they’ll miss the rally – and panic when it sounds like they won’t be able to borrow at 2% again – thinking the market will tank quickly.

    The medium-long term trend for the US economy and the market is up.  Daily/Weekly/Monthly changes are noise and nobody can time the market.

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  139. 139.

    prostratedragon

    @Chetan Murthy:  I actually feel better now, because we’re finding out about things that I had suspected,  but under circumstances where there could be legal accountability, where damage can be addressed, etc.

  141. 141.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Chris T.:

    Thanks for the explanation. I hate losing my retirement savings in the stock/bond markets, but I do have to say I’m more concerned about a real economic downturn (they’re just paper losses in a buy and hold portfolio anyway). My employer has already started cutting my hours. I also don’t like that there’s so much turmoil going on all over the world; it worries me that right extremists could take advantage. There’s likely going to be an energy crisis in Europe this winter, too

  142. 142.

    Another Scott

    @WaterGirl: Sorry for the obscure references.  I should have waited a little longer to put it in Adam’s thread.

    Oryx – https://twitter.com/oryxspioenkop – documents military equipment, especially equipment losses in the Ukraine war.

    At about the 6-7 second mark there’s a tiny Ukrainian flag patch on the sternum of the other guy’s T-shirt.

    :-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  143. 143.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Another Scott:

    Like I said in my reply to Chris T, I’m more concerned about possible social unrest and further political radicalization as a result of another economic downturn, not timing the market, which is something only fools do.

  145. 145.

    prostratedragon

    @raven:  Was Horace Silver on that photo? I think Benny Golson and Sonny Rollins are still the last two of the musicians. (At least some of the kids down front with Mr. Basie should still be around.)

    The video is on youtube.

  146. 146.

    prostratedragon

    @Gin & Tonic: ​ Yep, as here. Started to put both in that post. There’s at least a third one I think, but can’t remember the title. The Monk and Silver ones have many great cover versions.

  147. 147.

    moops

    In the next few years we are going to hear how Mar-A-Lago was a veritable Casablanca of foreign agents. Many recognizing each other, many recognized by the US IC community, and them all having affairs and stealing secrets and taking dares on how close to TFG you could get and what momentos you could score from him or the GOP surrounding him.

    And everyone of them had free access to the hotel safe with US national secrets.  I wouldn’t doubt some of the material in there has been stolen and replaced with incorrect intel, to throw the other intel agencies into disarray.

  148. 148.

    Geminid

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I don’t think there will be the kind of downturn in the economy that would cause social unrest, at least not anytime soon. Maybe there will be slower growth, like we had most of the last decade.

    I wish that instead of talking about the failure to clamp down on inflation in the 1970s, Powell admitted that the Fed failed to do so last year. Maybe he did in other parts of his speech. But the Fed’s projections for inflation made in 2020 and 2021 greatly undershot the actual numbers, and they could have started raising rates then. Now they are playing catch up and could easily overdo rate increases that would unnecessarily curtail job growth and wage increases.

  149. 149.

    RaflW

    Late to this party. But come on. “A year before the FBI’s spectacular raid…”

    It was an orderly execution of  a search warrant and the carting off of boxes of documents. Our press cannot stop fabulizing. But then again, they also get the absolute vapours if Biden says ‘semi-fascist.’

    FML.

  150. 150.

    MagdaInBlack

    @RaflW: Much of the reporting I’ve seen plays a Mar-A-Lago background clip taken at night, with squad cars and lots of flashing red lights. The search was done during the day. Started around 10 am, I think.

  151. 151.

    Another Scott

    I feel like all of us at B-J have caught the Cassandra disease from HRC.

    I’m pretty sure the former president just confirmed the theory that fear of FBI leakers in SDNY was the reason James Comey sent that October letter re the Weiner laptop and admitted that the letter got him elected. pic.twitter.com/6J4fJXIiUb

    — Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) August 27, 2022

    Breaking News!!! TFG kinda confirms that he did all the crimes that we all have known for ages that he did! Film at 11!!11ONE What does this mean for the GQP taking the House??!  Let’s see what his legal team and his supporters have to say about this Breaking News!!!

    Like POTUS says, “… come on.”

    (sigh)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  153. 153.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Mnemosyne: That Russian-American faux Rothschild: she was apparently living in the condo oif this Russian-American businessman, and while he claims she was her own agent, she claims everything she did was at his direction.  And gosh, she was employed by several of his corps, and he’s a pretty shady character.  Gosh, sure sounds like maybe the both should be investigated and we’ll find a little “illegal Russian network”.

    Fucking Russians.

  154. 154.

    Paul in KY

    @TS: Eats for free at all Trump establishments. Apparently that’s a big deal for someone of the ‘Lindsey Graham’ stature.

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