To be clear, what the @DOGE team and @USTreasury have jointly agreed makes sense is the following: - Require that all outgoing government payments have a payment categorization code, which is necessary in order to pass financial audits. This is frequently left blank, making audits almost impossible. - All payments must also include a rationale for the payment in the comment field, which is currently left blank. Importantly, we are not yet applying ANY judgment to this rationale, but simply requiring that SOME attempt be made to explain the payment more than NOTHING! - The DO-NOT-PAY list of entities known to be fraudulent or people who are dead or are probable fronts for terrorist organizations or do not match Congressional appropriations must actually be implemented and not ignored. Also, it can currently take up to a year to get on this list, which is far too long. This list should be updated at least weekly, if not daily. The above super obvious and necessary changes are being implemented by existing, long-time career government employees, not anyone from @DOGE. It is ridiculous that these changes didn’t exist already! Yesterday, I was told that there are currently over $100B/year of entitlements payments to individuals with no SSN or even a temporary ID number. If accurate, this is extremely suspicious. When I asked if anyone at Treasury had a rough guess for what percentage of that number is unequivocal and obvious fraud, the consensus in the room was about half, so $50B/year or $1B/week!! This is utterly insane and must be addressed immediately.

The USD is trading strong against EUR again today, but if 2016/2017 is a guide, this may be the actual peak! Would wrongfoot a lot of people!

Sources of U.S. labor force growth.

This thread is utterly stupid. The U.S. currently has FREE TRADE AGRREMENT with Canada and Mexico. That is the equivalent of a TREATY. So what Trump has done is nothing to do with tariffs from an international trade standpoint (about which you are breathtakingly wrong as well). What he has done is violated a treaty that he negotiated and SIGNED HIMSELF, using a false pretense. This has big and uncontrollable implications on the world stage: the U.S. will no longer be seen as a reliable partner. Reliability (e.g. rule of law) has been the secret to American projection of power, not its military might or any bullshit reason invented by pointy-heads. Trump the man has no friends, and he seems intent on remodeling America after his own pathetic narcissist psychopathy. No amount of bullshit MBA-light international economics diatribe will patch over that in the minds and eyes of the international community which is made up mainly of realists, by necessity.

As an economist and commodities trader, I've seen firsthand how tariffs work. I initially opposed them, but my perspective has shifted. Despite being a massive headache at work, here's why I now support Trump’s tariffs… 🧵