Four highly destabilizing things just happened in a brief period of time: 1) Oil prices rose sharply in July; 2) The Bank of Japan widened out its Yield Curve Control tolerance band to 1%; 3) The US Treasury upsized borrowing estimates for calendar 2H23 to $1.85 trillion; 4) Fitch downgraded the US government’s credit rating to AA+.     -8/2/23 edition of FFTT Of the four factors above, only the BOJ move should be a surprise to

The CBO estimates that if no new legislation affecting spending and revenues is enacted, the budget deficit for fiscal year 2024 will total $1.9T. That amount is $408B (or 27%) more than the $1.5T deficit the agency estimated in February 2024, when it last updated its baseline budget projections. Since then, CBO has increased its projection of outlays in 2024 by $363B (or 6%) and decreased its estimate of revenues by $45B (1%).     -Congressional Budget Office, June

WARREN BUFFETT SAYS THE FED ACTED TOO QUICKLY AND TOO STRONGLY FOR BERKSHIRE TO MAKE ANY BIG DEALS RIGHT NOW     – Headline from Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting conference, 5/3/20 Key Points: