You Want the Bad News First, or the Worse News

There is serious economic news to discuss, but there is also some goofy political stuff as well. So let's start with the goofy.

The newly painted Washington Mall reflecting pool now has algae again. So, for Trump's pool guy it's Mission Accomplished! Hope he wasn't depending on a big "word of mouth" boost from this.

Apropos of my article a few days ago, we now know that solar energy has moved past coal as a generating source for electricity in the country. According to the Guardian Newspaper...

"Solar also became the third-largest source of electricity in the US in May, behind natural gas and nuclear. Coal generation hit an all-time monthly low in April and rebounded only modestly in May, allowing increasing solar generation to overtake coal."

Add wind and around 25% of US power is renewable, and when you add nuclear and hydro, less than half of US electricity comes from fossil fuels.

More good or mixed news from the Big Bend here in Texas. There won't be a big, 30-foot border wall through the national and state parks. But because it will apparently piss people off, the government will still build about 17 miles of lower fencing, ostensibly to keep us Jeep people from tearing around the place.

Now, I love off-roading a lot and have been on some great trails over the years.

Also me on the Rubicon...

But all responsible off-roaders know to stay with the marked trails, and I've not seen reports that this is a big problem in the parks. But hey, we have a few billion burning a hole in our collective national pocket so what the hell. And as mentioned, it will really make the tree huggers livid. Except there aren't many trees to hug in the Big Bend.

Staying here in Texas, the New World Screwworm has made it's way up from South America and Mexico to infect Texas cattle. That, of course, follows massive cuts to US Department of Agriculture prevention programs by Elon and his merry DOGE pranksters.

OK, we were already at $7 a pound for hamburger and nearly $20 for a prime cut, but don't worry. Elon is now a Trillionaire and the President says he loves inflation. So we have that going for us.

The President may have signed a new deal with Iran as you read this, but it appears to be far worse than the one signed by President Obama and the rest of the UN Security Council nations years ago, and gives Iran not only their own frozen assets back, but billions of additional US tax dollars to rebuild what we blew up. This all thanks to the Abbott and Costello of international diplomacy, Witkoff and Kushner. The Art of the Deal, indeed.

In the argument over who really has the cards to play, it seems a Strait is a pretty good hand.

But don't worry, despite appearances, he'll say it's a much better deal, and a big chunk of the cult will believe him. Rumor is, the next target is the purchase of the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean. It is owned by the UK and we share an air base and naval facility with them.

But since sharing with our allies is now so un-American, the President just wants to buy the place, you know, like Greenland.

He spent last weekend yelling a lot of false gibberish at Kristen Welker on Meet the Press and then left in a huff. Or maybe it was a minute and a huff. And then more AI junk like this...

I can't tell if he really sees himself this way, or he's just saying Happy Pride Month! Play YMCA in your head as you look at this.

The old saying is that if you tell a lie often enough, people will start to believe it. Watching him with Welker, I now think he may well believe this nonsense himself at this point.

And all this spending involves that bottomless pot o'gold he seems to think we have at our disposal. As gas prices and inflation in general are rising frighteningly, he keeps pointing to the booming stock market. Well, here's a dirty little secret. Only one thing is booming and that is Artificial Intelligence and the money being invested in data centers to produce it.

Financial reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin has just written a book about the 1929 stock market crash and said this on 60 Minutes about today's AI bubble...

“I can assure you, unfortunately I wish I wasn’t saying this. We will have the crash.”

He also said that all the AI investment, $400-billion or so up to now, is what is keeping this economy and the market going. Without the tech bros and their wild spending, the S&P 500 has essentially been flat. 0% growth. Without AI, the market is already in recession.

Former high tech executive Lawrence Winnerman made this observation...

Jeff Bezos sold $5.7 billion of Amazon shares. Michael Dell sold $2.2 billion. Safra Catz at Oracle sold $2.5 billion. The Magnificent Seven leadership cohort cashed out in 2026 at levels analysts described as staggering. These are not the kinds of sales you make on the way up. These are the kinds of sales you make when you have access to numbers the rest of us do not yet have access to, and you have decided that the numbers are no longer your friend.

Corporate America authorized $665 billion in share buybacks in the first four months of 2026. That is the most ever to start a year. 

And we are only in mid-June. The tech guys aren't betting on the economy, they are cashing out.

If you're wondering why gas isn't higher considering the war, it's because we are draining the Strategic Oil Reserves. Forget the mythical 200 tankers Trump says we sneaked through the Strait of Hormuz at night, with the lights out. We are draining what has been our cushion.

That runs out in the Fall. This nation runs on diesel and the trucks that burn it. When that runs short, store shelves begin to empty. Farmers need nitrogen and sulphur for fertilizer, and that is cut off now as well. The next crop will be smaller and way more expensive.

And then there are jobs. What happened to the travel agent profession is now happening to many white-collar jobs. If you are a law firm, why pay and provide benefits for a law clerk when AI can do the same job? Winnerman also said this...

"The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for March showed:
Professional and Business Services openings down by 318,000 in a single month.
Layoffs in that sector were up by 153,000.
Information sector openings are down 33% year-over-year, the steepest drop of any private industry.spreadsheet
The white-collar hiring freeze has already happened." 

We now have, as of this year, a national debt bigger than our Gross Domestic Product. The interest payments on that are bigger than the Defense Budget. What gets cut to make room, since the idea of increased revenue is off the table for this Congress? I'll give you one guess, since three won't be necessary.

We can handle a recession. We have done that many times. But recessions have a beginning and an end. They are limited. This could be much bigger because no one with any authority in government seems to be able to read a spreadsheet.

So, sure, let's argue over trans bathrooms, January 6th, and whether Miguel's taco truck should be here at all while we watch the debt pile up, jobs disappear, and the economy slip away. There are too many people who think that's the proper balance of priorities.

And those people vote.