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Weather: Partly sunny. A chance of showers with a slight chance of thunderstorms in the morning, then showers and thunderstorms likely in the afternoon. Highs in the upper 80s. South winds around 5 mph. Chance of rain 70 percent. Wednesday Night: Mostly cloudy. Showers and thunderstorms likely, mainly in the evening. Lows in the mid 60s. East winds around 5 mph in the evening, becoming light and variable. Chance of rain 70 percent.
- Daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
- Drought conditions here. (What is the Keetch-Byram drought index?).
- Check today’s tides in Daytona Beach (a few minutes off from Flagler Beach) here.
- Tropical cyclone activity here, and even more details here.
Today at a Glance:
The Palm Coast Code Enforcement Board meets at 10 a.m. every first Wednesday of the month at City Hall. For agendas, minutes, and audio access to the meetings, go here. For details about the city’s code enforcement regulations, go here.
The Flagler Beach Parks Ad Hoc Committee meets at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 105 S 2nd St, Flagler Beach. The Committee’s six members, appointed by the City Commission, provide recommendations related to the maintenance of existing parks and equipment and recommendations for new or replacement equipment and other duties as assigned by the City Commission.
Connecting to Palm Coast Expo, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Palm Coast Community Center, located at 305 Palm Coast Parkway NE. The Palm Coast Citizens Academy Alumni Ambassadors are excited to host two more Connecting to Palm Coast Expo, a unique event designed to welcome and support new and recently settled residents. Attendees will find a variety of booths hosted by city departments, local civic organizations and clubs, and social services, each offering valuable resources and guidance to help new residents get acquainted with everything Palm Coast has to offer. Representatives from a range of city departments will be available to answer questions, while civic groups and clubs will provide information on how to get involved in the community.
Event Highlights:
• Informational booths from Palm Coast city departments
• Insights from local civic organizations and clubs
• Access to social services and other important community resources
• A welcoming atmosphere to meet fellow residents and city representatives
The Connecting to Palm Coast Expo is free to attend, and all are welcome. Whether you are brand-new to the area or looking to learn more about your community, this is an event you won’t want to miss!
Separation Chat, Open Discussion: The Atlantic Chapter of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State hosts an open, freewheeling discussion on the topic here in our community, around Florida and throughout the United States, noon to 1 p.m. at Pine Lakes Golf Club Clubhouse Pub & Grillroom (no purchase is necessary), 400 Pine Lakes Pkwy, Palm Coast (0.7 miles from Belle Terre Parkway). Call (386) 445-0852 for best directions. All are welcome! Everyone’s voice is important. For further information email [email protected] or call Merrill at 804-914-4460.
Weekly Chess Club for Teens, Ages 9-18, at the Flagler County Public Library: Do you enjoy Chess, trying out new moves, or even like some friendly competition? Come visit the Flagler County Public Library at the Teen Spot every Wednesday from 4 to 5 p.m. for Chess Club. Everyone is welcome, for beginners who want to learn how to play all the way to advanced players. For more information contact the Youth Service department 386-446-6763 ext. 3714 or email us at [email protected]
The Circle of Light Course in Miracles study group meets at a private residence in Palm Coast every Wednesday at 1:20 PM. There is a $2 love donation that goes to the store for the use of their room. If you have your own book, please bring it. All students of the Course are welcome. There is also an introductory group at 1:00 PM. The group is facilitated by Aynne McAvoy, who can be reached at [email protected] for location and information.
The Flagler County Republican Club holds its monthly meeting starting with a social hour at 5 and the business meeting at 6 p.m. at the Hilton Garden Inn, 55 Town Center Blvd., Palm Coast. The club is the social arm of the Republican Party of Flagler County, which represents over 40,000 registered Republicans. Meetings are open to Republicans only.
Juxtapositions: Retif de la Bretonne is one of France’s great writers of the 18th century, a more enlightened, funnier, more realistic Rousseau who could bridge the chasm between Rousseau and Voltaire and see his way from the streets of Paris during the Revolution to the 19th century without losing too much hope for humanity. He wrote much too much, was known, simplistically, as a pornographer because a good deal of his writings included detailed descriptions of his sociological explorations of women (and because he wrote Mon calendrier, or My Calendar, a day-by-day account of his conquests), but was in fact one of the most astute analysts of French–and all–societies, human relationships, history and so on. In Monsieur Nicolas, his Remembrance of Things Past (it’s just as long but a lot more fun), a classic of French literature too little known this side of the Atlantic, he describes how, when he was about 10 and 11, in boarding school in paris, the three hours students gotto read on their own every evening were the highlight of his day. Note that he’s writing in 1793, when he’s much older, and not a happy man in Revolutionary, censoring Paris: ” The three hours or so of free and choiceful reading were for me a time I greatly desired! I thought about it in the morning, when I got up; as this happy moment approached, I palpitated with pleasure; when the hour arrived, I enjoyed myself, I found myself happy, as when reading The Good Shepherd, or seeing the tapestries of Saint-Mayeul; the vivacity of my imagination placed me at the site of my reading. It was these three hours of ecstasy that accustomed me to the house and made me cherish the stay, which I still remember with tenderness (it is at these same three hours that, since then, I have experienced the same palpitation of pleasure, seeing the canvas raised, at one of our three shows). What enjoyment remains for me today? What is the happy hour of the day? Alas! all are equal, and my heart now palpitates only with terror!….” There are strange coincidences in life, as we all know. They’re constant, because life itself is coincidental. It is the non-coincidental that should surprise us. The universe is never that neat. So within a day of reading this, I came across this passage in the Max Boot biography of Ronald Reagan, describing how Reaga’s father discovered him reading when he was just a few years old: “This was the beginning of a voracious, lifelong reading habit. ‘I can barely remember a time in my life when I didn’t know how to read,’ Ronald Reagan wrote years later, adding ‘I can’t think of greater torture than being isolated in a guest room or a hotel room without something to read.’ Like other American boys in this pre-broadcast and pre-internet age, he was enthralled by dime novels featuring fictional heroes such as the Yale athletic star Frank Merriwell; the Rover Boys; Tarzan, Lord of the Apes; and John Carter, Warlord of Mars. Young Dutch also spent a lot of time alone in the attic of one of the Reagans’ rented houses in Galesburg, studying a collection of ‘birds’ eggs and butterflies’ left by a previous occupant. He recalled being ‘fascinated’ by these objects, which became ‘gateways to the mysterious’ and ‘symbols of the out-of-doors.'” Of course Reagan never got past dime novels and Tarzan, and when he got older, it got much worse: he became a Reader’s Digest devotee, sealing his fate as a casual fascist. But I’d never imagined him to be a reader to start with. Someone missed a chance there.
—P.T.
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The Live Calendar is a compendium of local and regional political, civic and cultural events. You can input your own calendar events directly onto the site as you wish them to appear (pending approval of course). To include your event in the Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
May 2025
River to Sea Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) Meeting
Separation Chat: Open Discussion
Flagler County Commission Workshop
The Circle of Light A Course in Miracles Study Group
Weekly Chess Club for Teens, Ages 9-18, at the Flagler County Public Library
Flagler County Drug Court Convenes
Model Yacht Club Races at the Pond in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Palm Coast Concert Series
Free For All Fridays With Host David Ayres on WNZF
Public Workshops to Discuss Impact Fees
Friday Blue Forum
For the full calendar, go here.
By the time he became president, he would have no close friends aside from his wife, and he would be emotionally distant even from his own children. He would employ his natural affability and a steady supply of stories and jokes filed away in his photographic memory to keep the rest of the world at a safe, comfortable remove. “He would have made a hell of a good hermit,” said Stuart Spencer, the political consultant who guided Reagan’s rise to the governorship and presidency. “He was content to be alone,” agreed Ed Meese, “but he did like to be popular.” While Reagan was “unfailingly kind” to his staff, noted White House aide James Rosebush, “he was never really personal,” and “when you left his presence, you knew he wasn’t thinking about you-he wasn’t engaged in your life.” Even Nancy Reagan, her husband’s only true friend, would describe him as a “loner” who “often seems remote.” “There’s a wall around him,” she wrote perceptively. “He lets me come closer than anyone else, but there are times when even I feel that barrier.” That emotional enclosure began to be erected during his difficult childhood in the rural Illinois of the early twentieth century when, because of his family’s constant uprooting, he would come to believe that no friendship would last long.
–From Max Boot’s Reagan: His Life and Legend (2024).
Pogo says
@Elsewhere
… away from the psychoanalytic couch; and the floating gardens of the plantations, hammocks, and bays of Elysium:
58 crypto wallets have made millions on Trump’s meme coin. 764,000 have lost money, data shows
Published Tue, May 6 20255:08 PM EDTUpdated Tue, May 6 20255:16 PM EDT
MacKenzie Sigalos
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/06/trump-meme-coin-crypto.html
Sherry says
[Please comply with our comment policy. Thank you.–FL]
FASCISM STOPS THE FREE PRESS!
This from Adam Kinzinger:
With a sterling reputation, the TV newsmagazine 60 Minutes has been a paragon of hard-hitting, independent journalism for fifty years. Today, as its parent company, Paramount, runs scared from Donald Trump, it has lost its longtime executive producer, Bill Owens, and the program is in crisis.
Paramount has been shaken by a $20 billion Trump lawsuit that baselessly alleges it damaged him by interfering in the 2024 election on Kamala Harris’s behalf. The suit has no real chance of success, but it has stalled Paramount’s pursuit of a valuable merger. As it seeks a settlement, the company is now looking over the shoulders of the 60 Minutes journalists. Owens quit in protest. To say the rest of the staff is outraged is an understatement.
As Trump attacked 60 Minutes, he went beyond his old method of denigrating the press as “purveyors of “fake news” and trying to humiliate individual reporters. Moving beyond mere words, using his office and his political standing to interfere with journalists’ ability to function. In the case of 60 Minutes he went after a weak spot in the journalism industry, namely, the bottom line. Almost all of the news in this country is delivered by businesses run by executives charged with making a profit. In almost every case, the nervous execs have the last word and journalists start to pull their punches.
In addition to picking a fight with Paramount, Trump has attacked the Associated Press wire service. His pretense is that the AP stuck with its stylebook, refusing to call the Gulf of Mexico by the name Trump prefers, the “Gulf of America.” Trump’s tactic? To block the AP’s long-standing access to Oval Office events and Air Force One.
The AP, which delivers reports on events worldwide to thousands of news outlets, is perhaps the most venerated news source in the world. Founded in 1846, it is also a nonprofit, and here is where Trump may have miscalculated. With no bean counters to answer to, AP journalists refused to back down. They managed to work around the restrictions and then sued to regain access. The suit is pending. The struggle goes on. But in the meantime, less powerful news outlets are left to wonder, “What will we do if he comes after us?”
Meanwhile, Trump has seized control of the groups of reporters, called press pools, who cover events in smaller settings like the Oval Office. For nearly twenty years, the pools have been assembled by the independent White House Correspondents Association. Now, Trump, who prefers to see friendly faces in these pools, picks and chooses. Recently, he barred two big traditional wire services in favor of reporters from fringe pro-Trump outlets Newsmax and Blaze Media.
Finally, Pam Bondi, Trump’s attorney general/sycophant, recently announced that she would no longer honor a Justice Department policy that bars the government from using court orders, warrants, and subpoenas to obtain journalists’ notes and phone records in order to identify sources who have given them confidential information. Administration officials have been frustrated in their efforts to chase down these “leakers.” Bondi said that reporters who use leaked information harm the nation, so she’s ready to go after them.
With mainstream journalists on their heels, Trump and his people are also favoring friendly internet celebrities like Kambree Nelson who is an “influencer” best known for her astronomical claim that the moon had been “missing” for week in October. “Has anyone seen the moon lately? I’ve been looking for 7 days.” Of course, the moon wasn’t missing. It was just in a phase that made it hard to spot.
To say Nelson was out of her element when she recently appeared at a White House press briefing is to be kind. When given a chance to ask a question, she summoned her courage and asked Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, “What direction do you advise me to go in?” A delighted Leavitt replied, “I wish there were people in the legacy media that were like you.”
I mention Moon Woman only because sometimes we need to laugh at the absurdity of it all. But of course, Trump’s anti-press stance is no laughing matter. Freedom of the press was deliberately enshrined in the Constitution because, as Thomas Jefferson said, “As long as the presses can be protected, we may trust to them for light.”
Trump prefers the darkness. Too bad the light can’t be extinguished!
Pogo says
@How sweet it is — enjoy
Ray W, says
Hydrogen fuel is viewed by many as a clean fuel of the future, as its exhaust is water vapor, provided inexpensive ways to produce it can be found. But ramping up production of hydrogen at scale has been a commercial challenge thus far.
Splitting hydrogen atoms away from water requires energy, which offsets much of the economic advantages of hydrogen power.
Splitting hydrogen atoms away from natural gas (methane is a molecule comprised of one carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms) is also energy intensive, but in a different way.
From an Interesting Engineering article posted a number of months ago, “traditional thermal methane cracking processes” require heating methane to 900 degrees Centigrade, at which temperature the methane is exposed to an iron-nickel composite catalyzer. The resulting chemical cracking process yields what is called “turquoise hydrogen”, plus solid carbon, a substance that has limited commercial applications.
Researchers affiliated with the Korea Institue of Energy Research (KIER) experimented with a “nickel-cobalt composite catalyst” (8% nickel/2% cobalt, plus iron) that comparably increased hydrogen yield by more than 50% at the lower temperature of 600 degrees Celsius. And the carbon yield is not entirely solid carbon; it also produces higher value “carbon nanotubes”, which have greater commercial utility, such as in the manufacture of electrode materials for use in solar cell and battery production.
As the carbon nanotubes deposit on the catalyzer, the catalyzer’s “active phase” lasts for only 150 minutes, but under the traditional process, the active phase is only 90 minutes.
One of the researchers commented:
“This study marks a significant milestone, enabling simultaneous hydrogen and carbon nanotube production, thus achieving economic efficiency and productivity.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
A breakthrough by government supported researchers in a catalyzing process that produces significantly more hydrogen at a significantly lower temperature using a catalyzer that lasts significantly longer, with the side benefit of a significant amount of commercially viable carbon nanotubes! Win, win, win, win!
We are in an age of incredible engineering advances. In 2006, the American shale oil industry was a niche player in a worldwide energy marketplace. At the end of 2008, as a nation, America extracted barely more than 5 million barrels of oil per day.
An American chemist approached privately-owned energy company after energy company, pitching the idea of them investing in research for new type of fracking fluid. He was rebuffed by all, until the Department of Energy granted him research funds; he soon patented a new fracking fluid that transformed the shale oil industry.
This chemical breakthrough, coupled with a contemporaneous breakthrough in 3-D seismic imaging that permitted drillers to guide their horizontal bores into the most productive shale rock formations, set off what is now called the Shale Revolution in the American oil exploration industry.
What was once a five-million-barrel-per-day industry nearly doubled during the Obama years, and it kept rising during the Trump years, and it kept rising during the Biden years, topping off at over 13.5 million barrels per day in December of 2024. It is holding steady at 13.4 million barrels of oil per day. It may go down or up, depending on world pricing levels, but the days of Drill! Baby! Drill! may be coming to an end.
Why do I type this? Fracking simply costs more than does extracting crude oil from underground pools of oil. American energy companies long ago picked the low-hanging fruit from its underground pooled supplies of oil; its best access to oil reserves today is from shale rock formations. Saudi oil is in huge reservoirs of underground pooled oil. Industry estimated are that Saudi oil can be extracted at a cost of roughly $8 per barrel. Permian Basin shale oil costs somewhere between $25 to $30 per barrel to extract. $60 per barrel oil prices hurt Saudi oil producer profits, but not nearly as much as it hurts shale oil producer profits.
Let’s face facts. If an American energy company can pay Guyana for permission to drill into a previously unexplored deep-water reservoir of pooled oil at an expected cost far lower than that for onshore Texas shale rock exploration, it will choose to drill off the coast of Guyana before it even considers expanding shale oil exploration in the Permian Basin.
And that isn’t all. Extraction costs from drilling differ from transportation costs. I have watched a documentary on how oil from offshore Brazilian wells pumps directly into an anchored supertanker. Another supertanker docks alongside the anchored ship and takes on the oil nearly directly from the well. I understand that the Guyana oil rig can transfer oil directly from the well to an oil supertanker, too. An oil well explored in the Permian basin will produce oil that must be transferred into a pipeline that brings the oil hundreds of miles to Houston where it is then transferred to an oil supertanker.
As an aside, perhaps about a week ago Mr. Tristam posted a segment on worldwide year-over-year increases in national weapons expenditures. Guyana led the list by percentage of increase, though not necessarily by quantum of increase.
For decades, Guyana and Venezuela coexisted as neighbors without too much strife. Oil exploration successfully occurred off the coast of Guyana near its border with Venezuela. Suddenly, Venezuela claimed the field belongs to Venezuela; it is threatening Guyana with armed incursion and annexation. The area has historically belonged to Venezuela, the Venezuelans now claim.
This simmering South American situation, of course, raises the wisdom, or lack of wisdom, that comes from appeasing any country that desires the resources of their neighbors.
Ray W, says
Given my long history of comments citing my acceptance of the idea that overreacting to daily or weekly or even monthly market swings or economic reports is folly, I found intriguing an overview of Warren Buffett’s recent address to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. Here are some snippets from his presentation:
– When asked of investment opportunities presenting during recent “shakiness” in the markets, Mr. Buffett said:
“What has happened in the last 30 to 45 days, 100 days, whatever this period has been, is really nothings. … This has not been a dramatic bear market or anything of the sort. … I’ve had about 17,000 or 18,000 trading days. There have been plenty of periods that are dramatically different than this. … If it makes a difference to you whether your stocks are down 15% or not, you need to get a somewhat different investment philosophy because the world is not going to adapt to you. … You’re going to have to adapt to the world. … I don’t mean to sound particularly critical — I know people have emotions — but you’ve got to check them at the door when you invest.”
Mr. Buffet promised that long-term investors “… will see a period in the next 20 years that will be a ‘hair curler’ compared to everything you’ve seen before. … That just happens periodically. The world makes big mistakes, and surprises happen in dramatic ways.”
At this point in the article, the reporter referred to the 14 bear markets (20% minimum drop in share values) that have occurred in the American markets since 1946. On average, bear markets have plunged by 32% each time in nearly 90 years, with an average bear market duration of 13 months from peak to trough. And it has taken on average 23 more months for the market to return from trough to “break even” at original peak.
The article closes with Mr. Buffett saying:
“If you don’t think the United States has changed since I was born in 1930, you’re not paying attention. We’ve gone through all kinds of things — great recessions, world wars, the development of the atomic bomb — that we never dreamt of when I was born. … So I would not get discouraged about the fact that we haven’t solved every problem that’s come along.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
For years now, I have asked FlaglerLive readers to take the longer economic view.
I have occasionally commented about current economic trends, if they can be called trends, following Trump’s early days in office. But I still think it is far too soon to draw economic estimations, much less economic conclusions.
One FlaglerLive commenter likened the rise in the markets after Trump’s election to a “Trump bump.” I looked up the rise in the markets after the Biden election win in 2020 and that the rise in market valuation during the same period of time had been significantly higher then than it had been in 2024. Still, I cautioned against drawing firm conclusions from either situation.
Frankly, just as economists had never seen the extent and size of the many unfunded stimulus packages that were unleashed by Congress onto the economy after the onset of the pandemic, I don’t think anyone has seen the extent and size of Trump’s tariffs before. We are in uncharted waters. No one had an economic model in 2020 from which an economic future could be drawn, just as no one seems to have an economic model today from which an economic future can be drawn.
On Sunday, CNN posted an article listing a number of the companies that have “suspended guidance” on their estimates concerning near-term company economic outlooks.
From the outset of the CNN article, the author pointed out that during the pandemic many companies “suspended guidance.” Many did so from concern for the damage that might come from the release of inaccurate information. No one knew at that time of the extent of damage to be done by the pandemic to the overall economy.
Stellantis, General Motors, Mercedes-Benz, Snap, American Airlines, Delta, Southwest, Alaska Air, and others have “suspended guidance” in recently released notes to their investors.
CFRA’s Global Head of Research, Paul Beland, told CNN that it’s a “huge deal” for a company to suspend guidance. “It raise[s] uncertainty significantly and that’s something we’re seeing a lot of.”
UPS told investors it was not suspending guidance just yet, but it warned of the possibility: “There’s so much uncertainty in the back half (of the year), because all those (tariffs) will ultimately impact the US consumer.”
Delta’s CEO warned that “growth has largely stalled” and that the American economy might fall into recession.
Stellantis asserted that it cannot now define the impacts of “evolving” tariff policies.
GM said that because it did not adequately take into account potential tariff impacts, it can no longer stand behind its 2025 profits guidance.
Snap, citing uncertainty in the macroeconomic environment and its potential effect on advertising demand, withheld guidance.
Earlier today, the Fed stood steady on lending rates, citing uncertainty in the economy. Even Fed Chair Jerome Powell, after meeting with more than a dozen of the best economists at his side, intimated after the meeting that the Fed doesn’t wish to risk being wrong in these uncertain times.
About the only thing that seems certain right now is the idea that it begs credulity for anyone to claim that they know what is happening to the economy.
Ray W, says
Yesterday, Forbes asked whether the American economy was close to recession.
Here are some bullet points from the article:
– Goldman Sachs “reaffirmed its probability of a recession over the next 12 months at 45%.” Its chief economist said there remains a “meaningful risk that some of the paused ‘reciprocal’ tariffs will take effect after all, …”
– A UBS Wealth Management economist expects the U.S. to avoid a “full-blown recession this year as trade deals are agreed and tariffs are reduced.”
– Appollo Global Management, described as an asset management titan, assesses a “90% probability the U.S. will fall into a ‘Voluntary Trade Reset Recession.'” Its chief economist believes Trump’s trade policies have been “implemented in a way that has not been effective.” He opined that Trump “inherited an economy with very strong growth.”
– Bank of America’s CEO says his company’s forecast is no recession this year.
– Morgan Stanley forecasts a 40% chance of recession.
– JPMorgan Chase forecasts a 60% chance of recession.
– Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers estimates “six in ten or better that a recession will start this year.”
– The most widely accepted determinant of actual recession is the National Bureau of Economic Research; it defines recession as a “significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and lasts more than a few months.”
As an aside, the first quarter GDP figures show a negative 0.3% figure, but many publications explain that companies that purchased foreign good ahead of the promised tariffs to stock up caused a 0.5% drop in American economic growth because so much money was sent out of the country. Without the 0.5% drop, U.S. GDP growth was 0.2% for the quarter.
Make of this what you will.
Again, economic estimates seem to be all over the place. No one seems to know what will happen and it seems apropos to argue that anyone who claims he or she knows what will happen should be disbelieved.
The only standard expression among economists is that Trump inherited from Biden the strongest economy in the world. Biden in no way solely destroyed the economy in 2020 and beyond. The pandemic destroyed economies all over the world, and the only relevant question in this country was how the American economy would respond to the trillions of dollars that Congress, two presidents and the Fed threw at it!
Ed P says
Quote heard yesterday-
“There’s signs of recession everywhere….except in the data.”
Pierre Tristam says
You should quit listening to RFK Jr.
Pogo says
@It is reassuring indeed
… to know that the view from safe places remains tranquil, confident, and proud; cemeteries are that way too.
Laurel says
Ray W.: Nobody knows what’s happening. We are relying on one individual’s ego, who says “I alone can fix it.” Our country is supposed to be a community of compromise. Instead, we are subject to a single individual’s fantasies and temper tantrums.
Ray W, says
Ed P’s quote could very well turn out to be correct, in light of the wide disparity in predictions by economists.
But a person can be right and wrong at the same time. Monthly jobs added figures remain strong, mainly due to the functioning of the economy during the Biden years. Weekly applications for unemployment insurance due to layoffs remains at a historically low figure. The monthly unemployment rate, a crucial guide for the Fed, remains in what economists call the sweet spot it has been in for years. The monthly unfilled posted jobs openings figure has returned to a healthy level, a trend in effect for the past three years. But these are short-term data releases. Year-over-year figures show an overall slowing of the economy, whereas three months ago, the year-over-year figures were, if only slightly, more positive.
That doesn’t mean that Biden is solely responsible for today’s still strong monthly jobs marketplace. Far from it. Congresses, and no other entity, passed the unfunded stimulus money bills that presidents signed into law. Presidents, and no other entity, spent the money that Congress gave them. Money in their trillions of dollars was literally thrown at the problem. The Fed, and no other entity, adopted rarely used policies, such as lowering the lending rate to zero percent and injecting three trillion dollars more than expected into the credit marketplace.
Our economic recovery steadily and inexorably trickled into the pandemic-damaged economy and by the time Trump took office, the American economy, per The Economist and the Wall Street Journal, was the “envy of the world.”
We are seeing signs of economic tapering, but nothing yet that portends certain recession. The big signs are the weakness of the dollar compared to a basket of other advanced economies and the rise in the interest rates for 10-year and 30-year T-bills.
Things can change rapidly. As I type, the deal with the UK is being announced and Newsweek reports that US negotiators are discussing trade deals with 14 other nations.
Yes, one of the managers of the Port of Seattle stated that zero ships were docked at the port yesterday, but he added that while this is a rare occurrence, last happening during the pandemic, it does happen.
The thing that unsettles me is the constant harping by the current administration is that if anything in the economic picture is negative, it must be due solely to the Biden administration. Only the positive economic signals, per today’s government spokesperson, are due solely to the current administration. Clearly, these pronouncements are not true. Some of today’s economic issues are due to the Biden administration, but economic effects are often long in implementation. President Trump’s responses to the pandemic are still felt throughout the underpinnings of the economy, as are the actions taken by the Fed. President Trump’s tariff decisions are all his.
The economic response to the pandemic was a joint effort between many actors. To deny that, or worse to distort that, is folly.