Do you feel like the winds of change are blowing today too?
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 16:05
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PAGE 59 of 479
‘Mar-a-Lago Accord’ Chatter Is Getting Wall Street’s Attention
Ill try to re-org and summarize, the article is scattershot
Liz Capo McCormick
Fri, February 21, 2025
(Bloomberg)
The term ‘Mar-a-Lago Accord’ is a riff on the on the 1985 Plaza Accord and, before that, the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement, both major milestones in the establishment of the modern global economic system. Each were named after the resorts where they were negotiated.
The idea of dramatically restructuring America’s debt load is part of the Trump team’s agenda to revamp global trade via tariffs, weaken the dollar and ultimately reduce borrowing costs, all with the goal of putting US industry on more even footing with the rest of the world, said Bianco, an over three-decade market veteran and founder of Bianco Research.
Many of the ideas behind the agenda come from a November 2024 paper by Stephen Miran, Trump’s nominee to lead the White House Council of Economic Advisers. In it, the former Treasury official laid out a road map for reforming the global trading system and weeding out economic imbalances driven by “persistent dollar overvaluation.”
This may not happen "anytime soon, if ever".
“The whole idea hopefully is lower the value of the dollar, lower the value of interest rates, bring down the debt burden in the country. And that’s what they [Miran, Bessent] are trying to do.”
Bianco, like Miran’s paper, referenced the work of former Credit Suisse Group AG strategist Zoltan Pozsar, who has for several years called for a “Bretton Woods III” revamp as part of his theory that the dollar will play a much less dominant role in global finance in the coming decades.
[One element is to reduce the actual deficit- which Trump's team is supposedly already doing. Altho those savings may be completely undone -and more- by tax cuts. - SIGNY]
[Another] element[s] of the plan include[s] the creation of a sovereign wealth fund — which Trump has already set in motion
[Another element includes] forcing America’s allies to shoulder a larger share of security spending. One key idea of Pozsar’s is that other nations should pay more for the security and stability provided by the US. A way to do so would be by swapping some of their Treasuries into 100-year, non-tradeable zero-coupon bonds. If these nations needed cash quickly, the Federal Reserve could make it temporarily available to them through a lending facility.
“It’s time to take the risk of the Trump administration orchestrating a weaker dollar more seriously. The Trump administration has a proclivity for bold, high-stakes maneuvers.”— Simon Flint, macro strategist
Bianco stressed that this type of debt swap may not actually happen, and if the US were to pursue it, it would require significant international cooperation and could potentially impact global financial stability. Bond investors are so far showing little sign of concern, with trading in the Treasury market particularly calm in recent days.
Still, the point of discussing these ideas with clients is to emphasize the magnitude of the potential changes in store, Bianco said.
“Take them seriously, don’t take it literally,” he said referring to the debt swap idea and some of Trump’s more radical proposals in general. “If Trump is willing to blow up NATO, why wouldn’t he be willing to blow up the financial system?”
*****
So, OOC I looked up who holds the most in US treasuries and who might be "persuaded" to accept a debt swap. Currently, formal NATO allies hold about 1.6 trillion. Japan holds 1.2 trillion. China holds 0.8 trillion, and other misc nations about 1.8 trillion. I think we can forget China agreeing to a debt swap. Japan and NATO might agree. Other misc nations, I assume mostly in the global south, don't actually get "protection" from the USA. Some might be arm twisted, some not. Given that th
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Parks were already facing a staffing problem. Then came the government purge.
America’s beloved national parks face a problem that could, in a matter of weeks, grow into a full-blown crisis.
https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/400209/national-parks-trump-governme
nt-layoffs-visit-data
The number of people visiting areas managed by the National Park Service — which includes national parks, monuments, and other sites — is way up. In 2023, the most recent year for national data, parks had more than 325 million visits. That’s about a 16 percent bump relative to 2010. At least in some parks, visitation rates have continued to rise.
Meanwhile, staffing at the National Park Service is down, having dropped about 13 percent over that same period, according to the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy group. Staffing specifically in parks has fallen even further in that time, the group said, as the agency’s budget has failed to keep pace with rising personnel costs. That means there are fewer employees to oversee more visitors and mitigate their impact on our public lands and ecosystems.
And this was before the recent layoff.
Late last week, the Trump administration laid off roughly 1,000 workers in the National Park Service, or about 5 percent of its workforce, as part of a broader gutting of the federal workforce. The latest cuts targeted employees who were still in a probationary period, often meaning they were recently hired or had just moved into a new role. The layoff does not include many additional employees who opted for a deferred resignation or had offers for full-time employment rescinded.
“In an agency that has already experienced a significant staffing decline over the past decade, these layoffs will severely affect park operations and the visitor experience,” Phil Francis, chair of the Executive Council of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, a group representing current and former employees and volunteers of the National Park Service, said in a statement Friday. “National Park Service employees dedicate their careers to preserving our nation’s most treasured landscapes and historic sites. We should be supporting them — not jeopardizing their livelihoods.”
The Department of the Interior and the National Park Service did not respond to a request for comment.
Reporting by the Washington Post indicates the National Park Service will reinstate 5,000 seasonal job offers that were previously rescinded under a government-wide hiring freeze. That may help fill some immediate needs; seasonal employees perform a range of tasks, from collecting fees to researching wildlife. Yet it’s not clear when those jobs will be reinstated and they won’t make up for the permanent roles that have been lost, said John Garder, senior director of budget and appropriations at the National Parks Conservation Association.
“Those seasonal employees, who are critical to serving visitors during the busy season, are no substitute for the permanent employees who manage those seasonal workers and provide the expertise and institutional knowledge and experience to ensure resource protection and a well functioning park,” Garder said.
The National Park Service is among the most popular US government agencies, ranking above the Postal Service and NASA for favorability, according to a 2024 poll by the Pew Research Center. Parks are also an economic engine, contributing some $56 billion to the US economy in 2023.
“Did those who made the decision know or care that the main objective of my position is to provide preventive search and rescue education, to keep park visitors safe?” Stacy Ramsey, a worker at the Buffalo National River in Arkansas who was fired, wrote in a now-viral Facebook post. “Did they know that I am part of the visitor and resource protection division, and that I spent my days on the frontline, looking out for the safety of park visitors?”
Over the weekend, Travis Mason-Bushman, an employee at Great Basin National Park in Nevada, wrote on LinkedIn that he lost five colleag
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Thanks to Trump's tariffs and other economic illiteracies, inflation expectations have gone up 1.7 percentage points since Election Day, from 2.6% to 4.3%. Aside from the 2022 inflationary surge, this is the highest that consumer expectations have been over the past decade.
https://jabberwocking.com/inflationary-expectations-are-up-a-lot-since
-november/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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The Psychological Phenomenon at Play in Every Elon Musk Move
By Denise Cana | Feb 21, 2025, 3:30 PM
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/02/elon-musk-doge-psychology-
government-workers.html
The administration’s framework for governance is known by its acronym from psychology, DARVO: Deny, attack, reverse victim and offender.
First: Deny. Any and all claims of wrongdoing are derided as false. They’re baseless lies, slander, misinformation.
Next: Attack. The accuser is cast as the enemy. The people pointing out missteps and misconduct? They’re not trustworthy, they aren’t properly virtuous, they’re too stupid to understand the situation, or they’re so gullible they’ll believe anything.
Finally: Reverse the positions of victim and offender.
DARVO is a small-minded and petty ploy. And it is the go-to move at every level of this administration.
Presented with mounting evidence of and growing public concern for institutionalized racism, the administration says, No, you’re the racist! And then it sets about dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion programs with a doth-protest-too-much fury.
Called out by reporters for demonstrably spreading misinformation and baseless conspiracy theories, the administration insists, No, you’re spreading misinformation. Or, an oldie but a goodie: No, you’re selling fake news.
Caught exchanging favors for prosecutorial leniency in a quid pro quo to blackmail indicted New York Mayor Eric Adams into doing Donald Trump’s bidding, the administration shouts: No, you’re weaponizing the Justice Department! or No, your motives are partisan and political!
Across the executive branch, workplaces are seeing the rollout of senselessly inefficient return-to-office protocols that will likely force people to work while sick, that will punish families with children, that will pressure employees to take leave even when they would otherwise be willing and able to work, and that even fail to recognize that some offices might need to collaborate across time zones. And when we point out incongruities or inefficiencies in these policies, we’re told: No, you’re inefficient and lazy.
These are the adult tantrums of “I know you are, but what am I?” bullies, vacuous but vicious. And they have the desired effect of confusing the story, forcing onlookers to choose a side based on whom they trust rather than the evidence. Is the whiny deep state complaining about losing a cushy work-from-home gig? Or is the Musk–Trump appointee twisting the screws on well-meaning civil servants just because he can?
At every level, the administration implements a DARVO protocol, the modus operandi of abusers looking to control a situation that has spiraled out of hand or spilled into public view.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Why are you looking for the government to make your life better, Second?
Nobody is going to help you except for yourself.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:6ix, what I am doing is very simple, but you have no true sense of what it is, do you? Trumptards have so many misadventures in life because they misconstrue the motivations of the people all around them. Here is something you will misunderstand but I've posted it despite your silly way of dealing with even the simplest things in the world:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Why are you looking for the government to make your life better, Second?
Nobody is going to help you except yourself.
Trump has now fired seven senior military officers, including the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff; the Chief of Naval Operations; the Commandant of the Coast Guard; the vice chief of the Air Force; and three judge advocate generals (Navy, Army, and Air Force). All were apparently fired for being too DEI. Take a look:
Two things are going on here.
(1) high-ranking officers who are not white or not men were fired. (Top row.)
(2) JAG lawyers, even if they are white men, need to be replaced by the most hackish lawyers Trump can find who will NOT tell him, when he tries to issue an illegal or unconstitutional order, that it's illegal or unconstitutional. (Bottom row.)
https://jabberwocking.com/trump-fires-diverse-military-officers/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Here is Elon Musk explaining that he has to fire people to save Social Security from bankruptcy. He is a hero! Just kidding. Only a Trumptard would believe that is Musk's true motivation:
https://imgur.com/gallery/there-wont-be-money-social-security-theres-n
o-social-security-YiDyCNN
If Musk fired everybody, cutting all personnel costs to zero, he would save 2.4 million employees times $106,382 per employee per year. That is $255.3 billion per year. But Musk's goal is $2,000 billion per year (or maybe $1,000 billion) since he is unsure which it is. On the other hand, there is $1,000 billion in unpaid taxes each year. That is where Musk should go to get the money. But Musk does not want to pay his taxes. He'd prefer to fire everybody before he'd pay.
1) What the data says about federal workers
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/01/07/what-the-data-says-
about-federal-workers/
2) Offshore Tax Evasion by Big Corporations, the Wealthy Cheats American People
https://www.budget.senate.gov/chairman/newsroom/press/whitehouse-offsh
ore-tax-evasion-by-big-corporations-the-wealthy-cheats-american-people
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Fact Sheet: Trump Administration, DOGE Punish Agencies Investigating Elon Musk’s Companies
Several Federal Agencies That Were Investigating Elon Musk’s Companies Have Become The Early Targets Of The Trump Administration And Musk’s Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE)
Details here: https://democrats-judiciary.house.gov/uploadedfiles/2025.02.13_fact_sh
eet_re_musk_investigations.pdf
Musk fires the government employees who fined him for breaking rules.
The White House and Musk deny doing today what they did yesterday. Blame Amnesia!
https://www.newsweek.com/white-house-elon-musk-doge-sec-target-conflic
t-2032567
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Americans sharply divided over Trump’s embrace of Putin
While US allies are alarmed at changing loyalties, ordinary Americans are starkly divided on the president’s shift away from Ukraine and Europe
By Joan E Greve in Washington | Sat 22 Feb 2025 03.01 EST
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/22/trump-putin-friendship
Donald Trump’s shocking and mendacious attack this week on the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as a “dictator” while cozying up to the Russian president and indicating that traditional US security support for Europe is waning may have alarmed US allies abroad but has prompted a more starkly divided response among Americans at home.
Reflecting the country’s deeply partisan attitude to the new president and his “America first” foreign policy doctrine, polling suggests that Republicans are much more likely to oppose additional help for war-torn Ukraine. A Pew Research Center survey earlier this month found that 47% of Republicans but just 14% of Democrats thought the US was providing too much support to Ukraine – views that have changed dramatically since the war began three years ago, when just 7% of all American adults (9% of Republicans and 5% of Democrats) said the US was providing too much support to Ukraine.
Many voters on the left say Trump’s comments make them fearful that the president’s stance toward Ukraine could further embolden the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, and jeopardize national security.
“It is an outrageous denial of the truth and shows his allegiance to Russia and to Putin especially,” said Carla Bayles, a voter from Washington state who supported Kamala Harris in last year’s presidential election. “We are alienating our allies and getting us closer to a world war.”
Other Harris voters feel the same, though many say they aren’t surprised given Trump during the campaign expressed minimal support for Ukraine, dubiously claiming that the war would not have begun if he had been president in 2022. But Trump attacking a US ally and implicitly blaming Ukraine for Russia’s invasion, suggesting that Kyiv could have “made a deal” to avert war, have them watching in horror.
“I’m disgusted by Trump’s foreign policy,” said Dawna Williams-Landis, a Harris voter from North Carolina. “He has discarded 200 years of intentional diplomacy that would have built peace by negotiation and freedom.”
Some Americans went so far as to compare Trump to historical world leaders who shrank in the face of fascism, such as Neville Chamberlain, the former UK prime minister who adopted an ultimately disastrous approach of appeasement toward Adolf Hitler.
“I can’t figure out whether Trump is Neville Chamberlain at Munich, or Vidkun Quisling in Norway,” said David Cohen, a Harris voter from Connecticut. “Either way, his approach is bad for Europe, the US and democracies.”
Among Republicans, Trump himself maintains nearly unanimous support with a 93% approval rating, but his denunciation of Zelenskyy could still leave him vulnerable to criticism, even among his most loyal supporters. The Gallup poll showed that 80% of Republicans approve of Trump’s approach to the situation in Ukraine, marking one of his weakest policy areas with fellow members of his party.
Judy Kim, a registered Republican voter in California who nevertheless supported Harris in the election, accused Trump of attempting to create a dictatorship and aligning himself with authoritarian leaders like Putin.
“Isolationism has never worked,” Kim said. “The American people support Nato and Ukraine. We should encourage ties with our democratic allies in Europe and the world, not with dictators like Putin.”
Another Trump voter from California who chose to remain anonymous said she did not support the president’s embrace of Putin and feared he would drive the US to the brink of calamity.
“It has put the US and the world in a very dangerous situation,” the voter said. “I did not vote for his stance towards Europe.”
But some of Trump’s supporters celebrated his approach to Ukraine and foreign poli
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