The Term Spread, 1970-2023M06

For reference:

Figure 1: 10 year-3 month Treasury spread (blue), and 10 year – 2 year spread (tan), both in %. NBER defined peak-to-trough recession dates shaded gray. 3 month Treasury is secondary market rate. June observation is for data through 6/16. Source: Treasury via FRED, NBER, and author’s calculations. 

Estimated probabilities for 10yr-3mo shown in this post (through May).

Inversions this steep have not occurred for decades. On the other hand, whatever link there is between the depth of inversions and the severity of the recession is not robust.

75 thoughts on “The Term Spread, 1970-2023M06

  1. Macroduck

    Here’s a picture of the 10-year/1-year spread, real and nominal, through May:

    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=16kCu

    The difference between the two should be accounted for by inflation expectations. One of the series is monthly, so nothing for June yet. So if I understand the picture I’ve cobbled together, inflation expectations are lower over ten years than over 1 year, consistent with what we know.

    Here’s a similar picture, comparing term premia between tens and ones to the yield spread. Note that term premia are inverted.

    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=16kEJ

    And finally, here’s the CME Fedwatch tool, which shows that markets are pricing in funds rate roughly 50 basis points lower a year from now than today.

    https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/interest-rates/cme-fedwatch-tool.html

    So the decomposition of the yield inversion shows that all three components of interest rates currently work to invert the yield curve. In the case of inflation expectations and expectations of the funds rate, that’s entirely normal. As inflation cools, the Fed will cut rates. Flattening of term premium typically contributes to flattening of the yield curve – it’s a math thing and a logic thing. Inversion of term premia is unusual, though, so we’re getting a more thanthe usual contribution from term premia to inversionof the curve.

    Negative and inverted term premia are not normal, and aren’t necessarily a healthy sign. They don’t necessarily line up with recession expectations. They do line up with high demand for Treasury assets and for duration.

    Thoughts?

    1. Ivan

      This says a lot more about House GOP members than about Adam Schiff. They already took his assignments away for the same telling-the-truth “infractions”. It should help pushing Adam’s influence and stature among democrats.

  2. pgl

    JohnH is a recent comment said both the dumbest thing I have ever read and the most dishonest thing too. The dumb? Jonny boy wants defense spending to return to Trumpian levels to balance the budget. You guessed it – defense spending was higher under Trump than under Biden but Jonny boy is too dumb to know that.

    The dishonest? Jonny boy told us we are spending $600 billion a year on nuclear modernization. That sounds a bit inflated doesn’t it?

    https://armscontrolcenter.org/fact-sheet-u-s-nuclear-weapons-modernization-costs-constraints/

    Annual Costs
    The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) plans to spend $16.5 billion to maintain and update the U.S. nuclear arsenal in fiscal year 2023. This money is specifically designated for weapons activities, including modifications and life extension programs for nuclear warheads. The Pentagon will spend more than $34.4 billion this fiscal year to modernize the triad’s delivery systems, including warplanes and submarines, and their command, control, and communications systems. The most recent report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects the cost of modernization to be $188 billion through 2030.

    $50 billion v $600 billion. Only slightly off I guess. Jonny boy wants an audit but don’t let Jonny boy be involved in this audit as he is even more dishonest than the old Arthur Andersen crowsd.

    1. JohnH

      The real question which pgl avoids: do we really need modernization of nuclear forces? How many time do you want to destroy the earth?

      Per the GAO: “Modernizing the nation’s nuclear delivery systems and weapons to ensure they remain effective, safe, and reliable is an extraordinarily complex job that requires significant resources—over $600 billion through 2030.” https://www.gao.gov/nuclear-weapons-and-forces-sustainment-and-modernization And $600 Billion is only the start. Already the program is realizing significant delays cost overruns…the usual bait and switch from unaccountable merchants of death.

      Shouldn’t we be ending homelessness instead? Or reducing the deficit?

      But pgl the gung-ho neocon/liberal interventionist is not about to abide any DOD right-sizing. Like his idol Dick Cheney, deficits don’t matter when it comes to military spending. Right-sizing DOD is outside the Overton Window.

      1. pgl

        I’m not avoiding anything. I want the world to have less nuclear weapons which starts with telling your boss Putin and China to participate in doing the right thing.

        Now little Jonny boy could advocate that Putin leave Ukraine and that Xi do the right thing. But we know Jonny boy is too much of a coward to do so.

        1. JohnH

          How many times do you need to blow up Putin and Chi? Most of the nuclear weapons modernization program is overkill…and we could easily trade it off for deficit reduction or social programs. But such a discussion is outside the Overton Window.

          1. pgl

            Chi? Try Xi moron. And no one here is advocating blowing up anyone except for your disgusting boss Putin. You lied when you said Dr. Frankel wanted more defence spending. You lie when you suggested Macroduck wanted more defence spending. So go ahead and LIE about what I want.

            It is all you got as you are a stupid lying little boy.

        2. JohnH

          pgl thinks that we need every more nukes to defend against China…when the US already has almost 10x the number held by China. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/12/number-of-nuclear-weapons-held-by-major-powers-rising-says-thinktank

          So, pgl, how many nukes does the US really need to blow up the world? And how many are really needed to deter China and Russia? And how much could be saved for deficit reduction or social programs by significantly reducing that number?

          One thing for sure, you won’t find pgl advocating any guns vs. butter discussion, even if it’s as reasonable as requiring DOD to pass an audit and use the savings to reduce the deficit!

          1. pgl

            “pgl thinks that we need every more nukes to defend against China”

            Keeping on with the stupid lies. I have advocated reducing nukes even before you knew how to add 2 plus 2. Oh wait – you never learned preK arithmetic. Which is why you do not get that a 1.6% increase in NOMINAL defense spending is a reduction in real defense spending when the price level rose by 7%.

            Keep it up Jonny boy. We all love to call out your many lies as we point out your incessant stupidity.

      2. pgl

        $600 billion over an extended period of time is not what you originally claimed. Jonny boy is a liar. Full stop.

        1. JohnH

          The CFRB deficit figures are all over an extended period. Are you going to claim that they are lying?

      3. baffling

        so we simply let our nuclear stockpile rust away, and let china and russia do their own thing. and let North Korea and Iran continue to embark on a nuclear pathway?

        Johnny, your pal putin has repeatedly threatened to use nukes during his invasion of a peaceful neighbor, Ukraine. in fact, Ukraine would be attacking Moscow as we speak if it were not for the threat of Russian nukes. so how does the elimination of usa nuclear weapons programs improve this outcome, unless you are simply a fan of putin winning? political hack.

        1. pgl

          That is EXACTLY the Jonny plan. We invited him to criticize Putin and Xi but the little coward cannot do that.

        2. JohnH

          Warmongers love false choices. My question is “how many nukes does the US really need?”

          It would be nice if all the nuclear powers did abide by the NPT, wherein they agreed to dismantle their nuclear arsenals. I haven’t seen much interest in that either by Russia or the US.

    2. JohnH

      Want yet another example of wasteful military spending? “Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the chair of the House Armed Services Committee, is pushing to revive an F-35 engine replacement that the Pentagon decided to nix earlier this year. Rogers’ proposal includes more than half a billion dollars in additional funding for the program and another $245 million for upgrades to the current engines.

      The lawmaker’s attempt to save the Alternative Engine Transition Program (AETP) is the latest chapter in a decade-long debate over how to address problems with the original F-35 engine, which has struggled with maintenance issues that have driven up costs and shortened flight hours for the controversy-plagued fighter jet.”
      https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/06/21/faced-with-tough-choice-on-f-35-engine-lawmakers-pick-all-of-the-above/

      This is just the tip of the iceberg. Yet pgl bristles at the thought of the DOD spending reductions listed in the CFRB tool. Of course, since pgl is fundamentally a Democratic partisan hack, he might object to the Rogers proposal, but only because Rogers is a Republican!

      1. pgl

        “Yet pgl bristles at the thought of the DOD spending reductions”

        Jonny boy’s little feelings were hurt so he double downs on his pathetic little lies. Jonny – you are not only the dumbest troll ever – you are also a disgusting little liar. Now have your mommy change your diaper.

      2. baffling

        Johnny, I don’t hear you advocating for defense spending reductions in Russia or china. or Iran or North Korea, for that matter. why the silence there?

        1. pgl

          Simple. If Jonny did that – Putin would not feed his favorite pet poodle his daily dog food.

        2. JohnH

          baffling–have you ever compared how much the US spends on its military compared to other countries?

          THE UNITED STATES SPENDS MORE ON DEFENSE THAN THE NEXT 10 COUNTRIES COMBINED.
          https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2023/04/the-united-states-spends-more-on-defense-than-the-next-10-countries-combined

          Given the extraordinary relative size of US military spending, why shouldn’t the US set an example take the lead in decreasing military spending? And why not reduce spending by reducing fraud, waste and mismanagement?

          1. pgl

            “Given the extraordinary relative size of US military spending, why shouldn’t the US set an example take the lead in decreasing military spending?”

            Obama did low defense spending. But you hated him (maybe because he was black). Of course your boy Trump raised defense spending massively. But then again Trump is a racist so little Jonny boy has never criticized him.

      3. Ivan

        The future is not in manned aircrafts. We need supersonic drones with all the hardware and capabilities of an F-35 but non of the limitations and weaknesses of having a human body inside.

        1. JohnH

          Capabilities of the F-35? Dictionaries should show its picture next to the word “boondoggle.”

          “Conceived in the 1990s as a sort of Swiss army knife of fighter jets, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter was meant to come as a conventional fighter for the Air Force, as a carrier-based fighter for the Navy and as a vertical-landing version for the Marines. The problems, and there were lots of them, set in early. All three versions of the plane ended up at least three years behind schedule, and sharing less than a quarter of their parts instead of the anticipated 70 percent. Many of those already built need updates; hundreds of defects are still being corrected; the jet is so expensive to maintain that it costs around $36,000 per hour to fly (compared to $22,000 for an older F-16). At the current rate, it will cost taxpayers more than $1 trillion over its 60-year life span.” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/12/opinion/f-35-fighter-jet-cost.html

      4. Anonymous

        the current engine installed on f-35 is experiencing too many maintenance breaks per unit of operation, statistically worse than the specification we pay to receive. it has been observed that to fly f-35 at weight and range causes higher operating temperatures which degrade reliable reliability.

        a redesign is required to achieve engine reliability. this effort is to meet original requirements. note it would have been wise to keep the ge engine ‘in the running’ rather than let Pratt and Whitney do as they did f-16 engines in 1982.

        more issues on f-35: the radar is outdated to threats, a new is available, for block 4. but the computing back bone need upgraded and is on order to be deliver this years production deliveries, but that tech refresh is late, and usaf will leave those aircraft at the plant until the tech refresh is installed.

        so many problems for a $2 trillion 30 year airplane that cannot pass tests

    3. JohnH

      Bernie: “To ‘End the Absurdity’ of Wasteful Military Spending, Sanders Introduces Bill to Audit the Pentagon
      “The Pentagon and the military industrial complex have been plagued by a massive amount of waste, fraud, and financial mismanagement for decades,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders. “That is absolutely unacceptable.”

      Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders on Wednesday introduced the Audit the Pentagon Act of 2021, which would require the Department of Defense to do starting in 2022 something unprecedented in its history: pass a full independent audit.

      “Taxpayers can’t afford to keep writing blank check after blank check for the Pentagon to cash.”
      –Sen. Ron Wyden

      “The Pentagon and the military industrial complex have been plagued by a massive amount of waste, fraud, and financial mismanagement for decades. That is absolutely unacceptable,” the Vermont Independent said Wednesday in a statement.

      “If we are serious about spending taxpayer dollars wisely and effectively, we have got to end the absurdity of the Pentagon being the only agency in the federal government that has not passed an independent audit,” he added. “The time is long overdue for Congress to hold the Defense Department to the same level of accountability as the rest of the government. That is the very least we can do.”
      https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/05/19/end-absurdity-wasteful-military-spending-sanders-introduces-bill-audit-pentagon

      But pgl refuses to endorse such a basic good government proposal and absolutely refuses to accept the fact that eliminating waste, fraud, and financial mismanagement would save money! And he has a temper tantrum every time it’s suggested that money lavished on the Ukrainian kleptocracy should be audited.

      pgl gives every indication of being a DOD shill in addition to being a Democratic partisan hack!

      1. pgl

        I have never had a problem with audits as long as they do not let a lying moron like you doing it. Keep up the lies and the clearly dumb comments. We are all laughing at you Jonny boy.

    4. Anonymous

      btw an isotope in certain nuclear warheads degraded in human time and the weapon gets recharged by doe lab.

      also the bomb depends on complex control circuits which have defined replacement cycles to assure they work when exploded over Putin.

      doe is a vendor to the nuke war makers

  3. pgl

    Lauren Boebert shredded over impeachment: ‘We’re debating garbage to make Trump happy’

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/lauren-boebert-shredded-over-impeachment-we-re-debating-garbage-to-make-trump-happy/ar-AA1cTA7C?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=152464e348f542c6895bd5ca7efc79b0&ei=8

    Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) blasted Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) on Thursday over her effort to impeach President Joe Biden.
    During his House floor speech, McGovern noted that Boebert intended to force a vote on her impeachment articles against Biden for allegedly failing to secure the southern border. “Nothing about this is serious,” the lawmaker said before Boebert spoke. “Yesterday, Republicans dishonored this House and dishonored themselves by bringing to the floor a ridiculous censure resolution against Adam Schiff because Donald Trump told them to. And today, they’re dishonoring this House and dishonoring themselves by bringing to the floor a ridiculous impeachment referral resolution against Joe Biden because Donald Trump told them to.” McGovern lamented “extreme, outlandish, and nutty issues” that Republicans wanted to debate. “In short, Mr. Speaker, the Republican Party is a joke,” he said. “They’re doing this all so they can distract from the fact that Donald Trump stole top-secret information and stored it in his bathroom, showed highly classified Iran attack plans to people, and bragged about stealing classified government documents on live TV.” “It is grotesque,” the Massachusetts Democrat added. “We aren’t debating matters that help or uplift people. Rather, we’re debating garbage to make Trump happy. It’s cowardly, and it’s sickening. What we have here is a joke, just like the Republican majority, which is clearly going to be a temporary majority.”

    Not to be outdone Marjorie Taylor Greene hammered Boebert for copying and pasting Greene’s impeachment charges.

  4. pgl

    There has been this very dishonest spin from ltr and JohnH that China is not building up its nuclear arsenal but the evil US is. Jonny boy tried to tell us that the evil US is spending $600 billion a year on its nuclear arsenal even though the correct figure is closer to $50 billion a year. And China?

    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/19/us/politics/china-nuclear-weapons-russia-arms-treaties.html

    WASHINGTON — On the Chinese coast, just 135 miles from Taiwan, Beijing is preparing to start a new reactor the Pentagon sees as delivering fuel for a vast expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal, potentially making it an atomic peer of the United States and Russia. The reactor, known as a fast breeder, excels at making plutonium, a top fuel of atom bombs. The nuclear material for the reactor is being supplied by Russia, whose Rosatom nuclear giant has in the past few months completed the delivery of 25 tons of highly enriched uranium to get production started. That deal means that Russia and China are now cooperating on a project that will aid their own nuclear modernizations and, by the Pentagon’s estimates, produce arsenals whose combined size could dwarf that of the United States.

    This new reality is prompting a broad rethinking of American nuclear strategy that few anticipated a dozen years ago, when President Barack Obama envisioned a world that was inexorably moving toward eliminating all nuclear weapons. Instead, the United States is now facing questions about how to manage a three-way nuclear rivalry, which upends much of the deterrence strategy that has successfully avoided nuclear war.

    China’s expansion, at a moment when Russia is deploying new types of arms and threatening to use battlefield nuclear weapons against Ukraine, is just the latest example of what American strategists see as a new, far more complex era compared to what the United States lived through during the Cold War.

    China insists the breeder reactors on the coast will be purely for civilian purposes, and there is no evidence that China and Russia are working together on the weapons themselves, or a coordinated nuclear strategy to confront their common adversary. But John F. Plumb, a senior Pentagon official, told Congress recently: “There’s no getting around the fact that breeder reactors are plutonium, and plutonium is for weapons.” It may only be the beginning. In a little-noticed announcement when President Xi Jinping of China met President Vladimir V. Putin in Moscow last month, Rosatom and the China Atomic Energy Authority signed an agreement to extend their cooperation for years, if not decades.

    Look – a new nuclear arms race is a very bad thing. Of course we will see Jonny boy’s emotional side as attacking me as being some sort of war monger but everyone knows little Jonny boy lies a lot when his BS is challenged by reality. The sad truth is that Russia and China have returned to their Cold War stances with the approval of ltr and JohnH.

    1. baffling

      if Russia uses nukes in Ukraine, it opens up the door for more liberal use of nukes in other parts of the world. china would no longer be restrained from using tactical nukes-or threaten their use-because Russia would have broken the seal. if Russia goes nuclear in a war that is not self defense, where it is the unprovoked aggressor, then a new age will dawn where tactical nuclear weapons will become a very real part of the landscape. nations such as Iran and North Korea will no longer feel constrained. India will immediately be confronted with a two front nuclear problem of Pakistan and china. it will be an unfortunate day.

      Johnny should quit complaining about the usa nuclear systems, and focus his opposition to those in Russia and china.

      1. pgl

        “Johnny should quit complaining about the usa nuclear systems, and focus his opposition to those in Russia and china.”

        He should do that but if he did – his daily ration of dog food would be terminated. It’s rough being the pet poodle of the Kremlin.

  5. pgl

    It seems JohnH thinks this is the latest on guns and butter:

    https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/guns-butter.asp

    Wait this talks about 2019 but then again it was written two years ago. Now this was recently written

    https://daytradrr.com/economics/guns-and-butter-what-does-the-phrase-guns-and-butter-mean/#:~:text=Guns%20and%20butter%20generally%20refer%20to%20the%20relationship,defense%20versus%20social%20programs%20when%20allocating%20limited%20resources.

    The United State’s federal government expects to spend $6.011 trillion in 2022. Well over half of that amount pays for mandated benefits such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Discretionary spending pays for everything else. In 2022, that amount will be approximately $1.688 trillion. The U.S. Congress appropriates the necessary funds each fiscal year using the president’s budget as a starting point. Each year the president of the United States and Congress are involved in setting the fiscal budget. The president presents his budget plan approximately one and a half years ahead of time. This is followed by lengthy debates throughout the House and Senate on the final budget.

    Butter – Mandatory spending is estimated at $4.018 trillion in FY 2022. This category includes entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment compensation. It also includes welfare programs such as Medicaid.
    Guns (and everything else) – The discretionary budget for 2022 is $1.688 trillion. Much of it goes toward military spending, including Homeland Security, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and other defense-related departments. The remainder must pay for all other domestic programs. The largest of these programs are Health and Human Services, Education, and Housing and Urban Development.

    A much better discussion that the Investopedia blurb that Jonny boy thinks was the cat’s meow. Now Jonny boy has told us Biden spent more on defense than his hero Trump which seems to be at odds with what FRED has said. But let’s give little Jonny boy some homework. Take these two sources and compare and contrast the guns/butter division. This should be a lot of fun assuming little Jonny boy has a clue how to do so.

    1. JohnH

      The general description of “guns vs. butter” is readily available. But serious discussion of the tradeoff between exorbitant military spending (including waste, fraud, abuse, and malfeasance) vs. the need for more domestic spending on a wide array of social issues has been almost totally missing for decades, ever since DOD managed to avoid cuts at the end of the Cold War that would have given Americans a peace dividend.

      In his cheerleading for ever more defense spending, pgl sure makes the case for his being either a neocon or a liberal interventionist (if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck…).

      1. Anonymous

        “But serious discussion of the tradeoff between exorbitant military spending (including waste, fraud, abuse, and malfeasance) vs. the need for more domestic spending on a wide array of social issues has been almost totally missing for decades…”

        Here is yet another example of Johnny making ab

      2. Macroduck

        “But serious discussion of the tradeoff between exorbitant military spending (including waste, fraud, abuse, and malfeasance) vs. the need for more domestic spending on a wide array of social issues has been almost totally missing for decades…”

        Nonsense. This is yet another example of Johnny employing assertions of facts not in evidence as the entire basis for his claims. No debate about the trade off between military and social spending? Perhaps none that Johnny is aware of, but Johnny is unaware of many, many things. Johnny’s ignorance cannot be the basis for discussion.

        1. pgl

          Notice how Jonny avoids doing his homework. The numbers are there but little Jonny boy is incapable of doing anything but babble BS.

        2. JohnH

          Links? Ducky can’t provide anything that shows a current discussion of tradeoffs related to increasing the bloated “defense” budget vs. reducing social programs or reducing the deficit. That’s because there are less than a handful of people who do it…and most of them are shunned by the mainstream media. Here’s one:

          William Hartung: “Seventy years ago this spring, President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave an extraordinary address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors entitled “The Chance for Peace.” It was an appeal to chart a new path for U.S.-Soviet relations. It also underscored the devastating domestic costs of growing Pentagon budgets:

          “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”

          Sadly, Eisenhower’s observation is as true now as it was when he made his speech to the newspaper editors in 1953. Spending on the Pentagon and related work on nuclear warheads at the Department of Energy is slated to receive at least $886 billion for Fiscal Year 2024 under the terms of the recent budget deal, that would have been unimaginable in Eisenhower’s day. The $886 billion planned for next year is more than twice what was spent for military purposes when Eisenhower gave his speech, and nearly $300 billion more than America spent at the height of the Korean war, adjusted for inflation.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhartung/2023/06/09/is-excessive-pentagon-spending-stealing-our-future/?sh=18ea54c37fcd

          Kudos to Forbes for publishing it, a rarity in today’s mainstream media.

          Discussion like this occurs so rarely that Ducky probably doesn’t even know what it looks like. And now that Ducky sees what a discussion of the bloated military budget looks like, I challenge him to find others like it.

          I’ll give you a heads up on a couple: Jeffrey Sachs–“A debt crisis or backdoor extorsion?” https://www.jeffsachs.org/interviewsandmedia/us-military-and-war

          Michael Klare: “Think the Pentagon Budget Is Too High Now? I’ve Got Bad News.
          As today’s emerging technology gets converted into actual combat systems, future spending will only increase.”
          https://www.thenation.com/article/world/pentagon-artificial-intelligence/

          A serious public debate about guns vs. butter is long overdue.

          1. Macroduck

            Johnny? You mad3 the initial claim, without supporting it. Now, you insist that I support my rebuttal? Hypocrite.

            How can a debate that takes place in every federal budget cycle be long overdue? Liar.

            The issues you complain about are important, but you make a mockery of them every time you comment here. Buffoon.

          2. pgl

            ‘Ducky can’t provide anything that shows a current discussion of tradeoffs related to increasing the bloated “defense” budget vs. reducing social programs or reducing the deficit. That’s because there are less than a handful of people who do it…and most of them are shunned by the mainstream media.’

            Jonny says no one in the mainstream media discusses this issue in the same comment he links to a Forbes discussion of the issue? Way to contradict yourself troll.

          3. pgl

            “Links? Ducky can’t provide anything that shows a current discussion of tradeoffs related to increasing the bloated “defense” budget vs. reducing social programs or reducing the deficit. That’s because there are less than a handful of people who do it…and most of them are shunned by the mainstream media.”

            Could someone please teach little Jonny boy how to use Google. I typed in defense spending bloated and up popped over 400 thousand discussions many being recent from mainstream types. But little Jonny boy can find only a couple of discussions? Yea – he is beyond incompetent.

        1. JohnH

          CFRB tool puts out a number of $1.7.

          Obviously pgl opposes any significant cut to “defense” spending that would free up money for deficit reduction or social programs.

          1. pgl

            “CFRB tool puts out a number of $1.7.”

            And I accused your BFF CoRev of writing gibberish. Jonny boy’s ChatGPT must have been the original version as his writing sucks badly.

          2. Macroduck

            Obviously Johnny can’t make an honest point of his own, so he lies about other peoples’ positions. Sad little Johnny.

      3. pgl

        “ever since DOD managed to avoid cuts at the end of the Cold War that would have given Americans a peace dividend.”

        Defense spending did not fall during the 1990’s? Yea – Jonny boy is really dumb!

  6. pgl

    I think most of us agree that Trump was a clown. And when JohnH wants to reduce defense spending Trump style, it is time for some guns and butter cartoons:

    https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/03/20/cartoons-donald-trumps-budget/

    President Donald Trump’s proposed budget is getting anything but rave reviews from some sectors, such as proposed cuts to Meals on Wheels and PBS, but an increase in military spending. It’s great material for a cartoon slideshow, though. Check it out.

    1. JohnH

      And pgl totally oppoes addressing the bloated “defense” budget, even though DOD is rife with malfeasance, fraud, waste and abuse.

      pgl doesn’t even see the need for DOD to pass an audit to show that the vast sums it spends have been well spent!

      pgl show all signs of being nothing more than a DOD shill.

      1. pgl

        “And pgl totally oppoes addressing the bloated “defense” budget”

        How many times are you going to repeat this childish lie. I have called for reductions in defense spending even before you learned to walk. Little Jonny boy cannot have an adult conversation as his mommy hasn’t changed his stinky diaper in days.

  7. JohnH

    The University of Wisconsin’s own Alfred McCoy, J.R.W. Smail Professor Emeritus of History, speculates on China being the winner of the US proxy war in UKraine: “Growing geopolitical power is giving China both the motivation and potentially even the means to negotiate an end to the fighting in Ukraine…Not only would China then gain enormous prestige for brokering such a peace deal, but it might win a preferential position in the reconstruction bonanza that would follow by offering aid to rebuild both a ravaged Ukraine and a damaged Russia. In a recent report, the World Bank estimates that it could take $411 billion over a decade to rebuild a devastated Ukraine through infrastructure contracts of the very kind Chinese construction companies are so ready to undertake. To sweeten such deals, Ukraine could also allow China to build massive factories to supply Europe’s soaring demand for renewable energy and electric vehicles. Apart from the profits involved, such Chinese-Ukrainian joint ventures would ramp up production at a time when that country is likely to gain duty-free access to the European market.

    In the postwar moment, with the possibility that Ukraine will be an increasingly strong economic ally at the edge of Europe, Russia still a reliable supplier of cut-rate commodities, and the European market ever more open to its state corporations, China is likely to emerge from that disastrous conflict—to use Brzezinski’s well-chosen words—with its “preponderance over the entire Eurasian continent” consolidated and its “basis for global primacy” significantly strengthened.”
    https://www.thenation.com/article/world/china-ukraine-russia-peace-talks/

    As Obama once said, “‘Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f*** things up.” Isn’t it wonderful to have the most expensive military in the world going about engaging in pointless and futile wars?

    1. Macroduck

      Johnny, what’s the going rate for spouting Russian propaganda? I do hope you aren’t paid too much for this stuff, but I am curious. Are you paid by the word?

      1. JohnH

        Ducky is impugning the integrity of an esteemed University of Wisconsin professor…his usual crap.

        It’s time for Ducky to open his eyes and look a what’s really happening in the world instead of simply reacting according to his base, jingoist impulses.

        1. Macroduck

          Nice try, boy.

          Let’s deal with housekeeping matters first. I’m not “impugning” anybody. It’s impossible to impugn a person. Impugning isn’t something you do to people, for Webster’s sake. You really need to work on those vocabulary skills.

          I am, however, pointing out that you are a slime-ball. I don’t have a beef with McCoy. (Or did you mean professor Brzezinski? Can’t tell from your writing.) I have a beef with you. Your dishonest use of other people’s views, claiming they support your own, your pretense that you actually have definable views, your lies about those who disagree with you, all mark you as a dim-witted, self-stroking liar.

          You pretending that I’m in a debate with someone who actually matters when I’m actually just pointing out how lame you are? Well, you do this all the time, but it’s getting a bit old. Are you really so weak that you can’t change things up a bit?

          1. pgl

            “You really need to work on those vocabulary skills.”

            He also needs to work on his reading skills. Jonny wants us to believe defense spending rose in Biden’s first years when the row he used was clearly marked current dollars with nominal increase 4% for 2021 and 1.6% for 2022 (inflation being 4.5% for 2021 and 7% for 2022). Now one might excuse little Jonny for not being able to convert nominal increases to real decreases but the SAME table had another row clearly showing how constant dollar defense spending decreased each year.

            But Jonny almost always provides us a link which he is too stupid to read or understand as he goes off telling us that his link claimed one thing when properly understood said just the opposite.

          2. JohnH

            Ducky is still having problems with his English as a third language…I accused him of IMPUGNING THE INTEGRITY of an esteemed UW professor, not of impugning somebody. Learn to read!

            And with Ducky’s problems with his English as his third language, he couldn’t understand McCoy’s closing sentence: “China is likely to emerge from that disastrous conflict—to use Brzezinski’s well-chosen words—with its “preponderance over the entire Eurasian continent” consolidated and its “basis for global primacy” significantly strengthened.” At this moment, no one considers China to have global primacy, a position that only the US has held for at least the past 35 years.

            But since there can be only one country with global primacy, the US’ position as “king of the mountain” will at best be in doubt if not entirely lost by its disastrous foreign policy and decades of pointless and futile wars.

            Ducky needs to study Brzezinski and Mackinder and the importance of establishing strategic preponderance over the Eurasian subcontinent. I suggest he do it in his native language.

        1. pgl

          Dude – I guess you did not read your own link again. Nothing in this contradicts what Snope said. You repeated a right wing lie not this story. How effing stupid are you? Seriously?

        1. pgl

          How many pages did I have to read to find what Politico wrote:

          One Democrat who spoke to Obama recalled the former president warning, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up.”

          Someone recalled? Who is this “someone”? Dude – you are as pathetic as Jim Jordan and James Comer.

          This entirely consistent with what Snopes wrote. But little Jonny thinks he has won something. It is sort of like a football team trailing in the late part of the 4th quarter 49 to 0 but then getting a field goal. Yea – Jonny boy excels at being the dumbest troll God ever created.

    2. pgl

      Gee Jonny – you left this out:

      In recent months, among Russian President Vladimir Putin’s followers, there has been much talk of a “forever war” in Ukraine dragging on for years, if not decades. “For us,” Putin told a group of factory workers recently, “this is not a geopolitical task, but a task of the survival of Russian statehood, creating conditions for the future development of the country and our children.”

      Yea – your master has dragged out this damn disaster for too long. And it sounds like he is going to drag Russia further in the ground on his sick desire to destroy the rights of all Ukrainians. The survival of Russian statehood? You serve a sick war criminal who is almost as dumb as you are.

  8. James

    Looking at Wisconsin economy – As families in Wisconsin cry out for help with child care https://www.wpr.org/new-news-lab-family-planning-child-care-costs-fertility-economy and at every caregiver conference/older adult/PwD conference I go to for the past three years there are sessions about the care giver worker shortage – the WI GOP repeats the failed GOP policies of the past fifty years – and wants to use a historic state budget surplus to give a huge tax cut to the top 1% of the state population https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2023/06/22/gop-proposes-3-5-billion-income-tax-cut-that-favors-highest-earners/70347204007/ When do GOP voters realize that the WIGOP is working just for their rich donors and not the rest of the state?

    1. Ivan

      The better defense is to demand that surpluses are put into rainy day funds. More spending opens up for the classic GOP tax-and-spend attack.

  9. pgl

    Jonny boy has been chirping a lot of trash of late including this:

    ‘JohnH
    June 22, 2023 at 1:13 pm
    Actually the 2022 “defense” budget was higher than the 2021 budget. And the 2023 budget is 28% higher than the 2018 one.
    https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/historical-tables/

    But you can’t expect pgl to do his homework and know that.’

    Jonny’s source had NOMINAL defense spending rising by less than 1.6% from 2021 to 2022. The price deflator rose by 7% over the same period. Now nominal defense spending did rise by a whopping 4% in 2021 as the deflator rose by 4.5% in Biden’s first year. As I tried to tell this lying moron, real defense spending has declined since Biden became President. And if Jonny boy knew how to read the data from his own link, he might realize I was right. But of course our favorite liar will never admit it.

    Now it may be true that nominal defense spending is projected to be 28% than it was 5 years ago. Let’s see if little Jonny boy can tell us how prices in 2023 will compare to where they were in 2018. This should be a lot of fun!

    1. JohnH

      OK, pgl, since you can’t do the math, here’s the answer. In the past five years real defense spending has increased about 8%.

      Meanwhile median usual real weekly earnings have increased only 3.5%.

      Here’s another option…instead of stuffing the already bloated defense budget, why not share some of that with struggling workers in terms of increased EITC?

      Of course, pgl the Pentagon shill, is never going to abide any cut in “defense” spending for any reason, including a reduction in waste, fraud and mismanagement. Heck, he doesn’t even care how much Ukraine aid gets skimmed off by Zelensky and his cronies.

      1. pgl

        “OK, pgl, since you can’t do the math, here’s the answer. In the past five years real defense spending has increased about 8%.”

        Did forget to show your homework again? Of course you told us that the PROJECTED nominal increase from 2018 to 2023 was 28% not 8%. Now maybe little Jonny boy has some forecast of the 2023 deflator indicating that it might increase by 20% relative to 2018. But no one here trusts little Jonny boy’s forecasting abilities. And little Jonny boy did not show his homework so who knows.

        But at least after some 2000 stupid and dishonest comments little Jonny boy finally got the obvious point about real v. nominal. Yea little Jonny boy is SLOW.

  10. JohnH

    Ducky is still having problems with his English as a third language…I accused him of IMPUGNING THE INTEGRITY of an esteemed UW professor, not of impugning somebody. Learn to read!

    And with Ducky’s problems with his English as his third language, he couldn’t understand McCoy’s closing sentence: “China is likely to emerge from that disastrous conflict—to use Brzezinski’s well-chosen words—with its “preponderance over the entire Eurasian continent” consolidated and its “basis for global primacy” significantly strengthened.” At this moment, no one considers China to have global primacy, a position that only the US has held for at least the past 35 years.

    But since there can be only one country with global primacy, the US’ position as “king of the mountain” will at best be in doubt if not entirely lost by its disastrous foreign policy and decades of pointless and futile wars.

    Ducky needs to study Brzezinski and Mackinder and the importance of establishing strategic preponderance over the Eurasian subcontinent. I suggest he do it in his native language.

    1. pgl

      “Ducky is still having problems with his English as a third language”

      This from the utter moron who cannot read his own link on real defense spending. Dude – you need to pass preK reading before criticizing others.

  11. pgl

    Table 6.1 from the link is a great was of looking at how real defense spending has evolved over time:

    https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/historical-tables/

    Now I might give JohnH a little credit for providing this link except this moron misread this too. He keeps looking at line 5 which shows nominal defense spending. Real defense spending is reported on line 17. The table is clearly labeled so only a complete moron would make this mistake. Oh wait – Jonny boy is a complete moron.

    First of all Jonny boy wants us to believe that real defense spending did not fall during the 1990’s. Now everyone has heaerd of the peace dividend and the data is clear – except to village idiot JohnH.

    JohnH wants us to believe Trump was not the big spending on defense but Biden is. Yea NOMINAL spending rose a wee bit in 2021 and again in 2022. But wait didn’t we have some inflation those years. Line 17 clearly shows real defense spending fell.

    And I did not provide this link. Jonny boy did. Except Jonny boy is once again too stupid to read his own links!

    So all this stupid troll has to is calling me a Democratic partisan who wants more defense spending. Never mind that it is the Republicans who raise defense spending while Clinton, Obama, and Biden have lowered it. But let’s be fair – Jonny boy thinks he looks good in his MAGA hat!

  12. pgl

    “OK, pgl, since you can’t do the math, here’s the answer. In the past five years real defense spending has increased about 8%.”

    As I noted already Jonny boy must be doing some estimate of the 2023 price level, which of course Jonny is incompetent at. And did he READ the line under 2023? The nominal figure is a projection as well. Hey Jonny – learn to read.

    BTW this link has line 17 which shows projected real defense spending in 2023, which is projected to be 10% higher than the figure for 2018. Yea Jonny boy flunked preK arithmetic.

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