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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bull_dozer who wrote (211679)	2/27/2025 4:28:45 PM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 217789

I went short on GLD puts finance.yahoo.com , strike 260, expiration 17th April, because I think the premium paid me can partially offset my roundtrip airplane tickets to Nice I likely shall short more GLD puts, strike and expiration TBD, because it would be nice to offset the entirety of travel cost by extraction of volatility energy and gold value by looting the cloud-ATM contraption

To: bull_dozer who wrote (211679)	2/27/2025 4:35:26 PM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 217789

*>> The FCKING FCKS* Gold probably should rise more, because Team USA is isolating itself, by all manner of measures, and all have negative consequences on its economy and currency, a guess you know, all about choke points and such on the one hand, and everything about tariffs and all that, otoh

To: bull_dozer who wrote (211679)	2/27/2025 5:13:42 PM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 217789

*>> The FCKING FCKS* Keep GetMoreGold is my operative self-guidance ... because Message 35045992 and because zerohedge.com Beware The Ides Of March Madness: Government Shutdown On March 15 Now Extremely Likely, Could Be Longest Yet BY TYLER DURDEN FRIDAY, FEB 28, 2025 - 05:40 AM Funding for the federal government is scheduled to run out at 12:01 a.m. on March 15. Unless Congress and the Trump administration reach a deal before then, the government will shut, an outcome which Polymarket has at even odds. [url=]Source:Polymarket[/url] Ahead of this Ides of March event, Bloomberg explains that a confluence of factors is raising the risk of a shutdown: the narrow partisan margins in both houses of Congress, Republican legislators’ divergent interests, Democrats’ lack of incentive to help resolve the situation unless they receive something in return, and the Trump administration’s determination to effectively shut down most of (the extremely inefficient) government anyway. Wait, Dems are going to punish Trump and Elon for shrinking government by... shutting it down? t.co — zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 10, 2025What happens then? Most shutdowns in the past have been brief, with limited economic effects. Only four have shuttered the government for more than one business day. Only one of those occurred when the White House, House of Representatives, and Senate were all controlled by the same party — and that was in late-2018 and early-2019, during President Donald Trump’s first term. The economic impact of a shutdown depends on its breadth and duration. This one could be more consequential because none of the 12 regular appropriations bills has been signed into law. If a shutdown does occur, it will come with only two weeks left in the first quarter of the year, leaving little or no time for lost activity to be made up within that quarter. We will analyze the economic effects of a shutdown in a separate piece, but suffice to say, a shutdown will compound the chaos and uncertainty already engulfing the federal bureaucracy. It also will delay publication of economic indicators and jeopardize the collection of basic statistics — including the raw material for the March unemployment rate and consumer price index. Depending on how long a shutdown lasts, the loss of information could be significant and permanent. * * * If history is a guide, the macroeconomic effects of a shutdown starting March 15 should be minor and quickly reversed (although more recent history would beg to differ). The more consequential effects will stem from the wholesale disruption of government activity across a wide range of functions. It’s an open question what factors might cause either political party to see it in their interest to bring a shutdown to a close. [url=][/url] Why Is a Shutdown More Likely Now? Republicans control both the House and Senate, but the margin is too narrow to easily have their way in either chamber. The math is fluid, but with the resignations of Matt Gaetz and Michael Waltz — the latter to become Trump’s national security adviser — Republicans control the House by just 218 to 215 as of Feb. 26. That three-vote margin is the slimmest for either party since 1917. That means that if all Democrats are present and united in opposition, Republicans can afford only one defection. Special elections to replace Gaetz and Waltz are scheduled for April 1. Republicans are expected to win both seats — but that will be too late to help before the current government funding runs out. Hurdles in Both House and Senate Meanwhile, the House Republican caucus is hardly unified. Some members strongly believe spending must be cut sharply from current levels, and detest the idea of continuing resolutions. At the other end of the spectrum, three Republican members representing districts that supported Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in November’s presidential election must take into account their constituents’ political views. In short, interests among Republican legislators are deeply divergent — and with such a narrow margin of partisan control, everyone has leverage. The situation is no easier in the Senate. Republicans control the chamber 53-47, but will need 60 votes to overcome a Democratic filibuster. Republicans will therefore need at least seven Democratic votes — and it’s not clear whether President Trump would agree, before funding runs out, to any bill that could garner seven Democratic votes. In light of all that, the odds of a funding agreement being signed into law before March 15 seem low. A Brief History of Shutdowns Until 1980, government shutdowns weren’t a thing: Even when funding lapses occurred, they weren’t deemed to require the government to close. That changed with a 1980 opinion from President Jimmy Carter’s attorney general, Benjamin Civiletti, which held that continuing to operate the government after funding had lapsed violated a century-old law that prohibited the expenditure of money Congress had not appropriated. Thus began the era of government shutdowns. Since early-1981 there have been 14 lapses in funding lasting at least one calendar day. Most of these were brief, and in several cases shutdown procedures weren’t followed. In only four cases, as the Center for a Responsible Federal Budget notes, was there a “ ‘true’ government shutdown where operations were affected for more than one business day.” The first three occurred when control of the executive and legislative branches was divided. The fourth and longest — it lasted about five weeks — came during Trump’s first term, and began when Republicans controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. (The Democrats gained control of the House of Representatives partway through that shutdown, so it ended under divided control.) History Primed to Repeat On Feb. 24, House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole characterized negotiations as follows: “I think we’ve moved a long way on the numbers. We’re very close. I would say essentially there.” However, Democrats reportedly want to restrict Trump’s ability to stop spending that Congress has already approved — something Cole said a Republican-controlled House and Senate were unlikely to accept. It’s hard to see what incentive either side will have to blink before the shutdown deadline passes – in fact, it’s easier to see their motivations for holding out. The result could be the longest government shutdown yet.