Bessent really offered too much spin and made more than a few downright misleading statements on how tariffs work. "Deliberately misleads" would be the less polite phrase. Buyer pays the tariff to customs - a clear inviolable fact. "Who bears the economic costs" is a more assumption-based analysis. I watched him duck and distort that question in Congress and on financial and political media shows for months. Congress and the media are so lame they could not corner him with the right question ("Who write the check?") You expect facts from a guy like that. Finally, Eugene Robinson painted him into a corner on Morning Joe. that got a lot of headlines. Tariffs are a big topic, so he made a lot of big misstatement for around 7 months before he got corralled. He goes into slick hedge fund mode and people were either afraid or lacked the grasp to make him give a direct answer. He also avoids discussing CPI increases along product lines like the plague. He lacks candor is the nicest thing I can say.
The other big topic lately is how he cites GDP numbers. He avoids discussing the lines below headline GDP and what is going on with growth. line like PCE and fixed investment. Huge import distortions in this latest round of GDP. I write about that in the Curve weekly. Kevin Hasset is even worse but knows a lot less about markets, you expect more from Bessent. Hasset just a talking head mouthpiece. No objective analysis. The US has been a 2% growth economy in the new Millenium. They call Trump's economy a 3% economy. Just go back and look at the annual GDP for reach year in Stump 1.0. He hit 3.0% once rounding up. His numbers were still better than Obamas. facts matter. Trump says "Greatest Economy in History" and his guys just parrot that.
Perfect timing for this, super insightful as always. Just curious, could you elaborate a bit on the 'Bessent et al. forked tounge' part?
Bessent really offered too much spin and made more than a few downright misleading statements on how tariffs work. "Deliberately misleads" would be the less polite phrase. Buyer pays the tariff to customs - a clear inviolable fact. "Who bears the economic costs" is a more assumption-based analysis. I watched him duck and distort that question in Congress and on financial and political media shows for months. Congress and the media are so lame they could not corner him with the right question ("Who write the check?") You expect facts from a guy like that. Finally, Eugene Robinson painted him into a corner on Morning Joe. that got a lot of headlines. Tariffs are a big topic, so he made a lot of big misstatement for around 7 months before he got corralled. He goes into slick hedge fund mode and people were either afraid or lacked the grasp to make him give a direct answer. He also avoids discussing CPI increases along product lines like the plague. He lacks candor is the nicest thing I can say.
The other big topic lately is how he cites GDP numbers. He avoids discussing the lines below headline GDP and what is going on with growth. line like PCE and fixed investment. Huge import distortions in this latest round of GDP. I write about that in the Curve weekly. Kevin Hasset is even worse but knows a lot less about markets, you expect more from Bessent. Hasset just a talking head mouthpiece. No objective analysis. The US has been a 2% growth economy in the new Millenium. They call Trump's economy a 3% economy. Just go back and look at the annual GDP for reach year in Stump 1.0. He hit 3.0% once rounding up. His numbers were still better than Obamas. facts matter. Trump says "Greatest Economy in History" and his guys just parrot that.
Thank you.
Here are my Sep CPI estimates:
https://arkominaresearch.substack.com/p/sep-2025-cpi-estimate?r=1r1n6n