2) America’s Tech Giants Reign Supreme
|
|
We’ve mentioned that the U.S. tech giants have been driving most of the returns of the domestic stock markets. But now we have evidence that they are so globally dominant that they are powering the equity returns of the whole world. While China has fallen out of favor with investors, the U.S. worldwide lead widens.
|
|
Mainland Chinese and Hong Kong companies have shed the equivalent of $1.7 trillion in value since the end of 2023, QUICK FactSet data shows.
China's share of global market capitalization in dollar terms has dropped to around 10%, roughly half the peak of nearly 20% reached in 2015 when investors anticipated faster economic growth.
The U.S. total has risen $1.4 trillion over the same period to $51 trillion, putting the country's share at 48.1%, the largest since September 2003. The gap between the U.S. and China has widened to the largest on record in data going back to 2001.
|
|
This divergence largely reflects the differing fortunes of their biggest tech companies. Amazon and Facebook parent Meta together have gained $510 billion in market cap since the end of last year, lifted by strong quarterly earnings announced last week. Meanwhile, Chinese e-commerce leader Alibaba Group Holding and gaming and social media group Tencent Holdings lost a combined $31 billion in value over the same period.
|
|
Nine of the world's 10 most valuable companies are now American, with Saudi Aramco the sole exception.
Remarkably, the Biden Administration has current or pending antitrust lawsuits against Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta. The remarkable success of these companies has been in spite of the Biden Administration's best efforts to “Break up big tech,” which would play right into the hands of our rivals.
|
|
3) The OTHER Multi-Trillion Dollar Government “Stimulus”
|
|
Regular readers of the Hotline know that we added upwards of $6 trillion in spending and debt during Covid and its aftermath.
|
|
But the OTHER stimulus was provided by the Federal Reserve Board when it purchased a mind-blowing $5 trillion in assets and put them on the Fed’s balance sheet. When the Fed purchases assets, it injects money into the economy, which certainly contributed to the Bidenflation which hit 9.1% in 2022 at the height of the asset purchases.
|
|
Most of this was the Fed purchasing federal treasuries (with most of the rest consisting of $2 trillion in mortgage-backed securities). In other words, Congress spent the money, the Treasury borrowed the money, and the Fed effectively printed the money and used those dollars to buy the government’s own debt. This is called monetizing debt and it’s a dangerous practice that rewards government profligacy – just look at Argentina and Venezuela.
The good news is the Fed has reduced its balance sheet from $9 trillion in late 2022 to just under $8 trillion today. It should speed up these asset sales and return as quickly to normalcy. If it doesn’t, this government Ponzi scheme will end about as well as it did for Bernie Madoff.
|
|
4) We KNEW It: Democrats Now Move to Forgive Medical Debts
|
|
Debt forgiveness has become one of the Democrats’ favorite tools for buying votes. It’s apparently now a legalized form of graft. Biden has written off hundreds of billions of student loan debt and the youngsters love him for it. A recent poll in New Hampshire before the primary last month depressingly discovered that more than three of four Democrats supported student loan debt forgiveness.
We half-jokingly suggested a year ago on these pages that politicians would soon use taxpayer dollars to forgive mortgage debt and credit card debt. Maybe we should have kept our mouths shut.
In Connecticut, Democrat Governor Ned Lamont says he will be the 1st governor to forgive medical debt. We’re going to go out on a limb here and predict that other Democratic governors will follow suit and then Biden may run with the idea as a pre-election giveaway too.
What’s next? Gambling debts? Unpaid alimony payments?
|
|
5) Bill Maher Confirms the Wisdom of Our Immigration Strategy
|
|
It’s a sad state of affairs when a late-night comedian understands what it takes to control the border with more than half the members of Congress and the President of the United States. He’s also right that there is no need for tens of billions of dollars or more spending to get the job done.
|
|
6) FTC’s Lina Khan to Sue Taylor Swift for Antitrust Violations
|
|
|
|