WASHINGTON (MaceNews) – The following is Friday’s status check of developments in the U.S. that can influence economic, health and political outcomes.
· President Trump’s campaign Friday night marched on, in Macon, Georgia. Pool reporter Rob Crilly who works for the Washington Examiner, described the scene:
“It was dark by the time POTUS took the stage on a chilly evening in Macon, Georgia. App tells me it’s 67F (19C) which then dropped to 63F as evening progressed, perhaps explaining why a few handfuls of people – in T-shirts, shorts or with kids – then a stream, drifted away as speech continued. Even so the crowd was in a feisty mood from the off. Started with “USA, USA, USA” as POTUS arrived. Then an early rendition of “CNN sucks” before getting fully into the role with a “Lock him up” chant as he started describing how he believed the Bidens constituted a criminal enterprise. When Trump started listing his achievements the crowd took its cue with a “Four more years”. Pretty much anything made of three syllables is now being taken up by crowd, including “Move them back,” as president mulls idea of moving media riser further away from stage.”
· Needless to say, only a few masks, as was the case earlier in the day in Ocala, Fla. Said Trump of opponent Joe Biden, “”I just want to see how’s he doing? Not well. He’s just a vehicle. Let’s not kid ourselves. Joe is shot. He’s got his vice president. Who is further left than crazy Kamala? Kamala.” CROWD BOOS. Tomorrow Trump will be in Janesville, Wisconsin. President Trump did issue a special proclamation late Friday, at 10:51p ET. “As we observe National Character Counts Week, we think of the special individuals in our lives who exemplify the character qualities to which we all aspire,” he said.
· And so retail politics in America rolls on. On Monday it will be 16 days to Election Day. Biden is polling 21 points ahead with suburban women, 12 points ahead with white women. And that’s a Fox News poll. Twenty-three million have already voted. As repeated through the day on the cable channels, Biden’s Town Hall Thursday night pulled in more viewers on ABC, 14.1 million, than Trump did on the three NBC channels, at 13 million. “Her face, the craziness,” said Trump Friday of moderator Savannah Guthrie. “You’re the president. You’re not like someone’s crazy uncle,” she said to him as she tried to pry out an answer.
· The fiscal 2020 government borrowing added up to $3.132 trillion, the Treasury Department reported Friday. Of course that’s by far the biggest amount of debt the country has ever taken on in one year, the result of spending so far on pandemic relief, medical supplies and so much else. The financial crisis year of 2009 was a distant second, at $1.16 trillion in red ink. The government’s accounting year ended Sept. 30. That amount now adds to the national debt. The U.S. IOUs are government securities the Federal Reserve is buying by the trillions, also to prop up the economy, and an analysis Thursday on the Seeking Alpha blog suggested that according to the exaggerated headline, “The Fed is Almost Out of U.S. Treasuries to Buy.” During the Friday afternoon briefing on Treasury’s questions to primary dealers – don’t ask – Mace News asked a senior Treasury official about the premise. “There are a lot of treasuries out there, about 20 trillion of marketable treasuries, so that’s a pretty big number,” he answered. Actually debt held by the public – all those IOUs – was $21,097,401,000,000 as of Thursday.
· The upcoming week’s economic data is heavy on housing, as Kevin Kastner’s very detailed preview shows elsewhere on this macenews.com site. He’s even included a complete calendar of all the week’s data points, major and minor. The morning’s retail sales report was something of a blowout, way above expectations, while industrial production disappointed, also detailed elsewhere on this site.
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