Ok tin foil hat time.
These things are basically indisputable facts at this point:
* the US is in massive debt and running a big deficit.
* DOGE cutting isn't going to make a dent
* To make a dent on spending, we'll need to touch social security and medicare, which is political suicide
* yields are too high so we can't refinance
* if Trump actually tanks the stock market, tax receipts will be way down, further widening the deficit.
You take these 5 things together and you're left with only 2 choices to manage the fiscal deficit:
1. **raise revenues** through massive GDP growth. AI is the common cure-all here but I don't think that's gonna happen. The other narrative is tariffs will raise a bunch of money for the gov but I don't think that's gonna happen either.
2. **reduce costs** by refinancing the debt at lower rates. Lower rates by doing QE / buying back bonds to artificially lower rates.
OR the "out-of-the-box" scenario is who gives a f-all about the deficit and MAGA has a totally different agenda. But let's assume that they do want to actually manage the deficit.
My tin-foil-hat take is that option 2 is the most likely outcome. This will result in:
* inflation, which Trump and MAGA will blame tariffs on, not QE.
* the average Joe gets poorer, and the electorate gets more populist. MAGA can work with that
* asset holders get richer, which makes them happy.
alright what do y'all think lmao