We called it…

Nov

2024

What Are the Implications of DOGE?

By Graham Summers, MBA | Chief Market Strategist

The Trump administration intends to treat the government like a business, removing waste and increasing productivity. Can it be done? It’s difficult to say. Firing government employees is notoriously difficult (hence the “fail up” theme that is common in the public sector).

Having said that, there’s clearly room for improvement/ cost cutting. The bigger issues pertain to how the Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) would affect the overall economy.

Let’s dive in.

All told, over 23 MILLION people are employed by the government in the U.S. That’s not a typo. You can see this for yourself. The chart has gone straight up with few drops in the last 80 years.

Of this, the Federal Government is currently responsible for ~3 million workers. To put that into context, Wal-Mart employs roughly 1.6 million people in the U.S. So, Uncle Sam employs a little under two times as many people as the country’s largest private sector employer.

Does the government need all these employees? It’s difficult to say. There are plenty of stories of wasteful spending in government, but is the wasteful spending pertaining to programs, employees, or both? Put another way, is DOGE’s mission to improve the U.S.’s fiscal situation… or is it meant to primarily reduce the size of the government?

This remains to be seen.

Moreover, is DOGE meant to apply to just Federal Employees, of is it mean to also streamline state and local government operations? The U.S. has 167 million people in its labor force. With three million of these people employed by Uncle Sam, this means that less than 2% of labor force would be in DOGE’s targets. If DOGE is meant to also apply to state and local government, then the percentage of people who could be affected jumps to 13% of the labor force.

These issues need to be clarified for us to get a better sense of the impact of DOGE on U.S. employment.

Finally, and perhaps most pressing for investors, will DOGE trigger a recession? Elon Musk famously laid off 80% of Twitter (now X’s) employees without too much difficulty. If he and Vivek Ramaswamy manage to accomplish even half of that (meaning laying off 40% of Federal Government employees), if would mean 1.2 million Federal Employees losing their jobs.

There are currently 6.9 million people unemployed out of a labor force of 168.4 million. This comes to a U-3 unemployment rate of 4.1%. Adding 1.2 million unemployed people to this ratio would increase the U-3 unemployment rate to 4.8%. And bear in mind that this analysis assumes that the overall labor force dynamics do NOT change at all in the private, state or local government sectors (unlikely if DOGE is also cutting spending).

The lowest U-3 unemployment rate during this current cycle was 3.4%. So, a spike to 4.8% in unemployment would mean a total increase of 1.4% to the unemployment rate trough to peak. That is roughly equal to the unemployment rate spikes that occurred during the recessions of the early ‘90s and the early ‘00s (1.6% and 1.4%, respectively) so this is recessionary territory.

Would President Trump be willing to stomach a technical recession if it was triggered by delivering a campaign promise to shrink the government? I have no idea. President Trump was extremely proud of the economy’s strength during the first three years of his first term. Would the pride of shrinking government for the first time in decades eclipse the perceived economic “failure” of a technical recession occurring during the first two years of his term?

This remains to be seen.

The one thing that IS clear is that DOGE would improve the U.S. fiscal situation. This would remove one of the biggest concerns for the stock market (the U.S. debt mountain/ massive deficits) and open the door to new highs.

We just published a Special Investment Report detailing that, as well as the #1 investment to own during Trump’s 2^nd Term.

We are selling this report as a standalone item for $499… but you can pick up a copy FREE simply by joining our daily market commentary, Gains Pains & Capital.

We are making only 99 copies available to the public.

As I write this, there are only 59 left…

To pick up yours…

We just published a Special Investment Report detailing that, as well as the #1 investment to own during Trump’s 2^nd Term.

We are selling this report as a standalone item for $499… but you can pick up a copy FREE simply by joining our daily market commentary, Gains Pains & Capital.

We are making only 99 copies available to the public.

As I write this, there are only 67 left…

To pick up yours…

Best Reghttps://phoenixcapitalresearch.com/trump2ndterm-leadgen/

Graham Summers, MBA

Chief Market Strategist

Phoenix Capital Research

Best Regards

Graham Summers, MBA

Chief Market Strategist

Phoenix Capital Research

Oct

2024

Trump Will Win… If You Don’t Believe Me… Maybe You’ll Listen to These Two!

By Graham Summers, MBA | Chief Market Strategist

As I keep stating, Donald Trump will win the 2024 U.S. Presidential election.

The first major signal (aside from the betting markets) was Meta (formerly Facebook) founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg pivoting politically in August 2024.

Zuckerberg has been left-leaning for most of his career. But he is also a pragmatist. And with Meta, he has access to what is perhaps the largest dataset of voter sentiment in the world. We’re talking about what voters really think as opposed to what they tell a pollster.

Zuckerberg pivoted politically in August 2024, writing a letter to Congress in which he stated that the Biden administration had pressured him and Meta to limit free speech.

That is one heck of a statement by one of the most powerful, connected elites in the world. Do you think Zuckerberg would do this if he didn’t see the writing on the wall via Meta’s massive collection of voter sentiment?

Zuckerberg isn’t the only one who’s figured out that Trump will win either.

Yesterday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy outlined the steps he would take to make sign a peace treaty with Russia. This comes after 2+ years of armed conflict between the two countries… conflict that was financed by the Biden administration/ congress to the tune of $175+ BILLION.

Zelenskyy has had countless opportunities to end this conflict since it began in early 2022. Indeed, there was a full peace deal prepared as early as April 2022 that the U.S. and U.K. rejected. The only reason Zelenskyy is looking to make a deal now is because he knows Trump will soon be the next President and the U.S. will no longer be funding this conflict.

Again, Donald Trump will win the 2024 U.S. Presidential election. The most connected tech and political elites are already preparing for it.

You should too…

We just published a Special Investment Report detailing that, as well as the #1 investment to own during Trump’s 2^nd Term.

We are selling this report as a standalone item for $499… but you can pick up a copy FREE simply by joining our daily market commentary, Gains Pains & Capital.

We are making only 99 copies available to the public.

As I write this, there are only 67 left…

To pick up yours…

Best Regards

Graham Summers, MBA

Chief Market Strategist

Phoenix Capital Research

Feb

2020

The Fed just admitted that I was right… and all of Wall Street was wrong.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell didn’t actually say the words “Graham Summers was right,” but he might as well have done so.

Back in 2017, when I published my bestselling book The Everything Bubble (available to all my clients for free as part of a trial subscription to Private Wealth Advisory) I predicted that the Fed would never be able to normalize policy.

Instead, I predicted that the Fed would be forced to engage in ever larger monetary easing. My actual prediction was that the Fed would introduce QE programs of $160+ billion at the first sign of major trouble.

Here’s the actual quote from page 176.

At that time I wrote this, all of Wall Street, and every major Fed official went on record claiming that the Fed would have no difficulty in normalizing monetary policy. Soon after, the Fed began shrinking its balance sheet via a Quantitative Tightening program, while also raising interest rates at a pace of three to four hikes per year.

Fast forward to today, and the Fed is already back with a QE program of $60 billion per month, though the Fed is claiming this isn’t really QE (it is). And the Fed is doing this at a time when the U.S. economy is growing at over 3% per year.

Of course, $60 billion is nowhere near $160 billion. But then came Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s testimony to Congress yesterday.

During his testimony, Chair Powell stated that cutting interest rates won’t work anymore and that the Fed will need to “aggressively” implement QE and other items during the next downturn.

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Remember, the Fed is already employing a $60 billion per month QE program right now. So when Fed Chair Powell say the Fed will need to “aggressively” use QE during a downturn, he’s talking about truly MASSIVE amounts of QE.

Like $160 billion per month… which I predicted back in 2017… and which was laughed at and called insane at the time.

So why is the Fed doing all of this?

Because President Trump caught them trying to commit an economic coup… and gave them a choice…

EASE NOW or you’ll all fired.

The Fed claims to be apolitical, but we all know this is a load of BS. The Fed did everything it could to help the Obama administration by keeping interest rates at zero and printing over $3 trillion in new money.

Then President Trump won the 2016 Presidential election… and the Fed suddenly decided it was time to shrink its balance sheet buy $600 billion per year while also raising interest rates seven times.

Former Vice Chair Stanley Fisher admitted publicly that the Fed raised rates to intentionally hurt the economy and punish President Trump. The President caught them in the act and called Fed Chair Jerome Powell and his #2 to the White House for a “private dinner.”

Ever since then, the Fed has been working to get back in President Trump’s good graces. As a result, we’ve now got the Fed easing aggressively while the economy is already growing at 3% per year.

This is GUARANTEEING a landslide victory for President Trump in 2020.

If you do not believe me, take a look at the stock market, which is the single greatest discounting mechanism on the planet.

People have political agendas/ biases. The stock market simply discounts reality.

With that in mind, what does the below chart tell you about the state of the U.S. economy? More importantly, what is the stock market is telling us about what’s coming down the pike for the U.S.?

I believe the market is “showing” us that President Trump is going to win the 2020 election in a landslide.

The Trump administration has successfully “branded” the stock market. As such, stocks are closely aligned with the President’s odds of re-election in 2020.

Which is why, this recent breakout to new highs is telling us Trump wins 2020 in a landslide… and that this time there will be few obstacles to his economic agenda.

I want to be clear here…

I DO NOT care about politics. You can hate President Trump or you can love him. That’s 100% up to you.

But the reality is that under the Trump administration the stock market is giving us a once in a lifetime opportunity to GET RICH from our investments.

My clients are already doing this with our new special report titled…

The MAGA Portfolio: Five Investments That Will Make Fortunes During Trump’s Second Term.

In it, I detail five HIGH OCTANE investments that are primed to EXPLODE higher when President Trump wins a second term.

In it, I detail five unique investments that I expect will produce the most extraordinary gains during President Trump’s second term.

Each one of these investments is in a unique position to profit from the combination of Trump economic reforms and Fed monetary easing, combining high growth opportunities with extreme profitability.

We are offering this report exclusively to subscribers of our e-letter Gains Pains & Capital. To pick up your copy please swing by:

https://phoenixcapitalmarketing.com/MAGA.html

Best Regards

Graham Summers

Chief Market Strategist

Phoenix Capital Research

Feb

2020

The Fed just admitted that I was right… and all of Wall Street was wrong.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell didn’t actually say the words “Graham Summers was right,” but he might as well have done so.

Here’s the actual quote from page 176.

Of course, $60 billion is nowhere near $160 billion. But then came Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s testimony to Congress yesterday.

During his testimony, Chair Powell stated that cutting interest rates won’t work anymore and that the Fed will need to “aggressively” implement QE and other items during the next downturn.

—————————————————–

Get a LIFETIME Subscription to All Of Our Products For Just $2,500

An annual subscription to all of our current newsletters costs $1,500.

But today, you can get a LIFETIME subscription to ALL of them, along with every new product we ever launch, for just $2,500.

That’s less that the cost of two year’s worth of subscriptions.

And if you are already a paying subscriber to one or more of our newsletters, we will refund your current orders, if you take advantage of this offer.

To do so…

CLICK HERE NOW!!!

——————————————-

Like $160 billion per month… which I predicted back in 2017… and which was laughed at and called insane at the time.

So why is the Fed doing all of this?

Because President Trump caught them trying to commit an economic coup… and gave them a choice…

EASE NOW or you’ll all fired.

Ever since then, the Fed has been working to get back in President Trump’s good graces. As a result, we’ve now got the Fed easing aggressively while the economy is already growing at 3% per year.

This is GUARANTEEING a landslide victory for President Trump in 2020.

If you do not believe me, take a look at the stock market, which is the single greatest discounting mechanism on the planet.

People have political agendas/ biases. The stock market simply discounts reality.

With that in mind, what does the below chart tell you about the state of the U.S. economy? More importantly, what is the stock market is telling us about what’s coming down the pike for the U.S.?