Tag: finance

Strategically hitting just minutes before the market close to push today’s record Dow point gain into even greater overdrive, Bloomberg just reported that a U.S. government delegation will travel to Beijing in the week of Jan. 7 to hold trade talks with Chinese officials.

The mid-level delegation will be absent US Trade Rep Robert Lighthizer – who Trump recently said would be in charge of the China negotiations – but instead will be headed by deputy U.S. Trade Representative Jeffrey Gerrish will lead the Trump administration’s team, which will also include Treasury Under Secretary for International Affairs David Malpass, with Bloomberg reporting that next month’s meeting will be the first face-to-face discussion the two sides have held since President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping agreed on a temporary truce in Argentina at the start of December. The news comes after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said last week that the U.S. team and its Chinese counterparts have held discussions over the phone.

As a reminder, Trump agreed to put on hold a scheduled increase in tariffs on some $200 billion in annual imports from China while the negotiations take place through March 1. Beijing has agreed to resume buying American soybeans and to at least temporarily lower retaliatory tariffs on U.S. autos.
 

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Where is Cooperman: “It’s all the algos’ fault the Dow is up 1000 points”

Investors welcomed Kevin Hassett’s assurance that Jerome Powell’s job is “100 percent” safe.

But the biggest driver of today’s exuberance appears to be actual pension rebalancing or front-running the pension panic.

And today’s explosion comes just as CTAs turned short and hedge funds have the lowest net exposure to the market in 3 years…

And just like that a short-squeeze was enabled…the biggest short squeeze since the day after Brexit…

And stocks went vertical…Biggest daily gain in Nasdaq since Aug 2011

 

On March 3, 2009 Obama marked the end of the financial crash with these words:

“what you’re now seeing is profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you’ve got a long-term perspective on it” 

On Dec 25, 2018 did Trump mark the end of the rout with these words:

“We have companies, the greatest in the world, and they’re doing really well. They have record kinds of numbers. So I think it’s a tremendous opportunity to buy. Really a great opportunity to buy.”

Which followed a slide lower after excellent Plunge Protection from China’s National Team overnight…

As they all tried to explain, “all is well”…

Europe remains closed, celebrating Boxing Day.

This is the biggest Dow point rise in history…

 

 

Best day for bank stocks since April 2011…

 

HYG (HY Bonds) soared on the day – biggest gain since Dec 2014

 

Treasury Bond yields spiked back higher on the week…

 

With 30Y back above 3.00%…back to pre-Fed dive levels…

 

The Dollar surged, taking out Sunday’s gap-down open, back into the Fed-ramp range…

“We have spent the week unwinding our short dollar position as expediently as possible. I promise you every day when I woke up, I was checking for rogue waves.” pic.twitter.com/SJMdalS64y

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 26, 2018

Cryptos drifted lower on the day, Bitcoin Cash lower on the week…

 

Despite the dollar strength, copper and silver gained, gold limped lower, and oil exploded…

 

This is WTI’s best day since Nov 2016…

 

Silver surged relative to gold – erasing two weeks of underperformance…

 

While gold (in USD) was flat today, it surged against the yuan to the highest since April 2017…

 

Finally, we note that the eurodollar market has now priced out all rate-hikes for 2019…

But since The Fed hiked rates, stocks are still suffering…

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Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

A Russian businessman jailed by the United States government on conspiracy charges says that it’s all but inevitable that the U.S. will undergo a revolution. Viktor Bout, who has been locked up in a Marion, Illinois penitentiary since 2008, warned that “great changes” are looming in America.

Bout has always maintained his innocence, according to RT, but says there is no one to fight against those who seek the ultimate power of control over others (politicians and their hired enforcers). The Russian was arrested in Thailand during a U.S. sting operation and he was eventually convicted in 2012 over conspiring to kill American citizens by allegedly selling weapons to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), receiving a quarter-century (25 years) jail term.

Bout has been experiencing health issues in jail, and the man himself is reluctant to speak about his problems, saying that he was only involved in a legitimate cargo business. But he did say that the U.S. legal system has become a “cheap farce” where rulings are politically charged and impossible to challenge legally. He warned that “great changes” are looming in the U.S. He also condemned Russia for not coming to his aide while simultaneously supporting the country.

“Russia’s authorities are aware of all my problems. Why would I write tearful, moanful letters and ask for help? The government and the embassy know what they should do. When an opportunity shows up, I’m sure that they’ll take all the steps necessary,” Bout told the Izvestia newspaper in an interview.

He says to “follow the money” when looking for motives in the U.S. justice system.

The main and only reason behind Bout’s incarceration is to “intimidate other Russians” so that they give in to US demands, he added, wary of his own fate. “Regarding my innocence – to whom I can prove it? To what system? Look at what is happening in the United States. They are trying to do what they’ve done to me not only to their distinguished generals but the President himself. The American justice system has become a cheap farce.“

“This country is at the doorstep of great changes, and, in my opinion, a revolution, which is virtually inevitable,” Bout added according to RT.  

“Many out there are ready for the civil war: on the two sides, armed to the teeth and only waiting for the moment when someone starts to spill blood,” Bout added.

Bout’s warnings come as politicians in Washington insist on ramping up tensions with Moscow. “Over these years, I’ve formed an opinion that the Americans are largely for good relations with Russia. At least, that’s how it is for those who live in rural areas. The people are conservative, plain out there, where I serve my term,” he stated, adding that the Russians and the Americans actually have more things in common than dividing them.

Judge Shira Scheindlin described her ruling against Bout to be “excessive and inappropriate,” noting that there was no evidence that Bout would have committed any crime if he was not targeted by the sting operation. “It is not a criminal justice system,” Bout told RT, joking that “they can indict a ham sandwich in this country,” where the judges are “rubber stamping anything the government brings to them.”

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President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that he is prepared for a lengthy shutdown, and said he would do “whatever it takes” when asked how long he would wait to get the $5 billion he has demanded for his US-Mexico border wall.

The holdout has triggered a partial shutdown of the federal government which is now in its fifth day. 

Speaking from a surprise visit to the troops in Iraq, Trump blamed the shutdown on Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who is expected to assume the role of Speaker of the House on January 3. 

Trump also defended his decision last week to pull US troops out of Syria – a move which led to the abrupt resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis and leading US diplomat Brett McGurk. 

“I think a lot of people are going to come around to my way of thinking. It’s time for us to start using our head,” Trump told reporters at the Al Asad Air Base located west of Baghdad, where he and first lady Melania Trump spent approximately three hours on the ground with US troops.

Trump added that he has no plans to withdraw US troops from Iraq, however, adding “In fact we could use this as the base if we wanted to do something in Syria.”

The President also noted that he was in no rush to replace Mattis – and that Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, who Trump named on Sunday as a temporary successor to begin on January 1, “could be there for a long time.” 

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Authored by Stephen Roach via Project Syndicate,

Despite howls of protest from market participants and rumored threats from an unhinged US president, the Federal Reserve should be congratulated for its commitment to normalizing interest rates. There is simply no other way to break the US economy’s 20-year dependence on asset bubbles.

I have not been a fan of the policies of the US Federal Reserve for many years. Despite great personal fondness for my first employer, and appreciation of all that working there gave me in terms of professional training and intellectual stimulation, the Fed had lost its way. From bubble to bubble, from crisis to crisis, there were increasingly compelling reasons to question the Fed’s stewardship of the US economy. 

That now appears to be changing. Notwithstanding howls of protest from market participants and rumored unconstitutional threats from an unhinged US president, the Fed should be congratulated for its steadfast commitment to policy “normalization.” It is finally confronting the beast that former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan unleashed over 30 years ago: the “Greenspan put” that provided asymmetric support to financial markets by easing policy aggressively during periods of market distress while condoning froth during upswings. 

Since the October 19, 1987 stock-market crash, investors have learned to count on the Fed’s unfailing support, which was justified as being consistent with what is widely viewed as the anchor of its dual mandate: price stability. With inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index averaging a mandate-compliant 2.1% in the 20-year period ending in 2017, the Fed was, in effect, liberated to go for growth.

And so it did. But the problem with the growth gambit is that it was built on the quicksand of an increasingly asset-dependent and ultimately bubble- and crisis-prone US economy.

Greenspan, as a market-focused disciple of Ayn Rand, set this trap. Drawing comfort from his tactical successes in addressing the 1987 crash, he upped the ante in the late 1990s, arguing that the dot-com bubble reflected a new paradigm of productivity-led growth in the US. Then, in the early 2000s, he committed a far more serious blunder, insisting that a credit-fueled housing bubble, inflated by “innovative” financial products, posed no threat to the US economy’s fundamentals. As one error compounded the other, the asset-dependent economy took on a life of its own.

As the Fed’s leadership passed to Ben Bernanke in 2006, market-friendly monetary policy entered an even braver new era. The bursting of the Greenspan housing bubble triggered a financial crisis and recession the likes of which had not been seen since the 1930s. As an academic expert on the Great Depression, Bernanke had argued that the Fed was to blame back then. As Fed Chair, he quickly put his theories to the test as America stared into another abyss. Alas, there was a serious complication: with interest rates already low, the Fed had little leeway to ease monetary policy with traditional tools. So it had to invent a new tool: liquidity injections from its balance sheet through unprecedented asset purchases.

The experiment, now known as quantitative easing, was a success – or so we thought. But the Fed mistakenly believed that what worked for markets in distress would also spur meaningful recovery in the real economy. It raised the stakes with additional rounds of quantitative easing, QE2 and QE3, but real GDP growth remained stuck at around 2% from 2010 through 2017 — half the norm of past recoveries. Moreover, just as it did when the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, the Fed kept monetary policy highly accommodative well into the post-crisis expansion. In both cases, when the Fed finally began to normalize, it did so slowly, thereby continuing to fuel market froth.

Here, too, the Fed’s tactics owe their origins to Bernanke’s academic work. With his colleague Mark Gertler of NYU, he argued that while monetary policy was far too blunt an instrument to prevent asset-bubbles, the Fed’s tools were far more effective in cleaning up the mess after they burst. And what a mess there was! As Fed governor in the early 2000s, Bernanke maintained that this approach was needed to avoid the pitfalls of Japanese-like deflation. Greenspan concurred with his famous “mission accomplished” speech in 2004. And as Fed Chair in the late 2000s, Bernanke doubled down on this strategy.

For financial markets, this was nirvana. The Fed had investors’ backs on the downside and, with inflation under control, would do little to constrain the upside. The resulting “wealth effects” of asset appreciation became an important source of growth in the real economy. Not only was there the psychological boost that comes from feeling richer, but also the realization of capital gains from an equity bubble and the direct extraction of wealth from the housing bubble through a profusion of secondary mortgages and home equity loans. And, of course, in the early 2000s, the Fed’s easy-money bias spawned a monstrous credit bubble, which subsidized the leveraged monetization of housing-market froth.

And so it went, from bubble to bubble. The more the real economy became dependent on the asset economy, the tougher it became for the Fed to break the daisy chain. Until now. Predictably, the current equity market rout has left many aghast that the Fed would dare continue its current normalization campaign. That criticism is ill-founded. It’s not that the Fed is simply replenishing its arsenal for the next downturn. The subtext of normalization is that economic fundamentals, not market-friendly monetary policy, will finally determine asset values.

The Fed, it is to be hoped, is finally coming clean on the perils of asset-dependent growth and the long string of financial bubbles that has done great damage to the US economy over the past 20 years.

Just as Paul Volcker had the courage to tackle the Great Inflation, Jerome Powell may well be remembered for taking an equally courageous stand against the insidious perils of the Asset Economy.

It is great to be a fan of the Fed again.

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Last Friday, when stocks were tumbling, we reported “some good news for the bulls” which was mostly lost in the overall chaos over the latest mutual fund liquidation discussed earlier.

And no, we did not anticipate that President Trump would activate the Plunge Protection Team over the weekend: the good news in question was that as Wells Fargo calculated U.S. defined-benefit pensions fund would need to implement a “giant rebalancing out of bonds and into stocks” – in fact the biggest in history – with the bank estimating roughly $64 billion in equity purchases in the last trading days of the quarter and year, prompting the banks to ask if traders are about to make pension rebalancing “great” again.

Judging by today’s market action, the answer is a resounding yes, even though as Wells warned investors and traders looking for a desperately needed respite from market gyrations “may have to deal with yet one more seismic bout of volatility before Dec 31 finally pops up on their calendar dials.”

For those who missed our Friday post on the topic, Wells explained where this massive rebalancing comes from: the huge, end-of-quarter buy order was precipitated by the jarring divergence between equity and bond performances both in Q4 and the month of December. The stocks in the bank’s pro forma pension asset blend had suffered a 14% loss this quarter, including about an 8.5% drop in December. Contrast this with a roughly +1.6% quarterly total return for the domestic aggregate bond index. The gap between equity and bond performance in pension portfolios would have been even larger had IG credit OAS not widened nearly 40 bps in Q4.

As a result of this need for massive quarter-end rebalancing, corporate pensions would need to boost their equity portfolios by as much as $64 billion into year-end. Getting a bit more granular, Wells analyst Boris Rjavinski wrote that domestic stocks – both large cap and small cap – may need disproportionately large boosts of $35 billion and $21 billion, respectively, compared to “only” $9 billion for global developed equities (see table below). This is driven by large performance gaps within equity markets: U.S. stocks have trailed global and EM equities in Q4 and December after outperforming the ROW for quarters on end.

Meanwhile, in part explaining today’s bond market weakness,pensions would be looking at a historically large outflow of about $57 billion.

Some pensions rebalance every month and some only at quarter-end. Since bonds trounced equities both on a quarterly and monthly basis, the flows from the two groups of rebalancers will go the same way. This should amplify the market impact.

Finally, we also touched upon what assets pensions would buy (and sell): according to Wells, most of the initial outflows from fixed income would be affected via liquid Treasury futures contracts. Consequently, the TY and U.S. sectors should underperform potentially for most of the brief trading window this week.

Finally, while not directly related to today’s massive pension-driven buying spree, Wells laments that defined-benefit company pensions just cannot seem to catch a break, and notes that just a few short months ago, corporate pensions’ average funding ratio seemed poised to top 90% and stood at 88% in July, up from 85% at the end of 2017.

Alas, the good fortune proved fleeting, and the updated Well Fargo estimate pegs average solvency at 83%. The drop for 2018 is no surprise with equities posting hefty declines while long-term Treasury yields are up only 30-35 bps.  As a result, pension trustees face an unenviable task of going back to the drawing board, while company Treasurers may be looking at writing another sizeable check to shore up their pensions.

We concluded our Friday post as follows:

For now, however, buckle up for what may be the single largest quarter-end pension rebalancing in history.

A few days later, with pensions seemingly deciding to take Christmas Eve off, Wednesday’s torrid price action – and that over the next two days with quarter and year-end imminent – is the result of this “single largest quarter-end pension rebalancing in history”, which is manifesting itself in the biggest percentage gain in the Dow since late March.

Or, as Trump would tweet, “pensions are BTFD today. Are you?”

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On Monday we reported that in a market overflowing with losers, one clear winner had emerged: passive investors in general, and Blackrock in particular, whose exchange-traded fund business attracted more than $25 billion in November inflows, a record monthly haul for the company.

Recall that whereas last week EPFR reported that total stock funds suffered record weekly outflows of $39 billion, this was the result of $53 billion in active fund outflows offset by $14 billion in ETF inflows, as the great rotation from active to passive continues.

The latest figures from BlackRock, the world’s largest money manager and biggest provider of ETFs, confirmed that the shift away from expensive active investing, which has done little if anything to protect investors during the first bear market in a decade, to passive is indeed accelerating… and continuing: “we’re also seeing strong flows in December,” Blackrock spokeswoman Melissa Garville told Bloomberg.

So if money was “rotating” to passive, it meant that active managers were hurting badly, and on Wednesday, the Investment Company Institute confirmed that mutual funds suffered near record redemptions of $56.2 billion in the week ended Dec. 19. According to Bloomberg that was the biggest outflow since the week ended Oct. 15, 2008, the peak of the financial crisis. The latest weekly outflow was almost on par with last month’s total redemptions from active funds, which in November had outflows of $57.4 billion.

The data, in addition to confirming that active investment as we know it is now a dying breed, also indicates that we now know what the reason for last week’s furious rout. Or rather who: because in order to satisfy the massive redemptions, mutual funds had to liquidate the most stocks in a decade, and with market liquidity already at record lows, the overhang from relentless offers sent clearing prices sharply lower, just as we saw in the past week, and indicates that instead of algo traders, who merely accentuated the downward move, the real catalyst behind last week’s market plunge was a forced liquidation from the active community.

Yet even as investors were dumping mutual funds last week, the reallocation to passive continued as investors added $25.2 billion to ETFs. Finally, as reported earlier, corporate insiders aggressively stepped up their buying over the past two months, pushing insider purchases to the highest level since August 2011.

As Bloomberg summarizes, here’s the breakdown of the funds investors pulled money from:

Finally, pointing to the flow of money into ETFs, ICI Chief Economist Sean Collins said in a statement that it reinforced the view that “some investors view periods of volatility as a buying opportunity” – money which is clearly being deployed in today’s session.

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Aided by the exuberant buying-panic in stocks and reassurances from Russia’s energy minister, WTI prices are soaring (over 7%) today, breaking above $46.50 in its biggest daily jump since Dec 2016.

The ramp in stocks – on reassurances about Powell’s job…

Combined with comments from Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak, who said the market will be more stable in the first half of 2019 and suggested cooperation among OPEC and its allies in supporting the market.

Sending crude prices soaring…

“Cooler heads are prevailing here,” said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Price Futures Group.

“Some of the selling was overdone.”

The chance of an extraordinary meeting by OPEC and its allies is “sending a signal to the market that they will do whatever it takes.”

Energy stocks are following suit…

Very thin seasonal-norm volume is not reassuriung that this is anything but a squeeze for now however.

 

 

 

 

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The town of Simpsonville, South Carolina was overjoyed back in October, after a $1.5 billion Mega Millions ticket was confirmed to have been sold from at the KC Mart #7, a local convenience store.

Yet here we are, nearly three months later, and nobody has claimed the largest single payout in United States history. The hopes of this jackpot “putting the town on the map”, as mayor Janice Curtis hoped, seem to be fading with each day that goes by without the prize being claimed.

Holli Armstrong, a spokeswoman for the state lottery and expert in stating the obvious said:

 “This is unusual, considering that it’s $1.5 billion.”

On October 23, the numbers were announced and the winner still has until late April – 180 days from the announcement – to collect. If it isn’t redeemed by then, the Mega Millions website states that “each participating state in the Mega Millions game will get back all the money that state contributed to the unclaimed jackpot.” A follow up article says that the states will then be “able to appropriate that money for a variety of purposes”, which realistically probably means it’ll be squandered and never seen again. 

The no-show has many people trying to speculate as to why the winner has not come forward: is it anxiety? Are they trying to get everything in order before claiming such a massive amount of money? Is it possible that the ticket could be lost?

Given that there is never a shortage of stories about lottery winners who subsequently blow through their winnings, perhaps this winner has sought out reputable advice from a lawyer and/or a financial advisor. The Washington Post had previously reported on several lottery winners who say that the lottery has caused more harm than good.

There are myriad self-inflicted problems that can befall a person who suddenly comes into great wealth. One bought a water park, for example. Several others have gambled their winnings away, including a two-time lottery winner who ended up living in a trailer.

Billie Bob Harrell Jr., who won $31 million in 1997, told his financial adviser shortly before his suicide that “winning the lottery is the worst thing that ever happened to me.”

Somewhat similarly, a $560 million Powerball winner in New Hampshire earlier this year went to a judge to try to allow her to remain anonymous before collecting her jackpot. However, state law required her name to be disclosed.

“She wishes to continue this work and the freedom to walk into a grocery store or attend public events without being known or targeted as the winner of a half-billion dollars,” her attorney had written on her behalf. 

Regardless, if someone gets to squander the money pointlessly, we hope some South Carolinian gets to gold plate their home, build their dream water park or buy a helicopter instead of watching the government burn through the cash. Spending: it’s the American way. 

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Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

After just 4 days, federal workers are flocking to social media to share heart-wrenching stories of the misery and pain that they are suffering through because of the current government shutdown. 

As you will see below, it is being claimed that some federal workers were actually forced to return Christmas presents just so that they could afford to pay their mortgages, others are claiming that President Trump “destroyed Christmas”, and the wife of one federal worker says that she is going to have to kill her cat if this shutdown goes much longer. 

You couldn’t make this stuff up even if you tried, and it makes one wonder how these people would survive if a real national crisis actually erupted.

The truth is that thousands of federal workers are currently experiencing a paid vacation over the holidays, and ultimately their annual pay won’t be a penny lower than it otherwise would have been.

Other federal workers are currently working without pay, but they will get paid later.  Like the above group, their annual pay will be just the same as if the government never experienced a shutdown at all.

But if you go to social media, you would be tempted to believe that America had just entered the apocalypse.  Here is a sampling of some of the comments under the #ShutdownStories hashtag on Twitter…

On the first day of the shutdown, one federal worker was “obsessively” checking his bank accounts…

Day 1 of the #Shutdown: Got my furlough papers. Had brunch with fellow feds. Obsessively checked news and bank accounts. Contemplated a “#shutdownbeard Drank @Jameson_US with @bstiteler, ate mom’s Christmas cookies. Fell asleep to @BritishBakeOff. #shutdownstories

Oh the humanity!

Instead of working, he was forced to have brunch with friends, eat his mother’s cookies and fall asleep watching television.

How much suffering can one person take?

And if he has multiple “bank accounts”, he must not be hurting too much.

Another deeply troubled federal worker was wondering how she would possibly pay for Christmas if paychecks were delayed for a few weeks…

@TeaPainUSA whenever I talk about my air traffic control husband working without pay on Twitter, all I get is hateful remarks about how he WILL & won’t lose a dime. Um YEAH I KNOW that, but what are we supposed to do about Christmas & bills in the meantime? #ShutdownStories

Seriously, has this person ever heard of a “credit card”?

And yet another federal worker went so far as to claim that President Trump had “destroyed Christmas” for hundreds of thousands of federal employees…

Feeling so sad for you – – No not really! You destroyed Christmas for 800 000 employees. No one cares about you. If you are one of those employees, send letters to at least 3 congressmen and 3 senators demanding Trump be impeached!!! #shutdown #ShutdownStories

When I was working in D.C. a decade ago, I would have loved to have a couple of paid weeks off this time of the year.  So instead of “destroying Christmas”, it could be argued that President Trump just greatly enhanced it for hundreds of thousands of federal workers.

But it is true that there are many families that are living paycheck to paycheck, and apparently things are so tight for some federal workers that they actually had to return Christmas presents so that they could afford to pay for “rent and food”…

#ShutdownStories I have family and friends that took back Christmas presents so they can afford rent and food once the paychecks stop. It’s hella expensive to live in the dc area. Everyone I know lives paycheck to paycheck. Missed pay will decimate them.

If this is actually true (and I am skeptical), those people should have never been buying so many Christmas presents in the first place.

As I have stressed repeatedly, living paycheck to paycheck should be avoided whenever possible, because it makes you extremely vulnerable to even the smallest disruption that comes along.  Stuff happens in life, and it is always wise to have some sort of financial cushion.

If you can believe it, one federal worker actually went on Twitter to complain that he was being forced to report to work…

Furlough exempt, all leave canceled and must report to work. Will be paid but no idea when if this drags out. If we don’t report we’re placed in furlough for the duration, no guarantee of pay. No, @MarkMeadows, we didn’t “sign up” for this. #ShutdownStories

Life is tough.  If you don’t like your job, then quit and find another one.  Because of the tremendous benefits they offer, federal jobs are extremely popular, and there will be a very long line of people waiting to fill that position.

Last but certainly not least, the mentally deranged wife of one federal worker actually claimed that she would have to kill her cat if the shutdown goes much longer…

Well, if my husband, who works for the state, doesn’t get paid, we won’t have money to give our elderly cat his insulin shots…so we’d have to put him down! #ShutdownStories

Along with the tweet, this psychotic lady actually posted a photograph of the cat in question.

Remember, the federal government has only been shut down for 4 days, and 2 of those days were Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

So how bad will the whining get if this shutdown extends into February or March?

Because right now there appears to be no solution to this impasse on the horizon.  According to President Trump, the shutdown is never going to end until Congress gives him a border wall…

“I can’t tell you when the government is going to reopen,” he said. “I can tell you it’s not going to be open until we have a wall, a fence, whatever they’d like to call it. I’ll call it whatever they want. But it’s all the same thing. It’s a barrier from people pouring into our country.”

On the other side, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is pledging that he will indefinitely block all efforts to get such a bill through the Senate…

“Everyone knew yesterday, long before the House vote, that the President’s wall lacked 60 votes in the Senate. It has proven to lack even 50 votes,” Schumer said on the Senate floor on Saturday.

“It will never pass the Senate—not today, not next week, not next year,” Schumer said.

“So, President Trump, if you want to open the government, you must abandon the wall, plain and simple,” Schumer said.

Unless one of them caves, this shutdown is likely to last for a very, very long time.

Meanwhile the deep suffering of hundreds of thousands of federal workers will grow progressively worse, and their cats will increasingly be in danger of termination…

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