• Trump’s plan is to sell early access to posts on his Truth Social network for a fee of $100,000 per month. Trump’s company, Trump Media & Technology Group, owns Truth Social.

• Other social networks charge a fee for early access, which can amount to just seconds or even a fraction of a second before a post goes public. Investing firms use high-speed computers to track all sorts of data, including the social media posts of prominent people who might be able to move markets. If computers spot a trading opportunity, they can place the trade before others without early access get the info.

• The difference with Truth Social is that the president of the United States owns it! And he regularly makes social media statements that move markets. The Wall Street Journal, for instance, recently analyzed several instances of Trump post affecting the stock price of companies such as US Steel, Intel, and Raytheon. Oil prices often rise or fall based on Trump posts about the status of peace negotiations in the war with Iran.

[See why markets are manic right now]

• Is selling early access to presidential statements legal? Unclear, as with many of Trump’s profit-making schemes. There are laws that prohibit the use of insider information to make a profit. But Trump might argue that his social media company has the same right to offer an upgraded pricing tier as any other platform. Courts will probably decide.

• Will any investing firms give this a shot? A few probably will. Hedge funds and other types of trading shops spend a lot of time and effort seeking any edge that might help them make money. Some probably won’t be bothered by the potential illegality. But most will probably take a pass. One problem is the question of what might happen if courts ban Trump from selling early access to his posts. Would that make any firm that profited from early access guilty of insider trading? And if Democrats win control of either house of Congress in the midterm elections, they could hold hearings exposing firms making money off Trump’s posts.

• One fun aspect of the whole controversy is that Trump Media & Technology Group is a public company—which means it has to disclose important sources of revenue in its quarterly reports. The names of any companies paying for info might remain confidential, but if Trump’s company makes meaningful money by selling early access, we’ll know—unless the company illegally suppresses the information.

• Bottom line: Nobody ever imagined a politician who would monetize the presidency as Trump has.

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• The Fed meeting that concluded on July 29 was really odd because the Fed left short-term interest rates steady, as the market expected. Yet stocks fell and long-term rates rose on the news. WUT?

• Here’s what’s going on: First, new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh has confused investors and left them very unimpressed. He talks like a “hawk”—somebody determined to wrestle inflation down to 2%—yet the Fed’s actions, doing nothing, are dovish.

• “The Warsh press conference has left investors with a bad taste in their mouths,” David Rosenberg of Rosenberg Research wrote in a July 30 analysis. “The mantra is that he was not tough enough in his inflation rhetoric. The Fed Chairman served up platitudes, but as is the case with this central bank, he offered no explanations or analysis.” Many other analysts were similarly skeptical.

[Check out The Weekly Matterboard: Missing Mitch Edition]

• Inflation is now 3.5%. The Fed wants inflation at 2%. One way to get it there would be raising short-term rates. Markets are now pricing in the likelihood that the Fed will not do that, and will tolerate inflation higher than its target for the foreseeable future.

• The Fed controls short-term rates that mostly affect banks. It does not control long-term interest rates. The market does. Long-term rates rise when expectations of future inflation jump. That’s because investors buying bonds demand higher rates to account for the eroding value of money.

• Long-term rates on bonds determine the rates on mortgages and most other consumer and business loans. So what really affects most people is long-term rates set by the market, not short-term rates set by the Fed. They are related, but not the same.

• This could all unwind. Inflation is high largely because of the Iran war, which has pushed up the cost of energy and many other things. If the war subsides, inflation will come back down and it will be easier for the Fed to do nothing. If anybody knows when the Iran war will end, call me first—then call Warsh.

• Bottom line for Warsh—he needs to prove himself to markets. His predecessor Jerome Powell made mistakes, such as letting inflation get too hot in 2021 and 2022. But later rate hikes proved Powell was willing to tighten monetary policy and deal with the consequences. Markets aren’t yet sure Warsh has the moxie for that.

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• Inequality has been worsening for at least 30 years, as more of the nation’s wealth goes to people who own financial assets and less goes to workers earning most of their income through labor.

• These trends are accelerating under Trump.

• It starts with tax cuts for the wealthy, who don’t need them. Wealthy Americans have earned extraordinary amounts of money during the last 30 years from a booming stock market and the rise in real-estate values. There’s nothing wrong with that, but they didn’t need the 2025 tax cuts Trump signed into law.

[Check out The Weekly Matterboard: Missing Mitch Edition]

• Trump, meanwhile, has cut food-aid benefits for lower-income Americans. And last year Congress let health care subsidies expire for at least 3 million people who buy insurance through the ACA marketplace. Those moves have made several million lower-income people worse off.

• Trump’s Iran war is another burden for working Americans. The higher cost of gas and many other necessities hurts lower-income Americans more than higher-income people.

• Tariffs raise costs even more. The average tax on imports has gone from 2.6% to about 12% under Trump, so far. Importers pay the tariffs up front, but pass on as much of the added tax as they can to their own customers, with no apparent benefit to anybody.

• The housing bill Congress recently passed may help make homes more affordable at some point, but Trump distanced himself from that and called it a “big yawn.” He seems to have no regard at all for the cost struggles of ordinary Americans.

• Wealth inequality is complicated and not readily understood by everybody, but many people know something’s wrong, even if they can’t define it precisely. This is probably one of the reasons consumer confidence levels are dismal, even in an economy that looks pretty good on paper.

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• The new Canada tariffs will be as high as 50% on large product categories including cars and car parts, dairy products, and alcohol.

• Trump said recently that he wanted to use tariffs to punish Canada for the smoke from Canadian wildfires that has fouled America’s air. But that’s not what this is. This is the continuation of a trade spat Trump started last year. Trump announced new tariffs on Canadian imports in 2025, including some that are still in effect. Canada responded with tariffs of its own on American products. Trump is now punishing Canada for retaliating.

[Check out The Weekly Matterboard, where we rank the news that’s worth your time and the news you can safely ignore]

• The new Canada tariffs don’t go into effect until August 19, so there could be a deal that averts the tariffs before then. But Canada is no pushover. It has resisted making coercive deals with Trump as some other countries have.

• The Canada tariffs are based on a 1930 law that some experts think is defunct because other tariff laws passed by Congress superseded it. There will be lawsuits, for sure.

• Trump has a lot more tariffs in mind. After the Supreme Court ruled his emergency tariffs illegal this past February, Trump’s trade team set in motion the prep work necessary to impose other sorts of tariffs that might have a better chance of surviving legal challenges. Those take longer to impose, because the government has to go through a variety of rulemaking procedures. But those are nearing completion and there could soon be new taxes on imports from 60 countries, covering most of the imported products Americans purchase.

• The average tariff rate has jumped around during Trump’s second term, as tariffs went in and out of effect. But overall, the average import tax has risen from 2.5% when Trump took office to about 10%. The Yale Budget Lab estimates it will go to about 13% if the new tariffs Trump has propoposed go into effect.

• Trump’s tariffs cost Americans real money. The Budget Lab estimates the current cost of the tariffs is about $550 per household per year. If Trump imposes all the new tariffs he has threatened, the annual cost per household could hit about $1,100. That’s on top of higher prices for gas, energy, food and other things Americans are paying because of the Iran war Trump launched in February.

• Is Trump crazy to be doing this? You could sure make that case. Economists are nearly unanimous in saying that tariffs reduce growth and employment and produce little economic benefit except higher revenue for the government. Around 60% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s tariffs, with only 37% approving. It’s a maxim of politics that voters will punish you if you raise their taxes, especially if you do it right before an election. Yet that’s exactly what Trump is doing.

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~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

MS Now invited me on air recently to talk about Trump Accounts, the government-backed investment vehicles for children born between 2025 and 2028. The accounts went live in early July.

Bullet points below. Here’s the video:

Congress created Trump Accounts as part of the tax bill that went into effect last year. The government will seed each account with $1,000 that the child’s parents or guardians can invest in a limited set of exchange-traded stock funds, or ETFs. The idea is to give every child who qualifies a bit of exposure to the stock market.

There’s no income limit for qualification, and most children with a Social Security number qualify. The SSN requirement is there to ensure no undocumented migrants, Trump’s mortal enemies, take taxpayer money.

[Check out The Matterboard: The news that’s really worth your time]

Individuals and employers can contribute additional money to the accounts, which function like an IRA. It’s free money and everybody who qualifies should take it. If you invested $1,000 in an S&P 500 fund 18 years ago and reinvested the dividends, you’d have about $8,500 today.

There are some problems, though:

They shouldn’t be called Trump Accounts. Many people will think this is some kind of private Trump venture—like Trump’s memecoin, which was basically a scam—and steer clear. Trump’s egomaniacal drive to put his name on everything will obscure the fact that this is a no-cost investment funded by the government.

Why do they only run through 2028? Politics, duh. The law as it exists only includes funding through the last year of Trump’s term. What then? It’s yet another example of arbitrary partisan policymaking that leaves voters confused and cynical.

Cash-outs are coming. Once the child turns 18, there are incentives to keep the money invested or use it for a designated purpose, mainly education or buying a home. But come on, some 18-year-olds are going to pay the 10% penalty, take the cash, and buy a motorcycle or a boat. Trump Accounts will undoubtedly finance some jackassery.

[How Trump is mimicking the socialist Mamdani 😱]

The smart move seems to be, take the $1,000 plus any employer or philanthropic contributions you qualify for. But it may make sense to put your personal money into other investments that are better structured, such as a 529 education plan.

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TL;DW: It’s good for markets. Powell is better than whatever stooge Trump would try to install. Trump will not gain control of the Fed, thank goodness. Meanwhile, the Fed may not cut interest rates at all this year, largely because of Trump himself. His foolish tariffs and his war with Iran have triggered another bout of inflation, raising the odds that the Fed will RAISE interest rates instead of cutting them.

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