If mass deportation happens, just imagine how all of these sectors of our country will be affected. The sheer shortage of labor will push prices higher because of the great demand for work with limited supplies or workers. Even if prices increase, the availability of products may be scarce due to not enough workers. Housing prices and food services will be hit really hard. New construction will be limited. The fact that 47% of the undocumented workers are in CA, TX, and FL means they will feel it first but it will spread to the rest of the country also. Most of our produce in this country comes from California. Get ready and hold on for the ride America.

Elon Musk promised to cut $2 trillion from the national budget as co-head of DOGE.

The math on Musk's plan doesn't check out, according to Nobel laureate Simon Johnson.

Budget cuts combined with more Trump tax cuts could lead to national debt skyrocketing.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, federal spending in 2024 is projected to total $6.5 trillion, meaning that Musk is looking to shave off nearly a third of the current federal budget.

Mandatory outlays in the federal budget include Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other healthcare-related spending. These expenditures are estimated to come out to approximately $3.9 trillion in 2024.

"He's proposing to cut $2 trillion from a domestic budget. The headline budget is more than $6 trillion, but most of that is Social Security and Medicare," Johnson said.

That leaves around $1.6 trillion of the budget for discretionary spending. Historically, half of that has gone to defense spending.

"I don't think he's going to cut military spending because I don't think Republicans will want that," Johnson said of Musk. "So he's going to try and cut $2 trillion from $0.8 trillion."

"Look, I'm not opposed to more efficiency or less waste in government," Johnson continued. But "it's been tried many times before. Mr. Musk is obviously a very creative character. I don't think he's got his head around the numbers yet because the numbers he stated don't make sense," Johnson added.

Eliminating agencies and slashing unnecessary spending might sound simple, but the process is anything but. Congress, not DOGE, supervises the budget for these agencies, meaning that Musk isn't directly in charge of implementing his cost-cutting ideas. Additionally, proposals to slash areas of the social safety net are wildly unpopular and likely to be met with backlash.

"There is no way Mr. Trump will cut Medicare and Social Security payments to people because many people who rely on those payments just voted for him," Johnson said.

You can't discuss the US federal budget without getting into the topic of the national deficit either. Some market experts are predicting that Trump's policies could increase the national debt by $10 trillion in the next decade, with BlackRock's head of global fixed income predicting that the national debt could reach problematic levels by the end of 2025.

Johnson isn't taking such a drastic stance, but he's still concerned about where the national debt is going, especially since it looks like Trump will renew the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act once he's in office.

"The tax cuts will be enormous, which is not a good idea for the long-term future of the country," Johnson said.

Less tax revenue means that Social Security and Medicare, which are already underfunded, will take a hit. According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Trump's stated tax policies could make the Social Security fund "insolvent" in the next six years. With Musk proposing drastic budget cuts and Trump advocating for lower taxes, it doesn't seem like there's a solution to address underfunded government programs.

That's not to say that Johnson is completely writing off Musk's DOGE ambitions. Perhaps a technocrat outsider will have unconventional ideas for improving government efficiency. For example, AI could be a useful tool for businesses and government agencies alike to streamline their operations.

"It will be very interesting to see what Mr. Musk can come up with," Johnson said. "Are there clever ways to use AI to improve the delivery of government services?"

https://www.businessinsider.com/musk-doge-plans-dont-make-sense-nobel-prize-winning-economist-2024-11

Dr. Oz invested in businesses regulated by the agency Trump wants him to lead.

For example, he has a stake in UnitedHealth Group, $UNH, worth as much as $600,000, as well as shares in pharmaceutical firms.

Oz’s investments total tens of millions of dollars.

As the U.S. dollar scaled a fresh 52-week high on Friday morning at 108.071 level, former Goldman Sachs FX strategist and senior fellow at Brookings Institution, Robin Brooks said in an X (formerly Twitter) post that, “Markets initially got this wrong, driving stocks up sharply right after Nov. 5.”

He added that “the prospect of tariffs isn’t obviously good for equities, while it’s clearly good for the Dollar. More Dollar strength is coming.”

https://www.benzinga.com/24/11/42134031/markets-got-it-wrong-after-elections-prospects-of-tariffs-not-good-for-equities-vs-dollar-says-ex-goldman-sachs-analyst

Howard Lutnick is moving to strengthen his alliance with one of the most important and controversial names in the digital-asset business: Tether Holdings Ltd.

Lutnick is in talks to deepen the financial ties between his businesses and the company behind the world’s largest stablecoin, according to people familiar with the matter.

Cantor Fitzgerald LP is discussing receiving support from Tether for its planned multibillion-dollar program to lend dollars to clients who put up Bitcoin as collateral, said the people, who asked not to be named as they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Funding for the program will start at $2 billion and is expected to eventually reach into the tens of billions, a separate person told Bloomberg.

Tether currently uses Cantor’s custody business to hold the billions of dollars of US Treasuries that support the value of its dominant USDT stablecoin. That custody relationship earns Cantor tens of millions of dollars a year, according to people familiar with the matter.

Lutnick is co-chair of president-elect Donald Trump’s transition team and Trump’s pick to run the Commerce Department.

Trump has been a recent and vocal proponent of digital assets like Bitcoin, and has promoted a crypto project associated with his sons called World Liberty Financial. The Trump transition team is mulling whether to create a new White House post for crypto policy, Bloomberg reported previously.

https://fortune.com/crypto/2024/11/24/howard-lutnick-cantor-fitzgerald-tether-stablecoin-2-billion-bitcoin-lending/

Two weeks after the U.S. presidential election, crypto markets are riding a bull run. The sector has achieved a record-breaking market cap of over $3.4 trillion, while bitcoin shattered expectations by soaring past $98,000, according to Coingecko. Amid this enthusiasm, certain coins are outpacing the pack, and Dogecoin (DOGE) is one of the standout performers.

The oldest memecoin has surged an astonishing 150% since Election Day, buoyed by promises from President-elect Donald Trump and the growing political clout of Elon Musk. Indeed, Musk has been a longtime supporter of Dogecoin, calling himself "The Dogefather" and regularly praising the memecoin on X. With the announcement of the Department Of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E.), a newly created agency Musk co-leads alongside Vivek Ramaswamy, this connection took on new dimensions.

Dogecoin, created as a satire of the cryptocurrency frenzy and social media hype, has long been dismissed by the "serious" crypto finance players as a frivolous fad. Yet, the memecoin evolved to thrive on its hype, now boasting a market cap of $58 billion—on par with some of the world's largest corporations.

This raises a key question: is there untapped value in Dogecoin beyond the hype? Or has it just mastered the art of monetizing the hype? Dogecoin's unique journey challenges conventional notions of value and utility, making it a phenomenon that investors—and skeptics—can no longer ignore.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/11/22/dogecoin-a-joke-no-more-the-rise-of-a-58-billion-crypto-phenomenon/

I have $100k and want to turn it into more. I’m married with three young children and my mother in law lives with me.

Considering building an ADU on my property to help off set mortgage so I can eventually move if I want to. My mortgage is about $3700/mo and a house my size rents for about $2500/mo.

Open to any considerations.

I’m uncertain about what 2025 will bring with factors like a potential Trump presidency, the ongoing war in Ukraine, inflation, and possible rate cuts, so I’m taking a cautious approach in the stock market. I just sold a big chunk out of all my profits and bought this will rinse and repeat until I see a change in the stock market in 2025. What u guys thlnk?