Subtle Momentum Shift
Waiting on follow-through, telecom hit, SCOTUS citizenship ruling looms
It takes time for momentum shifts to appear in the rankings, but a potential change in trend has clearly shown itself.
Elsewhere, telecom is being dinged because Comcast announced a plan to break up. Comcast is sitting at support for a monster top. Rumor has it the breakup is a step towards a merger with Charter.
AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile are all down hard on a potential new competitor entering the telecom space.
TMUS has the ugliest chart. It has broken the bull market uptrend. Do note TMUS had a bull market.
VZ has been 6 years of dead money.
If T fades a little more, it’ll be 10 years of dead money.
Verizon would yield 10 percent if it revisited the 2023 low, assuming no dividend hike. AT&T close to 9 percent.
All businesses relying on population growth should start being more harshly priced based on their return of capital because, for the moment, the customer base is stagnating. More people are leaving the USA than entering thanks to deportations. This number will increase as immigration restrictions mount.
A couple years ago, I expected more of a fight on this issue. Still expect we’re entering a phase not unlike the 1920s and beyond that will see zero immigration, forced assimilation and probably more muscular evangelization by Christian denominations as the nations of the West re-center on their traditional identities.
Perhaps a fight is still coming, but for now the public appears largely in favor of restricting population growth. It may not sell in the media yet, but people can see rents plummeting in areas being hit by deportation sweeps as one example of how this is playing out. At some point, even the densest ideologues screaming about unaffordable housing and low wages can put 2 and 2 together.
The Supreme Court will, I assume, revive the issue today when it rules birthright citizenship means birth tourism is legal. This will, like the Roe vs Wade decision, breathe new life into anti-immigration forces because it will setup a debate over birth tourism that will be defended by pro-immigration forces. This will be an 80/20 issue with the public. If Congress were to ban birth tourism, and SCOTUS rule it legal under a broad reading of birthright citizenship, it might even lead to a constitutional amendment, in which case there will be an open amendment process that will be decided by how far immigration restrictionists push at what will eventually be the height of their popularity. In other words, we could end up with an amendment that is as strict in terms of practical numbers as the Immigration Act of 1924.
Whereas if the Supreme Court rules birthright citizenship means what the law says, that only children born to parents with legal status in the United States are citizens by birth, it might largely defang the issue in politics. Under that interpretation, immigration restriction could largely be carried out under existing law, with only some visa restrictions such as the contentious H-1B issue outstanding.
Additionally, the resistance to Trump has been futile of late. In the Iran war, the loudest voices against were America First along with dissident leftys who do not see Trump as their primary enemy. Anecdotal evidence, but I’ve heard that the reflecting pool renovation and algae story is the talk of the town in deep blue areas. Maybe overstating this because it’s the silly season of summertime, World Cup, America’s 250th and so on getting attention, but it feels like the liberalism that crested with Clinton in the 1990s and resurged with Obama in 2008, but then faltered under Biden in the 2020s, might be a spent force. It may be more demographics than policy, as the younger socialists supporting Mamdani, AOC, and so on are further from the center of American politics. Or maybe the Democrats have accepted Trump is an annoyance that will be gone in 2.5 years. However, it also appears as if there isn’t much opposition to Trump policies because they’re quietly popular.
The midterms are a potential gamechanger. And SCOTUS is expected to rule this week, as soon as today, on the citizenship question. Whatever happens though, major economic and societal cycles are underway and won’t be stopped by intervening factors. Politics can shape the outcome, but the force is like a wave that will rise until it crests. Immigration restriction is an issue that has always had majority support from clean polling questions that focused on whether people wanted more or fewer immigrants. Open borders was the extreme opposite policy and has provoked an extreme reaction that will take at least a generation to play out. This is only halfway through year two of a policy reversal.
Perhaps companies such as AT&T and Verizon, McDonald’s, Ford and so on should come up with advertising campaigns that include subliminal messaging encouraging customers to have more children.