Free Republic

The Biden administration keeps telling the economy is great -- the best ever, Jack! -- and we're just not looking in the right places to see it. The problem is, Americans are looking in the right places -- gas, groceries, mortgages -- while the political class has decided to ignore those very big things. And here's another big of bad news for Bidenomics: Salaries have fallen by an average of 8.2% in the last five years, per Moneywise. Despite this, house prices have risen by an average of 56% in the last 5 years. — unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) July 1, 2024...

Politics typically comes with plenty of spin. Even something seemingly unyielding or absolute like a number can get squished and twisted like putty. As such, flashy economic data points extolled by candidates always come with plenty of asterisks, caveats and “yes, buts.” In this election cycle, those qualifiers have multiplied in part due to quirks in the numbers themselves: A once-in-a-lifetime pandemic and a once-in-a-generation inflation event sent shockwaves through the economy, distorting data and presidential economic records in the process. “Interpreting economic data is like interpreting a Monet painting in the best of times,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at...

Making ends meet is a concern for one-third of U.S. consumers, even those making $100,000 or more a year, according to a survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. This is up from 28.7% a year ago. Among those able to pay their bills in full, more than a quarter worry they will be able to continue to cover their bills in the next six months, up from one-fifth a year ago. Thirty percent of those making $150,000 or more are concerned about their finances in the next six months.

According to Federal Reserve data, for the first time in its history, the Fed has been losing money on a consistent monthly basis since September 28, 2022. As of the last reporting date of June 19, 2024, those losses add up to a cumulative $176 billion. As the chart above using Fed data shows, the losses thus far in 2024 have ranged from a monthly high of $11.076 billion in February to a low of $5.674 billion in May.

On a conference call with industry analysts on Thursday, Walgreens CEO Tim Wentworth announced the company’s intention to eliminate a significant portion of its U.S. stores over the next three years. While describing a quarter of the 8,500 stores as “underperforming,” Wentworth announced that the company would close a “significant portion” of these locations. However, according to Wentworth, the precise number of closures is still undecided. Wentworth also stated that Walgreens will implement certain modifications at the remaining underperforming locations in an effort to bring them back to life. If that doesn’t work, then “we will continue to consider closure...

Americans across all age groups have dramatically cut back on spending between April and June, a recent study from TransUnion found, as many remain concerned about the higher cost of living despite declining inflation. ... 39 percent of all respondents said they had cut back on discretionary spending in the past three months. ... Among respondents who said they were concerned about inflation, the share went up to 58 percent. Sixty-six percent of respondents said they were concerned about the rising price of gasoline; 40 percent were worried about takeout and meal delivery becoming more expensive; and 84 percent feared...

We're sure this is fine. Let's keep doing Bidenomics and not trying anything else. The typical salary required nationwide for homeownership is now $106,500 — a 61% increase from the $59,000 required just four years ago, according to Zillow. — unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) June 25, 2024 A Community Note points out that's not a 61%, but 80.5%. Even better. We're literally screwed pic.twitter.com/BecnnCa8jE — Pumponomics (@ClownPeasant) June 25, 2024 Very screwed. High home prices are due to rampant inflation on literally everything, combined with lockdown-induced supply chain disruptions, massive insurance and utility spikes and, of course, historically high property taxes. All...

This headline article from the New York Post caught our attention because it has the familiar ring of “51 former intelligence heads” in the 2020 election. Previously, the stacking of experts to create disinformation was used to hide the truth within the Hunter Biden laptop, which was evidence of Joe Biden’s pay-to-play schemes. Now, the “experts” are stacked to claim Joe Biden’s economic policy is better than Donald Trump’s. I will ignore the article’s Freudian optic of the economist speaking at the globalist WEF event, and instead focus on the facts. We have an actual track record of President Trump’s...

It’s a little early for an October surprise… but just on time to prop Joe up in ANOTHER debate with his Republican rival. The last time around, Blinken (who was part of Joe’s campaign team) called in a favor from 51 people from the Intelligence Community to write a letter discrediting the Hunter Biden Laptop from Hell as ‘Russian disinformation’. They had no first-hand information about that laptop or its contents. The DNI director, Ratcliffe, specifically repudiated claims that it was Russian disinformation in mid-October 2020. That didn’t stop Biden from lying in the debate while social media was pressured...

The iconic restaurant chain Hooters has abruptly announced the closure of 40 locations nationwide, citing the rising cost of food and rent. ...... While Hooters may not be to everyone’s taste, the closures are further evidence of the economic toll caused by rampant inflation, which has soared since the Biden regime seized office in 2021. Last month, the Red Lobster restaurant chain announced that it would be filing for bankruptcy and closing nearly 120 restaurants across 27 states after sustaining continued losses. Meanwhile, a recent survey by Lending Tree found that having once been an affordable alternative for lower-income workers,...

In just the last twelve months, how many electric vehicle-related corporate financial disasters have there been? I count no fewer than seven, depending on how meticulous you want to be, so let’s do quick rundown of all the E.V. woes, not in any particular order or importance. 💩 First disaster: This is the headliner and hot off the presses, from Stephen Council’s new report at SFGate:California carmaker Fisker, once worth $2.9 billion, finally goes belly-upFisker, an electric vehicle company based in Southern California, has finally declared bankruptcy.After months of brutal news — a bankruptcy warning, hundreds of layoffs, a massive...

Recently, Freddie Mac, a government-sponsored enterprise, sought approval from its oversight agency, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), to purchase and guarantee second mortgages in the United States.While the business case for this proposal is deficient (for an excellent perspective on that, see the article by R. Christopher Whalen), I will discuss the economic and political premises behind this move and its possible consequences.What Does It Mean to “Nationalize Second Mortgages”?Understanding the single-family mortgage market in the US means realizing that there is no market in the real sense of that term. A whopping 70 percent of home mortgages in...

Nearly half of Americans report that the recent spike in inflation is making it harder to make ends meet... Monmouth University released a poll Wednesday showing 46% of Americans are “currently struggling to remain where they are financially.” That figure is the highest point recorded by this pollster since Joe Biden took office and far higher than during his predecessor’s term. “In polls conducted between 2022 and 2023, this number ranged between 37% and 44%,” Monmouth said in its report. “In prior polls from 2017 to 2021, this sentiment was much lower at 20% to 29%.” Prices have risen about...

More companies are declaring bankruptcy and shutting down operations, citing inflation and high costs. Inflation and the economy remains a top issue among all voters, according to a recent The Center Square Voters' Voice Poll. Retailers are closing nearly 3,200 stores this year, according to a recent analysis from CoreSight Research. The closures are a 24% increase from 2023. U.S. drug stores and pharmacy closures led to 8 million square feet of shuttered retail space this year, the research company said. It also notes that retailers are losing inventory and customers due to retail theft. “Retail shrink” is closely connected...

In the coming years, the retirement-age population will balloon to its largest size yet, drawing down Social Security funds, overwhelming retirement homes, and leaving a labor shortage in its wake. Larry Fink, the 71-year-old CEO of the asset-management behemoth BlackRock, offered a two-part solution to the looming retirement crisis in his annual March letter to shareholders. In order to avoid economic catastrophe, he argued, people should save more money and work longer. "What if the government and the private sector treated 60-plus year-olds as late-career workers with much to offer rather than people who should retire?" Fink wrote. The current...

A major Pizza Hut franchisee just closed 15 locations without warning, and nearly 130 might go dark for good in an ongoing battle with the struggling brand owner. EYM Group owns and operates 144 Pizza Hut locations in Indiana, Illinois, Georgia, South Carolina, and Wisconsin but owes millions in franchise fees to Yum Brands. All the Indiana locations were boarded up on Friday of last week, and the Daily Mail reported today that the remaining 129 restaurants "across Illinois, Georgia, South Carolina and Wisconsin are on the brink of shutting as part of the dispute."How EYM and Yum Brands got...

Everyone is posting that the annualized number is about $1.059 trillion. However the interest on the debt for just May 2024 was $103 billion. Debt will grow another $2 trillion or more in the next 12 months. We are already on pace for over $1.2 trillion in annualized payments on the debt. Within the next few years, interest on the debt will exceed Social Security payments and become the largest item in the budget. ... US federal interest payments now exceed the defense budget. ... We have crossed the Rubicon.. It will never be paid down! NEVER.. And this administration...

Apparently, The New York Times hasn’t come to terms with the fact that Bidenomics is anathema to Americans, because one of its editorial board members spent over a 1,000 words celebrating the so-called “intellectual force” behind all of it. Times editorial board member Farah Stockman swooned over “the best dinner party” she “attended all year” listening to the ramblings of President Joe Biden’s former Senior Director of International Economics for the National Security Council Jennifer Harris, whom she dubbed the “Queen Bee.” “I’d wanted to interview Ms. Harris for years,” wrote the star-struck Stockman. She lionized Harris as “the quiet...

Tupperware Brands announced it will be closing its South Carolina factory — the company’s last remaining plant in the US — and laying off more than 100 workers. The iconic plastic food container company will shift all of its manufacturing operations to Mexico, where many of its products sold in the US and Canada are already made. The shuttering of the facility in the small town of Hemingway will result in the layoffs of 148 employees, according to the company, which is headquartered in Orlando. Layoffs are set to begin in September with a closure date scheduled for January 14,...

(Kitco News) – The established financial world order of the past 50 years is now transitioning to a new and unknown paradigm as the petrodollar agreement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia was allowed to expire this past Sunday. The term ‘petrodollar’ described the U.S. dollar’s (USD) role as the currency used for crude oil transactions on the world market. It traces back to the early 1970s when the United States and Saudi Arabia struck a deal shortly after the U.S. went off the gold standard – and the agreement has had far-reaching consequences for the global economy. The petrodollar...