Free Republic

The number of job openings in the United States has been “falling off a cliff”, and that is a major red flag. The last four years have been an economic nightmare for most Americans, and that is one of the primary reasons why Donald Trump won the election. But as we approach 2025, things are starting to get frighteningly bad. When the number of job openings in the U.S. drops by 2 million or more, that normally signals that we are either in a recession or that one is about to happen. Well, as you can see from this chart...

The entire improvement of the labor force since 2021 came from foreign workers, and the employment-to-population and labor force participation ratios remained significantly below 2019 levels. Real wages were stagnant in the past four years using official figures. Investment was weak, and the Russell 2000 index, which includes the top small-cap companies generating most of their business in the US, reflected an insignificant 1.8% sales growth and no real earnings growth between 2021 and November 2024.

Large businesses are declaring bankruptcy at a staggering rate, and yet we are being told over and over again that the economy is just fine. Needless to say, most of the country isn’t buying it. Survey after survey has shown that most Americans believe that the economy is on the wrong track. But those that are running things continue to push their “booming economy” narrative anyway, and I suppose that will continue all the way through the election in November. Of course anyone with half a brain should be able to see the truth, because day after day we just...

Nine of the 12 Federal Reserve districts reported a decline in economic activity in August, up five districts from the July Beige Book report. Our system has warned that we are entering a period of stagflation, where inflation remains high but GDP declines. Now, the Fed is reporting that two-thirds of the US economy is experiencing “flat or declining activity.” The US economy advanced 3% during the last quarter, leading many to believe that the economy is recovering since Q2 posted a measly 1.4% advancement. Consumer spending, amounting to 70% of GDP, rose 2.9% last quarter as well, but people...

The wealthy are doing just fine at the moment, but they don’t seem to understand that much of the country is deeply hurting right now. 59 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. economy is currently experiencing a recession, and that is because most of them are personally experiencing economic pain. Literally just about everything is substantially more expensive in 2024, more major layoffs are being announced with each passing day, and thousands of businesses are going bankrupt. We haven’t seen a tsunami of economic suffering like this in a long time.If you live in a wealthy area in a...

We have to hope that the Federal Reserve realizes that today’s stock market weakness is unlikely to be a passing fad given the poor underlying world economic and political fundamentals. Maybe then the Fed will do the right thing and start cutting interest rates aggressively to provide long-overdue support to a weakening U.S. economy.

Multiple brokerages, including Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard, TD Ameritrade, E-Trade, UPS, CenturyLink, and Interactive Brokers, are currently down and reporting errors amid market crashes.

“The global economy is becoming unburdened by what has been.” — Jordan Schachtel on “X”. That two-by-four upside our country’s head you’ve been waiting to get whomped with? Looks like it’s landing now. We got a banger in 2008, but it didn’t make a much of an impression. Maybe you don’t even remember these people, but then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Fed Chair Ben Bernanke came in like a code blue squad and hooked up the banks to an IV-drip speedball of cocaine and heroin, i.e., “money” that didn’t actually exist (a.k.a. “liquidity,” hallucinated capital), and that crew kept...

President Joe Biden insisted the Biden-Harris administration “cured” the economy just days before the Dow dropped 1,000 points and the Nasdaq sank six percent in a global market rout Monday morning. “I cured the economy,” Biden said Tuesday when asked about his administration’s accomplishments: JOE BIDEN LAST WEEK: “I cured the economy.” pic.twitter.com/oBAajoVSuO — Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) August 5, 2024 About one week later, economists raised concerns about a recession, CNBC reported: U.S. stocks fell sharply on Monday as part of a global market sell-off centered around U.S. recession fears. Japan’s Nikkei 22 plunged 12% in its worst day since...

The Nikkei plunged 12%, the most since 1987. Stock futures traded sharply lower and investors sheltered in the safety of bonds. A global stock-market selloff intensified Monday, led by a more than 12% drop in Japan’s Nikkei 225. Tech-focused Nasdaq-100 futures were down more than 6%, while contracts tied to the S&P lost more than 4%. The declines extended what has been a dizzying few days on Wall Street during which this year’s most popular trades have been aggressively unwound. A selloff in tech shares continued premarket Monday, with Nvidia, Meta and Apple each losing 9% or more. (The iPhone...

U.S. stocks fell sharply on Monday as part of a global market sell-off centered around U.S. recession fears. Japan’s Nikkei 225 plunged 12% in its worst day since the 1987 Black Monday crash for Wall Street. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,068 points, or 2.7%. The Nasdaq Composite lost 6%, and the S&P 500 slid 4.2%. Fears of a U.S. recession were the main culprit for the global market meltdown after Friday’s disappointing July jobs report. Investors are also concerned that the Federal Reserve is behind in cutting interest rates to bolster an economic slowdown, with the central bank...

The US economy may have just entered a recession. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Friday, the unemployment rate rose to 4.3% in July, up from 4.1% in June and from recent lows of 3.4% in April 2023. The increase officially triggered the Sahm Rule — a recession indicator developed by former Fed economist Claudia Sahm — which says that the US economy is in a downturn when the three-month moving average of the unemployment rate rises by 0.5% from its 12-month low. The gauge has a perfect track record through at least the last nine...

The Federal Reserve is stuck between a rock and a hard place. If the Fed pushes rates higher, interest payments on our 34 trillion dollar national debt could spin wildly out of control and bank balance sheets will be in even worse condition than they are now. First Republic just bit the dust, and literally thousands of other small and mid-size banks and in serious jeopardy. So it would be suicidal to hike rates at this point. But if the Fed were to reduce rates, that would be like injecting jet fuel into a raging fire. Our ongoing inflation crisis...

Southwest Airlines issued a press statement Thursday declaring their intention to fire around 2,000 employees and cancel service to four airports following financial difficulties. “[W]e are implementing cost control initiatives, including limiting hiring and offering voluntary time off programs. We now expect to end 2024 with approximately 2,000 fewer Employees as compared with the end of 2023,” Bob Jordan, the president and CEO of Southwest Airlines ... Jordan also announced that the company was shutting down its service to three airports in the United States and one in Mexico. “[W]e have made the difficult decision to close our operations at...

In a surprising move, the Federal Reserve is hinting at multiple rate cuts in 2024, sparking questions about the stability of the financial system. This decision has historical echoes, as every major rate cut since the 1970s has been followed by a substantial 30% drawdown in the S&P 500. For the first time in recent history, Chair Powell’s alignment with market expectations signals a potential departure from the usual cautious stance. The market has responded positively, with the S&P 500 on track for its 9th green day out of the last 10, reflecting investor confidence in the Federal Reserve’s promises.

*The US economy is lurching toward a recession, according to Jeff Gundlach. *The DoubleLine Capital chief pointed to a "de-inverted" bond-yield curve and the rising unemployment rate as signs of a looming slump. *Layoffs are coming," he warned. The US economy is clearly headed toward a recession, veteran bond investor Jeff Gundlach has warned. The DoubleLine Capital CEO said Wednesday that the yield curve – a bond-market gauge that measures the gap between 2-year and 10-year Treasury yields – is signaling that a downturn is coming. "The shape of the yield curve is extremely unstable at this time," Gundlach told...

igher car prices and rising interest rates are hindering car owners’ ability to afford their vehicle payments, as 6.1% of subprime auto borrowers are at least 60 days past due on their loans, the highest percentage in data dating back to 1994, according to Bloomberg, which cited Fitch Ratings.

Ford Motor recently announced it is slashing prices on its F-150 Lightning, an electric vehicle the company rolled out in 2021. The Lightning now carries a suggested retail price of $49,995, about $10,000 lower than its previous recommended price tag ($59,974), a reduction the company says is possible because of lower “battery raw material costs and continued work on scaling production and cost.” It’s certainly possible that reduced overhead from battery minerals and production costs played a role in Ford’s decision to trim its price tag by nearly 20 percent, but that may be only half the story. Several reports...

Bidenomics, aka the Federal government takeover of the US economy with Soviet-style economic central planning, is highly dependent on loose Federal Reserve monetary policy (Janet Yellen and Powell’s wild overreaction to the massively inappropriate Covid shutdowns), So, how is Bidenomics working out? On the bank lending front, commercial and industrial (C&I) lending growth is crashing along with bank credit growth YoY. The US Treasury 10Y-2Y yield curve remains deeply inverted at -91.031 basis points and M2 Money growth has crashed. The 30 year mortgage rate is hovering around 7.27%. And WTI Crude oil futures are up 1% this morning. The...

Ford Motor said Thursday pushed back production targets for its electric vehicles, citing slower-than-expected adoption. Ford now expects to be building EVs at a rate of 600,000 per year sometime during 2024, a delay from earlier estimates that it would reach that level by the end of 2023. The automaker had previously targeted a rate of more than 2 million per year by the end of 2026, but now says it doesn't know when it'll achieve that volume. "The transition to EVs is happening, it just may take a little longer," CFO John Lawler said following the automaker's second-quarter earnings...