Food (Bloggers & Personal)
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When the music’s over … turn out the lights. But not the end. Last October, when the wounds from the March 2023 bank failures – which surpassed the global financial crisis in total assets and which sparked the latest Fed intervention, setting the market’s nadir over the past 16 months – were still fresh, we made a non-consensus prediction: we said that since the Fed has once again backstopped the US financial system, “the next bank failure will be in Japan.“ But if that was the first, and still distant, sign that something was very wrong at one of Japan’s...
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US Treasury Secretary (and former Fed Chair) Janet Yellen says the US economy is in excellent shape. Is she a genius and sees something that rest of us don’t? Or is she a partisan thug like Shap Shot’s Gilmore Tuttle? Yellen brags about rising wages and declining inflation. Well, average hourly earnings YoY are now 4.1%. However, home prices are growing at 6.5% year-over-year (YoY) and electricity prices are up 6.1% YoY. Food CPI grew at 2.1% in May. Yellen ignores the string of 10%+ increases in 2022-2023 making eating unaffoprdable for millions. I doubt if Yellen could run a...
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We’re going down! Moments ago the University of Michigan released the latest “report card” on Bidenomics, and to nobody’s surprise – except perhaps a certain senile teleprompter reading, diaper-wearing puppet in the White House – it was another disaster. One month after the May Consumer Sentiment printed at a record 7-sigma miss to expectations, consumer sentiment once again “unexpectedly” slumped, this time from an upward revised 68.8 to 67.6, the lowest print since last November, and the biggest 3-month drop in sentiment (-13.8 points) going back to the covid lockdowns. … which was not only a 5-sigma miss to the...
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Joe Biden is a dishonest politician, so it is no wonder that he ignores actual data. Like claiming that crime is down under his leadership, when it is actually large cities like New York and Los Angeles not reporting their crime data to the FBI. Take the May jobs numbers. The BLS reports that 272k jobs were added. However, the more accurate Household Survery reported a loss of -408k jobs in May. While the Establishment Survey did indeed report that 272K “jobs” were added, this number also included multiple job holders; stripping those out, we get that the actual number...
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The middle class and low wager workers are made for kicking. And that’s with Bidenomics did. The headline consumer price index was unchanged MoM in May – the smallest change since July 2022 – just less than the +0.1% MoM expected. On a YoY basis, headline CPI rose 3.3% (less than the 3.4% exp) – but very much stuck in a range well above the 2% target for over year now… Source: Bloomberg Energy was the biggest drag on the headline CPI MoM…(Gasoline prices tumbled 3.6% in May from April, one key reason why the headline CPI was flat on...
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Too much debt should be the theme song for the US! Both for consumers and the Feral government (not a typo!) Consumer credit increased by +$6.403 billion in April, much softer than consensus estimate of +$10 billion … more notable, however, was March data, given initial read of +$6.274 billion was revised down to -$1.099 billion. Not to mention $13 trillion in mortgage debt (1-4 unit housing), but at least that is backed by property. Unlike The Feral government who borrows/prints with only a promise. Consumer Debt Hits $17.69 TRILLION. US national debt stands at $34.8+ trillion. And growing awfully...
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If the bird flu were to suddenly be transmissible from person-to-person, there would be every reason to suspect gain-of-function bioweapons research.But, all the hype about whether the bird flu will become a human pandemic might just be a distraction.There are certainly pharmaceutical companies that would benefit from a human bird flu pandemic, but the industry might make even more money “preventing” a human pandemic by vaccinating farm animals, especially the world’s 33 billion chickens.So far, the government’s response to the bird flu has been to kill millions of chickens–85.87 million birds killed since 2022.From an animal welfare perspective, it’s viciously...
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Under Bidenomics and Fed monetary “policies”, we now have the wreck of the US middle class. To begin with, America’s paychecks are bigger than 40 years ago, but purchasing power of those larger paychecks is about the sames as it was 40 years ago. Great job Washington DC!!! … NOT!!!! Meanwhile, credit card delinquencies are at the highest level since 1991. Americans are feeling extreme financial stress. Coping with Bidennomics and The Fed has been most difficult. Especially if you listened to Biden’s D-Day speech (almost stolen word-for-word from a Ronald Reagan speech). Demented Joe Biden being led by the...
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The theme song for the Biden Administration should be “South of The Border.” Biden’s open borders policies are like something out of the book/film “Gangs of New York.” This time it isn’t Irish immigrants that are rioting/looting, it iis illegal immigrants from Latin America, China, and the Middle East. Essentially replacing native-born workers with foreign-born workers. Since COVID, the growth in foreign-born workers have blow away the growth in native-born workers. So much so that since 2019, native-born workers have actually lost jobs while foreign-born workers have surged. But for May 2024, native-born workers lost 463k jobs while foreign-born gained...
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The US economy is going down. 2024 hasn’t been a good year for Bidenomics. The Economic Surprise Index is falling to its lowest point in years. The economic confidence index has been terrible since Covid and Biden’s Reign of Ecoomic Error. We need to give Biden the hook!’ And I don’t want The Lizard Queen either.
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Boom boom! ATL Fed Nowcast plunges to 1.8% as their consumer spending estimate collapses – less than 3 weeks ago, they were forecasting 4.2% growth for Q2; a recession likely began in April. The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the second quarter of 2024 is 1.8 percent on June 3, down from 2.7 percent on May 31. After recent releases from the US Census Bureau and the Institute for Supply Management, the nowcasts for annualized second-quarter real personal consumption expenditures growth and real private fixed investment growth declined from 2.6 percent and 3.1...
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Call it Washington DC soullessness. Back in 2023, Socialist Paul Krugman declared that “the war on inflation is over!!! “We” won, at very little cost.” I love when elitists claim “We won!” since clearly 99% of Americans lost since food, housing and car prices up are double digits under Biden. The problem is that food, energy, shelter, and used cars/trucks are a huge part of Americans consumption basket. Under Biden, food CPI id up 23%. Home prices are up 34% and used cars/truck prices are up 17.7%. A note to Paul Krugman, YOU may have won, but the rest of...
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Not so Sweet Home Chicago! After unexpectedly slumping last month to 37.9, the Chicago PMI index cratered even more unexpectedly in May, when it defied hopes of a rebound to 41.5, and instead tumbled even more, sliding to a cycle low of 35.4 which was not only below the lowest estimate, but was staggeringly low. To get a sense of just how low, the last two times it printed here was during the peak of the covid and global financial crises… … which seems to suggest that at least according to Chicago-based purchasing managers, the economy is in a depression....
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A massive fire broke out at Farina Farms Inc. in Marion County, Illinois, on Wednesday night, resulting in the deaths of millions of chickens. The farm is one of the largest free-range egg facilities in the country. The fire, which began around 6:30 p.m. along Highway 37, quickly escalated into a 5-alarm fire, requiring the intervention of at least 20 different fire departments from surrounding areas, according to WAND TV. Described as “humongous” by Marion County Sheriff Kevin Cripps, the fire engulfed multiple buildings spanning 200-300 yards in length.
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With the terrible mortgage applications index from Wednedsay, we are seeing US pending home sales crashiing. As Joe Biden handles the economy his way. After an unexpected jump in March, pending home sales were expected to drop 1.0% MoM in April as mortgage rates pushed back above 7.00% and stayed there. Well, the analysts had the direction right but magnitude was way off as pending home sales plunged 7.7% MoM – the biggest drop since Feb 2021 (and below the lowest estimate), leaving sales down 0.7% YoY… Source: Bloomberg This is the 29th straight month of YoY declines for non-seasonally-adjusted...
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What I like about Biden’s economy … nothing. Most of Biden’s economic growth came from Trump’s spending and Fed monetary policy from the Covid shutdown of 2020. What was until recently a “red-hot” economy, with the US reportedly growing at an annual rate of 4.9% in Q3 and 3.4% in Q4 2024, has suddenly and dramatically downshifted, and according to the latest GDP data released from Biden’s BEA, Q1 GDP was revised downward from 1.6% to just 1.3% (1.250% to be specific), which was the lowest GDP since the mini-recession of Q2 when GDP declined for 2 quarters in a...
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From Mike Shedlock (Mish). It’s a perfect time to do something really stupid, like offering zero percent down payments on mortgages. Case-Shiller national and 10-city indexes via St. Louis Fed, OER, CPI, and Rent from the BLS Perfectly Stupid Timing Morningstar reports One of the Biggest U.S. Lenders is Offering 0%-Down-Payment Mortgages for First-Time Home Buyers. Home buyers will be able to buy a home without putting any money down under a new program launched by United Wholesale Mortgage, one of the largest U.S. mortgage lenders. The Pontiac, Mich.-based company’s new program will be available to first-time home buyers and...
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The thrill is gone …from the US mortgage market. Mortgage applications decreased 5.7 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending May 24, 2024. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 5.7 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 6.3 percent compared with the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 1 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index decreased 3 percent compared with the previous week and...
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rica’s 20 largest cities rose for the 13th straight month in March (according to the latest data from S&P CoreLogic – Case Shiller – data today), up 0.33% (more than the expected 0.3%) with the 0.61% MoM gain In Febriary revised down to +0.55% MoM. Source: Bloomberg This pushed the price up 7.38% YoY – the fastest rise since October 2022
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I saw former President Obama criticizing former President Trump for not passing “transformative” changes. That is, Trump didn’t sign any Obama-like transformative changes (like Obamacare). Truimp did try to slow down the damage done by Obama and his transformative agenda (e.g., open borders, wealth redistritution, green energy) that Biden has attempted to continue. As we approach the party conventions and Presidential election of 2024, we saw the Economic Surprise Index (ESI) in May decline to -0.126. Coupled with Biden’s negative buying conditions for housing (higher mortgage rates and soaring house prices), Obama’s Jacobian transformative economic fantasty is on thin ice....
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