Free Republic

Mortgage rates dipped just under 7% this week after crossing above that threshold in the prior reading as rates remain stubbornly high, stifling the housing market. Freddie Mac's latest Primary Mortgage Market Survey, released Thursday, showed that the average rate on the benchmark 30-year fixed mortgage ticked down to 6.99% this week from 7.03% last week. The average rate on a 30-year loan was 6.71% a year ago. The average rate on the 15-year fixed mortgage also decreased to 6.29% from 6.36% last week. One year ago, the rate on the 15-year fixed note averaged 6.07%.

U.S. gas prices are soaring again, posing another challenge to an inflation problem the Federal Reserve has battled over the past year and President Joe Biden claimed is all under control thanks to the much-touted “Bideonomics.” The national average gallon of gas traded at $3.89 last week, its highest level since October 2022, according to the latest figures supplied by the AAA. The pump price shows a variation across the country with some of the steepest jumps in Midwestern states, while in Washington state and California, prices have reached an average of $5 and $5.07 a gallon, the Detroit Free...

Anew report found that the $5 trillion Congress spent on pandemic relief efforts has been so difficult to track that it has even stumped some government investigators. A new report from the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee tracked $2.65 billion of pandemic relief funding to six communities. The report found that "data gaps make it difficult for taxpayers to know how much money their community received and for what purposes." The $2.65 billion is part of $5 trillion in federal relief given out during the pandemic. "Existing gaps in federal spending data make it difficult for the oversight community, decision-makers, and...

On Thursday’s “CNN Newsroom,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) stated that she doesn’t think that the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill will make inflation worse because it funds programs that already exist. Co-host Jim Sciutto asked, “[Y]ou guys are going to vote and get this 1.7 trillion spending bill passed. It’s got a lot in there. But I wonder, the topline figure is quite big. And it’s not far off — the most recent COVID relief bill, which was 1.9 trillion, which some have blamed for being inflationary, and I wonder, as folks are watching right now, should they be concerned...

NEW YORK, June 30 (Reuters) - Wall Street slid into the finish line of a dismal month and quarter on Thursday as a continued sell-off put a grim punctuation mark at the close of the S&P 500's worst first-half in more than half a century. All three major U.S. stock indexes were down but off session lows on the last day of the month and the second quarter, putting S&P 500 has set a course for its steepest first-half percentage drop since at least 1970. The Nasdaq was on its way to its worst-ever first-half performance, while the Dow appeared...

Claim: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) claimed that the Democrats’ massive spending bills and proposed to Build Back Better bill “does not increase inflation.” Verdict: Mostly False

The number of job openings in the U.S. rose to what would have been a record level in January–if not for the upward revision to an all-time high for December. There were 11.3 million jobs posted at the end of January, exceeding the consensus forecast of 10.9 million and the prior month’s preliminary estimate of 10.925 million, Department of Labor data showed Monday.

WASHINGTON -- With Democrats plotting to make the minimum wage a major issue in this fall's congressional races, House Republican leaders are conceding that they may have to yield to pressure for an increase to the federal standard, which has been frozen for nearly a decade. Faced with elections that could cost them control of Congress, John A. Boehner, the House majority leader, acknowledged Thursday that Republican leaders are likely to reverse course and hold a vote on a proposed minimum wage increase. Though Boehner said it was a ``cynical ploy" for Democrats to make it a campaign centerpiece, polls...