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SUNNY HOSTIN: Would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years?KAMALA HARRIS: There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of — and I’ve been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact.Photo via Flickr by Kevin Krejci – Our National Debt – CC BY 2.0.On Friday, the Treasury Department released a report showing the kind of impact Harris is talking about. If nothing else does, it should cost her the election.The latest monthly Treasury report shows spending and revenues for the full fiscal year 2024, which ended in...

During an interview with CNBC on Thursday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen responded to a question on if she thinks the Federal Reserve has rates that are too high by stating that the Fed’s members expect rates to be cut and “when you have an economy that’s growing at potential, that’s operating at full employment with inflation in the vicinity of the Fed’s target, that suggests that a more neutral stance of policy is appropriate.” CNBC Senior Economics Reporter Steve Liesman asked, “I know you think a lot about the Fed. But I also know you don’t talk a lot about...

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates Wednesday by the biggest amount in 16 years. The 50 percentage points reduction will make borrowing money less expensive, taking some of the pressure off consumers' wallets. Today's cut brings benchmark borrowing costs down to between 4.75 percent and 5 percent.

“We concluded that this was the right thing for the economy and the people we serve,” the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, said, referring to the central bank’s decision to cut interest rates by half a point.

The interest burden of the public debt of the U.S. government has topped $1 trillion already this year, the first time interest costs have crossed the trillion dollar threshold. In the first 11 months of the fiscal year, interest payments totaled $1.05 trillion, up 30 percent from a year ago, the Treasury Department said Thursday. This is the first time interest payments have ever climbed about $1 trillion. Despite claims by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to have addressed the U.S. budget deficit, the deficit is up 24 percent in the first 11 months of this fiscal...

The U.S. government for the first time has spent more than $1 trillion this year on interest payments for its $35.3 trillion national debt, the Treasury Department reported Thursday. With the Federal Reserve holding benchmark rates at their highest in 23 years, the government has laid out $1.049 trillion on debt service, up 30% from the same period a year ago and part of a projected $1.158 trillion in payments for the full year. Subtracting the interest the government earns on its investments, net interest payments have totaled $843 billion, higher than any other category except Social Security and Medicare....

Unsustainable. The country is going bankrupt. Trump is the only path forward. CBO: Federal Interest Payments Now Exceed Defense Spending... Federal Debt: The Ticking Bomb in Your Wallet.. Grab your pay stub .. and see how much you paid in federal income tax…over 75% of that was effectively your contribution to interest on the debt .. This is where our federal government is today. It has spent so much more than it has taken in that it has racked up a $35 trillion debt. ... over 75% of that was effectively your contribution to interest on the debt last month....

If you own a home, you've probably heard the age-old advice to pay more on your mortgage so you can pay it off faster. But what happens when you don't have thousands extra to throw at your mortgage each month? There's a really simple way to pay a little extra -- by making mortgage payments every two weeks. Don't worry, you're not doubling your costs! Instead, you pay half your mortgage payment each time. It's a great strategy for sticking to a budget since many jobs pay every two weeks. And, because there are 52 weeks in a year, you'll...

By opening the door wider to an interest-rate cut in September, the Federal Reserve is on a collision course with the presidential election. For a central bank that judiciously aspires to stay above the fray of partisan politics, confronting a potential policy shift around election time amounts to a lose-lose. Delivering a rate cut ahead of the election could rile up Republicans and former President Donald Trump, but withholding a needed reduction could undermine the economy and upset Democrats. The awkward optics give extra incentive for central bank officials in the coming weeks to set expectations for and explain the...

Clinton’s Gimmick Shifting to Short-term Funding to Reduce Interest Expenditures. I wrote as a guest columnist for the Wall Street Journal back on April 19, 1995, dealing with an issue that seemed to go over everyone’s head. At the time, President Clinton (1993-2001) was able to balance the budget, and nobody seemed to understand how he managed to do that. Much of it concerned the shift in capital flows as capital poured into the United States, fleeing South East Asia. That led to the Asian Currency Crisis in 1997. US Interest rates rose sharply in 1994 which also was attracting...

76% of all personal income tax last month went to servicing the $34 trillion national debt. How did we get here? Two men: FDR and Richard Nixon. Together, they broke the dollar. And put the American people into debt slavery. (3 minute and 46 seconds video in the link below) https://x.com/profstonge/status/1816813562771255713

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%.

Government spending has consequences. The US national debt has surpassed $34.6 trillion at the time of this writing and continues to grow every minute. America has never been in a deeper deficit. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) has reported that America was forced to pay $514 billion in the first seven months of FY2024 on interest costs alone. This means that America paid more in servicing its debt than on any other program besides Social Security ($837 billion), which is a separate problem entirely. To put it into perspective, the US shelled out $498 billion on national...

President Joe Biden’s policy of mass migration is forcing up housing inflation, so pushing up interest rates and mortgage rates, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Housing prices should have dropped amid the recent supply of new apartments and homes, but have “not behaved the way we thought it would,” said Austan Goolsbee, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.. “I still think it will, but if it doesn’t, we’re going to have a hard time” bringing inflation back down to the target of 2 percent, Goolsbee told the Journal for a May 11 article.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Inflation showing no recent sign of slowing or narrowing in scope leaves U.S. Federal Reserve policymakers challenged this week over how to characterize their next steps even as the countdown to a contentious U.S. presidential election continues. The Fed is seen holding its benchmark interest rate steady at 5.25%-to-5.5% at its April 30-May 1 meeting, and a key judgment in the current policy statement - that inflation "remains elevated" - may have to remain in place after the pace of price increases accelerated over the first three months of the year after steadily slowing through 2023. Details...

Influential investor says US inflation and growth are not at levels where interest rates can fall Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/tour. https://www.ft.com/content/680c17d1-0d55-4697-aff8-7dcca8c06679?accessToken=zwAGFb2KHEZYkc9oDBfRDVVGl9Ov-H3MqMBmeQ.MEUCIEKUOo8tpYNQH1TIRs1UXW0onmSrH2MkZ28gZyBrU5T-AiEAledOG31n_SXP-FsEVXres7m4-IDthSiN4Xyky3Mv9yQ&sharetype=gift&token=c10df47e-f8fc-4ea2-a059-1720789b4224 Persistent inflation and hot US growth have left the Federal Reserve’s rate-cutting hopes “off track”, Bridgewater’s Bob Prince said on Tuesday, adding...

U.S. inflation pressures quickened again last month, with core price pressures also rising past Wall Street forecasts, a reading that will cast further doubt on market bets for a June interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve. The headline consumer price index for March was pegged by the Commerce Department at 3.5%, rising from the prior month's tally of 3.2% and coming in ahead of Wall Street's 3.4% consensus forecast. On a monthly basis, inflation edged 0.4% higher, matching the 0.4% gain in February but also coming in ahead of Wall Street's 0.3% forecast. So-called core inflation, which strips out...

Happy Easter! I mean Happy TRADITIONAL Easter, not a Biden weird trans celebration. Biden and Congress (Schumer, Johnson, McConnell, etc) spend and borrow like its cottage cheese. After hitting $1 trillion in late 2023, interest expense on US debt rose to a record $1.1 trillion in late March, and ii) while US debt is now rising at a pace of $1 trillion every 3 months, US interest expense is rising at a just as torrid $100 billion every 4 months (this interval will also shrink to three months very soon). he Biggest Picture: $1.1tn in interest payments on US government...

Holders of commercial real estate (CRE) debt are riding the tiger. Meaning that if interest rates don’t come down, there will be a lot of pain and suffering. “We’re far from neutral now,” said America’s Fed Chairman, Jerome Powell, to the Senate Banking Committee. As The Fed moves closer to cutting rates. All those rent-seekers stacked up with commercial real estate holdings nodded in violent agreement. That of course includes the nation’s regional banks, which continue to succumb to the power of their systemically important rivals, now so big that they cannot possibly be allowed to fail. Sometimes neutral rates...

The debt load of the U.S. is growing at a quicker clip in recent months, increasing about $1 trillion nearly every 100 days. The nation’s debt permanently crossed over to $34 trillion on Jan. 4, after briefly crossing the mark on Dec. 29, according to data from the U.S. Department of the Treasury. It reached $33 trillion on Sept. 15, 2023, and $32 trillion on June 15, 2023, hitting this accelerated pace. Before that, the $1 trillion move higher from $31 trillion took about eight months. U.S. debt, which is the amount of money the federal government borrows to cover...