Free Republic

Bidenflation is over. But if you feel like prices still aren't falling, you're not alone. Since Donald Trump took office, inflation has plunged from a Biden-era 5 percent to just 1.4%. This is actually below the Fed's target of 2%. Normally, at this point, the Fed would be trying to pump inflation since it's "too low." Of course, for the American people, 1.4% is not "too low." What they want is falling prices, as in take it back to pre-Biden prices. Will that happen? In short, no. Prices will never durably fall until we get rid of the Federal Reserve....

It’s been obvious for years that China has a Potemkin economy, kept alive by slave labor, market bubbles, and government underwriting. it can’t last forever. The latest grim forecast about the economy comes from Peter St Onge, an economist with a much deeper fund of knowledge about and understanding of the Chinese economy than I could have in a thousand lifetimes.The biggest hint that the Chinese economy was in trouble was the demise of Evergrande, a massive property developer in China. The bankruptcy was huge, with the company’s assets valued at a probably inflated $245 billion and debts of $300...

The Meltdown of Commercial Real EstateIn case you’ve still got money in a bank, Bloomberg is warning that defaults in commercial real estate loans could “topple” hundreds of US banks.Leaving taxpayers on the hook for trillions in losses.The note, by Senior Editor James Crombie, walks us through the festering hellscape that is commercial real estate.To set the mood, a new study predicts that nearly half of downtown Pittsburgh office space could be vacant in 4 years. Major cities like San Francisco are already sporting zombie-apocalypse downtowns, with abandoned office buildings baking in the sun.So what happened? The Fed’s yo-yo interest...