Free Republic

Call Bidenomics a new name: The Biden Blitzkrieg Bop since the administration launched a blitzkrieg attack on America’s middle class and low wage workers through bad energy policies and soaring inflation. Economists have practically sounded the all-clear on a looming recession, but plenty of signs are still flashing red. Clearly, economists were wrong earlier this year when they forecast an economic contraction that has yet to manifest. Could they be wrong now? To be sure, economic growth, the labor market and consumer spending have proven unexpectedly resilient in the face of rising interest rates and elevated inflation. But there are...

The current situation in the US financial landscape is a cause for concern. It has been known that the top 5 US banks are over-leveraged, which can be a recipe for disaster. Over-leveraging can make these banks vulnerable to financial downturns and economic shocks. This vulnerability is further highlighted by the fact that companies are closing and factories are going bankrupt. These developments are likely to have a cascading effect on the economy, potentially triggering a recession. One of the key indicators pointing towards economic uncertainty is the real yield on 10-year Treasuries. The fact that they are approaching 2%...

Danger Will Robinson! Danger! Median sales price of homes in the US sank by -7.4% in Q2 2023. This is particulary dangerous since it was the worst correction in home prices since two rather nasty recessions of 1970 and 2008 (The Great Recession and financial crisis). This correction occured as M2 Money growth (green line) went negative. With Fed rate hikes, debt to income ratios are the highest in history. Mortgage rates are above 7% under Biden and Powell (not Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts). But not only are mortgage rates above 7%, but the mortgage credit box...

Its hard to watch Biden and The Progressive Greens destroy the enegy security of this great nation. Biden is draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, probably in a misguided attempt at ensuring we never go back to abundent petroleum again. Crude oil inventories are now the lowest since 1985. Authored by Simon White, Bloomberg macro strategist, Household spending has kept the US economy afloat, but as growth slows a continued rise in oil and gas prices is poised to push personal consumption expenditure (PCE) lower and thus trigger a near-term recession – with stocks and bonds unpriced for such an outcome....

“I haven’t grilled in years, what if I’ve forgotten how?” “I haven’t done long division since high school, can I still do it?” “I haven’t danced in so long, I’m afraid to go out on the floor.” In dozens of examples in our daily lives, we may go years without doing something that we used to know how to do, but someone is always there to reassure us: “It’ll come back to you. It’s just like riding a bike.” And it usually does. In most cases, if we knew how to do something once, the memories come back and we...

Bidenomics is forcing Americans to live hand to mouth. Or as Lou Chrisite sang, “Lightning Strikes …. Americans” leaving them worse off under Bidenomics. The cost of living has been soaring, and our standard of living has been steadily going down. Coping with inflation is tough for American households where consumer debt is up 19.$ under Biden while the free-spending Federal government’s public debt is up only 16.5%. As a result, over 60 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck at this point, and debt levels are rising to unprecedented levels. Now, 78% of consumers earning less than $50,000...

In yet another ominous sign, consumers are being pushed to the financial brink, leading some to abandon homeowner insurance due to soaring premiums. Without this coverage, homeowners are left vulnerable to fires, burst pipes, theft, vandalism, and windstorms. "Some skipping insurance say they are doing so because they can no longer afford the rising premiums," said The Wall Street Journal. New Bankrate data shows insurance on a $250,000 home jumped to $1,428 annually, up 20% from 2022. That's about a $119 monthly payment. Amy Bach, executive director at United Policyholders, a national nonprofit insurance consumer-advocacy group, said an increasing number...

The glories of Bidenomics is on fully display. Despite what Lyin’ Biden says, Bidenomics is only working for the elites (top 1%). How Soviet/CCP command economy of him! Here is an ugly chart showing Bidenomics in action! We all know that Covid unleashed a torrent of Fed monetary stimulus AND Federal spending on Covid relief and green energy subsidies (most to large Democrats donors). BUT we now have experienced 3 consectutive quarters of negative gross domestic income (GDI) growth. And nominal GDI growth is falling with falling M2 Money growth. And today’s jobs report for August showed that only 187k...

Another (economic report) bites the dust! U.S.-based employers announced 75,151 cuts in August, a 217% increase from the 23,697 cuts announced one month prior. It is 267% higher than the 20,485 cuts announced in the same month in 2022, As M2 Money growth collapses to Great Depression levels. Instead of The Dust Bowl, we can call this The Biden Bowl. This great meme can be replaced by “Our President is as cold as your ex’s heart.”

All aboard the Bidenomics Crazy Train! Let’s see. We have inflation that is eroding wage growth so that REAL wage growth is negative. Meanwhile, the Biden Administration and Congress are spending like they can print infinite amounts of cash with no consequences. The result? The Federal government is paying nearly $1 trillion in interest on an annualized basis. On the corporate side, we are seeing a surge in bankruptcies. As Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld and Sabrina Fortin show in the graphic below, based on data from S&P Global, corporate bankruptcies in 2023 are surging… U.S. Corporate Bankruptcies Grow So far...

It’s NOT always sunny in Philadelphia. Particularly when the Philly Fed non-manufacturing survey screams stagflation (a nauseating combination of economic slowdown and inflation). After a positive surprise in July, Philly Fed’s non-manufacturing survey slumped back into contraction in August (from +1.4 to -13.1). Additionally, while respondents continue to expect a growth over the next 6 months, that optimism is fading rapidly… Source: Bloomberg On a non-seasonally-adjusted basis, the Philly Fed Services survey plunged to -20.0 – practically its lowest level since the COVID lockdowns… Source: Bloomberg Under the hood it’s even uglier with stagflationary impulses rearing their ugly heads. Price...

Inflation is down, they tell us. But that doesn’t mean prices have returned to normal. In fact, while inflation – the rate of increase in pricing – has slowed from its high point a year ago, prices are continuing to climb. What’s the difference between a ten to sixteen percent inflation rate and a five to ten percent inflation rate? Either way, unless you’re earning raises of double digit percentage points more each year, your income is falling behind, and your savings are diminishing by the minute in purchasing power. For the past two and a half years, we’ve been...

Bidenomics, which is also Yellenomics (the former Fed Chair and current Treasury Secretary) has The Good, The Bad and The Ugly to say for it. First, The Good! The Atlanta Fed’s GDP Now real time GDP tracker has Q3 GDP at … 4.12%. Pretty good, but bear in mind that there is still more than $8 trillion in Fed Monetary Stimulus outstanding (aka, Yellenomics). Second, The Bad. Bank credit growth is now negative. As lenders are tightening credit standards for commercial and industrial loans. The ugly? There are several candidates for this dishonor. One, The Conference Board’s leading economic indicators...

A debt crisis that rivals China Evergrande Group’s default may be brewing in the world’s second-largest economy. Country Garden Holdings Co., helmed by one of China’s richest women, Yang Huiyan, has left investors in the dark after dollar bondholders said they’ve yet to receive coupon payments effectively due Monday. That puts the firm—which had 1.4 trillion yuan ($199 billion) of total liabilities at the end of last year—on course for its first public default if it doesn’t make the payments within a 30-day grace period. “Any default would impact China’s housing market more than Evergrande’s collapse as Country Garden has...

Americans are increasingly turning to their credit cards to cover everyday expenses, with debt surpassing $1 trillion for the first time at the end of June, according to a New York Federal Reserve report published Tuesday. In the three-month period from April to June, total credit card debt surged to $1.03 trillion, an increase of $45 billion, or 4.6% from the previous quarter. It marks the highest level on record in Fed data dating back to 2003. The rise in credit card usage and debt is particularly concerning because interest rates are astronomically high right now. The average credit card...

More Americans are tapping their 401(k) accounts because of financial distress, according to Bank of America data released Tuesday. The number of people who made a hardship withdrawal during the second quarter surged from the first three months of the year to 15,950, an increase of 36% from the second quarter of 2022, according to Bank of America’s analysis of clients’ employee benefits programs, which are comprised of more than 4 million plan participants. It’s a “pretty troubling” development if more people are resorting to making hardship withdrawals, Matt Schulz, chief credit analyst at LendingTree, told CNN. “You understand why...

Yellow Freight, a massive, almost century-old LTL carrier, has gone out of business, and the “spin” of the business world will likely rival the spin of the political world in covering this news. First, some background. LTL refers to “less than truckload freight,” so an LTL carrier is one that picks up relatively small loads, usually 1 to 5 pallets’ worth, and consolidates them at terminals with other such freight with similar destinations, in what is called a “cross-dock” operation. Through a network of base terminals across a metro area, a region, or even the entire country, the nation’s thousands...

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...

No, this isn’t a John Kerry/Greta Thunberg hysterical warning about climate change. But a storm created by 1) Biden/Congress spending splurge and 2) excessive monetary stimulypto by The Federal (Feral) Reserve. Now that The Fed is withdrawing the excess stimulus, we are seeing a world of pain for commercial real estate. A financial climate change! Days after Barry Sternlicht’s Starwood Capital Group defaulted on a $212.4 million mortgage backed by an Atlanta office tower, Bloomberg released an eye-opening interview with the billionaire investor about mounting distress in US commercial real estate. “We’re in a Category 5 hurricane,” Sternlicht said in...