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Small businesses are citing the highest levels of uncertainty since the COVID-19 pandemic, a concerning economic indicator. The National Federation of Independent Businesses released the survey of small businesses, which found that small business uncertainty spiked last month. NFIB keeps an “Uncertainty Index” which spiked 9 percentage points last month, hitting the highest level since November of 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was raging and businesses were shutting down across the country. “The small business sector is responsible for the production of over 40% of GDP and employment, a crucial portion of the economy,” NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg said...

The pro-Trump MAGA Inc. super PAC pointed out that Bidenomics is not a joke, referring to how food prices at restaurants have increased under President Joe Biden’s administration. In a press release from MAGA Inc. on Monday, the super PAC referenced a viral parody post on X which shows photos of former President Donald Trump at his rally in Las Vegas, Nevada, reading and criticizing the prices and items off of a Cheesecake menu. “This viral post might be a parody, but Bidenomics is no joke,” Alex Pfeiffer, the spokesman for MAGA Inc. wrote in the press release. “Prices at...

Despite President Joe Biden touting his economic “accomplishments,” a new report reveals that there are more foreign born workers in the United States than American workers. New Bureau of Labor Statistics data released this week found that there are 637,000 non-American citizen workers in the country. On the contrary, nearly 300,000 native-born Americans lost their jobs. Economist E.J. Antoni told The Federalist that the government has added a significant amount of jobs that are primarily only held by foreign born workers, leaving Americans struggling to look for jobs. “No wonder Americans view economy so terribly: they aren’t the ones [with]...

Yay! More jobs! Boo! No interest cut!In any event, that's the headline based on the numbers that came in this morning.The U.S. economy added far more jobs than expected in May, countering fears of a slowdown in the labor market and likely reducing the Federal Reserve’s impetus to lower interest rates.Nonfarm payrolls expanded by 272,000 for the month, up from 165,000 in April and well ahead of the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 190,000, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.And, not breaking the trend, there were downward revisions yet again to previous months' job numbers....Previous months’ reports...

Remember how President Joe Biden’s henchmen in the media peppered the American people with around-the-clock propaganda about how star-spangled awesome incredible the Biden economy supposedly was because of jobs growth? A new report just blew apart that house of cards. Bloomberg Opinion executive editor Robert Burgess released the findings of a new Bloomberg Economics report that threw a big wrench into the so-called strength of the jobs market leftist media outlets repeatedly laud to the public. “Bloomberg Eco out with a jarring report, saying monthly nonfarm payroll prints likely overstated job growth last year by 730,000,” Burgess wrote. The report...

Longtime readers of mine are familiar with my overwhelming disdain for Paul Krugman, the Opinion section ultra-hack at The New York Times. I've lost count of how many columns I've written about this partisan lapdog. Krugman fancies himself a genius's genius because he once won a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. That's a Nobel-adjacent prize — he's not a laureate. Still, it's quite an achievement in his chosen field. It doesn't mean he knows anything outside of that chosen field, however. For most of the past two years, I've been writing about Krugman's stream of finger-wagging articles telling the...

A report in the Daily Mail says that Republicans in Congress are investigating more than ten banks “for colluding with the federal government to spy on Americans after the January 6 protests.” The alleged witch hunt was in search of “‘extremism’ indicators.” You won’t be surprised at all to learn what qualifies as an “extremism indicator.” Fox News reported on January 17: Federal investigators asked banks to search and filter customer transactions by using terms like “MAGA” and “Trump” as part of an investigation into Jan. 6, warning that purchases of “religious texts” could indicate “extremism,” the House Judiciary Committee...

John Eastman, once an attorney for former President Donald Trump, was de-banked twice in the span of several months by two prominent financial institutions, Bank of America and USAA, he told the Daily Caller. His accounts were closed as he faced substantial backlash for his work advising Trump around the time of the 2020 election.

In a major push to seize control of the public’s financial freedom, Canada is radicalizing its banking system by linking citizens’ bank accounts to a tyrannical social credit score.The Canadian banking system will soon be transformed by a so-called “open banking” framework.Proponents are framing this as a more “inclusive” way for banks to easily share information and access user data.However, the move will merge social standings with banking to provide governments and unelected bureaucrats with complete control over our finances.The organization Open Banking Excellence (OBE), a World Bank partner that originated in the UK, boasts that it will incorporate social...

The United States government has been pouring millions of tax dollars into developing AI-powered tools to censor and blacklist dissent voices. This month, the House Judiciary’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government Committee revealed that the U.S. government is funding AI censorship technology via the National Science Foundation (NSF) to censor political debate on social media platforms.

16 Republican AGs seek answers from Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf... ... debanking ... Wells Fargo is pushing the Biden administration's anti-gun and anti-traditional energy policies and discriminating against customers who don't fall in line with their political beliefs," Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen... As attorney general, it's my job to protect Montanans from discriminatory business practices. I will continue to investigate and fight against any illegal actions that could impact Montana businesses and consumers." ... Wells Fargo unexpectedly closed the business and personal accounts of Bradon Wexler, the owner of Florida-based firearms dealer Wex Gunworks, with a vague explanation...

President Joe Biden’s (D) administration has reportedly admitted what terms were used when federal investigators wanted banks to surveil Americans’ financial transactions after the January 6, 2021, protests. According to Fox News, the outlet obtained a letter wherein the government admitted that “MAGA,” “Trump,” and “Kamala” were among the terms, the news source said Friday.

Barry Sternlicht, a prominent figure in the real estate industry as the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Starwood Capital Group, has sounded the alarm regarding the precarious state of regional and community banks across the United States. His apprehension stems from the challenges faced by these institutions amid the current economic landscape characterized by higher interest rates, increasing vacancies, and inflationary pressures. Sternlicht’s concerns point to a potential wave of bank failures, with implications for the broader financial system.

epublic First Bank, a Pennsylvania-based financial institution, has collapsed, with the FDIC covering customers’ deposits by transferring them to Fulton Bank after an agreement was reached with the federal agency. This is the first major bank collapse this year, following five that occurred in 2023, as the high-interest rate environment destabilized the balance sheets of major financial players. When Silicon Valley Bank (SVB)collapsed in spring 2023, many economists warned that more could follow—and they did. Signature Bank, First Republic Bank, Heartland Tri-State Bank, and Citizens Bank collapsed in the succeeding months, a sign of instability as the Federal Reserve’s monetary...

U.S. Bancorp (USB.N), opens new tab cut its forecast for full-year interest income and reported a 22% fall in first-quarter profit on Wednesday, as higher deposit costs and a larger corpus of rainy-day funds to cover potential defaults continue to weigh on the sector. Shares of U.S. Bancorp fell 4% in morning trading. It was among the top losers on the broader regional banking index (.KRX), opens new tab. Lenders in the U.S. have been offering higher interest rates in recent months to retain deposits as customers are increasingly seeking better returns by placing their money in higher-yielding alternatives. U.S....

-A year after Silicon Valley Bank's failure, less than half of U.S. banks have established borrowing capacity by pledging collateral at the Federal Reserve's emergency lending facility, according to Fed data released on Friday. That's despite a crescendo of calls from financial regulators for banks to make sure they can access the Fed's discount window quickly if trouble arises. But the data also showed some real progress, with an increase in the number of banks signing up and a jump in the amount of total collateral pledged. SVB's inability to access the window in March of last year in the...

As the shadows of economic uncertainty lengthen, the once-solid foundations of commercial real estate markets now tremble under the weight of impending crisis. With banks holding nearly 40% of all CRE debt, the tremors are felt far and wide, signaling a looming catastrophe that could spell disaster for financial institutions worldwide. The warning bells are ringing loud and clear, with UBS flagging the downturn in commercial real estate markets as one of the “top and emerging risks” facing the banking sector. The sharp decline in demand for office space, coupled with soaring borrowing costs, paints a bleak picture for an...

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...

You might have missed it in the headlines, but US Bancorp recently initiated significant job cuts, with areas like talent acquisition and technology taking a hit. But what does this mean for the broader financial landscape? Well, let’s talk about multifamily commercial real estate (CRE) mortgages – a sector that’s been quietly raising red flags. While apartments have held up better than other segments like office and retail, cracks are starting to show, with some eye-popping defaults in recent months.

New York Community Bancorp sent its shares plummeting 26% on Friday after the regional lender said has discovered “material weaknesses” in the ways it tracks loan risks and that its CEO is leaving. The New York-based firm announced late Thursday that CEO Thomas Cangemi would be leaving NYCB — capping off a 27-year tenure at NYCB — and that Alessandro DiNello would take his place, effective immediately. DiNello, NYCB’s executive chairman, had been acting as the bank’s true boss since earlier this month ... One NYCB director, Hanif “Wally” Dahya, said in a Feb. 25 letter that he “did not...