Free Republic

The Federal Reserve has line on you! The Federal Reserve has tightened their monetary manipulations to combat inflation caused by loose monetary policy and excessive spending by Biden and Congress. The result? US conforming 30-year mortgage rates are up 8.3% since last year and up a whopping 141% since the beginning of 2021 (the year Biden was selected to be President). Check out mortgage rate GROWTH (blue line) as M2 Money growth *green line) went negative (orange box). This graph corresponds nicely with this chart of YoY changes in The Fed Funds rate. Which is still rising at a rate...

Did you see the recent government propaganda from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics? Not the latest faulty claim that consumer prices increased at an annual rate of just 3.4 percent in December. But rather the claim that 216,000 jobs were added in December. Upon release, and right on cue, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen declared that the U.S. economy had achieved a soft landing. She also said that her “hope is that it will continue.” What Yellen neglected to mention was that October employment was revised down by 45,000 jobs and November was revised down by 26,000 jobs. That’s 71,000...

It’s unclear anymore whether New York Times propagandist-in-chief Paul Krugman actually believes the pro-Bidenomics psycho-babble he spits out or if he’s just trolling at this point. Krugman tried bridging the gap between his illusion of a goldilocks Biden economy and the disgruntled, inflation-rattled consumers who aren’t as deluded as he is in his latest 1,108-word hot take, “Is Poor Economic Sentiment All About MAGA.” In Krugman’s distorted view, Americans struggling to make ends meet against the increasingly tenuous cost of living squeeze is just a mirage. “The more I look into it, the more I’m convinced that much of what...

Yes, it’s Biden’s fiscal inferno! And getting worse as the Presidential election approaches! Remember when I showed that the “stealth” secret sauce behind Bidenomics was nothing more than a massive, multi-trillion debt-fueled spending spree, which led to the biggest peactime, non-crisis budget deficit in US history, with the total deficit for fiscal 2023 ending just over $2 trillion, or double the prior year, something which BofA’s Michael Hartnett called the “era of fiscal excess”? Well, we have news for you: if 2023 was bad, 2024 – an election year of course – is shaping up to be far worse. Moments...

American entrepreneur and businessman Robert Kiyosaki is a vocal opponent of the Biden Administration’s policies. During an interview on the Finance with Sharan podcast, he said, “America is going to be the poorest country in the world, starting now.” Kiyosaki, the author of “Rich Dad Poor Dad,” did the podcast interview while he was in India for Growth Summit India 2023 in September. He explained his visit to Mumbai while on this trip, saying, “I always go to slums. So this time, I went to the slums of Mumbai. And I’m looking at, talking to people. But what shocks most...

When Joe Biden first assumed office in 2021, the average monthly new home payment was $1,915, but it has since ballooned to $3,322 as of the third quarter of 2023... Following the increase in costs, housing is now less affordable than at any other time in recent history, with mortgage rates exceeding 7% and median housing prices rising to around $392,000 as of October, according to the WSJ. High inflation and a relative tightening of the supply of housing have resulted in the increasing prices, while the high mortgage rates are in response to the increasing cost of credit. The...

The Biden administration made two virtue-signaling proclamations at last week’s COP28 conference in Dubai it says will help save the planet from climate change. The policies aren’t likely to change the planet’s temperature by even one-tenth of a degree, but they might just destroy the 21st-century American industrial economy as we know it. First, Team Biden announced it will stop production of all new coal plants in the United States. This comes on the heels of President Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency saying this year it would impose new power-plant emission regulations that are virtually impossible for coal plants to comply...

President Joe Biden’s approval rating is tanking, and he’s now trailing former President Donald Trump in national polls, as well as in some key swing states. Vox blames the economy for Biden’s plunging popularity — or at least voters’ perception of the economy. A new Gallup poll shows that just 32% of people approve of Biden’s handling of the economy. To combat the narrative that Biden’s policies are to blame, the White House has gone on the offensive, attacking billionaires and blaming corporations for the economic pain the public is experiencing.

Do you believe the politicians in Washington or do you believe your own eyes? The politicians keep telling us that “inflation is low”, but everyone can see that everything sure does cost a lot more than it once did. Our standard of living just keeps going down, and even JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is admitting that “inflation is hurting people”. But how can inflation be “hurting people” if it is under control? Of course the truth is that it isn’t under control. If the official rate of inflation was still measured using the formula that was in place in...

If your earnings rose by 34% from January 2020 to October 2023, congratulations, the purchasing power of your labor kept pace with higher costs.Official measures of inflation are a long-running tragi-comedy: comedic in the transparency of the distortions, and tragic in the consequences: what will you believe is true--the statistics or your lying eyes?The basic gimmick of distortion is to underweight whatever is eating away at the purchasing power of earnings and highlight the trivial items that are getting cheaper due to declines in quality and globalization. So your rent went up by $200 a month, or $2,400 a year,...

Buckle up, America! The signs are clear, and they’re not pointing towards mere challenges but a looming economic catastrophe. The U.S. housing market, a historical indicator of economic health, is in a deadlock, and it’s sending shockwaves through the nation. With 30-year mortgage rates hitting two-decade lows, buying conditions have plummeted to levels unseen since 1960, a grim foreshadowing of past severe economic downturns. The housing market, sensitive to interest rate changes, is sounding the alarm. Adding to the distress, businesses are facing tightening credit access. Over 30% of domestic banks are imposing stricter lending standards, reaching a concerning 50.8%...

Shrugging off higher interest rates, America's consumers spent enough to help drive the economy to a brisk 5.2% annual pace from July through September...The government had previously estimated that the economy grew at a 4.9% annual rate last quarter...the unemployment rate has come in below 4% for 21 straight months, the longest such streak since the 1960s..."We continue to forecast ongoing expansion in economic activity, but the pace should slow quite significantly in Q4..."

The 10-year Treasury yield set off roaring alarms about the U.S. budget when it surged to 5% last month. Now those warnings look like a fire drill. Federal Reserve rate hikes seem to be over for now, giving the bond market a reprieve and allowing a powerful S&P 500 rally to resume. Enjoy it while it lasts. The next debt scare may be the real thing, and it could rock the U.S. economy and stock market. Here's why: The Fed's historic turnabout, from enabling massive budget deficits to directing the sharpest rate hikes in 40 years, has seemingly broken the...

The sale of previously owned homes fell to an annualized rate of 3.79 million in October, marking a 13-year low, according to data released by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) on Tuesday. Existing home sales, which fell 4.1 percent from September and 14.6 percent from last year, reached its lowest point since August 2010, the data showed. “Prospective home buyers experienced another difficult month due to the persistent lack of housing inventory and the highest mortgage rates in a generation,” Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, said in a press release.

Biden’s terrible economic policies and horrid fiscal managment has put stress on The Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve paid an estimated $76 billion to the Treasury in 2022 while banks’ willingness to lend has plummeted. First, let’s look at Biden’s and The Fed’s Brawndo. One of the key ways central banks absorb liquidity back out of the market is through reverse repo. These are short-term transactions where the Fed sells securities to banks and agrees to buy back at a higher price the next day. This means banks are being paid to park cash with the Fed instead of injecting...

The thrill has gone from all the BIG spending bills from Biden. After its surprising bounce last month (on a seasonally-adjusted basis, because it crashed NSA), US Industrial Production was expected to decline 0.3% MoM in October. It was worse – down 0.6% MoM from a downwardly revised September print (from +0.3% to +0.1%). October’s decline is the worst since Dec 2022 and the YoY drop of 0.8% is the worst since the COVID lockdowns. AND Federal stimulypto is wearing off (M2 Money growth surge peaked in February 2021, but has slowed into negative growth starting in August 2022. Notably,...

On Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “OutFront,” CNN Senior Political Data Reporter Harry Enten said that inflation and population-adjusted disposable personal income has declined over the past quarter and since the first year of the Biden administration and “there is this disconnect. But I don’t think there’s this disconnect between Americans and what’s actually going on. I think there might be this disconnect between what President Biden thinks is going on and what is actually going on.” Host Erin Burnett began the segment by saying that President Biden admitted that “Americans are not feeling the positive effects of an economy that...

On Monday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” White House National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard reacted to negative poll numbers on the economy by stating that “the economy is performing exceptionally well” but “people have been through a very challenging few years between the pandemic, and then the oil price spikes associated with Russia’s war. It’s going to take a while for them to feel really confident,” and most people “feel like their personal finances are better now than they were before.” Co-host Andrew Ross Sorkin said, “Speak to this, though, because I think there [are] a lot of folks...

*The US economy is lurching toward a recession, according to Jeff Gundlach. *The DoubleLine Capital chief pointed to a "de-inverted" bond-yield curve and the rising unemployment rate as signs of a looming slump. *Layoffs are coming," he warned. The US economy is clearly headed toward a recession, veteran bond investor Jeff Gundlach has warned. The DoubleLine Capital CEO said Wednesday that the yield curve – a bond-market gauge that measures the gap between 2-year and 10-year Treasury yields – is signaling that a downturn is coming. "The shape of the yield curve is extremely unstable at this time," Gundlach told...

IBM is set to shake up its retirement benefits in 2024 much to the alarm of at least some staff. The IT giant on Wednesday informed its US workers that starting on January 1, 2024, the corporation will no longer match employee contributions to their 401(k) retirement plans. Instead, it will offer a new benefit called a Retirement Benefit Account (RBA).