Free Republic

The average monthly mortgage payment is a whopping 52% higher than the average monthly rent on a house or apartment — a ratio that hasn’t been this out of whack since before the 2008 housing crash, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The Treasury-bond rout that's rattled US markets this month is forcing investors to zero in on the government's spiraling debt. The accelerated increase in America's indebtedness has already sparked concern for investors in 2023, with lawmakers only narrowly avoiding a catastrophic default in June thanks to President Joe Biden and then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy brokering an 11th-hour deal to raise the federal borrowing limit. Now, some of Wall Street's best-known names are raising the possibility that so-called "bond vigilantes" – who dump fixed-income assets in a bid to stymie what they see as imprudent policymaking – have helped fuel the...

The Empire State is losing its grip as the nation’s financial services capital. New York’s financial services industry – a great contributor to the state’s gross domestic product – has been imperiled by the plummeting population of high-income residents, who are fleeing amid towering taxes and rising housing costs, according to a sobering new study. “As other states attract talent and investment in the sector, there is no guarantee of future success,” said the report from the Business Council of New York State. “Addressing the state’s tax burden, business climate, and cost of living can help to ensure New York’s...

We are Livin’ la vida Biden as Biden continues to push illegal immigration and working with Communist dictators like Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro and NOT expand US energy production. The Biden administration released a statement Thursday warning financial institutions against using a person’s immigration status in credit applications. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) released a joint statement telling financial institutions that while it is not illegal to consider a person’s immigration status in the decision on whether to lend money, an overreliance on it could run afoul of the law, according to the statement....

The Biden administration released a statement Thursday warning financial institutions against using a person’s immigration status in credit applications. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) released a joint statement telling financial institutions that while it is not illegal to consider a person’s immigration status in the decision on whether to lend money, an overreliance on it could run afoul of the law, according to the statement. The statement implicates the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), which makes it illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex and more in...

Greg Beckett, a 46-year-old executive at Wells Fargo, jumped to his death in an apparent suicide from the office boardroom on the 14th floor at the company’s headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, authorities have revealed. Though Beckett, from Bridgeport, New Jersey, took his own life back in January, new details have been revealed what led up to his death, according to a new report. His family reportedly said Beckett was under immense stress and pressure from his job and had been responsible for safeguarding Wells Fargo's risk exposure, the Daily Mail reported.

NY AG Seeks Ban On All Trump Family NY Business Starting Monday Trump defendants’ insurance, & financial statement fraud & conspiracy trial starts Monday he NY Attorney General Letitia James is not content to just have the trial judge Judge Engoron rule that Trump (Don Jr., Eric and all of his key executives and companies) have committed Persistent Fraud under NY Executive Law 63-12 in all of his business dealings by inflating his balance sheet to obtain loans, and deflating asset value to get tax breaks. And it’s not enough for the NY AG that the Judge already ordered, consistent...

JPMorgan Chase admitted to pressuring the financial software company Intuit into preventing gun sellers from using the company’s payment processing services, according to a letter Sen. Ted Cruz sent Monday after looking into the policy. Bank of America, meanwhile, denied pressuring Intuit into banning gun manufacturers from using its famous QuickBooks software. “Woke big banks are increasingly weaponizing their power to cut off law-abiding businesses from accessing banking services,” Cruz, R-Texas, told The Daily Signal in an email statement Monday. [snip] Intuit, the financial software company best known for producing QuickBooks, had adopted an acceptable use policy previously listing “guns...

What does it take to be wealthy in America? It depends, of course, on where one lives.According to the 2023 Modern Wealth Survey by Charles Schwab (see below), you need a net worth of at least $1.7 million to be "financially comfortable" in San Francisco, and $4.7 million to be considered "wealthy."And in Houston? $606k is "financially comfortable," while $2.1 million is "wealthy."As Visual Capitalist's Dorothy Neufeld notes:Wealthy in America: A Closer LookOverall, the net worth that Americans say that is needed to be “wealthy” in the United States is $2.2 million in 2023.Here are the average wealth numbers indicated...

Bank of China (BOC), one of China's four biggest state-owned commercial banks, opened its first branch in Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia, which will further expand the use of the yuan in finance and trade. Experts noted that since the BRICS Summit, members of the bloc have been accelerating the use of local currency settlements in cross-border trade to reduce reliance on the US dollar. The Chinese currency is playing an increasingly important role in facilitating trade and improving efficiency among the BRICS countries, they said. According to an announcement published by the BOC on Wednesday, the bank opened the...

Did Bank of America discriminate against a Tennessee ministry over its Christian views or was it simply a business matter? Steve Happ, board member and founder of Indigenous Advance, a Memphis-based charity that, along with Indigenous Advance Customer Center LLC, has partnered with and served indigenous people in Uganda since 2015 to provide basic needs and share the Gospel. Despite holding deposit and credit card accounts with Bank of America since its inception, Indigenous Advance received a series of letters in April in which the bank announced it was closing the group’s accounts within 30 days. According to the nonprofit...

The U.S. and other countries could see their credit ratings tumble in the wake of climate change’s impacts, making their debts harder to pay off. That’s according to research by Patrycja Klusak, a researcher at Cambridge, and a team of scientists who used AI to calculate the likely impact of climate change on the finances of 109 countries around the world. By 2100, under a “business as usual” scenario where greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at the rate they have in recent years, the U.S. credit rating could fall 4.6 notches. Klusak’s model has already been adopted by several...

Hollywood film financier TSG is now suing the Disney company for allegedly cheating them out of millions of dollars. A suit was filed by the Avatar sequel financier at a Los Angeles Superior court on Tuesday. The lawsuit alleged that Disney withheld profits and cut deals to help boost its streaming platforms and stock price. As a result, TSG was withheld from investing money into individual films and could not sell its stakes in other movies, according to the lawsuit. The group has been involved in helping finance around 140 films produced by 20th Century Fox, which Disney acquired in...

President Yoweri Museveni has criticised the World Bank’s decision to suspend new funding to Uganda in response to a harsh anti-LGBTQ law and has promised to find alternative sources of credit.

@iluminatibot The national debt can never be repaid. It is not meant to be repaid. It is meant to bring Americans to ruin without bloodshed.

The Washington Post has big problems, and this time, it’s not just the loss of the outlet’s credibility, though that’s an evergreen issue.The once-storied newspaper is staring at a massive $100 million loss in 2023 due to the continued hemorrhaging of subscribers following the 2020 election. Apparently, Joe Biden isn’t good for business. For four years, the Post feasted on a never-ending stream of stories surrounding Donald Trump as president. In more recent times, that hasn’t been nearly as lucrative, though.10 years after The Washington Post was purchased by Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos, the outlet is “on a...

From the past, a look at Joe Biden's connections. Note — Barack Obama’s choice of Joseph Biden as his running mate is likely to bring up lots of old stories about the long-time senator from Delaware. In 1998, someone called me to talk about the sale of Biden’s house, which had been a minor issue in his reelection campaign two years earlier. But when I traveled to Delaware, I found there was more to it than met the eye, and it was just part of Biden’s close, intertwined relationship with MBNA, the giant credit-card company based in his home state....

After finding legal loopholes around the Supreme Court’s student loan decision, one personal finance expert unveiled what the Biden administration isn’t broadcasting about its new repayment plan. "They're really pulling the wool over people's eyes because they go, 'oh, there's forgiveness here, I don't have to pay my loan,'" Jade Warshaw, "The Ramsey Show" co-host, said Wednesday on FOX Business' "Mornings with Maria." "But what they're not saying is how many years it takes to actually get this forgiveness." President Biden announced the new student loan handout legislation - dubbed the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan - which...

The stock market is overvalued, and it's not just the tech sector that appears stretched, according to JPMorgan's chief global market strategist Marko Kolanovic.The S&P 500's forward price-to-earnings ratio is currently 19.4x, and when you back out tech and AI stocks, the remaining 65% of the index trades at 17.4x, according to Kolanovic. That's not cheap, as the historical forward P/E of the index is 15.3x, meaning that current valuations represent a 10% premium. "FOMO is in full swing, there is complacency being built into stocks with VIX at the lows of its range," Kolanovic said in a Monday note....

If you’re a retiree and you’re trying to square the circle of rising costs, longer lifespans, more expensive medical care and turbulent markets, don’t be afraid to run the numbers on your biggest investment. That would be your home — if you own it. U.S. house prices are now so high that it is almost impossible for seniors not to ask themselves the obvious question: “Should we cash in, invest the money, and rent?” Right now the average U.S. house price is nearly $360,000. That’s about a third higher than just a few years ago, before the COVID-19 pandemic. The...