We have gone from just in time manufacturing to just in case hoarding. Or have we? If so, at what cost? And what about China?
Under a new utility proposal, monthly bills in California will include a fixed charge based on household income. The proposal is Marxist agenda.
The economy would muddle through, but in the markets, all heck would break loose. Here’s why.
Note the rapid decline in office vacancies just prior to the financial crisis (often mislabeled as the subprime mortgage crisis). Then look at office vacancies after The Fed’s massive monetary experiment of setting rates to near zero and buying a ton of Treasuries, Agency MBS. etc. While San Francisco returned to pre-financial crisis levels of office vacancy, in general the office market never fully recovered.
I wish The Federal Reserve had created only tiny bubbles. But after Bernanke/Yellen’s zero interest rate policies (ZIRP) and Quantitative Sleazing (QE) for too long, we have a monstrous asset bubble in commercial real estate … that is starting to unravel as The Fed raises rates and shrinks their balance sheet.
Hand to mouth should be Biden’s Presidential re-election theme song. 70% Of Americans Are Financially Stressed, 58% Live Paycheck-To-Paycheck because America is living off their credit cards …
US yields have ongoing upside pressure from the debt-ceiling debate. Even if a one-year extension is achieved this year, as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is reported to be proposing, that just creates a far greater problem in a presidential-election year.
They pile up in drawers. They’re taken or left on a whim at store counters. Vending machines and parking meters won’t accept them. And last year, they cost the US Treasury $100mn more to produce than they’re worth. Despite all this, the penny — America’s copper-plated one-cent coin — persists.
Economic sanctions imposed on Russia and other countries by the United States put the dollar's dominance at risk as targeted nations seek an alternative, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said today. "There is a risk when we use financial sanctions that are linked to the role of the dollar that over time it could undermine the hegemony of the dollar," Yellen said on CNN.
Some tune out bank and credit-card balances, lose track of their spending and rack up debt. Average credit-card debt rose 29% to $5,800 in March from a year earlier for millennials and increased 40% to $2,800 for Gen Z, Credit Karma said. Younger people were also more likely to have paid late fees or taken advances from their credit cards, a survey from NerdWallet found.
The US could face retirement riots like those plaguing France as Social Security's trust funds could be depleted as soon as 2033, some experts predict.
The question of when the US could default will come into sharp relief this week when the Treasury reveals how big its tax take is likely to be.
To sum it up for No. 700, our precious metals have had a significant run of late. From Gold’s year-to-date low of 1811 on 28 February, today at 2018 ’tis +11%. Similarly, for Silver, her year-to-date low was just back on 10 March at 19.95 and today at 25.47 she’s +28% higher: that’s in just 25 trading days! Brava Sister Silver! To be sure some lower prices may ensue, but hardly do we believe these rallies are through.
Gold rose but prices were off one-year highs hit last week, as mixed economic data prompted investors to reassess the Fed's interest rate hike trajectory.
The U.S. money supply contracted for the third consecutive month, and is declining at the fastest pace since the Great Depression, new Federal Reserve data show.
The Bank of England is considering an overhaul of its deposit guarantee scheme, including boosting the amount covered for businesses and forcing banks to pre-fund the system to a greater extent to ensure faster access to cash when a lender collapses.
However, the dollar’s hegemony now faces increasing challenges, and its importance is waning. The rise of China and the European Union has led to the growing use of alternative currencies, which has weakened the dollar’s global dominance.
Much ink has been spilled over the IMF’s recent forecast that the UK economy will be the worst performer among the G7 this year. Yet its forecasting record on such matters is not good.
The European Central Bank should stop relying on banks' self-assessments when setting capital requirements and do its own homework instead, independent experts said on Monday. It was the most notable recommendation in a report commissioned by the ECB to evaluate its work on the key task as the euro zone's top financial supervisor, namely to decide how much capital banks...
Japan's new central bank Governor Kazuo Ueda gave a clear message to policymakers gathered for global finance meetings here over the last week: The country will remain a dovish outlier by keeping interest rates ultra-low - at least for now. Since taking the helm a week ago, Ueda has dropped some hints the massive stimulus of his dovish predecessor Haruhiko Kuroda will...