Category: TRENDS ON THE U.S. ECONOMIC FRONT

In September 2021, The Wall Street Journal reported that Robert Kaplan, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, made several million-dollar stock trades in 2020 while he had inside information about the Fed’s plans to bolster the U.S. economy and financial system as the COVID War began. The same month, Kaplan resigned from the...

Last week was the week that NBC News and The New York Times Co. had told workers to return to their central offices, at least part-time. Employees of the two companies’ digital divisions have not complied. The union representing Times workers said on 11 September that it had collected 1,280 signed pledges from those employees...

Although the U.S. economy has restored the full number of jobs lost during the COVID-era shutdown, New York City is still 176,000 jobs smaller than it was in 2019, making it the slowest to recover among major U.S. cities, The New York Times reported. City and state lockdown mandates cost New York a million jobs...

As U.S. gasoline prices fall, electricity prices are on the rise, climbing 15.8 percent year on year in August, the biggest 12-month leap since 1980, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Some electric utilities have literally doubled their electricity prices to consumers this year after winning permission from their public utilities commissions to...

In the week ending 15 September, the average national interest rate on a fixed-rate, 30-year home mortgage was 6.02 percent, according to the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac). The rate rose from 5.89 percent the previous week and is more than double the 2.86 percent average a year ago. Rates began this year...

Six in 10 Americans are unable to pay off their credit card balances for at least a year, compared to five out of 10 a year ago, a CreditCards.com survey found. The proportion of cardholders in debt for at least two years has risen from 32 percent in 2021 to 40 percent now, the survey...

U.S. bank deposits shrank by $370 billion in this year’s second quarter, falling from $19.93 trillion to $19.56 trillion, a record quarterly fall-off and the first decline since 2018, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Bank accounts swelled by $5 trillion in 2020 and 2021 as the federal government sent a series of stimulus...

The U.S. median household income in 2021 was $70,800, down from 2020’s median of $71,200, U.S. Census Bureau data shows. The 2020 figure dropped from 2019’s due to economic lockdowns during the COVID War. The 2020 and 2021 figures were as high as they were jacked up because of federal stimulus payments to individuals. Incomes...

The U.S. Federal Reserve has doubled the pace at which it is emptying its nearly $9-trillion bond portfolio, now shedding its holdings at a rate of $95 billion a month. As a result, bond traders are having a harder time closing deals, with the gap between asked and bid prices further apart than at any...

The economic ups and downs of global shipper FedEx are seen as harbingers of the world’s economic future because the shipper carries almost every kind of product—and that future is not looking good. Last week, FedEx announced it would stop hiring, close about 90 offices, cut its number of flights, and mothball aircraft because worldwide...