Category: TRENDS ON THE U.S. ECONOMIC FRONT

The phony economic boom that drove up economies and equity markets when politicians launched the COVID War nearly three years ago is over.  The world has entered into the first phase of the collapse as Dragflation—negative economic growth and rising inflation—spreads across the globe. But, of course, the Presstitutes—media whores who get paid to put...

Pleasure travel bookings rival or exceed 2019’s levels and Labor Day weekend bookings topped pre-COVID numbers, major U.S. airlines are reporting. The flood of enthusiastic travelers has overwhelmed short-staffed airports and carriers. In contrast, business travel—traditionally airlines’ largest single source of profits—will not equal 2019’s volumes until 2026, 18 months later than estimated last year,...

About 67 percent of Millennials and Generation Z young adults who moved in with parents when the COVID War began are still there, a survey by financial broker LendingTree found. People ages 25 to 34 make up the largest cohort of adult children living “at home.” A small number have invited their parents to live...

The national average interest rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage moved up to 5.89 percent last week, almost double the rate a year ago and the highest in 14 years, dealing another blow to an already weakening housing market. Home prices in most major U.S. housing markets have fallen, with 10 percent of the areas...

In July, home prices slipped from their peaks in almost 85 percent of major U.S. real estate markets, with a third showing declines of 1 percent or more and one in ten posting a slide of at least 4 percent, according to Black Knight Data & Analytics, a real estate services firm. July’s slump followed...

Last week, president Joe Biden announced $1 billion in federal funding for 21 regional partnerships across the U.S., focused on advanced manufacturing, biotech, clean energy, and other sectors. The money was part of the $1.9-trillion American Rescue Plan (ARP) that passed Congress all the way back in March 2021. In 2020, the U.S. Federal Reserve...

Heavily indebted companies defaulted on $6 billion worth of junk bonds in August, the most since October 2020 when the COVID War was grinding the U.S. economy, Fitch Ratings reported. More defaults are ahead for the outstanding $1.5 trillion in junk bonds, defined as securities assigned a rating of BB or lower by Standard &...

Investors have been steadily pruning their bond portfolios this year, clearing out corporate as well as government bonds, and driving bonds into their first bear market in decades. The Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index, which tracks both kinds of bonds, declined more than 20 percent from its most recent high last week, the definition of...

ECONOMIC UPDATE As we would say in The Bronx, “Bullshit has its own sound.”  And the ongoing bullshit spewing out from The Street, which pushed equities higher over the past four sessions, was that inflation in the United Soviet States of America (U.S.S.A.) was on a downtrend and happy economic days are here again: Stocks...