But with Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell moving aggressively . . .
Here.
Friday, July 29, 2022
America and its people have added over $12 trillion to their total credit market debt outstanding just since 2019, but that has done little but stall the decline of debt growth
The $90 trillion millstone: We did it to ourselves.
We are now in the future we tapped in the past for the prosperity of "debt draws forward prosperity", and there's little here to be found.
From 1946 to 2008 when we hit the debt growth iceberg, real GDP grew at a compound annual rate of 3.324%. Since then it has fallen 49%, to 1.68%.
We should have stayed with capitalism in the post-war, where one risks actual savings instead of future notional tax, income, and fiat money "revenues". But capitalism went out the window a long time ago, bringing with it the end of the gold standard, the creation of the Fed, and the introduction of the income tax, among other horribles.
Payback is a bitch, and what can't be paid back won't. The rest comes out of your hide.
LOL, Joe Manchin extracts gas and oil drilling concessions in Gulf of Mexico and Alaska in $369 billion compromise called "America’s biggest legislative moment for climate and energy policy"
However, some groups more strongly condemned the support for fossil fuel projects in the agreement, specifically provisions that would mandate new oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. Manchin, who comes from the coal-rich West Virginia, has argued that drilling in these areas is neccesary for the country’s energy independence.
More.
Let's hope Blue Dog Joe is made of stronger stuff than Bart Stupak and stands firm on the fossil fuel provisions. Stupak famously flamed out in 2010 when he helped pass Obamacare under reconciliation even though it omitted Hyde Amendment provisions prohibiting federal funding of abortion which he had insisted he supported and had to be in the bill.
Thursday, July 28, 2022
The compound annual growth rate for US real GDP over the last 23 years continues almost 44% off the 1929-1999 rate of 3.53%
Recent US GDP: Nominal / Real
4Q2021: $24.0028 trillion / $19.8063 trillion
1Q2022: $24.3867 trillion / $19.7279 trillion
2Q2022: $24.8518 trillion / $19.6817 trillion (first estimate)
BEA, here, Table 3, Line 1.
Everybody's focusing on the short term decline in real GDP this year, as usual, ignoring the much worse big picture.
From 2Q1999 through 2Q2022 the compound annual growth rate comes in at a measly 1.98%, 43.9% off the previous 70-year performance.
That's the real story about real GDP. We are living in much diminished circumstances since 1999.
And nobody knows how to fix it.
LOL, Larry Summers reportedly behind relatively puny tax and spending deal between Joe Manchin and Chucky Schumer
The Washington Post, citing people familiar with the details, reported that the two men spoke this week. A spokeswoman for Summers declined to comment, as did a spokeswoman for Manchin. This time, the haggling and lobbying bore fruit: a surprise agreement for a $369 billion tax, energy and climate plan that Manchin and Schumer announced on Wednesday.
You remember Larry Summers, right?
Wednesday, July 27, 2022
Fixed it for ya: Stonks continue to laugh at puny Fed rate hikes as interest rate arbitrage is defacto Fed policy
The stock market is liking Fed rate hikes this year, unlike in the past
Arbitrage.
This year's drinking word.
DFF: 1.58%.
CPIAUCNS: 9.1%.
Hey, watch me borrow cheap, buy a trailer park, and raise the rents and fees on little old ladies on Social Security.
We're goin' to Vegas, baby!
Tuesday, July 26, 2022
Monday, July 25, 2022
Institutional investors have bought up 20% of mobile home parks and jacked up the rents on the low income residents, devouring widows' houses
The plight of residents at Ridgeview is playing out nationwide as institutional investors, led by private equity firms and real estate investment trusts and sometimes funded by pension funds, swoop in to buy mobile home parks. Critics contend mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are fueling the problem by backing a growing number of investor loans. ...
Driven by some of the strongest returns in real estate, investors have shaken up a once-sleepy sector that’s home to more than 22 million mostly low-income Americans in 43,000 communities. Many aggressively promote the parks as ensuring a steady return — by repeatedly raising rent. ...
George McCarthy, president and CEO of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, said about a fifth of mobile home parks, or around 800,000, have been purchased in the past eight years by institutional investors.
He was among those singling out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for guaranteeing the loans as part of a what the lending giants bill as expanding affordable housing. Since 2014, the Lincoln Institute estimates Freddie Mac alone provided $9.6 billion in financing for the purchase of more than 950 communities across 44 states. ...
Soon after investors started buying up parks in 2015, the complaints of double-digit rent increases followed.
More.
Sunday, July 24, 2022
A Devil's Dictionary definition of "happy ending"
HAPPY ENDING noun phrase: a) archaic, now little used, description for the conclusion of a story where all's well that ends well, which of course is never the case; b) the fortune in the cookie which always comes with your Chinese takeout and is always made better by supplying the words "in bed" at the end; c) male sexual orgasm coming at the end of a session at a massage parlor, especially if there's no extra charge; d) description emphasizing the Schadenfreude you felt when you saw Max in Mad Max 2 permanently reunite Wez with his lover Lord Humungus in the final crash scene.
Saturday, July 23, 2022
Wackadoodle progressive Democrat Walter Bujak of Kent County, Michigan, crosses over to become part of the Republican Blue Wave!
I kid you not!
If this guy wins in the Michigan Kent County Republican 21st Commissioner District race on Aug 2, I might just check in to a mental institution myself and ask Alan Bolter for help!
I believe the greatest challenge we face is unifying the citizens of both the Republican and Democratic parties. ... It is time for Democrats to wake up and cross over to the Republican Party!
-- Walter Bujak
Seen here:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)