Posted originally on May 17, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
Retail sales in the US fell short of expectations this month, according to data compiled by the Commerce Department. Retail spending decreased 0.6% from April to March, undermining forecasts of a 0.4% decrease. Yet, Americans are spending MORE on the essentials such as groceries. How is this a shocking admittance to anyone?
Even online sales fell by 1.2% from March to April. Americans spent 1.6% less at clothing retailers, and 0.9% less at hobby stores on a monthly basis. Again, of no surprise, gasoline sales rose 3.1%.
The Fed is attempting to smooth over the data, using rhetorical language such as the economy is presenting a “softer tone.”Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams, who believes monetary policy is “in a good place” albeit “restrictive.” Williams, like Chair Powell, said that there are no indicators stating a need to lower interest rates. “I don’t expect to get that greater confidence that we need to see on the inflation progress towards a 2% goal in the very near term.”
The Fed held rates loosely for so long that there was not much it could do, in addition to the utter disaster that is America’s fiscal policy. I explained in another post why the Fed simply cannot attain the 2% target.
People do not have the disposable income to spend on retail at this point, and those who do prefer to invest or save those funds as confidence has vanished, leading to a pullback in spending on nonessentials. Bad news for America’s consumer-based economy.
April’s CPI is up 3.4% YoY, slightly down from March’s 3.5% posting. I do not believe they are accurately calculating prices. No one believes them at this point. So, we should expect the Fed to maintain the 5.25% to 5.50% rates at the next FOMC meeting. Inflation is here to stay.
Posted Originally on May 16, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
Powell reiterated this week that he does not see any short-term need to lower interest rates. The Fed remains delicate in its speech to the public. They knew that inflation would continue rising due to various factors but had to say they were awaiting incoming data. The data is in for Q1 and nothing indicates that inflation is easing, therefore, expect rates to hold.
The Labor Department noted that the PPI rose to 0.5% in April from May, up 2.2% since the year prior. PCE, the Fed’s primary inflation indicator, rose 2.7% in Match from 2.5% in February. The US economy overall advanced 2.7% from October to December. We are looking at inflation beginning to rise faster than economic growth, which will lead to stagflation.
I have pointed out numerous times that the various measures provided to the public drastically downplay the dollar’s loss in purchasing power. Americans can feel it daily every time they make a purchase or check their bank accounts.
I explained that we already began experiencing stagflation in 2021. Normally, the standard definition of “stagflation” has been explained as slow economic growth with relatively high unemployment/or economic stagnation that takes place with rising prices. Some have also defined it as a period of inflation combined with a decline in the gross domestic product (GDP).
Stagflation became a term that defined the 1970s because economic growth was still positive, but the rate of inflation was far greater due to the price shock of the OPEC embargo. The Democrats are constantly pushing to raise taxes, and sent corporations fleeing offshore, and it was NOT merely because of the tax rate. Back then, I testified before the House Ways & Means Committee on taxation, and they wanted to know why NO American company got a contract from China to construct the Yellow River Dam. I explained that German companies were NOT taxed on worldwide income, and as such, they were already 40% less than an American company because Americans pay taxes on worldwide income, and the ONLY other country to that was Japan. Thus, American companies moved offshore, NOT because labor was cheaper, but so they could complete.
Now, we have additional regulations that are making it increasingly difficult for American businesses to prosper. The capital gains tax will be a nail in the coffin. The recent tariff slap on Chinawill also cause the price of goods to rise and harm the supply chain.
Remember, inflation was only 1.4% when Joe Biden took office – far beneath the Fed’s target. Inflation has risen as a direct result of fiscal policies under Bidenomics. The government has completely ignored the Fed’s warning that it must curtail spending. We are sacrificing our economy for the interests of the globalists.
Posted Originally on May 16, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
The New York Federal Reserve reported that American households set a new record after plummeting into $17.69 trillion of debt, a 1.1% ($184 billion) increase from Q4 2023. Worse, the number of delinquencies is rising as households struggle to make ends meet amid the cost of living crisis. Inflation is not waning, taxes are rising, and America’s debt burden has become utterly unmanageable.
Mortgage balances rose by $190 billion and reached $12.44 trillion by March. People are paying far more in interest alone than they have in recent years. Those who bought in the hopes of refinancing are not in a good position. Auto loan debt rose by $9 billion, reaching $1.62 trillion.
Americans have been attempting to pay off their credit card balances, with overall credit card debt declining by $14 billion to $1.12 trillion. Yet, that was close to a record-high for credit card debt and we tend to see balances lowered after the holiday retail spending spree ends. Consumers do not want to pay those 20%+ interest rates on cards but many are forced to do so simply to put food on the table.
Delinquencies are rising – this is a major issue. It is difficult to crawl out of debt once someone is deep within the cycle. “In the first quarter of 2024, credit card and auto loan transition rates into serious delinquency continued to rise across all age groups,” said Joelle Scally, regional economic principal within the Household and Public Policy Research Division at the New York Fed. “An increasing number of borrowers missed credit card payments, revealing worsening financial distress among some households.”
Credit card delinquencies have reached their highest levels since 2012 when America was recovering from the Great Recession. In fact, by the end of Q1 2024, around 3.2% of all outstanding debt was in delinquency. The New York Fed reported a rise in missed payments across all debts, including those 90 days past due.
No foreign nation is coming to offer America a bailout check. The Biden Administration has made it clear that American households are NOT Washington’s priority. We are to continue working and paying taxes in order to fund foreign wars and climate change packages. How else will we house those 7+ million illegal migrants and offer them free healthcare and shelter? How else will we pay off the student loans for millions? How else will we continue to grow the public sector and pay for countless new social programs? Americans are in serious debt, and Washington is all but ensuring this trend continues.
Posted originally on May 14, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
Germany is considering forcing the youngest adults in their population to die in the name of a proxy war that in no way affected Germany, the German people or their way of life. Former President Donald Trump warned Germany that it had become too reliant on Russian energy and they mocked him. Sadly, German leadership had known all along that the ultimate goal was to use Ukraine as their gateway to attack Russia. As I’ve stated countless times, Merkel openly admitted that the Minsk Agreement was merely a ploy to weaken Russia’s defenses and buy time for Ukraine to build its military. Russia has not backed down and now the proxy war is becoming a global conflict.
Everyone criticized Trump for condemning his NATO allies in 2018. At the time, only five nations were meeting their 2% GDP spending requirement on NATO defense, with the US paying around 5%. Trump suggested that everyone contribute 4% to build a stronger alliance. He never wanted to back away from NATO to support Putin; rather, he wanted to back away from NATO because he felt the US had been taken advantage of by its European allies. Trump even threatened to remove the US from the NATO alliance because he simply did not see the benefits to domestic interests.
Trump called Ukraine the wall between Russia and Europe and stated that America had become the “sucker country” by shelling out millions to Ukraine when they received far less in return. He warned Europe that their reliance on Russian imported energy would spell disaster and went as far as declaring that Germany was “totally controlled by Russia.” Instead of looking for energy alternatives, Germany went through with the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline and wasted billions as sanctions were implemented before the pipeline was fully functional.
This is yet another reason why they are fearful of a Trump re-election, for he has vowed to remove America from these senseless wars as part of his first plan of action. The globalists and neocons simply cannot allow that to happen.
Perhaps Germany believed they could rely on an alternative supplier for energy. Perhaps they believed Ukraine would have made at least a dent in Russia’s military power. Instead, they are prepared to send their own kids to die for this senseless war. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said he is “convinced” that Germany “needs a form of military conscription.”
Since the West has effectively eliminated genders or the need for a family structure, they plan to draft both men and women. Anyone fit to fight will be sent off to die. Pistorius believes Germany needs 200,000 troops to begin training immediately.
The centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) are no longer opposing conscription and now support the “reintroduction of conscription in a step-by-step process,” much to the support of Pistorius. All those virtue signaling with Ukraine flags and cheering each aid package must now acknowledge that their own youth will be sent off to war, and many will never return home. They cheer the “good” guys winning these battles abroad in Taiwan, Ukraine, and Israel, but fail to understand that there is no “good” guy in the game of war. The people are merely chess pieces to be used as pawns by their governments.
The worst part about all of this is that Germany KNEW they were going to fight Russia. Ten years ago, Germany knew they were going to fight Russia. I discuss this in detail in my book, “The Plot to Seize Russia.” The fact of the matter is that the West could not simply enter Russia without giving the public a reason for warfare and creating countless fake flags, demonizing its opponent through propaganda, and attempting to weaken its military through a proxy war. We are now embarking on the beginning of the third world war thanks to the manipulation of the elites in power who have absolutely no regard for human life.
Washington’s reckless spending comes with a cost to US taxpayers. While the fed may simply roll over their debt and issue new debt to pay off the old, the American public is on the hook for immediate liquidity every single year via taxation. The misconception that Biden would only target the wealthy needs to be dispelled as a recent study reveals that 63% of new audits targeted Americans earning under $200,000.
Now, Biden initially claimed he would send his troop of IRS agents to target Americans earning double that amount. The billionaire class was not targeted, as 80% of all audits were on filers earning under $1 million. Yes, there are far more taxpayers in the middle and lower brackets. However, the IRS merely claimed they would prioritize hunting higher earners; they never explicitly said they wouldn’t come after ALL Americans.
The entire hunt for taxation has been a war on the middle class, who is unable to file massive write-offs and cannot afford to continue paying Uncle Sam on every incoming and outgoing transaction, plus savings, income, and everything else from birth to death. Washington effectively lowered our purchasing power by fueling inflation through absurd fiscal and social policies, and now they are asking people to give them even more of whatever money that remains. Washington continues to spend taxpayer funds on initiatives that the people have never once voted on, and ahead of election season, Biden is going on yet another spending spree with your money to buy off voters.
The highest earners know how to avoid taxes. Trump famously told Hillary during a debate prior to the 2016 US Presidential Election that he obviously used the loopholes in the tax system, as do all financially savvy businessmen. “Her donors took massive tax write offs… and other things that Hillary as a Senator allowed,” Trump stated during the debate. “So do Warren Buffett, so does George Soros, and so do other people Hillary is supported by,” he added. Note that the Democrats in control have never repealed restrictions on these tax loopholes that only help their wealthy donors.
Every new war, aid package, climate change package, social program, and migrant who crosses the border is now the responsibility of the US taxpayer. They wrongly believe that our money belongs to the federal government, with the state also taking out their share. Then, they create new taxes, such as targeting capital gains, to ensure that every American is stretched thin. Did anyone vote for this nonsense? We do not live in a Democracy and anyone who says otherwise is either misinformed or lying.
It will become far easier for governments to extort the people when they introduce CBDC in January 2025. Uncle Sam will think you have hidden any cash on hand from him, cash that belongs to him, once they force us to digitize our dollars. Inflation will continue to rise above GDP and we will enter a period of stagflation. This is why I have warned countless times that private and tangible assets are a safer bet compared to cash as we move into 2028.
This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
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