The $10 trillion question. The ever expanding central bank balance sheets: What does $10 trillion buy you in the market today?
The Federal Reserve has waded deep into uncharted territory. The Fed has concocted new ways of monetizing debt and allowing banks to essentially expand their balance sheets with no real repercussions to the financial sector. Of course the shrinking middle class might have something to say about this or the 47.77 million Americans on food [...]
US households are tapped out on debt: While US households are forced to eat austerity measures financial institutions load up on debt and purchase assets at rock bottom prices.
US households are tapped out with debt. Debt matters. Contrary to what is being spouted out over the airwaves having too much debt does cause problems. American households tipped over this point when total household debt reached annual GDP. This is a critical juncture and results in massive deleveraging. There doesn’t seem to be answer [...]
The coming deleveraging for Canada – Unit labor costs in manufacturing above US labor costs and household debt-to-income at 160 percent.
Our neighbors to the north in Canada are going to face a serious deleveraging shortly. This isn’t hyperbole or some off the wall call but based on evidence of what happens when economies get into too much back breaking debt. If the largest trading blocs, the US and Europe had to have their day of [...]
Does inflation matter? The real cost of living for middle class Americans. Fed on path to growing balance sheet to $4 trillion.
Does inflation matter? If you ask this question to the Fed, it appears like it doesn’t. The Fed is doing everything it can to stoke the fires of inflation. Instead, what it is doing is causing further asset bubbles and misallocation of capital in markets. For most people the cost of living is becoming more [...]
The un-American savings rate: Americans savings rate heads to a record low. Americans saving about 2 percent per year and the near extinct pension.
For a brief period during the height of the recession, Americans resorted to saving more money as credit markets around the world tightened up. As data is now showing, this turned out to be a very brief anomaly in the market. Americans are back to not saving money. The debt markets are creeping back in [...]
Too big to fail or ignore: How the US went from over 13,000 banks in 1987 to 6,000 today. $7.4 trillion in deposits backed by $32 billion dollars.
Remember when too big to fail brought our economy to a grinding halt? Of course you do because this is a recent financial event with dramatic ramifications. In the time since the buffet of bailouts was rolled out you might be surprised that the too big to fail banks have only grown even larger and [...]
Inflation eats away the new peak in stock market: Dow is down 11 percent since 2000 adjusting for inflation. Looking at the stock market and the impact of inflation.
The Dow has now reached a new peak. The media is prancing up and down like a giddy school girl as if this had a significant impact on the bottom line for most Americans. Don’t let the details out that many companies have increased their bottom line by squeezing wages and cutting worker benefits. Yet [...]
Debt based delusion: Fed spending far outstripping revenues, balance of trade, and business inventories decline.
One clear symbol of our new Gilded Age is that of the peaking DOW while food stamp usage is at a peak as well. Even though the DOW is only a reflection of a handful of companies, the media focuses on this as if it were a barometer of the real economy. It isn’t. Household [...]
The Sequestered Gilded Age: Top 20 percent of households control over 90 percent of all stocks and financial wealth: Bottom 40 percent of all households have an average net worth of -$10,600.
Income inequality is now at levels last seen in the United States during the Gilded Age. This was a time of incredible opulence for the few while the many struggled to get by. There is even a story of a Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish throwing a dinner party to honor her dog that arrived wearing a [...]
Crossing the debt Rubicon. Does debt even matter? Over $5 trillion in Federal debt now held by international and foreign investors.
In most economic literature there seems to be a tipping point at which a nation enters a precarious state in which too much debt has been taken on. A typical point occurs when a country hits a point where annual GDP is surpassed by total outstanding debt. We recently crossed that threshold. Another long-term trend [...]
