Tag Archive: U.S. Household Debt

A perfect storm in the making 

2024-02-15

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2024-02-15

The New Year is usually associated with a new beginning, a fresh start, or a “clean slate”. Unfortunately, for millions of Americans, these are wishes that are bound to remain unfulfilled – for them, the New Year has nothing “new” to offer at all: it will only perpetuate all the same burdens, obligations and worries of the past year and of the ones that came before.

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United States: Lack Of Industrial Momentum Is (For Now) Big Auto Problems

2017-08-22

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2017-08-22

US Industrial Production, Jan 2006 - Jul 2017
Industrial Production disappointed in the US last month, dragged down by auto production. Despite the return of an oil sector tailwind, IP was up just 2.2% year-over-year in July 2017 according to Federal Reserve statistics. It marks the fourth consecutive month stuck around 2% growth. The lack of further acceleration is unusual in the historical context, especially following an extended period of contraction.

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Le prix de l’or est manipulé. Egon von Greyerz

2017-07-26

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2017-07-26

Manipulation
La léthargie estivale des marchés a tendance à insuffler un sentiment de fausse sécurité. Les actions et l’immobilier approchent de leurs plus hauts historiques, les taux d’intérêt sont à un plus bas de 72 ans, et la plupart des investisseurs se sentent plus riches que jamais. Les banques centrales envoient les signaux d’économies fortes en annonçant des hausses de taux et une réduction de leurs bilans.

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The Three Headed Debt Monster That’s Going to Ravage the Economy

2017-06-11

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2017-06-11

Mass Infusions of New Credit. “The bank is something more than men, I tell you.  It’s the monster.  Men made it, but they can’t control it.” – John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath. Something strange and somewhat senseless happened this week. On Tuesday, the price of gold jumped over $13 per ounce. This, in itself, is nothing too remarkable. However, at precisely the same time gold was jumping, the yield on the 10-Year Treasury note was slip sliding...

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Our State-Corporate Plantation Economy

2017-04-26

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2017-04-26

US Productivity, 1980 - 2016
I have often discussed the manner in which the U.S. economy is a Plantation Economy, meaning it has a built-in financial hierarchy with corporations at the top dominating a vast populace of debt-serfs/ wage slaves with little functional freedom to escape the system's neofeudal bonds.

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Central Banks Have a $13 Trillion Problem

2017-04-24

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2017-04-24

Dow Jones Industrial Average Index, September 2016 - May 2017
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA – The Dow was down 118 points on Wednesday. It should have been down a lot more. Of course, markets know more than we do. And maybe this market knows something that makes sense of these high prices. What we see are reasons to sell, not reasons to buy.

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Do the Roots of Rising Inequality Go All the Way Back to the 1980s?

2017-04-02

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2017-04-02

US Household Wealth, 1917 - 2017
Unless we change the fundamental structure of the economy so that actually producing goods and services and hiring people is more profitable than playing financial games with phantom assets, the end-game of financialization is financial collapse. I presented this chart of rising wealth inequality a number of times over the past year. Do you notice something peculiar about the inflection points in the 1980s?

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Increasing Price Inflation is Not a Sign of Healthy Recovery, but the Last Stage Before Recession

2016-02-29

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2016-02-29

In a recent article by Kessler Companies (hat tip Zerohedge) they correctly point out that inflation, as measured by the consumer price index, have a tendency to accelerate as the US economy moves into a recession. Contrary to popular belief, the beg...

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