BeelzBiden? Automobile ‘Bidenvilles’ Are The New Shantytowns Amid US Housing Affordability Crisis (House Prices UP 32.5% And Purchasing Power Of The Dollar DOWN -16.1%)

Joe Biden (aka, BeelzeBiden) is really a piece of … work. His policies are helping drive prices through the roof, he seeks to protect deepstate employees against removal by Trump, had a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and is getting the US engaged in possible hot wars in Ukraine (against Russia), open borders allowing US crime to spike, seems to be suppoporting Hamas over our long-time ally Israel, the list goes on. Biden’s big push for electric cars is a Socialist fantasty and simply unrealistick, drives up energy costs and is EXPENSIVE. It is like Biden is the demon Beelzebub from the TV show “Supernatural.” I once referred to Washington DC as “Mordor on The Potomac.”

Throw in the Federal Reserve operating outside their mandate (excessive interference in the financial crisis of 2008, the excessive interfernce after the Covid outbreak in 2020) and the two together are destroying the US.

Look at housing prices (up 32.5% under Biden) against the purcchasing power of the US dollar (down -16.1% under Biden).

And with mortgage rates up 156% under Biden and housing prices up 32.5% (not to mention the last two jobs reports showed US firms are only hiring part-time workers (and illegal immigrants), the US is experiencing a serious housing affordability crisis.

When people couldn’t afford housing during the Great Depression, they built shantytowns from scrap construction supplies and named them “Hoovervilles,” after President Herbert Hoover. Today, Americans increasingly live out of their cars because they can’t afford housing. If history is any guide, will parking lots full of Americans soon be known as “Bidenvilles”?

The problem has gotten so bad that Sedona, Arizona, recently set aside a parking lot exclusively for these homeless workers. The city is even installing toilets and showers for the new occupants.

Apparently, the City Council thought installing temporary utilities was cheaper than solving the area’s cost-of-living crisis.

And what a crisis it is.

The average home in the city sells for $930,000, while most of the housing available for rent is not apartments, but luxury homes targeted at wealthy people on vacation.

With such a shortage of middle-class housing and with starter homes essentially nonexistent, low- and even middle-income blue-collar workers have nowhere to go at night but their back seat.

Much like America’s Great Depression in the 1930s, this marks a serious regression in our national standard of living. But shantytowns were not prevalent in the 1920s (a decade that began with a depression) or the 1910s. Nor were they ubiquitous following the Panic of 1907, which set off one of the worst recessions in American history.

Indeed, Americans in the Great Depression faced such a cost-of-living crisis that many were forced to accept a standard of living below what their parents and even their grandparents had.

Fast-forward about 90 years, and countless families are in the same boat. Many young people today don’t think they’ll ever be able to achieve the American dream of homeownership that their parents and grandparents achieved. The worst inflation in 40 years, rising interest rates, and a collapse of real (inflation-adjusted) earnings mean a huge step backward financially.

That inflation has pushed up rents so much that young Americans are moving back in with their parents at rates not seen since the Great Depression because they can’t make it on their own. Sometimes, they can’t even make it with multiple roommates.

But many people cannot move back in with family, so the car it is.

The housing problem is not limited to wealthy towns in Arizona, however. It is systemic. The monthly mortgage payment on a median-price home has doubled since January 2021, and rents are at record highs. Like the Great Depression, this disaster stems from impolitic public policy.

For the past several years, the government has spent, borrowed, and created trillions of dollars it didn’t have. The predictable result of this profligacy was runaway inflation, followed by equally foreseeable interest rate increases.

The deadly combination of high prices and high interest rates has frozen the housing market and reduced homeownership affordability metrics to near-record lows. In several major metropolitan areas, it takes more than 100 percent of the median household after-tax income to afford a median-price home.

Since rents and virtually all other prices have risen so much faster than incomes over the past three years, even renting is unaffordable today, so many people have to go into debt to keep a roof over their heads. And for some, that’s a car roof.

This is the kind of story you might expect from a Third World country or somewhere behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, not the largest economy in the world—at least not outside of a depression like the one in the 1930s.

Hoover certainly deserved some blame for the Great Depression, but so did the progressives in Congress, who came from both parties and repeatedly voted to meddle in the economy instead of allowing it to recover from the initial downturn.

Similarly, President Joe Biden deserves blame for constantly advocating runaway government spending. (Runaway Joe??)

But today’s multitrillion-dollar deficits are also made possible by the big spenders in Congress, who come from both parties.

If this bipartisan prodigality of Washington continues, Bidenvilles will only become more widespread as the housing affordability crisis worsens.

Biden’s official White House portrait.

Washington DC under Biden and Schumer, Pelosi, etc.

About That Fantastic Jobs Report … Full-time, Native Jobs Shrink, Part-time, Foreign-born Jobs Rise On Year-over-Year Basis, Virtually No Manufacturing Jobs Added But 71k Government Jobs Added (Black Unemployment Increases)

To quote the song “Sloop John B”, “Let me go home, I wanna go home. This is the worst trip I’ve ever been on.” The lyrics should change to “This is the worst ADMINISTRATION I’ve ever experienced.”

Like last month, today’s jobs report for March is better than Februrary’s miracle report, but has some glaring bad news that the Administration and slobbering media will ignore. Now you know why I no longer appear on CNBC, CNN or Fox Business anymore.

Let’s start with the good news! The BLS reported that in March, the US added a whopping 303K jobs, tied for the highest since Jan 2023!

Turning our attention to the unemployment rate, it unexpectedly dipped again, dropping to 3.8%, from 3.9%, in line with estimates, as the number of unemployed workers dipped modestly from 6.458 million to 6.429 million while the number of employed workers rose by almost half a million workers; the unemployment rate for Blacks (6.4 percent) increased in March to the highest level in almost two years, while the rates for Asians (2.5 percent) and Hispanics (4.5 percent) decreased. The jobless rates for adult men (3.3 percent), adult women (3.6 percent), teenagers (12.6 percent), and Whites (3.4 percent) showed little or no change over the month.

In contrast, the participation rate rose from 62.5% to 62.7%, above the 62.6% expected, as the overall civilian labor force increased slightly less than the number of employed people.

Now for the not-so-good news. The average hourly earnings came in as expected, rising 0.3% MoM, up from last month’s upward revised 0.2% sequential increase (revised from 0.1%), On an annual basis, the hourly earnings rose 4.1%, as expected, and down from 4.3%. This was the lowest print in almost three years: the last time wages rose by this much was the summer of 2021.

Now for the bad news.

For those wondering if the jobs were all part-time, the answer is a resounding yes: in March, full-time jobs dropped by 6,000 as Part-time jobs soared by 691,000.

On a year-over-year (YoY) basis, full-time jobs were down -1.0% while part-time jobs were up 7.1%

Native-born versus foreign born? On a YoY basis, native-born employment was down -0.5% while foreign-born employment increased by 4.2%.

Not only is Biden importing Democrat voters (since 70% of Americans HATE Biden’s policies), they are also displacing native-born Americans in the labor force.

Manufacturing jobs added were ZERO. So, much for all of Biden’s claims. But NON-PRODUCTIVE government jobs were up 71,000. So our manufacturing jobs are dead while non-productive government jobs are growing like crazy.

Under Biden, the Administrative state is growing faster than manufacturing since Feb 2023. The Biden Administration implements new rules to prevent Trump’s ability to purge deep state employees if re-elected in 2024.

How will The Fed respond? Likely will lead to limited rate cuts.

On related news, horse-faced John Kerry’s daughter says BILLIONS of Humans Must Die for the ‘New World Order’. This reminds me of China and Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” and the starvation of 45 million people.

Pushin’ Too Hard? Strategic Petroleum Reserve Draining To Combat Biden’s Energy Policies (Crude Oil UP 73% Under Biden, Food UP 21%, Rent UP 19.4%, Cocoa UP 136%, Mortgage Rates UP 156%)

Bidenomics is really about insane money printing after Covid and the installation of Biden as President. Biden and The Federal Reserve are both pushin’ too hard. Biden to fundamentally change the US and The Fed trying to cope with the inflation reaction. With Covid and then Biden’s selection as President, Federal outlays exploded (blue line) and remain elevated under Biden. To help finance the (outrageous) spending The Federal Reserve massively increased the M2 Money supply (green line). Now, The Fed has withdrawn some of the excessive monetary stimulus, but there is a staggering amount monetary stimulus still swimming around the economy like a Great White Shark.

The problem with Federal policies (energy, government spending, government debt) is that there are unpredictable factors that undo the best laid plans of mice and men. And rats such as crop blights and changes in consumer habits.

A good example is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which can be drained if craven politicians want to manage oil and gasoline prices for political purposes. Unfortunately, the promise of replenishment is made difficult by rising crude oil prices. The Biden admin cancels plan to refill emergency oil reserve amid high prices (some caused by factors such as war, often caused by government).

In fact, spot crude is up 73% under Biden. Partly, because of Biden’s promised war on fossil fuels and international disasters like war, blights, etc. This is why I cringe when I hear politicians and “economists” discuss why inflation will fall.

On the food side, we have cocoa prices rising 136% under Biden. Again, not predictable when policies were being made. Combine crop blights were rising transportation costs and DC, we have a problem! But this is one reason why The Fed, etc, focus on core inflation (excluding energy and food prices).

There are many examples of rising prices and how they hurt consumers, particularly middle-class and low wage workers.

How did The Federal Reserve react to the inflation Biden helped create? They raised The Fed Funds Target Rate (Upper Bound) by 2,100% to combat Bidenflation. Freddie Mac’s 30-year mortgage rate is up 156% helping to crush homeownership aspiration for younger households.

And then we have Congress/Biden shoveling more than $10 billion in subsidies to Intel, even though Intel has an incentive to develop chips using borrowed funds and Intel retained earnings. But why put your shareholders at risk in case the chip gamble doesn’t payoff. Just shift the risk to US taxpayers!

Highway To Hell Part Deux: Office Tower Vacancy Rate Hits Record High As Zombie Buildings Litter Skylines of Cities (Office Mortgages Living On Borrowed Time)

Bidenomics is also a Highway To Hell for commercial real estate. Let’s say real estate is thunderstruck under Bidenomics.

There are more dormant office towers in the United States than at any point since 1979, according to a new report from Moody’s Analytics, which began tracking office leasing vacancies that year.

The rising supply of office space is due to a combination of surging remote and hybrid work that forces companies to reduce corporate footprints. Also, companies are exiting imploding progressive cities and high-taxed blue states for red ones while downsizing space. In the report, office tower vacancies rose to a record 19.8%, up from 19.6% in the fourth quarter of 2023.

Even with the increase, there is an eerily calm across the commercial real estate sector. This comes as the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hiking cycle is higher for longer, indicating that the pain train is nearing (perhaps after the presidential election).

“The office stress isn’t quite done yet,” Thomas LaSalvia, Moody’s head of commercial real estate economics and one of the authors of the report, told Bloomberg in an interview. He noted recent positive economic indicators stave off a “perfect storm in the office sector.”

“There are spots of light and there are spots of extreme darkness,” LaSalvia said, adding, “This is part of a longer-term evolution where we are seeing obsolete buildings in obsolete neighborhoods.”

The high office vacancy rate continues to be terrible news for landlords and developers eager to fill their buildings, and the Fed’s hiking cycle has made refinancing very challenging.

Last month, Goldman’s Vinay Viswanathan penned a note explaining how “office mortgages are living on borrowed time.”

Viswanathan said there have been no major fireworks in CRE tower debt because the debt is being “extended and modified rather than refinanced,” which “mitigates a default wave and a sharp pick-up in losses on CRE loan portfolios.”

Yes, both residential and commercial real estate are thunderstruck under Bidenomics.

Bidenomics Is On The Highway To Hell For Housing Affordability! Mortgage Demand (Applications) Down 13% From Last Year While Home Prices Are Up 39.2% Under Biden And Powell (Mortgage Rates UP 148% Under Biden)

Housing in the US under Bidenomics is simply unaffordable. With the massive expansion of M2 Money supply under Biden thanks to Covid and Bidenomics, home prices are up 39.2% and mortgage demand keeps falling like a paralyzed falcon. We are truly on the highway to hell under Bidenomics in terms of housing affordability.

Mortgage applications decreased 0.6 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending March 29, 2024.

The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 0.6 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 0.1 percent compared with the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 0.1 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 1 percent compared with the previous week and was 13 percent lower than the same week one year ago.

The Refinance Index decreased 2 percent from the previous week and was 5 percent lower than the same week one year ago.

What a mess! With M2 Money up 8.4% under Biden (green line), home prices are up a staggering 39.2% under Sheriff Joe and his deputy Fed chair Jerome Powell.

And conforming mortgage rates (30Y) are up 148% under Biden’s Reign of Error.

Thanks O’Biden! Although Biden is the figurehead, Obama and his team are still running The White House. Regardess of whether it is Biden or Obama (or Soros/World Economic Forum) calling the shots, the US housing market is on a highway to hell.

Bidenomics “helping” the middle class and low wage workers.

Simply Unaffordable! US Treasury 10Y Yield Rises To 4.35%, Highest In 2024 (Mortgage Rates WILL Climb To Over 8%)

The staggering amount of Fed money printing combined with insane, reckless spending by The Federal government (hereafter called The Feral Government) has caused massive distortion in the US economy.

The result of excessive money printing and excess spending (and Feral debt)? First, the Freddie Mac House Price Index increased in February, up 5.9% year-over-year.

Second, the US Treasury 10-year yield is up tp 4.35%, the highest in 2024.

Third, with the 10-year Treasury rising towards 5%, watch for the 30-year mortgage rate to rise AGAIN making housing even more unaffordable. Or as Robert Palmer almost sang, Simply Unaffordable. Today, the 30-year mortgage rate is 7.567%. Look for it to climb to over 8% very soon.

Fourth, BOOM: federal debt explodes $41 billion higher yesterday, breaching $34.6 trillion for first time ever; we’re on track to borrow $2.9 trillion this fiscal year – how long before the bond vigilantes have to remind everyone just how much power they have?

Doctor, doctor (Yellen, not Jill Biden), we’ve got a bad case of bad economic policies.

The Federal Reserve And The Neo American Caste System (Brahmin Bankers Versus “Political Untouchables”)

The Federal Reserve has created America’s version of India’s caste system. At the top of the neo American caste system are bankers and the political donor class. The top 1%. The other 99% are losing ground to the Brahmin Banker Class.

In 1913, Woodrow Wilson and his progressives promised that the Federal Reserve would avert both depressions and inflation, while preventing the wealthy from controlling America’s financial markets at the expense of the poor, the new untouchable class.

More than a century later, it’s clear that was all a lie, and the Fed has helped create a permanent American underclass (political untouchables). The Fed was designed to transfer wealth from the American people to the government, mostly through the hidden tax of inflation. But this process has prevented countless American families from being able to save and get ahead, because their savings are constantly losing value.

As you can see, the Brahmin Banker class (top .1% of net worth) are beating the socks off the bottom 50% of the new American caste system. This problems has greatly accelerated under Biden’s Reign of Error.

For two decades, the Fed kept interest rates artificially low to help finance massive government spending. When that spending reached unprecedented heights in 2020, the Fed intervened more drastically than ever, creating trillions of dollars and devaluing the currency.

Thus began an unparalleled transfer of wealth that continues to this day, and which has driven a wedge between different groups of Americans.

The painful inflation of the last three years has increased prices throughout the economy, distorting the signals that prices are supposed to convey to buyers and sellers. For example, the cost to own a median-price home today has doubled since January 2021, but it’s still the same house.

This phenomenon represents the monetization of housing, where a dwelling becomes a much better store of value than the currency, even if the real value of the house hasn’t improved.

Likewise, Americans’ earnings have increased substantially over the last three years, but not in the most meaningful sense—that is, what they can buy. Instead, the opposite has happened, and today’s larger incomes buy less.

What would have been a decent salary in 2019 is no longer enough to even get by in many places, and it’s certainly not enough to ever fulfill the American dream of homeownership.

A family earning the median household income can afford a median-price home in only a handful of major metropolitan areas in the entire country. In many cities, the cost to own a median price home exceeds the take-home pay from the median household income. Even if you didn’t spend a dime on other necessities such as food, you still wouldn’t have enough for your mortgage payment.

It’s truly a condemnation of the status quo when even those with seemingly high incomes cannot afford a typical house.

Worse, as prices continue marching upward, people can save less, making it harder to accrue a sufficient down payment. Even by the time a family reaches their goal, home prices have increased again, and they’re back on the hamster wheel, trying to save for an even larger down payment.

Meanwhile, inflation is steadily, though silently, taxing away the real value of the family’s savings as they sit in the bank.

This has left countless Americans as perpetual renters, with almost an entire generation of young people giving up on having the standard of living that their parents had. An artificial chasm has been constructed between those who already own capital, like housing, and the remaining Americans who can only borrow such assets, as they do by renting.

Similarly, many of those struggling to afford sharply increased rents are going deeply into debt to keep a roof over their head while those who locked in a mortgage with a fixed interest rate before both home prices and interest rates exploded have shielded themselves from one of the largest drivers behind the cost-of-living increases of the last three years.

Many homeowners could not afford to buy their same home today. The monthly mortgage payment on a median-price home has doubled since January 2021. Thus, even if two families have identical incomes, the one that bought a home three years ago has a nearly insurmountable advantage over the other family trying to do so today.

The Fed’s monetary manipulations have financed trillions of dollars in federal budget deficits, but they’ve also created a permanent American underclass, something antithetical to the Founders’ vision for the country.

Class mobility is at the heart of the American dream, and the Fed has turned it into a nightmare.

I was not comforted when I saw that Biden claims he had no idea who issued an pro-trans Executive Order for a Trans Awareness Day on Easter Sunday. Hey man, you are The President and have no idea who issued Executive Orders????

Here is a photo of Joe Biden with “Doctor” Jill on Easter Sunday flanked by Fed Chair Jerome Powell and Jared Bernstein (whom I once debated in Washington DC).

Update: KJP confessed that it was Obama who created the Trans Day of Awareness back in 2009 (although strangly not enacted until this part Easter Sunday).

Lolol! They took it down! Here it is again ! 😂🤣pic.twitter.com/VmWXGDzpL3
— Johnny Midnight ⚡️ (@its_The_Dr) April 1, 2024

What’s It Going To Be? Rate Cuts Or Rate Increases (Horrible Jobs Market While Moderating Inflation And Increasing Bank Credit Growth, 30Y Mortgage Rate UP 156% Under Biden)

Jerome Powell and The Federal Reserve have to make a decision about tightening monetary policy or loosening it. It’s a Presidential election year and The Fed will probably do what is necessary to support The Biden Administration’s re-election. But let’s look at the various conflicting economic indicators that are causing confusion at The Fed.

First, the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge of inflation wasn’t hotter than expected in February, which could keep a mid year interest rate cut on the table.

The year-over-year change in the so-called “core” Personal Consumption Expenditures index — which excludes volatile food and energy prices — clocked in at 2.8% for the month of February.

That was in line with economist expectations and down from 2.9% in January. Core prices rose 0.3% from January to February, which was also in line with expectations and down from 0.5% in the previous month.

The new PCE reading could be an encouraging development to some Fed officials who raised questions in recent months about the persistence of inflation after some hotter-than-expected numbers at the start of 2024.

“Core services inflation is slowing and will likely continue throughout the year,” Jeffrey Roach, chief economist for LPL Financial, said in a note.

“By the time the Fed meets in June, the data should be convincing enough for them to commence its rate normalization process. But where we sit today, markets need to have the same patience the Fed is exhibiting.”

Some Fed officials have been cautioning investors to be patient about the pace of rate cuts.

Fed Governor Chris Waller, for example, said Wednesday that he is in no hurry to cut and needs to see at least a couple months of better data before he has enough confidence that an easing of monetary policy will keep inflation on its path down to the Fed’s 2% target.

“There is no rush to cut the policy rate,” Waller said in a speech in New York.

But gasoline prices are still far higher than when Biden took control.

Well, Fats Waller, let’s look at other data.

Second, Bank credit growth is finally back in positive territory even though the 10Y-2Y yield curve slope remains negative. So this is a mixed signal.

Third, there is the terrible jobs reports where all jobs created in the US were part-time and full-time jobs declined. Hardly a positive sign for the economy.

Fourth, on the housing front, the 30-year mortgage rate is up 156% under Biden’s Reign of Error. Rate cuts would be helpful for reducing mortgage rates.

Fifth, commercial real estate. The NBER states that approximately 44% of office loans may have negative equity. They estimate that a 10% to 20% default rate on commercial real estate (CRE) loans, similar to levels seen during the Great Recession, could result in additional bank losses of $80 to $160 billion. They emphasize the impact of interest rates, noting that none of these loans would default if rates returned to early 2022 levels. With around $1 trillion in maturing CRE loans this year, higher interest rates could lead to challenges in refinancing, especially for office spaces facing high vacancy rates and declining valuations.

Finally, we have Citi’s economic surprise index (blue line) which is positive at 30.70 despite The Fed already having raised their target to the highest level since 2000 before the Iraq War/9-11 recession.

So, what’s it going to be? Rate cuts, rate hikes or hold still??

Hey, at least Joe isn’t eating ice cream while driving his gas-guzzling Chevy Corvette.

Bidenomics Reality Check! Chicago Fed’s PMI Crashes To 41.4 (Usually Found In Recessions)

Chicago Illinois used to be a shiny toy.

Soft’ survey data has been a bloodbath this week with regional Fed surveys all slumping and this morning’s Chicago PMI uglier than all expectations.

That smashed ‘hope’ – the spread between hard and soft data – back to cycle lows…

Source: Bloomberg

Today’s Chicago PMI plunged to 41.4 – its lowest since May 2023 – from 44.0 (and well below the expected bounce to 46.0)…

Source: Bloomberg

That was below all analysts expectations for the second month in a row…

Source: Bloomberg

Under the hood was even more problematic:

New orders fell at a faster pace; signaling contraction
Employment fell at a slower pace; signaling contraction
Inventories fell at a faster pace; signaling contraction
Supplier deliveries fell and a faster pace; signaling contraction
Production fell at a faster pace; signaling contraction
Order backlogs fell at a slower pace; signaling contraction

Worse still, Prices paid rose again!

So, in summary: slower growth, declining production, shrinking orders, falling employment… and accelerating inflation – is it any wonder that ‘soft survey’ data is collapsing – not exactly election-winning headlines.

Biden asking Zelenskyy for a loan so he can fix the bridge….

Let It Ride? Bidenomics Debt Market Meltdown With US Debt On “Unprecedented” Trajectory (Each US Citizen On The Hook For $636k In Unfunded Entitlements)

Part of the Bidenomics “plan” is not only green-energy spending, but plenty of freebies to gather voters from the masses. Like the $214 TRILLION in unfunded liabilities promised to the masses in the form of entitlements like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (why did they demand that all US citizens be forced to buy healthcare insurance, then give free healthcare to illegal immigrants??). In any case, each citizen is on the hook for $636,000!

What about the national debt with Ice Cream Joe at the helm? It has exploded in growth.

Not only has it gotten boring to be ahead of the curve by almost half a year, but pretty much every possible warning that could be said about the exponential increase in the US debt has been – well – said.

And yet, every now and then we are surprised by the latest developments surrounding the unsustainable, exponential trajectory of US debt. Like, for example, the establishment admitting that it is on an unsustainable, exponential trajectory.

That’s precisely what happened overnight when in an interview with the oh so very serious Financial Times (which has done everything in its power to keep its readers out of the best performing asset class of all time, bitcoin), the director of the Congressional Budget Office, Phillip Swagel, issued a stark warning that the United States could suffer a similar market crisis as seen in the United Kingdom 18 months ago, during former Prime Minister Liz Truss’s brief stint leading Britain – which briefly sent yields soaring, sparked a run on the pound, led to an immediate restart of QE by the Bank of England and a bailout of various pension funds, not to mention the almost instant resignation of Truss – citing the nation’s “unprecedented” fiscal trajectory.

The striking words from the head of the CBO, best known perhaps for publishing doomer debt/GDP projection charts such as this one…

… warned of the dangers of the U.S. facing “what the U.K. faced with former prime minister Truss — where policymakers tried to take an action, and then there’s a market reaction to that action”, comes as US government debt continues to break records, fueling concerns about the burden that places on the economy and taking a toll on America’s credit rating.

As a reminder, in September 2022, Truss roiled markets as she pressed for significant tax cuts, including changes lessening the tax burden on wealthier individuals without offsets, as well as other economic measures. The budget proposal spurred a major selloff of British debt, forcing U.K. interest rates to decades-long highs and causing the value of the pound to tank. While Truss defended her agenda as a means to spur economic growth, she stepped down as prime minister after less than two months on the job following the market revolt to her administration.

Meanwhile, it was up to the Bank of England to bail everyone out: the central bank intervened in the market, pledging to buy gilts on “whatever scale is necessary” with Dave Ramsden, a senior official at the central bank, saying at the time that “were dysfunction in this market to continue or worsen, there would be a material risk to UK financial stability.”

Needless to say, by bringing up the catastrophic rule of Truss, who for at least a few days tried to impose a regime of fiscal and monetary austerity which immediately blew up the UK bond market and led to an instant market crisis, Swagel is admitting that there is nothing that can be done to reverse the growth of US debt and to make what is already an exponential chart less exponential. Quite the opposite, in fact.

And while Swagel said the U.S. is “not there yet,” he raised concerns of how bond markets could fare as interest rates have climbed. Specifically, he warned that as higher interest rates raise the cost of paying its creditors, on track to reach $1 trillion per year in 2026, bond markets could “snap back.”

Well, we have some bad news, because if one calculates total US interest on an actual, annualized basis… we don’t have to wait until 2026, we are there already and then some.

Indeed, it seems like it was just yesterday when everyone was talking about US debt interest surpassing $1 trillion (and more than all US defense spending). Well, hold on to your hats, because as of this month, total US interest is now $1.1 trillion, and rising by $100 billion every 4 months (we should probably trademark this before everyone else steals it too).

According to the CBO, US government debt is set to keep rising. “Such large and growing debt would slow economic growth, push up interest payments to foreign holders of US debt, and pose significant risks to the fiscal and economic outlook,” it said in a report last week. “It could also cause lawmakers to feel more constrained in their policy choices.”

Only that will never happen, because a politician who is “constrained” in their policy choices – one who doesn’t feed the entitlements beast in hopes of winning votes (while generously spreading pork for friends and family) – is a politician who is fired.

Perhaps afraid he would sound too much like ZeroHedge, the CBO director left a glimmer of hope, saying that the nation has “the potential for some changes that seem modest — or maybe start off modest and then get more serious — to have outsized effects on interest rates, and therefore on the fiscal trajectory.” But we doubt even he believes it.

In the CBO’s long-term budget outlook report released last week, the budget agency projected the national deficit would rise “significantly in relation to gross domestic product (GDP) over the next 30 years, reaching 8.5 percent of GDP in 2054.” Which of course, is laughable: the US deficit is already at 6.5% of GDP – a level that traditionally implied there is a major economic crisis – and yet here we are, with unemployment *reportedly* at just 3.8%. Said otherwise, the US deficit will – with 100% certainty – hit 8.5% of GDP during the next recession which will likely be triggered as soon as Trump wins the November election.

The budget scorekeeper attributed the projected growth to rising interest costs, as well as “large and sustained primary deficits, which exclude net outlays for interest.” In short, everything is already going to hell to keep “Bidenomics” afloat, but when you also throw in the interest on the debt, well.. that’s game over man.

Socialists, and other liberals who are only good at spending other people’s money and selling debt until the reserve currency finally breaks, quickly sprung to defense of the debt black hole that the US economy has become.

Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the communist-leaning Center for American Progress think tank, pointed to improved deficit projections in recent years, as well as forecasts from the CBO he said “don’t project anything that looks like a panic.”

“If someone were thinking about, ‘Should I panic or should I not panic?’ I would just say, ‘hey, the underlying situation has gotten better, right?’” Kogan said, adding “there’s been lower, long-term projected deficits in the Biden administration.”

Instead of responding, we will again just show the latest CBO debt forecast chart and leave it up to readers to decide if they should panic or not.

What Kogan said next, however, was chilling: “You either should have been worried a long time ago, or you should be less worried now,” he said. “Because we’ve been on roughly the same path for forever, but to the extent that it’s different, it’s better.”

Actually no, it’s not better. It much, much worse, and the fact that supposedly “serious people” are idiots and make such statements is stunning because, well, these are the people in charge!

But he is certainly right that “you should have been worried a long time ago” – we were very worried, and everyone laughed at us, so we decided – you know what, it’s not worth the effort, may as well sit back and watch it all sink.

And now bitcoin is at a record $72,000 on its way to $1 million and gold is at a record $2,200 also on its way to… pick some nice round number…. in fact the number doesn’t matter if it is denominated in US dollars because very soon, the greenback will go the way of the reichsmark.

And just to make sure that nothing will ever change, even after the US enters the infamous Minsky Moment, shortly after the close we got this headline::