Biden’s Phantom Jobs Market! Over One Million Jobs Reported In 2023 Didn’t Actually Exist

The infamous jobs report from the BLS is like a scene from the film “Phantoms.” Where nothing is what is seems.

The federal government in 2023 overestimated the number of jobs in the U.S. economy by an average of 105,000 per month in initial reports, equating to a cumulative monthly difference of 1.3 million, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

The cumulative number of jobs reported each month was 1,255,000 less than previously thought, with new seasonal and census data affecting total employment estimates, according to data from the BLS calculated by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The huge downward revisions are in spite of a 115,000 upward revision in December, the only month that saw an upward revision to the employment level in 2023.

The biggest revision was for March, which was revised down by a total of 266,000 jobs, followed by January at 234,000 and April at 205,000, according to the BLS. The lowest downward revision was in November, with only 2,000, followed by 11,000 in October.

“Revisions are a normal part of the reporting process, but large changes, or adjustments that consistently move in the same direction, are not normal,” E.J. Antoni, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Instead, they’re indicative of something problematic with the BLS’ methodology. That can happen when market conditions change drastically enough to be outside of the assumptions used in their models.”

The revisions are due in part to an overestimate of the number of jobs in the U.S. economy in January 2023 at 155,007,000 instead of the revised 154,773,000, according to the BLS. The job level increased to a revised 157,347,000 by December, totaling an increase of 2,340,000 positions in the year.

The most recent jobs report in February also released an adjustment to the total jobs level, lowering March by 266,000 positions, according to the BLS. The jobs totals were also adjusted to recent census data, throwing off past estimates.

Recent years have not seen the same high downward revisions as 2023, with 2022 only seeing negative revisions in five months, equating to a downward revision of 66,000 for the year. March was the only month that was revised down in 2021, with the total number for the year being revised up by nearly 2 million as the country recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Growth in government positions has bolstered recent job numbers, adding a total of 601,000 jobs to the U.S. economy in the past 12 months. The gains have led to an all-time record for government positions at 23,091,000, outdoing a surge in hiring from the 2010 census collections.

“When the economy was rapidly deteriorating at the onset of the Great Recession, the BLS repeatedly and consistently overestimated job levels, which then had to be revised down,” Antoni told the DCNF. “The worsening economic conditions fell outside of the assumptions used by the BLS statisticians, so the estimates became inaccurate. There could be similar problems today due to fallout from the government-imposed recession in 2020 because the labor market still hasn’t recovered.”

Biden is the Negan of economic growth.

The Truth About Biden’s Awful Jobs Report And Rising Credit Card Delinquencies (Weakest Jobs Report For January On Record, 90+ Day Delinquency Rate Rises To Almost 10%)

I think the Biden Presidency is nicely summed-up by Biden confusing France’s President Macron with former French President Mitterand. Particularly since Mitterand died in 1996. Is Biden seeing dead people??

Anyway, the Biden economy and his Bidenomic strategy is based on massive debt expansion, both public and private debt. Household Debt reached $17.5 Trillion in Fourth Quarter; Delinquency Rates Rise 

Credit card delinquecies (90+ days) rose to almost 10% in Q4 2023.

Credit card delinquencies surged more than 50% in 2023 as total consumer debt swelled to $17.5 trillion, the New York Federal Reserve reported Tuesday.

Debt that has transitioned into “serious delinquency,” or 90 days or more past due, increased across multiple categories during the year, but none more so than credit cards.

Rising credit card delinquencies combined with the worst job additions in January on record.

But at least the 10Y-2Y US Treasury yield curve is ALMOST flat (h

Huh?

Why People HATE Politicians! Schumer/McConnell’s Mega $118 BILLION Spending Bill … For Ukraine/Israel And Olly-olly Oxen Free For Illegal Immigrants (Claiming That Is A Border Security Bill With Ukraine Spending 3x US Border Spending)

Well, the anticipated Establishment, and anti-middle class “Boader Security” bill has been released. It is all about military spending for Ukrainse (of course), grudging spending for Israel and peanuts for the border patrol to MONITOR, not stop the illegal immigrant caravans.

The bill is the typical establishment/Democrat pork barrell biil at 370 pages. And loads of exclusions and loopholes so the migrant invasion will never end.

Independent US Senator Kyrsten Sinema told reporters the legislation would secure the US southern border (OMG, that is hilarious!!), including by requiring the Department of Homeland Security to close the border if there are an average of more than 5,000 crossing attempts per day over seven days.

In addition to $20.23 billion for border security, the bill included $60.06 billion to support Ukraine in its war with Russia, $14.1 billion in security assistance for Israel, $2.44 billion to US Central Command and the conflict in the Red Sea, and $4.83 billion to support US partners in the Indo-Pacific facing aggression from China, according to figures from US Senator Patty Murray.

An additional $10 billion would provide humanitarian assistance for civilians in Gaza, the West Bank, and Ukraine.

The US would provide $4.83 billion to support key regional partners in the Indo-Pacific where tensions have risen between Taiwan and China, as well as $2.33 billion for Ukrainians displaced by Russia’s invasion and other refugees fleeing persecution.

Millions for the military to keep Zelensky and his family in mansions while American veterans are homeless. But we expect massive Ukraine funding and the important US border security begins on page 62.

Example: $404,000,000 shall be for Immigration Judge Teams, in16 cluding appropriate attorneys, law clerks, paralegals, court 17 administrators, and other support staff, as well as necessary court and adjudicatory costs, and $36,000,000 shall be for representation for certain incompetent adults pursuant to section 240(e) of the Immigration and Na21 tionality Act (8 U.S.C. 1229a(e)).

What? Homeless vets live on the streets, but Schumer/McConnell want to QUICKLY process illegal immigrants.

Nobody spends other people’s money like Biden and Congress!

$47,500,000 for the procurement and deployment of mobile surveillance capabilities, including mobile video surveillance systems and for obsolete mobile surveillance equipment replacement, counter-UAS, and small unmanned aerial systems;
– $25,000,000 for subterranean detection capabilities;
– $7,500,000 for seamless integrated communications to extend connectivity for Border Patrol agents; and
– $10,000,000 for the acquisition of data from long duration unmanned surface vehicles in
support of maritime border security.

Other than helping the border patrol with surveillance, there are NO FUNDS FOR A WALL and just a lot of gibberish on reporting crossings, but NOTHING TO SLOW THE MIGRANT CROSSINGS.

In other words, it is a BIG DEFENSE SPENDING BILL … for Ukraine and Israel and peanuts for the US border. Child slavery and Fentanyl will continue unabated as will murders by illegal immigrants. Why? Illegals rarely live near Biden, Clintons, Obamas, McConnell, Thune and other frauds in the US House of Lords (aka, Senate).

And you wonder why the US is careening off the debt cliff?

Fortunately, the House says that the bill is DOA.

Deficit Joe Strikes Again! Record $10 Trillion In US Treasuries Coming To Market In 2024 As Budget Deficits SOAR Under “Deficit Joe” (Don’t Forget About $212.5 TRILLION In Unfunded Liabilities)

The great Will Rogers once said he never met a man he didn’t like. US President Joe Biden and Democrats have never met a spending opportunity they didn’t like (except for US border security, of course).

Under “Deficit Joe” Biden, Federal budget deficits have soared! And deficits are projected to grow!

Over the past year, we have been closely watching the staggering acceleration in the growth of both US debt (the chart below which is just one month old is already woefully outdated, as total US debt just hit $34.191 trillion on the first day of February)…

… and global debt.

The problem, as Apollo’s gloomy chief strategist Torsten Slok points out, is that this feverish pace will only accelerate further, as a record $8.9 trillion of government debt will mature over the next year.

Meanwhile, the government budget deficit in 2024 will be $1.4 trillion according to the CBO (realistically expect this number to hit $2.0 trillion), and the Fed has been running down its balance sheet by $60 billion per month.

The bottom line is that someone will need to buy more than $10 trillion in US government bonds in 2024. That is more than one-third of US government debt outstanding. And more than one-third of US GDP.

This may be a particular challenge when the biggest holders of US Treasuries, namely foreigners, continue to shrink their share.

More fundamentally, Slok muses, “interest rate-sensitive balance sheets such as households, pension, and insurance have been the biggest buyers of Treasuries in 2023, and the question is whether they will continue to buy once the Fed starts cutting rates.”

(Spoiler alert: no… but that’s what QE is for, and sooner or later, it’s coming back).

Apollo’s latest updated outlook on Treasury demand is below (pdf link).

And don’t forget about $212.5 TRILLION in unfunded liabilities (Social Security, Medicare, etc).

Slowdown! ADP Reports an Increase of 107,000 Private Payrolls As Powell Proclaims “No Sugar Tonight” (Why Do We Need Millions Of Illegal Immigrants?)

Slowdown! Bidenomics, based on historic binge spending and Fed sugar, is wearing out as the enormous sugar (stimulus) rush is over.

The hiring slowdown of 2023 spilled into January, and pressure on wages continues to ease. The pay premium for job-switchers shrank to a new low last month.

Another Soft Landing Proclamation

“Progress on inflation has brightened the economic picture despite a slowdown in hiring and pay. Wages adjusted for inflation have improved over the past six months, and the economy looks like it’s headed toward a soft landing in the U.S. and globally,” says Nela Richardson, Chief Economist, ADP.

ADP National Employment Report

The ADP National Employment Report shows Private Sector Employment Increased by
107,000 Jobs in January; Annual Pay was Up 5.2%

Job Switching Payouts

Year-over-year pay gains for job-stayers reached 5.2 percent in January, down from 5.4 percent in December.
For job-changers, pay was up 7.2 percent, the smallest annual gain since May 2021.
Median Change in Annual Pay (ADP matched person sample) Job-Stayers 5.2%, Job-Changers 7.2%

ADP Notice

January’s report presents the scheduled annual revision of the ADP National Employment Report, which updates the data series to be consistent with the annual Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) benchmark data for March 2023. In addition, this revision introduces technical updates, namely, in re-weighting of ADP data to match QCEW data. The historical file was updated to reflect these revisions.

Notice Translation

ADP revises its data to match annual BLS data from March of 2023. The BLS will do the same in its annual revisions.

The BLS does not even back adjust the numbers so its historical record is bogus. And despite being incredibly lagging, the Fed makes key decisions on the data.

Job Openings Rise in December But Quits Tell the Real Story

There’s lots of meaningless chatter yesterday about job openings. However, actions speak louder than openings.

This report comes after Fed Chair Jerome Powell said “No Sugar Tonight” as in no expected rate cuts. That is, until it becomes obvious that Biden will lose the election, THEN The Fed will start cutting rates like crazy.

An example of the trash that Biden and Democrats are importing from Latin America, Africa and China. Among other sewers. I am sure that employers are lining up to hire this guy. … NOT! Correction: Biden may appoint this creep to his cabinet with the other losers.

Shades Of “The Big Short”! Commercial RE Exposure Helps Crush Japan’s Aozora Bank (Follow Negative Profit Warning For NY’s Community Bancorp)

Shades of “The Big Short” and subprime crash of 2008.

Following a profit warning from New York Community Bancorp on Wednesday, largely attributed to continued turmoil in the commercial real estate sector (which led the bank to slash its dividend and bolster reserves leading to a 38% plunge in its shares and triggering the largest drop in the KBW Regional Banking Index since the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank last March) Japan’s Aozora Bank slashed the value of some of its US office tower loans by more than 50%, according to Bloomberg.

Like rows of falling dominoes, Aozora Bank, the 16th largest in Japan by market value, saw its shares plunge by 20% on Thursday after reporting a net loss of 28 billion yen ($191 million) for the fiscal year. This was in stark contrast to its earlier projection of a 24 billion yen profit.

Aozora wrote down the value of its non-performing office loans by 58%, including a 63% reduction in Chicago and between 51% and 59% in New York, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, and San Francisco – all of these cities are plagued with violent crime and controlled by radical Democrats.

In total, the bank’s US office loans were about 6.6% of its portfolio, or approximately $1.89 billion. It said 21 office loans worth $719 million were classified as non-performing, and as a result it increased its loan-loss reserve ratio on US offices to 18.8% from 9.1%.

“It’s a shock,” said Tomoichiro Kubota, a senior market analyst at Matsui Securities Co., adding, “The expectation was the worst was over and that the bank had set aside enough provisions.” Guess not.

Far markets, this was another flashing red warning sign that not only is a tsunami of office loan defaults still on the horizon, but that banks continue to be woefully underprovisioned for the coming bloodbath.

“This is a huge issue that the market has to reckon with,” said Harold Bordwin, a principal at Keen-Summit Capital Partners LLC in New York, specializing in renegotiating distressed properties.

Bordwin said, “Banks’ balance sheets aren’t accounting for the fact that there’s lots of real estate on there that’s not going to pay off at maturity.”

Besides New York Community Bancorp and Aozora Bank, Deutsche Bank noted in fourth-quarter results:

“Interest rate environment remains key driver for refinancing risk and potential [credit-loss provisions] in 2024 especially in office, with further drivers being ongoing sponsor support and expiring rental agreements.”

Fed chair Powell delivered bad news for the CRE world in yesterday’s FOMC meeting, warning that a March rate cut isn’t happening (absent a shock of course). Perhaps most notably, the Fed removed the following sentence from the FOMC statement: “The US banking system is sound and resilient.” Cynics asked why the Fed no longer sees “the US banking system is sound and resilient” – is it a signal of rumblings in the economy near-term, or was it just a lie before, and now that bank dominoes are again falling, will Powell be forced to trot it back out?

Where will this lead? Likely more bank and pension fund bailouts. You didn’t really believe that hype about the Dodd-Frank banking legislation that there will never be another bank bailout did, you??

TBAC-O Road? Treasury Announces Big Cut In Borrowing (Despite Skyrocketing Deficits) But Shifting Towards More Expensive, Higher Duration Coupon Bonds

Constitution Avenue in Washington DC is actually becoming Tobacco Road. No, not the dysfunctional family of Georgia sharecroppers during the Great Depression, but the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee (TBAC).

On Monday, after we got the first part of the Treasury’s Quarterly Refunding Announcement (QRA), in which the Treasury unexpectedly announced a big drop in its borrowing estimates for Q1 (from $816BN to $760BN) coupled with a shockingly low calendar Q2 borrowing estimate of just $202BN (as a reminder we got the second part of the QRA this morning which came in very much as expected)…

… yields tumbled as this was viewed as an aggressively dovish outlook on the future of i) the US fiscal deficit and ii) the debt needed to fund said deficit. Here is another way of visualizing the US historical and projected marketable debt funding needs:

Commenting on this surprise drop in expected borrowing, on Monday we said that “the numbers also mean that the Reverse Repo facility will be fully drained by Q2, and we expect that on Wednesday we will learn that the bulk of the reduction in Q1 and Q2 estimates will be due to sharply lower Bill issuance for one simple reason: there is just no more Reverse Repo cash to buy it all.“

Boy, were we right: earlier today, in the Treasury’s presentation to the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee (TBAC) as part of the Quarterly Refunding, Janet Yellen revealed what the composition of this sharp drop in Q2 funding needs would be. As we expected, it was all bills!

In fact, as the chart below – which we have dubbed the scariest chart in the Treasury’s presentation to TBAC today (link here) – shows, with Bills expected to fund some $442 Billion of the $760BN funding deficit in the Jan-March quarter (the balance of $318BN funded by coupons), in Q2 the Treasury now anticipates a $245BN DECLINE in net Bills outstanding (i.e., not only no incremental Bill funding but a quarter trillion maturity in Bills outstanding). In other words, while we expected a “sharply lower” Bill issuance in Q2, the Treasury is actually expecting a $245BN drawdown in Bills.

But wait, there’s more: because while the market was expecting some pro rata decline in coupon issuance to go with the slide in net Bills (we were not) in Q2 to justify the sharp drop in long-end yields, it was not meant to be. In fact, just the opposite, because as highlighted in the chart above, net Coupon issuance in Q2 is actually expected to increase by $130BN to $447BN from $318BN in Q1. This is a huge shift in higher duration supply, and is hardly what all those who were buying 10Y bonds on Monday were expecting, and yes, that too was to be expected: with Bills now well above the “comfortable” ceiling of 20% as a percentage of total debt outstanding, the Treasury had no choice but to roll it back, especially since the Reverse Repo is already mostly drained. And sure enough, in its presentation, the Treasury no longer anticipates a flood of Bill issuance in the future.

That’s not all: while the Treasury said it does “not anticipate needing to make any further increases in nominal coupon or FRN auction sizes, beyond those being announced today, for at least the next several quarters”, the TBAC politely disagreed, stating that “it may be appropriate over time to consider incremental increases in coupon issuance depending on how the current uncertainty regarding borrowing needs evolves” (translation: as the need to bribe the population with more fiscal stimmies ahead of November rises, so will borrowing needs).

As for any naive expectations that any decline in issuance in structural instead of merely shifting away from Bills to Coupons, we have some more bad news: as the table below confirms, the Primary Dealer estimate of the US 2024 budget deficit dropped just $22BN in the past quarter, from $1.8 trillion to $1.778 trillion, a meaningless change (expect this number to rise sharply as the full brunt of fiscal stimulus in an election year become visible).

As for the bigger picture, well you can listen to either the Primary Dealers…

… or the CBO:

Both reach the same sad conclusion, the same one voiced by Nassim Taleb on Monday when he said that “we need something to come in from the outside, or maybe some kind of miracle…. This makes me kind of gloomy about the entire political system in the Western world.”

Sorry, Nassim, no miracles… just lots and lots of money printing coming.

And speaking of money printing, the fact that Bill issuance is about to grind to a halt in Q2 means that, just as we expected, reverse repo balances will tumble in the remaining two months of Q1…

… bringing it effectively to zero (which means the Treasury’s stock market liquidity pump is now almost drained), at which point the Fed will have to take over and taper QT as the alternative would be draining some $100BN in reserves every month at a time when total Fed reserves are already at the level which Waller hinted may be the infamous LoLCR floor which is a hard constraint at “10-11% of GDP.” The alternative is simple: a stock market crash just months before the November election, hardly the stuff Biden’s handlers or the anti-Trump Deep State would approve of.

Captain Obvious Award Goes To … Treasury Secretary Yellen Who Admits “High Prices Here To Stay” (Food CPI UP 21%, Gasoline Prices UP 38% Under “Inflation Joe”, Home Prices UP 33.2%, Mortgage Rates UP 154%)

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen just admitted what the rest of Americans already knew: high prices are here to stay. Example? Food prices (CPI) are up over 20% under Inflation Joe while gasoline prices are up 38% under Clueless Joe.

On the housing front, the Case-Shiller National Home Price Index is up 33.2% under Biden. And Freddie Mac’s 3-year mortgage rate is up 154% under Biden’s leadership (c’mon man! Obama is pulling the strings on Puppet Joe).

Speaking during an interview with ABC News Live over the weekend, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen admitted prices aren’t going down, contradicting arguments repeatedly made by the Biden White House about easing inflation. In 2021, Yellen claimed inflation was “transitory.”

For months officials in the Biden administration have falsely claimed prices on everyday goods and services were going down. In reality, they’re getting more expensive at a slower pace.

During a briefing at the White House last week, Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre had trouble explaining complaints from Biden when he purchased a smoothie that cost $6.

“Last Friday, the president was at a coffee shop in Pennsylvania, and he seemed to be surprised that the smoothie was $6 and how expensive it was,” a reporter asked. “I’m curious. So is the president now realizing the costs that Americans are bearing?”

“So, look, when he went over to you all, to the press corps, he was having a good time, right? And offered, as you know, offered to buy them coffee,” Jean Pierre responded. “There was a big group there, and he made sure everyone got coffee and pastries. So I just want to make that really clear.”

That is wonderful, KJP! The White House Press Corps got free coffee and pastries! Yippee!!!

But the rest of us in America are suffering from Bidenomics and inflation. Like food prices having risen 21% under Biden, gasoline prices UP 38%, home prices UP 33.2% and mortgage rates UP 154%.

Yellen wins the Captain Obvious Award.

Texas Business Activity Index Falls To Recession-era Reading Of -27.4 (Biden Freezes Natural Gas Exports)

Texas is a state of mind and is currently under invasion. Encouraged by BIG AGRA Senator Lankford (RINO-Oklahoma).

Texas factory activity contracted in January after stabilizing in December, according to business executives responding to the Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey. The production index, a key measure of state manufacturing conditions, dropped 17 points to -15.4—its lowest reading since mid-2020.

Other measures of manufacturing activity also indicated contraction this month. The new orders index ticked down from -10.1 to -12.5 in January, while the growth rate of orders index remained negative but pushed up eight points to -14.4. The capacity utilization index dropped to a multiyear low of -14.9, and the shipments index slipped 11 points to -16.6.

Perceptions of broader business conditions continued to worsen in January. The general business activity index fell from -10.4 to -27.4, and the company outlook index fell from -9.4 to -18.2. The outlook uncertainty index held fairly steady at 20.9.

Note that prices paid for raw materials soared by 20.2%.

Meanwhile, The Fed is impressed by the growth in the economy (primarily government jobs) so will likely keep rates constant this week. I wish they would look at Texas slumping!

In apparent retaliation for trying to defend themselves against the mongrel hordes coming from Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and … China, Biden freezes natural gas exports (largely from Texas).

In Washington DC, Lankford, Schumer, McConnell and other anti-America, pro-World Economic Forum type gather to destroy the US.

Taper Tantrum? Bank Credit Growth Negative For 26th Straight Week As Fed Plans End Of QT (Fed’s Balance Sheet Remains Enormous!!)

Oh Susie QT. The Fed loves you. And The Fed has put a spell on the economy.

Where do we sit today? Bank credit growth has been negative for the last 26 weeks. As M2 Money growth has stalled.

What will The Fed do?

While the FOMC may start the discussions around tapering QT as soon as at this meeting, tapering itself is still a ways off, and the actual end of QT will come early next year.

In January and May 2022, the FOMC published the principles and then the plan for QT. The fact of a taper this year is not news. More recent communication from Fed officials (for example from President Logan and Governor Waller) reinforced a preference for the reverse repo (RRP) facility to be drawn down to zero, and we infer that getting the RRP near zero will be the starting point for the taper.

Historically, the FOMC has taken at least two meetings to finalize these types of plan, and the December minutes stressed a desire to give the market lots of advance notice. As a baseline, we think the FOMC announces the parameters for the QT taper at its May meeting and enacts that taper in June, by cutting the runoff of Treasury securities in half. Because the Fed’s RRP facility has been declining rapidly, that timing could shift earlier by a month or so.

The change to shedding $30 billion per month in Treasuries would slow the pace of runoff materially, but there is clearly a chance that the subsequent pace is even slower. President Logan pointed out that running off the balance sheet slowly could ultimately allow the Fed to shrink the balance sheet even more while mitigating the risk of money market disruptions. A June taper would be consistent with our house view on the path of the RRP facility, which we expect to stand at approximately $225 billion at the end of May and be depleted by August.

We anticipate that reserves will remain broadly around current levels until RRP is depleted. But from there, we think reserves will ultimately fall to roughly $3.2 trillion, around $300 billion below current levels, and the FOMC will call off QT in early 2025. That view on the ending level of reserves reflects our outlook on the SOFR – IORB (Secured Overnight Funding Rate – Interest on Reserve Balances) spread turning positive, indicating the end of abundant reserves.

For broader markets, however, our strategy team does not expect the tapering and end of QT to be a significant event. Our rates strategists think the phenomenon is mostly in the price and, if anything, front-end swap spreads may have already overreacted to the news of an early taper. With a limited effect on rates, and the tapering and end of QT largely anticipated, our MBS and credit strategists similarly see few if any implications. Of course, some market narrative is focused on QT’s effects on the banking sector. While the intuitive notion that QT must destroy deposits is widespread, we have highlighted the data which show in fact that deposits have edged up, not down, in recent months as QT has progressed. Banks can always choose to bid for wholesale deposits, so instead of focusing on the quantity of “money” and how that changes, a better question is how bank funding costs are evolving.

So, the next step is for the Fed to shift from “talking about talking about tapering QT” to actually talking about tapering QT. Only after that step will we start to look for the end of QT, which the Fed will determine with an eye on money market conditions. In particular, the Fed is looking at whether SOFR is trading below the rate the Fed pays on reserves, in which case it will likely judge conditions to be accommodative, or above the rate the Fed pays on reserves, in which case the Fed’s calculus will change and the discussions about the end of QT will pick up steam.

The Fed’s balance sheet remains greatly expanded despite the increase in The Fed’s target rate. Nothing has been the same since the banking crisis of 2008-2009. And Covid in 2020.