Biden/Yellen Dare McCarthy To Step Over The Line! Treasury Cash Balance Goes Low, Large Company Bankrupties Highest Since 2010 As Biden Goes On Vacation (Vacation Joe!)

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen changed the drop dead date on a US default from June 1 to June 5, daring Speaker McCarthy to step over the line. The debt ceiting is so urgent that Biden went on vacation to Delware for Memorial Day weekend. In fact, Biden and Yellen expect McCarthy to dance.

White House and Republican negotiators tentatively narrowed differences but were still clashing Friday on key issues as the Treasury Department signaled extra time was available before a potential US default.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced the department expects to be able to make payments on US debts up until June 5 if lawmakers fail to act on the US debt ceiling. That set a more pointed date for a potential default but is also four days later than her previous comments eyeing trouble as soon as June 1.

The new so-called X-date buys negotiators for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden more time to strike a deal. The negotiating teams haven’t met in person since Wednesday but spoke late into the night Thursday and were in regular communication throughout the day Friday.

Yes, there isn’t really a crisis folks. Treasury collects tax dollars continuously so Treasury can prioritze debt payments and other disbursements. The only crisis is in the minds of the media.

Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo warned Friday that payments to Social Security beneficiaries, veterans and others would be delayed if there’s a default. But he said he’s gaining some confidence an agreement will be reached.

We’re making progress and our goal is to make sure that we get a deal because default is unacceptable,” Adeyemo said in an interview on CNN. “The president has committed to making sure that we have good-faith negotiations with the Republicans to reach a deal because the alternative is catastrophic for all Americans.”

The accord would also include a measure to upgrade the nation’s electric grid to accommodate sham renewable energy, a key climate goal, while speeding permits for pipelines and other fossil fuel projects that the GOP favors, people familiar with the deal said.

The deal would cut $10 billion from an $80 billion budget increase for the Internal Revenue Service that Biden won as part of his Inflation Reduction Act (big whoop). Republicans have warned of a wave of agents and audits while Democrats said the increase would pay for itself through less tax cheating.

What is taking shape would be far more limited than the opening offer from Republicans, who called for raising the debt ceiling through next March in exchange for 10 years of spending caps. House conservatives were already balking Thursday at the notion of a small deal, with the House Freedom Caucus sending a letter to McCarthy demanding he hold firm.

Treasury’s cash balance is at a low point and The Administration threatens Social Security recipients and veterans of delayed payments … while Biden goes on vacation for Memorial Day weekend to honor veterans??

Of course, Yellen know that all The Fed has to do to increase M2 Money growth again.

Meanwhile, bankrupties among large companies are highest since 2010.

In the mortgage market, current coupon nominal spreads 9Agency MBS 30Y coupon over Treasuries) are soaring.

Meanwhile, to honor US veterans, Biden goes on Memorial Day weekend and threaten veterans with delays in veteran benefits. Sigh.

Is Joe Biden REALLY Reverend Kane from Poltergeist II??

Battered By BidenInflation, 90 Million Americans Struggle Paying Bills As Credit Card Usage Spikes (Biden/Yellen/Schumer Dither As Debt Hits $32 TRILLION With $188 TRILLION In Unfunded Liabilities)

Reminder, the US already has $32 TRILLION in debt and politicians have promised $188 TRILLION in entitlement spending. yet we are sending billions to Ukraine, etc. Yet Biden is visiting Japan (hide your little girls, Hiroshima!) and Biden/Congress still haven’t solved the debt limit crisis and Biden’s insane budget yet. Meanwhile, Americans are suffering from Biden’s inflation (aka, Bidenflation) and bad economic policies.

A large swath of American consumers are facing financial hardship as they grapple with elevated living costs, record-high credit card use, and two years of negative real wage growth. This perfect storm could decimate financially fragile households in the next downturn. (Zero Hedge).

As many as 89.1 million American adults (or about 38.5%) were found to experience some form of difficulty in covering expenses between April 26 and May 8, according to Bloomberg, citing new data from the Household Pulse Survey. This is up from 34.4% in 2022 and 26.7% during the same period in 2021.

The rising trend is alarming but not surprising. Consumers have been battered by two years of negative real wage growth.

As wages fail to outpace the cost of living, many consumers have burned through savings and resorted to credit cards. The latest revolving credit data shows consumers appear to be ‘strong,’ but that’s only because they use their plastic cards more than ever to survive.

The Household Pulse Survey found struggling households were primarily based across West Coast and the South.

Compared with the same period last year, the survey found 2.7 million more households were relying on credit cards to cover expenses.

Consumers have record card debt and ultra-low savings rates and are paying some of the highest borrowing costs in a generation (the average interest rate on cards now exceeds 20%). This debt is becoming insurmountable for some as delinquencies rise.

And what we have now is new debit and credit card data published by the Bank of America Institute that shows not just spending slowdown for lower-income consumers, but also the upper-income cohort is finally starting to crack.

However, it is appropriate that Biden is visiting Hiroshima Japan where a nuke was detonated to help end World War II.. Biden is doing the same to the US.

US Leading Economic Indicators Tumble For 13th Straight Month, “Weaknesses Were Widespread”

The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Indicators (LEI) continued its decline in April, dropping 0.6% MoM (in line with the 0.6% decline expected).

The biggest positive contributor to the leading index was stock prices at 0.16
The biggest negative contributor was average consumer expectations at -0.26

This is the 13th straight monthly decline in the LEI (and 14th month of 16) – the longest streak of declines since ‘Lehman’ (22 straight months of declines from June 2007 to April 2008).

Let’s go Brandon! He needs to finish the job! Or destroying the US economy and making the US a vassal state to China.

And Washington DC bureaucrats eat pork!

Life During Biden! Mortgage Rates UP 140%, Core Inflation UP 291% Under Unaffordable Joe (Fed Pausing Rate Hikes Even As Prices Continue To Soar)

Life under Biden.

Bankrate’s 30-year mortgage rate is down slighty to 6.89%, but that masks the reality that mortgage rates were only 2.88% when Biden was sworn in as President. That is a staggering increase of 140 in the 30-year mortgage rate.

In fairness to Unaffordable Joe, Congress went on a crazy spending spree with Covid, much of which had nothing to do with Covid. Green energy spending for the donor class is helping drive core inflation up 291% since Biden was installed as President.

And yes, The Fed is playing catch up for former Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s “Too low for too long (TLTL) monetary policy. So, now she is creating mayhem as US Treasury Secretary. And she was a terrible Fed Chair, now a terrible Treasury Secretary.

And yes, The Fed looks like they are pausing rate hikes.

The Punisher! Biden “Punishes Responsibility” As New Mortgage Equity Program Begins

Joe Biden should be nicknamed “The Punisher” for his new woke mortgage idiocy.

Starting yesterday, the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s mortgage pricing adjustments will increase fees for borrowers with high credit scores while reducing costs for those with subpar credit scores. This upside-down policy is blatantly socialism, and one can’t help but wonder if anyone in the Biden administration learned anything from the subprime mortgage meltdown that occurred more than a decade ago.

As part of the Biden administration’s plan to make housing affordable for everyone (we’ve seen this story before), upfront fees for loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be adjusted based on the borrower’s credit score. Borrowers with high credit scores will pay more in fees, while those with lower credit scores will pay less.

The Wall Street Journal cited data from Evercore ISI that shows borrowers with credit scores between 720-759 who make around 15-20% down payments will see loan-level pricing adjustment (LLPA) costs rise by .750%. Inversely, under the new adjustments, risky borrowers with a credit score below 639 and who put down only 5% of the value of their home will only have to pay 1.750%, compared with 3.750% under old rules.

Backlash over LLPA changes prompted the FHFA to publish a statement last week, calling such concerns “a fundamental misunderstanding.” The Biden administration ensures the new changes are meant to help those with poor credit scores obtain homes amid the worst housing affordability in a generation. Note that Biden did not speak on this himself since he would undoubtedly get confused and call people names. And get lost leaving the podium.

According to the FHFA, the new adjustments will redistribute funds to reduce the interest rate costs paid by risky borrowers. This sounds like socializing home buying to us.

Even more alarming is data from the American Enterprise Institute found that default rates of Fannie/Freddie owner-occupied 30-year fixed-rate purchase loans acquired in 2006-2007 were between 39.3% and 56.2% for borrowers with credit scores between 620 and 639 and less than 4% down payments. Those with credit scores between 720 and 769 and 20% down payments had default rates between 4.2% and 8.8%.

Joe Biden’s new nickname is “The Punisher.” Not only for this sick and twisted theft from people who work hard and are careful with their credit, but also for his crazy obsession with going green and driving energy prices (and inflation) through the roof.

Crisis? What Crisis? First Republic Bank Headed For FDIC Receivership, US Yield Curve Plunges, Bank Lending Plunges, Middle Class Shrinks Under Biden/Yellen

Crisis? What crisis?

First, First Republic bank is most likely headed for FDIC receivership, sources say; shares drop 40%.

Second, we have the US yield curve (3M T-yield – 18M FWD 3M T-yield) crashing to the most inverted since the 1990s.

Third, we have US bank lending crashing.

Fourth, we have a shrinking middle class. Way to go Biden/Yellen/Powell!

I wish I could sing “Goodbye Biden and Yellen.” And Foul Powell too.

Is that Mayor Pete??

Jamie Dimon Warns US Banking Crisis Will Be Felt for Years, Regulators Didn’t Stress Test Rate Hikes! (This One’s Gonna Hurt Us)

JPMorgan Chase’s Jaime Dimon is channeling country crooners Marty Stuart and Travis Tritt by warbling “This One’s Gonna Hurt You (For A Long, Long Time).”

Silicon Valley Bank’s blunders were encouraged by US regulation, went untested by the Federal Reserve and were “hiding in plain sight” until Wall Street and depositors grew alarmed.

That’s JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon’s assessment of the US banking crisis that sent markets careening last month, an episode he predicts is “not yet over” and will be felt for years. He said US authorities shouldn’t “overreact” with more rules.

In his wide-ranging annual letter to shareholders on Tuesday, Dimon described his firm’s aspirations for using artificial intelligence and ChatGPT, weighed in on geopolitics, and provided updates on JPMorgan’s activities in Ohio. This time, many of his sharpest remarks ripped at regulation, including capital rules that pushed banks to binge on low-interest assets that lost value as interest rates shot up.

“Ironically, banks were incented to own very safe government securities because they were considered highly liquid by regulators and carried very low capital requirements,” Dimon said. “Even worse,” he added, the Federal Reserve didn’t stress-test banks on what would happen as rates jumped.

When Silicon Valley Bank’s uninsured depositors realized it was losing money selling securities to keep up with withdrawal requests, they raced to pull their cash. Regulators then intervened and seized it.

Yes. Banking regulators were so focused on credit-exposure of banks (remember the subprime crisis of 2008?) that they really screwed up by having banks load-up on low credit-risk assets that usually have interest rate risk associated with them like Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities (MBS). What could go wrong?

What went wrong was that interest rates rose and unrealized losses on Treasuries and Agency MBS exploded.

Here is a chart of urealized losses on investment securities that banks have accumulated.

Apparently, The Fed and FDIC (and the myriad of Federal and State regulators) sit high on a mountain top and ignore interest rate risk.

The face of regulatory stupidity.

US Consumer Confidence Dips To 62 In March, Never The Same After Covid And Joe Biden (UMich Buying Conditions For Houses Dips To 47 As Fed Withdraws Stimulus … For The Moment)

Well, the University of Michigan consumer sentiment indices are out for March … and they are ugly.

As a baseline, consumer confidence in February 2020 (just before Covid) was 101. After Covid and massive Fed stimulus and Federal government spending spree, consumer confidence in March fell to 62.0, a far cry from 101 under Trump.

Even worse, the UMich buying conditions for housing hit 142 in February 2020 but has declined to 47 in March 2023.

Why would ANYONE have confidence in the US economy under a complete fool with dementia like “China Joe” Biden??

US Mortgage Demand Rises 2.9% Since Last Week, But Purchase Demand DOWN -35% Since Last Year (Refi Demand DOWN -61% YoY)

Well, the regional banking crisis has one positive outcome: mortgage rates dropped -46 basis points since last week. The result? Mortgage demand increased 2.9 percent week-over-week (WoW). Although I don’t recommend banking incompetence by bank management and “regulators” as a strategy to increase mortgage demand.

Mortgage applications increased 2.9 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending March 24, 2023.

The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 2.9 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 3 percent compared with the previous week. The Refinance Index increased 5 percent from the previous week and was 61 percent lower than the same week one year ago. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 2 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 2 percent compared with the previous week and was 35 percent lower than the same week one year ago.

The rest of the story.

We need a doctor to fix this mess, just not Dr. Yellen or Dr. Jill.

Alarm! US New Homes Sales DOWN -19% Since Last Feburary (Median Sales Price DOWN -8.18% Since Dec 31, 2022)

Alarm!

New home sales rose 1.11% since January and is down -19% since last February (YoY).

The median price of new home sales is down a whopping -8.18% since December 2022. And average price is down -12.83%.