The Urgent Need For D.O.G.E.! $4.7 Trillion In Virtually Untraceable Treasury Payments

Janet Yelllen, the former Federal Reserve Chair and Treasury Secretary under clueless Joe Biden was a disaster in every respect. As Fed Chair, she was noteworthy for her clinging to low rates for too long. And as Treasury Secretary, she is noteworthy for her gross fiscal mismanagement (look at the deficit and debt crisis!). Now Zero Hedge has this disastrous report of $4.7 TRILLION in virtuallly untraceable Treasury payments.

The Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on Monday revealed its finding that $4.7 trillion in disbursements by the US Treasury are “almost impossible” to trace, thanks to a rampant disregard for the basic accounting practice of using of tracking codes when dishing out money.

With a debt load of $36.5 trillion and D.O.G.E. clock at $109 million and growing. Not to mention the $227 trillion in unfunded liabilities.

Mind you, it’s not as if such a federal tracking system wasn’t already in place — it simply went casually unused for all sorts of payouts adding up to an almost unfathomable $4.7 trillion. Without Treasury Access Symbol (TAS) identification codes associated with those payouts, there’s little hope in figuring out where all that money went.

“In the Federal Government, the TAS field was optional for ~$4.7 Trillion in payments and was often left blank, making traceability almost impossible,” DOGE announced via its X account. Thanks to DOGE, those “optional” days are over. “As of Saturday, this is now a required field, increasing insight into where money is actually going,” DOGE added.

Musk celebrated the move. “Major improvement in Treasury payment integrity going live!” he tweeted. “This was a combined effort of DOGE, USTreasury and FederalReserve. Nice work by all.”

DOGE’s scrutiny of various government agencies is eliciting high-pitched shrieks from nearly every leftist in America, from establishment politicians who don’t want the curtain that hides their hijinks and grifting torn down, to your liberal sister-in-law who thinks the government has an endless supply of money and that it spends it all virtuously.

Earlier this month, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pushed back on portrayals of DOGE employees as reckless rogues. “These are highly trained professionals,” he told Bloomberg. “This is not some roving band going around doing things. This is methodical and it is going to yield big savings.”

In the wake of the latest revelation that makes normal people glad that DOGE teams are scouring the federal government, Democrats desperately tried to find a way to make it sound bad that DOGE exposed trillions in untraceable payouts and promptly instituted tighter accounting discipline.

Meanwhile, leftists have also been foaming at the mouth over news that DOGE staffers are looking into the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) books, as if they were going to start rerouting funds to Tesla. Considering Social Security is careening toward mandatory benefit cuts as soon as 2033, everyone should welcome a team of financial professionals making sure the system isn’t being drained by improper payments.

Of course, that appears to be exactly what’s been happening. On Sunday night, Musk said DOGE might be on the trail of “the biggest fraud in history,” as SSA data appears to show that 20.789 million Americans over the age of 100 are collecting Social Security retirement benefits. That includes 12 million who are purportedly over 120 years old.

Bent on derailing DOGE, Democrats have sued to prevent the organization from accessing federal data associated with the Office of Personnel Management, and the Health and Human Services, Education, Energy, Transportation, Labor and Commerce departments. On Monday, the federal judge handling the request for a restraining order expressed skepticism over Democrats’ challenge, noting that their “evidence” was largely media speculation about potential harms springing from DOGE’s activities: “The courts can’t act based on media reports. We can’t do that.“

A ruling is expected Tuesday. Here’s looking forward to DOGE proceeding to uncover a relentless string of scandals for months and months to come.

How Low Can Mortgage Rates Go? Mortgage Rates Decline To Just Under 7% As Yield Curve Falls

How low can mortgage rates go?‘

According to National Mortgage News, the 30-Year Fixed mortgage rates dropped to 6.930%, a decline of 0.063%.

The conforming 30-year fixed mortgage rate is hovering just below 7%.

Note that on the left=hand side of the above chart that the US Treasury yield curve slope (green dashed line) hit its local high as Joe Biden became President, then began to decline as the insane spending ensued. Mortgage rates started to rise in 2022 as the yield curve slope declined.

But will the yield curve continue to fall along with mortgage rates? I hope not, because it would require to Biden’s insane spending.

Speakig of killers, DNA tests revealed that Aaron Kosminski, a Polishbarber was the murderer known as Jack The Ripper. Although Janet Yellen was my leading suspect.

January Inflation Comes In Hot, Hot, Hot! CPI Increases To 3% YoY As Federal Spending Continues

Inflation Picks Up Speed, Rising to 3% in January. It’s hot, hot, hot!

Trump and DOGE haven’t been able to curtail Federal spending … yet.

There IS NO Constitutional Crisis with DOGE. The President is fully within his rights to manage the Executive Branch and its agencies. Democrats just don’t like their piggie bank (aka. USAID) being audited.

Example: Federal employee retirements are processed using paper, by hand, in an old limestone mine in Pennsylvania. 700+ mine workers operate 230 feet underground to process ~10,000 applications per month, which are stored in manila envelopes and cardboard boxes. The retirement process takes multiple months. Great if this was the 1950s!

Is The Mortgage Market Back?Mortgage Refinance Applications Increased in Weekly Survey (+10 Percent) While Purchase Applications Increased (+4 Percent)

The mortgage market is back in town!

Mortgage applications increased 2.3 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending February 7, 2025.

The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 2.3 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 6 percent compared with the previous week. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 4 percent compared with the previous week and was 2 percent higher than the same week one year ago. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 2 percent from one week earlier.

The Refinance Index increased 10 percent from the previous week and was 33 percent higher than the same week one year ago.

Prepays are down significantly since 2021 which marks the beginning of The Fed starting to raise rates.

Aggregate prepayments for agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) fell 12% in January, with housing seasonals declining and mortgage rates lingering near 7%. MBS turnover speeds have bounced back considerably relative to 2023 lows, though high rates may be starting to take a toll. Even at current elevated rates, GNMA streamline refinancings are picking up as loans issued in spring of 2024 pass out of the refi lockout period.

Bummer! January Jobs Growth Below Estimates Amid Massive Revisions, Job Gains At +143k (New Sheriff In Town!)

Biden is out and so are the crazy job preferences of his administration (e.g., green energy). There is a new sheriff in town (Donald Trump).

Here’s what the BLS reported in Trump’s first official jobs report since he returned to the White House: total payrolls printed at 143K.

down sharply from an upward revised 307K (256K originally) and missing estimates of 175K.

Looking further back, the change in total nonfarm payroll employment for November was revised up by 49,000, from +212,000 to +261,000, and when adding the +51,000 revision to December employment in November and December combined is 100,000 higher than previously reported

But while the sequential change in the Establishment survey was notable, what was far more remarkable was the Household survey where we saw massive population related revisions (discussed last night), which pushed the civilian labor force higher by 2.2 million to 170.744 million, while the number of employed workers also increased by over 2.2 million to 163.895 million. As a result, the Household survey has finally caught up to Establishment survey.

Where the jobs are.

Revisions?

The Presidential portrait of Joe Biden.

4 Of USA’s Most Affordable Cities Are In Ohio (Cleveland, Dayton, Cincinnati, Columbus), None In California (Ohio Requires 10 Workdays To Afford Monthly Mortgage Payment)

No, its not 1903. Its 2025 and Dayton Ohio is the third most affordable city in the USA.

Ohio, the cradle of American Presidents (McKinley, Grant, Taft, Benjamin Harrison, Hayes, Garfield, Harding), is also home to 4 of the most affordable cities in the USA, according to The Virtual Capitalist.

Workdays required to afford a monthly mortgage payment is 10 days, near the lowest in the USA (behind West Virginia, Iowa, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Mississippi). California is by far the highest at 28 days.

Of course, Ohio will be clobbered by the polar vortex.

Canadiam PM Justin Trudeau will think this is evidence of Trump trying to screw Canada.

US Pending Home Sales Plunged -5.5% MoM In December

Pending home sales in the US plunged 5.5% MoM in December (vs 0.0% exp and below all estimates), dragging the total sales down 2.9% YoY (vs +4.2% exp).

This is the lowest December print since records began (in 2000).

Let’s see if Trump can loosen up regulations on mortgage lending and housing. Hopefully, the new HUD Secretary (Scott Turner) will be an upgrade over DofHealth’s Rachel Levine.

M1 Money UP 365% Since Covid, M2 Money UP 40%, Federal Spending UP 45% (Is Chuck Schumer REALLY Boss Tweed?)

Wow. Money printing by The Federal Reserve went will after the Covid outbreak in early 2020. So did Federal spending. Unfortunately, politicians are addicted to Federal spending. And Senators like Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) are trying to obstruct any spending cuts by Trump and his DOGE.

Well, M1 Money printing is UP 365% since Covid while M2 Money printing is UP 40%.

Federal current expenditures are up 45% since the Covid outbreak. But were never returned to normal spending levels.

New York senator Chuck Schumer is opposed to Trump’s efforts to cut Federal spending. Is Senator Schumer REALLY the political boss of Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party’s political machine that played a major role in the politics of 19th-century New York City and State?

The Green Slime Effect! House Price Index Up 3.8% YoY In November As Fed Funds Rates Remain High (Fed Balance Sheet Remains Elevated)

One reason that US home prices remain high (and unaffordable for many) is The Federal Reserve (aka, The Green Slime). Former Fed Chair (and Biden’s Treasury Secretary is no Luciana Paluzzi, the Italian beauty from the James Bond film Thunderball. Yellen is just a far-left economic hack.

Look at the Case-Shiller national home price index compared with The Fed funds target rate.

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index, covering all nine U.S. census divisions, reported a 3.8% annual return for November, up from a 3.6% annual gain in the previous month. The 10-City Composite saw an annual increase of 4.9%, recording the same annual increase in the previous month. The 20-City Composite posted a year-over-year increase of 4.3%, up from a 4.2% increase in the previous month. New York again reported the highest annual gain among the 20 cities with a 7.3% increase in November, followed by Chicago and Washington with annual increases of 6.2% and 5.9%, respectively. Tampa posted the lowest return, falling 0.4%.

The pre-seasonally adjusted U.S. National, 20-City, and 10-City Composite Indices’ upward trends continued to reverse in November, with a -0.1% drop for the national index, while the 20-City Composite saw a -0.1% decline and the 10-City Composite was unchanged.

While the Fed Funds target rate gyrates, The Fed’s balance sheet remains high.

The Federal Reserve’s new logo!

New Home Sales Increase to 698,000 Annual Rate in December (Despite Mortgage Rates Being Around 7%)

Home, home on the range … Where the realtors and mortgage lenders play.

Sales of new US homes ended 2024 on a high note in December as customers took advantage of incentives from builders, leading to a second straight year of increased purchases.

For the full year, customers purchased 683,000 homes, up about 2.5% from 2023’s total.

Sales of new single-family houses in December 2024 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 698,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 3.6 percent above the revised November rate of 674,000 and is 6.7 percent above the December 2023 estimate of 654,000.