There have been to significant jumps in the Federal Debt. The first coming after the financial crisis of 2008 and election of Obama/Biden in 2008. The second with the outbreak of Covid in 2020 and the election of Biden/Harris in 2021.
The Federal (public) debt was just over $10 million when Obama/Biden were elected and it now stands at a staggering $35.7 trillion. That represents over a tripling of the Federal debt under Obama/Biden/Harris. So when asked what she would do diffeerent than Biden, Harris replied “Nothing comes to mind.” That means MORE spending, MORE debt and MORE unproductive Government jobs.
Here is a chart of public debt and GDP under the triumvirate of Obama, Biden and Harris. No, not Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus). But it is feeling like the Roman Empire prior to its collapse.
Here is a chart of government jobs and government expenditures. Great for government workers, bad for everyone else.
Of course, SOMEBODY has to pay the growing gov’t debt burden. Rest assured it won’t be Obama/Biden/Harris.
Mortgage rates are rising again with Friday’s surprising jobs report. But as it just a false election report. If Rasmussen is correct, mortgage rates should FALL again.
The Presidential and Vice Presidential debates thus far feature weak moderators asking lame questions. For example, there are still 97 hostages stll held by Hamas and what would the candidates do to get them released? (Hint: Trump/Vance would have sensible responses. Harris would just laugh and say she was raised in a middle class family and Walz would look like a deer in the headlights. Then we have national debt of $36 trillion, $271K per taxpayer.
But the hidden bomb that will never be discussed is unfunded liabilities (entitlements) such as Social Security and Medicare. Currently, unfunded liabilities are $219 TRILLION or $650K per citizen.
Of course, Biden/Harris have let the southern border wide open to criminals and uneducated Democrat voters who will voter for MORE entitlements.
So, when will the lame debate moderators ask HARD questions? And can Harris attempt to answer one hard question without laughing or falling back on lame “I was raised in a middle-class household.” etc.
It turns out that Powell’s “emergency” 50bps rate cut was – drumroll – another major policy mistake by the Fed. Or it is Presidential election interference by The Biden/Harris Administration giving Cacklin’ Kamala as talking point?
Moments ago, the BLS reported that at a time when prevailing consensus was for jobs to continue their recent downward slide sparked by the near-record annual jobs revision and several months of downbeat jobs reports, in September the US unexpectedly added a whopping 254K jobs, the biggest monthly increase since March…
There’s more: unlike previous months where we saw repeat downward job revisions, the BLS said that both prior months were revised up, to wit: the change in total nonfarm payroll employment for July was revised up by 55,000, from +89,000 to +144,000, and the change for August was revised up by 17,000, from +142,000 to +159,000. With these revisions, employment in July and August combined is 72,000 higher than previously reported.
Some context: as UBS notes, the moving six-month average on nonfarm payrolls is 167k. The estimate is that 150k is about consistent with a return of the economy to trend growth. Which means that inflation is about to come back with a vengeance, just as the Fed launches its easing cycle.
Remarkably, while payrolls jumped by the most in half a year, the number of employed people also surged, rising by a whopping 430K, also the biggest one-month jump since March.
It wasn’t just the payrolls, however, which came in far stronger than estimates: the unemployment rate also came in stronger than expected, and thanks to the jump in employed workers coupled with the decline in unemployed workers (from 7.115MM to 6.834MM), it dropped from 4.2% to 4.1% (and down from 4.3% two months ago which spared the entire recession panic).
Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for adult men (3.7 percent) decreased in September. The jobless rates for adult women (3.6 percent), teenagers (14.3 percent), Whites (3.6 percent), Blacks (5.7 percent), Asians (4.1 percent), and Hispanics (5.1 percent) showed little or no change over the month.
And here is the rub, because in a vacuum the super strong jobs numbers would have been fantastic, the only issue is that the September blowout comes as the Fed launches an easing cycle and as wages are once again rising as we have warned for the past 3 months. Indeed, in September, the average hourly earnings rose 0.4% sequentially, beating the estimate of 0.3%, while on an annual basis, wage growth was 4.0%, up from an upward revised 3.9% and beating the 3.8% estimate.
One note here: the average workweek for all employees edged down by 0.1 hour to 34.2 hours in September, which means the hourly earnings increase is not “pure” but rather a function of denominator adjustments. In manufacturing, the average workweek was unchanged at 40.0 hours, and overtime edged down by 0.1 hour to 2.9 hours. The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls remained at 33.7 hours.
What sector had the biggest growth? UNPRODUCTIVE government workers! A record 785,000 government workers were added in September, pushing total govt workers also to a new record high.
The Biden/Harris Administration has given away billions of dollars to foreign nations (like Ukraine) and illegal immigrants so far this year,
– $24,400,000,000 to Ukraine.
– $11,300,000,000 to Israel.
– $1,950,000,000 to Ethiopia.
– $1,600,000,000 to Jordan.
– $1,400,000,000 to Egypt.
– $1,100,000,000 to Afghanistan.
– $1,100,000,000 to Somalia.
– $1,000,000,000 to Yemen.
– $987,000,000 to Congo.
– $896,000,000 to Syria.
– $9,000 per illegal immigrant that has entered the U.S.
And claim that FEMA has no money left for Hurricane Helene victims who have received only $750 per person. So I have plenty of reasons to have no trust or confidence in the Biden/Harris Mal-administration.
The University of Michigan consumer survery is out and the results are startling.
Under Biden/Harris, buying conditions are far worse than under Trump/Pence.
In fact, buying conditions were extremely favorable (above 100) under Trump and dismal under Harris. Particularly for housing (where higher than normal mortgage rates and high housing prices made the “American Dream” the American Scream.
More evidence of how destructive Biden/Harris economic policies have been.
The NAR data show existing home sales down 2.5 percent in August to a 3.86 million unit seasonally adjusted annual rate after a small upward revision to 3.96 million units in July.
US existing home sales fell in August to near 14-year lows. Pink box.
Meanwhile, pending home sales (red line) ARE at an all-time low.
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have produced a destructive proposal to solve the inflation problem: price controls. Her biggest supporters like Elizabeth Warren and Ohio’s Sherrod Brown love the idea of meddling in the private sector,
But I would be symapatheic to their arguement if consumer prices soared more than producer prices. However, the truth is that prices paid by producers (PPI) SOARED far more than prices paid by consumers (CPI).
The cause? Federal goverment spending (green line) exploded with Covid. Harris/Walz are proposing massive spending under her administration hence there will be MORE inflation under Harris/Walz. So, the have to rely on flawed gimmics like price controls. Which will lead to shortage, food lines, rastioning, etc.
Market participants are expecting a 50 BPS cut tomorrow. From 5.50% to 4.913%.
This painting represents Washington DC where the deep state lingers in darkness.
Q2 marks the 11th STRAIGHT quarter of unrealized losses on investment securities for banks, a streak never seen before. The number of banks on the FDIC Problem Bank List increased to 66 and represents 1.5% of total.
This is in addition to price Increases over last 4 years… CPI Medical Care: +7.8% CPI Apparel: +12.7% CPI Used Cars: +18.3% CPI New Cars: +20.5% CPI Food at home: +21.4% CPI Shelter: +23.4% CPI Food away from home: +25.4% CPI Electricity: +29.8% CPI Gas Utilities: +34.9% CPI Transportation: +38.8% US Home Prices: +48.0% CPI Auto Insurance: +52.4% CPI Gasoline: +53.5% CPI Fuel Oil: +54.9%
Don’t spill the wine, its too expensive under Biden/Harris/Powell.
Confounded Interest - Anthony B. Sanders 
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