Confounded Interest – Anthony B. Sanders
Financial Markets And Real Estate
Bidenomics, the massive Federal spending spree that helped drive inflation to 40 year highs, is the most top-down Soviet-style command economy model imaginable.
As The Fed battles Bidenflation, the 30-year mortgage rate has now risen to 7.31%, a far cry from 2.88% when Biden was installed as President. That is a 154% increase in the 30-year mortgage rate under Bidenomics.
The architect of Bidenflation, Snow Biden.
Biden’s massive spending spree (aka, Build Back Better) has a new name: Build Back Bankrupt!
According to Epiq, Commercial Chapter 11 Filings Increased 68 Percent in the First Half of 2023.
NEW YORK – July 03, 2023 — The 2,973 total commercial Chapter 11 bankruptcies filed during the first six months of 2023 represented a 68 percent increase over the 1,766 filed during the same period in 2022, according to data provided by Epiq Bankruptcy, the leading provider of U.S. bankruptcy filing data. Individual Chapter 13 filings increased by 23 percent during the same period.
Overall commercial filings registered 12,107 for the first half of 2023, representing an 18 percent increase from the commercial filing total of 10,258 for the first half of 2022. Small business filings, captured as Subchapter V elections within Chapter 11, totaled 814 in the first six months of 2023, a 55 percent increase from the 525 elections during the same period in 2022.
Overall commercial filings increased 12 percent in June 2023, as the 2,123 filings were up from the 1,891 commercial filings registered in June 2022. The 404 commercial Chapter 11 filings in June represented a 9 percent increase from the 371 filings in June 2022. Total Subchapter V elections within Chapter 11, experienced a 111 percent increase from 94 in June 2022 to 198 in June 2023.
“The increase in commercial and individual bankruptcy filings during the first half of 2023 underscores the economic challenges faced by businesses and individuals,” said Gregg Morin, Vice President of Business Development and Revenue at Epiq Bankruptcy. “Our objective is to provide bankruptcy professionals with timely and accurate data necessary for analyzing stakeholder volumes and trends for making informed business decisions.”
Total bankruptcy filings were 217,420 during the first six months of 2023, a 17 percent increase from the 185,352 total filings during the same period a year ago. Total individual filings also registered a 17 percent increase, as the 205,313 filings during the first half of 2023 were up from the 175,094 filings during the first six months of 2022. The 85,390 individual Chapter 13 filings in the first half of 2023 represent a 23 percent increase over the 69,367 filings during the same period in 2022.
All chapters increased in June 2023 compared to June 2022, with 37,700 total bankruptcy filings representing an increase of 17 percent from the 32,198 filed in 2022. Total commercial filings were up 12 percent from 1,891. Total Individuals were up 18 percent from 30,307.
While not the Epiq data, the Bloomberg Corp Bankruptcy Index shows the rise in bankruptcies as The Fed fights Bidenflation.
After yesterday’s surprise ADP jobs report, I was expecting a better June jobs report. But alas, today’s job report was a disappointment. Only 209k jobs were added in June.
On the other hand, average hourly earnings YoY rose slightly to 4.4%. Too bad core inflation at the last reading was 5.3% YoY.
Here is the rest of the story:
Silver is up almost 2% this AM!
What is Bidenomics? It isn’t what Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre thinks. She said Biden hates “trick down economics”. Instead, Biden prefers a Soviet-style command economy where The Federal Government spends trillions of dollars and directs where the money goes. We also have the Socialist Federal Reserve that relies on rate manipulation to achieve policy results.
A good example of Biden’s Soviet-style “Bidenomics” is his use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). Biden has now drained almost 50% of the SPR from when he was sworn in as President. And has drained the SPR for 14 straigth weeks to manipulate gasoline and diesel fuel prices in an effort to lower fuel prices ahead of the 2024 Presidential election. Watch Biden suddenly stop caring about fuel prices once he wins reelection!
After last week’s huge draw, expectations were for a smaller draw (which API showed last night), but the actual crude draw was smaller – just 1.5mm barrels. Stocks at the Cushing hub fell 400k barrels and products also saw notable draws..
At least we now know who left cocaine in the White House!
The good news (if true)? ADP announced that 497k jobs were added in June.
The bad news? A 497k print on jobs (many seasonal, it is summer!) almost guarantees that The FOMC (Fed Open Market Committe) will raises rates again at at the July meeting.
The 2-year Treasury yield is up over 10 basis points.
The 2-year Treasury yield is up 16.5 basis points.
Bticoin Cash is up 10% today.
I should have bought nickel!
Why is Biden sending Treasury Secretary Janet “The Marxist Midget” Yellen to China? A Treasury Secretary and former Federal Reserve Chair? Likely trying to convince China that our $32 TRILLLION AND GROWING national debt is not a problem, since China is the third largest holder of US Treasury debt (after The Fed and Japan). Note that China has decreased its holdings of US Treasuries by -25.6% since January 2018.
Hopefully, Yellen isn’t acting as a bag man for The Biden Crime Family. 10% for The Big Guy?? How much does Yellen get??
The closer we get to the 2024 Presidential election, the more the economy is slip slidin’ away.
As Powell and The Gang raise interest rates, the more the economy is … slip slidin’ away. US Manufacturers New Orders YoY in May declined -1.0% for the first time since Covid.
But as M2 Money growth slows, its getting late in the election cycle.
Too soon?
Happy 4th of July! Enjoy those burgers and hot dogs, at least until you consider that food prices have risen a staggering 49% under Biden’s Reign of Economic Error.
This is much worse than the quoted story that Fourth of July cookout costs 15% more since Biden took office. Broken out by components,
The only good news is that The Fed’s monetary stimulus growth is slowing. But don’t worry! Biden and Congress will keep introduce massive spending bills to avert a recession. Which will cause downline inflation.
My favorite hot dog place, Chicago’s Wolfy’s!
Its the 4th of July, American Independence Day from England, but under Biden and The Federal Reserve, Americans are DEPENDENT on debt and Federal spending. In other words, Americans are addicted to gov.
First, Bankrate’s 30-year mortgage rate index is up 150% under Biden. You can see the rapid rise in mortgage rates started with Biden (orange box). Meanwhile, the US Treasury yield curve (10Y-2Y) is the most inverted (negative slope) since 1981. Way to go, Joe!!
On the metals side, gold and silver are up slightly. (Go silver go!!)
On the crypto side, Polkadot is up 1.26% while Bitcoin is down -0.18%.
Memo To Fed: keep on printing! Why? US debt is currently $32.33 TRILLION with $192 TRILLION in unfunded Federal liabilties. That is 5 times the current level of debt!!
I was hoping that the week of July 4th would start off with fireworks, but we got bad news about the economy.
US factory activity contracted for an eighth month in June, slipping to the weakest level in more than three years as production, employment and input prices retreated.
The Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing gauge fell to 46, the weakest since May 2020, from 46.9 a month earlier, according to data released Monday. The current stretch of readings below 50, which indicates shrinking activity, is the longest since 2008-2009.
The decline in the ISM production gauge, which also stands at the lowest level since May 2020, suggests demand for merchandise remains weak. The index of new orders contracted for the 10th straight month and order backlogs shrank, which may help explain a pullback in a measure of manufacturing employment.
The ISM gauge retreated to a three-month low and, at 48.1, indicates fewer producers adding to payrolls.
Many Americans continue to limit their spending on merchandise as they rotate to services and experiences. Others are simply tightening their belts as still-high inflation takes a toll on their incomes.
And then we have cardboard box shipments declining at fastest rate since 2008/2009.
At least Ethereum is up over 2% this morning.
And the US Treasury 10Y-2Y keeps on diving deeper into inversion.
Joe Biden, the face of Bidenomics.
Bidenomics is based on massive Federal spending and massive Fed monetary stimulus. But like all stimulus, it wears off. Such is the case with bank lending as The Fed raises interest rates.
US bank credit year-over-year (YoY) has stalled to a lowly 0.7% rate as M2 Money growth YoY increases slightly to -4%.
White House report signals openness to manipulating sunlight to prevent climate change.
Its figures. With the Socialist Federal Reserve manipulating interest rates and Biden/Congress spending like drunken sailors trying to manipuate economic growth, it makes sense that Biden wants to explore Bill Gate’s idiotic idea of blotting out the sun to prevent global warming.
Of course, Biden can hide at any of his 4 mansions and wear his Ray-ban Aviators to avoid the horror of his policies.
Confounded Interest - Anthony B. Sanders 
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