I would like to see Kamala Harris explain why mortgage purchase applications are down -60% under Biden/Harris Presidency. Other than a word salad answer. Or Cottage Cheese.
Mortgage applications decreased 17.0 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Applications Survey for the week ending October 11, 2024.
The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 17.0 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 17 percent compared with the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 7 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index decreased 7 percent compared with the previous week and was7 percent higher than the same week one year ago.
The Refinance Index decreased 26 percent from the previous week and was 111 percent higher than the same week one year ago.
Housing prices are up 34.2% under Biden/Harris while mortgage rates are up 138.6%.
Biden/Harris will be remembered for many things, mostly BAD. Uncontrolled immigration, crime out of control, endless wars, grossly incompetent government administrators, 200k+ missing immigrant children, etc. But wreckless inflation coming from insane government spending takes the cake. And it is heating up again, with the help of The Feral Reserve. Yes, The FERAL Reserve.
Under Biden/Harris, prices are WAY up, real weekly earnings are WAY down.
For the 52nd straight month, core consumer prices rose on a MoM basis in September (+0.3% MoM – hotter than the 0.2% expected) – the strongest since March. That left Core CPI YoY up 3.3%, hotter than the 3.2% expected…
Source: Bloomberg
The headline CPI also printed hotter than expected (+0.2% MoM vs +0.1% MoM exp), with the YoY CPI up 2.4% (hotter than the 2.3% expected but lowest since Feb 2021)…
Source: Bloomberg
Core Services and Food costs surged in September…
Source: Bloomberg
Overall, headline consumer prices are up over 20% (5.1% p.a.) since the Biden-Harris admin took over, which compares to around 8% (1.97% p.a) during Trump’s first term…
Source: Bloomberg
The so-called SuperCore CPI also increased on a YoY basis to +4.6%…
Source: Bloomberg
A surge in Transportation Services costs (record high auto insurance) and Medical Care Supplies lifted Super Core…
Source: Bloomberg
Why is the cost of auto insurance up 56% since Biden and Harris took over?
Source: Bloomberg
Real wages are down since the start of the Biden-Harris administration…
Source: Bloomberg
Finally, we note that money supply is resurgent once again, suggesting The Fed’s confidence in CPI’s decline may be misplaced…
Source: Bloomberg
Could we really replay the ’70s once again?
Source: Bloomberg
Will that really be Powell’s legacy? Or will the timing of this resurgence in inflation be perfectly timed to coincide with Trump’s election victory… and offer a perfect patsy for who is to blame?
The US government now pays out on average $3bn in interest expenses per day…If the Fed cuts interest rates by 1%-point and the entire yield curve declines by 1%-point, then daily interest expenses will decline from $3bn per day to $2.5bn per day.
Even worse, unfunded Federal liabilities total $219 trillion while total US assets total only $213 trillion. In other words, if China (for example) forced us to pay off our unfunded liabilities like Social Security, Medicare, etc., we couldn’t.
Notice how NO politician ever discusses The Federal goverment spending LESS money. Particularly not Joe “The fool on the hill” Biden or Kamala “Word salad Kammie” Harris.
First, market participants are pricing in nearly 250 basis points (or 2.5%) in rate cuts by Jan 2026. Down to 3% from the cuurent rate of 5.50.
Why? The economy is a shambles due to bad economic policies by Harris/Biden and their Congressional stooges, especially Schumer in the Senate and Pelosi in the House. Hence, The Fed will feel pressure to lower rates. Although I don’t think that it will happen.
Of course, the Philly Fed disclosed that the Biden/Harris administration overstated jobs added by almost 1 million jobs in Q2. I would love to see Harris interviewed about that and watch her deflect and break into gales of laughter. How do American workers feel about Biden/Harris overstating jobs gains by almost 1 million jobs?? Isn’t that fraud?
Commercial real estate market challenges are more severe for older office towers in downtown metro areas than those outside city centers. The mismatch between funding needs and available credit in a high-interest-rate environment has also intensified the strain on building owners, as elevated tower vacancy rates persist across many markets due to the ongoing trend of remote work becoming the norm.
Aging business districts from Los Angeles to Chicago to Boston of zombie towers with high vacancy rates that have no use in today’s economy.
Big landlords, including Brookfield, Blackstone, and Starwood Capital Group, have walked away from older downtown towers in recent quarters.
The latest data from MSCI shows office values in metro areas have crashed 52% from their highs. Some of the worst declines have occurred in San Francisco, Manhattan, Washington, and Boston.
Source: Bloomberg
Between 2019 and 2023, about $557 billion of value evaporated from US offices due to a multi-year slide in demand, with older towers quickly falling out of favor with companies, according to an estimate by economists at Columbia and New York universities. CBRE Group noted that only 2% of towers in the US are considered top-tier, with rents 84% higher than the rest of the market.
Data from brokerage Savills shows office rents in business districts have grown slower than rents for similar buildings outside metro areas.
Source: Bloomberg
The move to new towers highlights how, for decades, the bubbles in legacy downtown districts, fueling economies, have ended for now, and older towers will have to be torn down.
To be very frank. It’s a crisis. Democrats running the crime-ridden metro area are delusional and blinded by their woke religion as the city’s population recently crashed to a 100-year low, and violent crime remains a major issue.
We’ve had conversations with multiple folks at wealth management and investment banking firm Stifel Financial about the latest shift of operations outside the dying business district to a new tower in a much safer and newer district. At first, Stifel contemplated leaving the city for the suburbs because far-left Democrats in City Hall could not enforce law and order.
CRE foreclosures are on the rise.
Don’t forget about Soros-funded district attorneys not enforcing the law in large cities. Expect more of the same if Harris/Walz win the election.
Combined Biden/Harris’ spending spree with The Fed’s monetary goonery and we got inflation (gasoline, food, shelter). With spiraling inflation in mortgage rates and shelter prices we saw a correponding decline in existing home sales under Biden/Harris.
Harris claims to lower prices on her first day in office (she has been in office as VP since 2021 and actually voted in the US Senate as tie breaker to enact policies that INCREASED Inflation). But her suggestion of $25,000 for ALL first time homebuyers is of course INFLATIONARY. And her anti-price gouging policies willl of course reduce supply of groceries avaiable, driving up INFLATION.
After watching the Democrat hate fest last night (Aka, the Democrat National Convention), I was not shocked that the DNC platform looked like a playbook to destroy the US economy. High taxes, endless spending, more regulations, etc. Not a word about the staggering side of the US debt load … with Harris’ economic plan projected to add a whopping $25 trillon in debt to the already massive $35+ trillion debt load.
And not a mention that US interest payments on the national debt already exceeds defense spending. And is booming!
Of course, Harris’s economic vision is a continutation of Biden’s disastrous visions (which are Obama’s vision of US obliteration). Most politicians in Congress are millionaires (including Bernie Sanders) and won’t suffer from their insane “progressive” policies. Watching last night’s DNC hatefest was like watching nasty 2nd graders having a party.
Of course, the drove of anti-American, anti-properity speakers spewing venom (I hate Hillary’s flat-tone speaking style) like Hillary, Jaime Raskin (aka, Rasputin), AOC, etc. all failed to acknowledge to acknowledge the already monstrous size of the US debt ($35+ trillion) or the massive size of the unfunded promises ($218+ TRILLION). Of course not.
The handle the staggering interest payments that will crowd out other spending, The Federal Reserve will be forced to lower rates.
Of course, Democrats will wheel out “economists” like Robert Reich who say that the debt doesn’t matter.
…and the head of The Conference Board says ‘nothing to see here’…
“The LEI continues to fall on a month-over-month basis, but the six-month annual growth rate no longer signals recession ahead,” said Justyna Zabinska-La Monica, Senior Manager, Business Cycle Indicators, at The Conference Board.
For context, outside of the great financial crisis, this is the worst decline in LEI since the mid ’70s!!!
And what is behind the ‘no recession’ call… US equity strength!!
Thank The Feral Reserve for the equity spike!
So, to summarize – almost all the macro data signals weakening growth for years… but because stocks are up (and credit spreads down), there’s no recession anywhere on the horizon!!??
Kamala Harris, despite being VP for almost 4 years, is going to annouce her plans for taming inflation. Why doesn’t she do it now?? What Harris can’t control is The Federal Reserve that is losing money at breakneck speed.
Here is The Fed’s balance sheet.
I shudder to think what Harris will propose to solve the highest bankrupty (Chap 11) rate in 13 years. Probably more Bidenomics (big wealth transfers to large corporations/donors).
Meanwhile, foreigns pulled a record amount of funds from ailing China.
Kamala Harris will say anything to get elected, then fall back on her Communist agenda.
Confounded Interest - Anthony B. Sanders 
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