A recent publication by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) highlighted the grave danger that faces the US economy as the government’s debt position continues to spiral out of control. The US national debt has already increased to more than 100% of GDP, and under certain scenarios CBO predicts that could reach as high as 165% in just 20 years....
Housing prices throughout the United States continue to rise, with recent data showing that prices increased nearly 7% from a year ago. That’s the fourteenth consecutive month of price increases, an incredible run. And while that will eventually have to come to an end, when will that happen? For more and more Americans who want to buy houses, the rising...
The July jobs report that was just published is another sign of the underwhelming continued growth of the economy. While economists predicted a gain of 193,000 jobs, the actual number was only 157,000, a pretty large miss. And while much of that was chalked up to a one-time hit from the closure of bankrupt toy retailer Toys R Us,...
Many investors remember the panic in financial markets that occurred in late 2008 as it appeared that financial markets were about to collapse. And they remember the role that mortgage-backed securities played in those fears, as securities that had been AAA-rated were found to be anything but. However, the collapse of the housing market didn’t take everyone by surprise,...
Last week’s hearing with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell doesn’t inspire confidence that the Fed knows what it is doing. Much attention has been focused recently on the yield curve, the spread between 2-year and 10-year Treasury securities, which has become increasingly narrow in recent weeks. The spread is becoming so close, in fact, that it risks inversion, with...
There’s a tendency, when looking at economic data, to look at aggregate measures and use them as proxies to determine the health of the economy. When looking at job numbers, for example, it’s tempting to look at figures for the total number of jobs, number of employment openings, and the unemployment rate to figure out how healthy the economy...
There are concerning new reports emanating from Europe that customers looking to withdraw large amounts of cash or gold from their banks are being denied. And while that is understandably frustrating for the depositors involved, it’s a worrying sign for all depositors everywhere. When the time comes to request your cash or your gold, do you know that you’ll...
Recently released data from the Federal Reserve shows that the wealth of American households has surpassed $100 trillion for the first time. But are American households really better off? Much of the wealth of American households isn’t immediately liquid, being held in the form of financial assets such as stocks, or tied up in the value of housing. As such,...
The Dow Jones dropped over 400 points in early trading to start the week, on renewed fears of a heightened trade war. The European Union began its implementation of tariffs on $3.2 billion of US imports on Friday. President Trump responded by threatening a 20% tariff on imports of European cars, and an insistence that any tariffs or barriers...
President Trump late last week slapped $50 billion worth of Chinese imports with a new 25 percent tariff. While the tariff had been long discussed, negotiations with the Chinese government in recent weeks seemed to have indicated a softening of Trump’s position towards China. That was particularly the case with Trump’s attempts to find a solution to keep troubled...
