All in Economics
There were over 14,496 FDIC-insured U.S. banks in 1984. As of June 30 2024, the number had decreased to 4,539. Three regulators fighting over fewer than a third of the banks that were operating 40 years ago. Thousands of regulators overseeing bankers pretending bad loans are good. The status quo.
Milei, being a student of the Austrian school knew a depression was needed to cleanse the Argentina economy.
They believe democracy allows them to vote for lower prices and higher wages. Not hardly. Inflationism was put in place long ago, making some people winners and some people losers.
It’s unlikely that crony capitalist Musk can do the impossible. After all, he’s made his fortune from big government. He doesn't want to shrink the space program, or stop EV tax credits.
Despite Joe and Jane Doe’s cheery attitude, ATTOM has issued a report indicating that lenders on commercial properties are beating a path to the courthouse steps. Commercial foreclosures totaled 752 in May of this year and remained elevated in September at 695.
The Chinese economy is experiencing just such a depression and the authorities in command and control China met this weekend and are going to abort the cleanse and aggressively intervene. Bl
Rob Williams, managing director of financial planning at Charles Schwab, told AARP, “Some may feel the increase for 2025 is low relative to the inflation they feel in their pocketbooks,” Williams says. “Still, it’s a welcome increase that builds on a 5.9 percent increase in payments in 2022, 8.7 percent in 2023 and 3.2 percent this year.”
To any economics student, go-go boots and the year 1965 mean Lyndon Banes Johnson’s “Guns and Butter” policy.
In a piece published in mises.org I outline a way Trump could do just such a thing which was outlined by financial analyst Luke Gromen in his conversation with Forex Analytics Dale Pincerts. Pincert worries that Trump (or Harris) would use an Executive branch to devalue the US dollar overnite. He asked Gromen if there is such a mechanism, which was the thrust of my piece, which I reproduce below.
Most investors are using these leveraged products as a way to double-down on their investment thesis,” Juctsane Edmondson, head of thematic strategy at TMX VettaFi states the obvious. “That approach amplifies gains when the underlying goes up, but also greater pain when they go down.”
After last year’s failures, “one-third of the banks [were] rat[ed] three or worse on a five-point scale for their overall management.” Three or worse? A four or five in management is essentially asleep at the switch at best or incompetent at worst.
Monthly bills are now average $739 for a new car and $549 for a used car. Three missed payments and the repo man is summoned. And seizures are easier than ever with “technological advancements such as tracking features and license plate data.”
“With this tidal wave of maturing and distressed loans, appraisers will play a key role in setting the values from which the market will begin the next stage in the real estate cycle.”
However, in a case of legislation looking for a problem, New York Governor Kathy Hochul has the proposed Restaurant Reservation Anti-Piracy Act on her desk which would require permission from restaurants to offer bookings.
“As stressed loans grow due to maturities, however, we expect that banks will start selling these more challenged loans to reduce their troubled loan exposures,” Murray said. Banks will take losses when these loans are unloaded, impairing capital and in some cases leading to bank failures.
The Hindenburg report provides many individual examples of sketchy loans made by Axos to sketchy characters. Not atypical is one where Axos lent up to $97.5 million for an apartment construction project in Queens where the “borrower has been criminally indicted twice personally, including a case involving a construction kickback scheme with a mafia captain. His company was indicted in a third case.”
Everything seems A-OK with the U.S. economy on the surface. But, the latest Grant’s Interest Rate Observer’s lead story, entitled “The case of the fragile 27%” uses the report by Paul Kupiec, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., to make the case that systemic risk to the nation’s banking system is bubbling just below the economy’s surface.
The majority of those surveyed — 59% — cited inflation as the top risk facing financial markets between now and year end. A US recession was listed as top risk by nearly a quarter of those queried.
Saleha Mohsin, author of Paper Soldiers: How the Weaponization of the Dollar Changed the World Order told Alloway and Weisenthal, “In 2001, 9/11 hits and, you know, the Global War on Terror did not start with military tanks rolling into some country or American troops in their boots hitting the ground somewhere. It started Sept. 24th, 2001 with George W. Bush, with a stroke of a pen giving the US Treasury Department the authority to weaponize the dollar.”
“They sell bonds and then people buy the bonds and lends the money. Yeah.” Bernstein went on as he appeared to become further confused, while attempting to reassure himself with his own answer, reports The Daily Mail.
