The cost of living in the U.S. is rising at its fastest rate in 10 years, according to new data from the Labor Department.
The data, released Friday, revealed that consumer prices increased 2.9 percent in July from the year before, meaning Americans may be earning less than they did at this time last year.
The consumer price index, meanwhile, rose 0.2 percent last month, which analysts largely attributed to rising housing costs, CNBC reported. Annual inflation remained unchanged from June’s pace at 2.9 percent.
If only there was some private consortium of bankers we could pin this phenomenon on, excluding food and gas, of course – no one needs those…
The U.S. central bank has raised rates twice this year, in March and June, and financial markets overwhelmingly expect a hike at the next policy meeting in September.
The Fed currently forecasts a total of four rate rises in 2018, with investors expecting a final nudge upwards of the year in the benchmark overnight lending rate in December.
In the interests of honesty and reality, the man should change his name to GoodFIEND. He seriously advocates robbing the people of their money and forcing them into servitude to the criminal banksters. He’s also nominated by the Trump to the Federal Reserve Syndicate.
Trump Federal Reserve Board of Governors nominee Marvin Goodfriend reportedly advocated on two different occasions the elimination of cash from circulation in an effort to prevent individuals from hoarding cash in the event that the Federal Reserve were to push a negative interest rate policy during a financial crisis.
The Mises Institute notes that Goodfriend first floated the idea in a 1999 paper called “The Case for Unencumbering Interest Rate Policy at the Zero Bound” and again promoted the concept at a 2016 Federal Reserve conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo.
Goodfriend reportedly said that the Fed needs the option to push interest rates negative, which would cause consumers to pay fees in order to keep their money in savings accounts, and that cash should be eliminated to prevent banking consumers from pulling their money out of banks to avoid paying those fees.
Bloomberg notes that Goodfriend suggested a few theories for how to phase out cash. He floated eliminating large bills to make cash less convenient. He suggested that the Fed charge banks and/or consumers fees for issuing paper currency. He advocated that the issuance of cash be taxed such that consumers only receive 90 cents when withdrawing a dollar. He also called for abolishing cash outright. The Wall Street Journal notes that Goodfriend additionally suggested that cash bills should contain a magnetic strip so they can be scanned and tracked as they move through circulation.
Word has it he will even graciously allow singing in the fields.
I really like Donald Trump. I like the idea of America, America first even. I like my swamps drained. But I wonder sometimes why a man, nominally at war with the NWO, keeps nominating one swamp rat after another. We shall write this off as 19-D chess or whatnot.
Anyway, the criminal banksters have already achieved real negative interest rates. That barrier proved just as easily broken as the one associated with 767.3 MPH. It’s a convenient mechanism to boost the already steady supply of funny money. Here’s, in brief, how it works:
Congress authorizes debt spending, money created from nothing. The Fed digitally prints even more fake currency. They loan that surplus crap to the commercial banking criminals at a negative interest rate, adding even more fiat elasticity. The big banks loan it to smaller banks, funds, and credit companies at a flat or marginal rate. The smaller bank deals with a credit card bank at friendly, discount terms. (All along the way, money is passed with either little cost, no cost, or an actual bonus). The credit card bank kindly loans you the fake money – at 19% interest. You have to pay that back, via the sacrifice of part of your life and livelihood. You are literally the only party in the chain that has to contribute something real to the cycle.
That’s the loan side of negative rates. For savers, it means that the bank that holds your money no longer has to pay you anything for the privilege of the holding and use of your hard-earned cash. In fact, under this plan, you will have to pay them a fee to keep your cash. You will have no choice in the matter. This is also known as robbery.
This plan, when (when not if) implemented, will be sold to the gullible public as a measure of safety and convenience. Something about fighting terrorists or feeding whales or feeding whales to terrorists or anything else they think 95 IQ teevee watchers will fall for.
What this all amounts to is a desperate scramble by the globalist elites to grab just a little more real wealth and control as their new hellish world heads south. This is kind of what the Pope was eluding to the other day, in flowery, economically vacuous terms. These wise, central planners are literally planning to force the people into conditions to shock a Roman peasant. The people, by and very large, for their part, pop pills, eat a lot of sugar, and contemplate new tattoos. Not all of them.
Today, millions of Americans are headed to the polls to make their voices heard, make their votes count. Rest assured that whichever Uniparty dipshit you endorse today, he is deeply educated about this brewing danger and surely has a ready plan to combat it.
(Hang on a second. I laughed myself off my chair).
Okay, seriously, there is a solution to problems like this. Honest solutions. Appropriate solutions.
All of these schemes, these dread issues of modernity – the banking fraud, the debt, the hands-free laws, the pitiful schools, the “refugees,” the rancor, the violence – all of it is connected. People elsewhere are slowly waking up. The Italians will probably leave the EU within a year. The Swiss and the Swedes are preparing for war. The Hungarians and the Polls are firmly saying, “No!” to more globalist “help.” Will you, the Trump, and the rest of the US join them?
Federal Reserve policymakers see an economy that may be past full employment, financial market prices that are high and overall growth that continues to gather steam.
Those conditions remain appropriate for further interest rate increases, though inflation pressures remain fairly muted for now, according to a key report to Congress the central bank released Friday.
The monetary policy report provided a wide-ranging view of conditions for new Chairman Jerome Powell, who took the Fed’s reins earlier this month. Powell will present the report along with remarks during congressional testimony Tuesday.
“The FOMC expects that, with further gradual adjustments in the stance of monetary policy, economic activity will expand at a moderate pace and labor market conditions will remain strong,” the report said, echoing language from prior Federal Open Market Committee meetings.
Translation: We still have absolutely no idea what we’re doing but things seem well regardless.
I sincerely hope this Friday afternoon finds you well.
Janet Yellen issued her final official interview as Fed Chairman: Lil High...
Janet Yellen ended her long career at the Federal Reserve with concerns over how high the stock market has surged under her watch.
The S&P 500 has soared 315 percent since the March 2009 bear market lows and about 53 percent since she took over as chair of the central bank in 2004.
Yellen said in an interview with CBS News that market valuations are the source of some concern as she headed into private life following a 14-year Fed career, the last four as the chair. She spoke as the market finally took a breather from what has been a breathtaking move higher, with the Dow industrials falling 666 points Friday.
“Well, I don’t want to say too high. But I do want to say high,” she said. “Price/earnings ratios are near the high end of their historical ranges.”
In addition to elevated equity prices, Yellen also said commercial real estate is “quite high” compared with rents.
Irrational exuberance is what it’s called. Hype and craziness not backed by reality. Stocks too damned high!
Aunt Yellen speaks. 666. Not liking where this is going…
Says she’ll now devote more time to her monkeys… Freaking News.
But not to worry – another wise, Creature-approved acolyte of economic deception will be along Monday… The interests of the bankers are in good hands. And, it’s really them that matter the most, right?
The three richest people in the US – Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett – own as much wealth as the bottom half of the US population, or 160 million people.
Analysis of the wealth of America’s richest people found that Gates, Bezos and Buffett were sitting on a combined $248.5bn (£190bn) fortune. The Institute for Policy Studies said the growing gap between rich and poor had created a “moral crisis”.
In a report, the Billionaire Bonanza, the thinktank said Donald Trump’s tax change proposals would “exacerbate existing wealth disparities” as 80% of tax benefits would end up going to the wealthiest 1% of households.
“Wealth inequality is on the rise,” said Chuck Collins, an economist and co-author of the report. “Now is the time for actions that reduce inequality, not tax cuts for the very wealthy.”
The study found that the billionaires included in Forbes magazine’s list of the 400 richest people in the US were worth a combined $2.68tn – more than the gross domestic product (GDP) of the UK.
“Our wealthiest 400 now have more wealth combined than the bottom 64% of the US population, an estimated 80m households or 204 million people,” the report says. “That’s more people than the population of Canada and Mexico combined.”
The report says the “billionaire class” continues to “pull apart from the rest of us” at the fastest rate ever recorded. “We have not witnessed such extreme levels of concentrated wealth and power since the first gilded age a century ago.”
David McNew/Getty/The Guardian.
This isn’t a piece on class envy – at least not mine is not. Who knows what the trained squirrels at the Guardian were up to. If this money were earned honestly, then there would be no problem, regardless of any “inequality”, real or fancied.
Some, many of whom are hoarse from howling at the moon last night, might propose to seize all of this wealth and redistribute it. Unlike Scrooge McDuck, these three real characters do not have $250 Billion in gold coins and cash in the basement of some mega mansion. It’s (almost all of it) invested in their companies and earning more money while created goods, jobs, and services. It’s not liquid. Taking it would collapse a sizable portion of the economy. Killing the goose … all for $1,500 per poorer half class member. Once…
Stick to the helpless screaming, SJWs.
The rest of you know I am (mostly) concerned with the truth. So, what is the truth behind Gates, Bezos, and Buffett?
Bill Gates became filthy rich by selling software. My perspective dictates the products are second-rate at best, a bill of goods bought from a high-class carny. Yet they remain extremely popular. The people get what they think they want. Gates gets richer. Okay.
Bezos runs Amazon. Some say this business is a modern monopoly, responsible for killing all the bookstores of the world. I have a vested interest here. Periodically Amazon sends me money for book sales. The checks are small but they do come. Thus, in my view, Saint Bezos and his beautiful creation can do no wrong. I wish them success as this directly benefits me. If you don’t like that, then you probably don’t read and, therefore, don’t really have a dog in the fight. Bugger off.
Buffett is held forth as the ultimate investor. Making and creating Billion$ while humbly living in the same small house for 50 years, the paragon of Wall Street virtue. That’s part of the truth.
The other part involves his direct manipulation of the economy. Watch the following video for a funny analysis of how this works (a cartoon, no less – for the people!):
Malekanoms/YouTube.
First, for the ardent pendatrists, consider the cloud cover in the cartoon. How is that consistent with the digital trees??? What say your television shows?
Now. If you happen to consider the substance, then know this: what Buffet and a few others do is not technically illegal. It should be as should be the whole central banking scheme. However, since we’re past the days of the law, why not make money (take money) from the existing corrupt system?
That’s where the problem lies. And howling at the moon, beating the bongos, and voting will not fix it.
President Donald Trump nominated Jerome Powell to run the Federal Reserve once current Chair Janet Yellen’s term expires, in a move widely expected and one unlikely to disturb the roaring stock market.
Trump made the announcement during a Thursday afternoon ceremony in the Rose Garden.
The move follows an extended period of speculation over who would be named to head the central bank, whose aggressive policies have been considered central to a climate of low interest rates, surging job creation and booming asset prices.
“Today is an important milestone on the path to restoring economic opportunity to the American people,” Trump said with Powell standing to his right and the prospective chairman’s family nearby. The president said the Fed requires “strong, sound and steady leadership” and Powell “will provide exactly that type of leadership.”
“He’s strong, he’s committed and he’s smart, and if he is confirmed by the Senate, Jay will put his considerable talents and experience to work leading our nation’s independent central bank,” Trump added.
First, median incomes in 2016 set an all time record. Rather, they beat out (or caught up to) those from 1999. Hooray! We’ve only lost two decades of growth. And incomes, recall, are usually the last thing to catch up – before a new correction.
One of the first things to go up and one which goes up fastest … is new government debt. See: the Instantaneous manufacture of $317,645,000,000 worth of new debt in one day! It’s a miracle! Thanks to Congress and the Prez. for the temporary spending boost on the way to infinite and perpetual indebtedness.
For the latter story you can thank the government and their pet, the Federal Reserve. The Fed was one of three marvels foisted on the formerly free people in 1913.
Speaking of foisting – yesterday was the 16th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. I was a little busy and, therefore, this will likely be my only remembrance note this year. (Unlike last year – see Sept. 2016 archives).
Just in time for the anniversary, engineering expert Dr. Leroy Hulsey and his research team released a study of the collapse of WTC Tower 7. It’s kind of part one of the study anyway. He (they) have some questions about the official narrative.
You may recall that the ninth plane (from Toronto) hit WTC 7. The impact and resulting conflagration caused substantial weakening of the steel frame inside the tower (much like WTC 1 and 2), which caused a complete (and VERY neat and self-contained) collapse.
I completely made that last paragraph up. No plane hit No. 7. There was only a small, office-material-fueled fire (with temperatures insufficient to melt or weaken steel). And the fire almost burned out long before the collapse – maybe around the time the media was parroting that the tower had collapsed, even as it stood in the background of their live broadcasts.
Not many believe the “official” story about No. 7 or anything else that day, not even members of the Commission impaneled to investigate it. This study sheds a little light with more to come. See if you will.
He may be a little older and maybe a little out of touch but that doesn’t mean he’s not right. Alan Greenspan sees a bubble in the bond market (with broader ramifications):
“By any measure, real long-term interest rates are much too low and therefore unsustainable,” the former Federal Reserve chairman, 91, said in an interview. “When they move higher they are likely to move reasonably fast. We are experiencing a bubble, not in stock prices but in bond prices. This is not discounted in the marketplace.”
While the consensus of Wall Street forecasters is still for low rates to persist, Greenspan isn’t alone in warning they will break higher quickly as the era of global central-bank monetary accommodation ends. Deutsche Bank AG’s Binky Chadha says real Treasury yields sit far below where actual growth levels suggest they should be. Tom Porcelli, chief U.S. economist at RBC Capital Markets, says it’s only a matter of time before inflationary pressures hit the bond market.
“The real problem is that when the bond-market bubble collapses, long-term interest rates will rise,” Greenspan said. “We are moving into a different phase of the economy — to a stagflation not seen since the 1970s. That is not good for asset prices.”
Bloomberg.
Of course, what’s the worry? We have the same central bank that Greenspan used to Chair in firm control. They’ve never been wrong about anything nor caused anything but growth and prosperity. Bubble, schubble…
The false reality constructed for Americans parallels perfectly the false reality constructed by Big Brother in George Orwells’ dystopic novel 1984.
Consider the constant morphing of “the Muslim threat” from al-Qaeda to the Taliban, to al-Nursra, to ISIS to ISIL, to Daesh with a jump to Russia. All of a sudden 16 years of Middle East wars against “terrorists” and “dictators” have become a matter of standing up to Russia, the country most threatened by Muslim terrorism, and the country most capable of wiping the United States and its vassal empire off of the face of the earth.
Domestically, Americans are assured that, thanks to the Federal Reserve’s policy of quantitative easing, that is, flooding the financial markets with newly printed money that has driven up the prices of stocks and bonds, America has enjoyed an economic recovery since June of 2009, which must be one of the longest recoveries in history despite the absence of growth in median real family incomes, despite the growth in real retail sales, despite the falling labor force participation rate, despite the lack of high value-added, high productivity, high wage jobs.
The “recovery” is more than a mystery. It is a miracle. It exists only on fake newspaper.
…
Chasing and creating phantoms while the economy rots.
And of the economy, rumors circulate that Trump will soon make it four in a row at the Fed’s helm:
President Donald Trump is increasingly unlikely to nominate Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen next year for a second term, four people close to the process said.
National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn is now the leading candidate to succeed Yellen as the world’s most important central banker, these people said. Yellen begins two days of congressional testimony on Wednesday, and her own future in the job may come up in questioning.
If Trump taps Cohn for the Fed, it could enrage economic nationalists in the White House and some staunchly conservative Republicans on Capitol Hill who don’t like the former Goldman Sachs president’s background as a Democrat who generally favors free trade.
And it would spur a backlash from progressive lawmakers who have blasted the president for picking multiple Goldman alums to run economic policy.
While the departure of Aunt Janet would be a great thing, her replacement by the former president of Goldman does not induce that warm, fuzzy feeling.
The best thing about Cohn is that he isn’t a credentialed economist – those have been dead wrong about everything for the past 100+ years. Otherwise, this will be the fox managing the henhouse.
But, hey, it’s now less than two months until football season…
Fed Chair Janet Yellen said Tuesday that banks are “very much stronger” and another financial crisis is unlikely anytime soon.
Speaking during an exchange in London with British Academy President Lord Nicholas Stern, the central bank chief said the Fed has learned lessons from the financial crisis and has brought stability to the banking system.
…
She also made a bold prediction: that another financial crisis the likes of the one that exploded in 2008 was not likely “in our lifetime.”The crisis, which erupted in September 2008 with the implosion of Lehman Brothers but had been stewing for years, would have been “worse than the Great Depression” without the Fed’s intervention, Yellen said.
I think I know what “no crisis like 2008 in our lifetime” means. The poor woman must be terminally ill. That or maybe she/they know the next one will be worse than 2008.
Kitco.
“Had been stewing for years….” Maybe that’s why, as the article later pointed out, it caught the Fed completely off guard.
I do like her giving the Fed credit for preventing the Greater Depression. Rich.
The Fed, if you recall actual history, prolonged a downturn, a recession, into the Great Depression of the 1930’s. They have experience wrecking the economy. And it’s really too soon to tell about the Greater Depression, although I’ve seen stats from two economists that show the 2008 crisis was every bit as bad as that of the 30’s and that we have yet to recover from it.
Wait! Now I know what she means. She knows the 2008 crisis never really ended. Therefore its continuation this year or next coupled with a new worsening crash technically won’t be another crisis – it’ll be the same one.
That or she’s sick.
Thoughts and prayers.
Perrin Lovett is soon coming to Patreon. You can be part of the revolution.
