The United States savings rate runs to 3.20% down from 3.60% one month prior.As history has it, 8.47% is par.Meantime, 36% of Americans carry more credit card debt upon their shoulders than emergency savings in their pockets.Mainstream economists inform us it is not a symptom of economic distress. It is rather a symptom of economic vigor.For example, Ameriprise Financial's Russell Price:Consumer...Read More

Most economists don't believe we could have stagflation today. The prevailing view is that recessions are characterized by higher unemployment and reduced spending, and inflation is triggered by full employment and increased spending and therefore they cannot both happen at the same time.This prevailing view is wrong, as I explain today. Yet it's a powerful narrative that blinds most analysts to s...Read More

A dicey April pullback has given way to a fresh rally as the market's former momentum leaders gain traction.The bears might have gotten a little too cocky during the April swoon, leaving the door open to an unexpected snapback as investors refuse to sell in May and go away...Facts are facts... and we can't deny what's happening in the markets right now. While we were all expecting a bigger correct...Read More

Consider the defining characteristics of a ghetto:1. The residents can’t afford to live elsewhere.2. Everything is a rip-off because options are limited and retailers/service providers know residents have no other choice or must go to extraordinary effort to get better quality or a lower price.3. Nothing works correctly or efficiently. Things break down and aren’t fixed properly. Maint...Read More

Two weeks ago, the Congress passed (and President Biden signed) four key pieces of legislation related to national security.Three of the bills provided assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. They received the most attention. The one that got the least attention was a mixed bag of provisions, such as a forced divestiture of TikTok.Included in that bill was something called the REPO Act that auth...Read More

You may have heard of the "Overton window."The concept of the Overton window caught on in professional culture, particularly those seeking to nudge public opinion, because it taps into a certain sense that we all know is there.There are things you can say and things you cannot say, not because there are speech controls (though there are) but because holding certain views makes you anathema and dis...Read More

The silver spot price is above $26 per ounce today. It peaked above $28 on April 19, so it's pulled back a bit. But that's no big deal.Like the rising gold price, which is over $2,300 per ounce, it looks like there's more yet to come. In other words, precious metals are rapidly repricing.Right away, this tells me that Wall Street and the City of London have lost control over the price for gold and...Read More

"Why are we gambling with America's future?"This is the question of New York Times columnist David Brooks. More from whom:America is expected to spend $870 billion, or 3.1 percent of gross domestic product, this year on interest payments on the federal debt. According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the government will spend more on interest payments than on the entire defense b...Read More

My goodness, I didn't think I could hate the present administration more than I already do. It's a fountain of idiotic ideas, starting with shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline to just sending $61 billion to Ukraine.You may as well just set the money on fire.Everything Boneheaded Biden has done has made things more expensive. And don't give me, "Well, inflation has come down!"If a product costs...Read More

We're smack in the middle of another exciting earnings season.It's once again that magical time of the quarter when investors become confused, angry (or both!) when stocks don't react as they expect after filing their quarterly updates.Why are earnings so tough on armchair investors?It might have something to do with all the confusing numbers and analyst estimates floating around. Or maybe it's be...Read More

Did it warm your heart to see all those blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flags waved by our elected officials in Congress Saturday night with the passage of the $60-plus-billion aid bill to the Palookaville of Europe?You realize, don't you, that the tiny fraction of that hypothetical "money" from our country's empty treasury that ever reaches Ukraine will rebound on the instant into Mr. Zelenskyy's C...Read More

They're wearing us down with shocking headlines and opinions. They come daily these days, with increasingly implausible claims that leave your jaw on the floor.The rest of the text is perfunctory. The headline is the takeaway.A few weeks ago, The New York Times told us that "As It Turns out, the Deep State Is Pretty Awesome."These are the same people who claim that Trump is trying to get rid of de...Read More

We have asked the question before. Today we ask it again: What if socialism "worked"? What if communism worked?That is, what if collectivist economics outdid and outperformed free market capitalism... and Marx triumphed over Smith?Should the United States take collectivism aboard on pragmatic grounds of efficiency? Or should it beg off on abstract grounds of principle?The United States erected its...Read More

“He’d Give You The Shirt Off His Back.”To me, the above quote describes a nice, poor person.There's nothing wrong with that, but I never understood why that compliment was the highest you could give a man.It’s almost like saying, “He’s a great guy, but he can’t organize his financial affairs.”Folks, there’s a reason stewardesses tell you to put...Read More

Does the Fed even matter that much to the real economy and investor portfolios?That's an important question that doesn’t get nearly enough scrutiny. It's possible that neither the Fed nor the reporters who cover the Fed want to ask hard questions about what the Fed really does.Could it be the case that the emperor has no clothes?Financial journalists often refer to a Goldilocks economy ("not...Read More

"Something will have to give."So the International Monetary Fund warns us.Yet what must give? And why must it give?These are the questions that seize our attention today. Reports Bloomberg:The International Monetary Fund leveled an unusually direct criticism at U.S. policymakers Tuesday, saying the country's recent standout performance among advanced economies was in part driven by an unsustainabl...Read More

The big news this weekend is that the House passed a long-anticipated $95 billion foreign aid package.About $61 billion will go to assist Ukraine in its war with Russia. About $26 billion will go to Israel (with some humanitarian aid for Gaza) and around $8 billion will go to supporting allies in the Indo-Pacific region, most notably Taiwan.The package will go to the Senate this week, possibly as...Read More

The New York Stock Exchange is considering moving to 24/7 trading, the Financial Times reports.At the risk of sounding like an old crank, I must admit that I absolutely hate this idea.Sure, the younger generation might love to trade meme stocks and manage their crypto holdings at 3 A.M. But I need what precious sleep I can get. The last thing I want is my brokerage account pinging me with price al...Read More

Those who involved themselves in Bitcoin markets after 2017 encountered a different operation and ideal than those who came before.Today, no one much cares about what came before, speaking of 2010-2016. They are only watching the upward price momentum and are thrilled for the increase in the asset valuation of their portfolio.Gone is the talk of separating money and state, of a market-based means...Read More

Is the United States economy a "bougie" economy?Bougie: "High-class, fancy, materialistic, snobby. Mistaken for prosperity."Mr. E.J. Antoni is an economist with the Heritage Foundation. From whom:Despite inflation-adjusted incomes falling dramatically since January 2021, Americans are buying more than ever. That may sound like a contradiction, but it's perfectly possible, at least in the short run...Read More