So says the headline... I thought "emerging"?? Really?? "Emerging"?? I think that horse already left the barn, Fed. That sounds like your silly 2021 "transitory inflation" theory to me.
https://www.golocalprov.com/business/federal-reserve-warns-of-an-emerging-housing-bubble
Google question trending: what happens if the dollar loses reserve status?
A weakening dollar in itself makes foreign goods and services more expensive for American consumers and businesses, and should the dollar lose the reserve currency status, it would make our transactions more expensive as well — costs that businesses would pass on to US consumers.
For decades, Uncle Sam has weaponized the dollar's reserve status and used it as a cudgel to beat other nations over the head thinking that its status would never be challenged. Think again. All of the inflation that we managed to offshore via our currency's reserve status may be coming back onshore soon.
A member of the Keating 5 ('memba 'dem???), constantly pushing his finger in the chests of other countries, "Republican" who attacked Ron Paul in debates over Paul's position that America should "mind its own beeswax", a lover of big government and all of the fraud and bullshit that goes with big government - I give to you deceased Great American, John McCain.
My guess is that he was likely in cahoots with Biden and his son where Ukrainian grift was concerned...
Let's "dig up" some of McCain's old positions on Russia, shall we?
January 8, 2015 - Fresh off a weekend visit to Ukraine, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Sunday that Russia is, more or less, a giant gas station pretending to be a real country. Appearing on CNN's State of the Union, McCain hyped up the need for strict economic sanctions against Moscow in tandem with a flood of aid to the Ukrainian government, saying the U.S. needed a "fundamental re-assessment of our relationship with Vladimir Putin."
"Look, Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country," McCain said. "It's kleptocracy. It's corruption. It's a nation that's really only dependent upon oil and gas for their economy, and so economic sanctions are important."
My comment - Hey America, are you enjoying the $4 per gallon McCain Magical Mystery Tour prices at the pump? Russia recently told the Germans that they will need to start paying for Russian gas in Rubles as Germany, a NATO ally, has become increasingly hostile toward Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. The German government's response was to tell its citizenry to lower their furnace thermostat and wear thicker sweaters - I shit you not.
For McCain to call the Russian government "a kleptocracy and corruption" is akin to the pot calling the kettle black.
From The Daily Reckoning:
"Lord Arthur Ponsonby was a British diplomat and politician, dates 1871–1946. This cagey fellow identified 10 rules of propaganda. They are these:
1. We don’t want war, we are only defending ourselves.
2. The other guy is solely responsible for this war.
3. Our adversary’s leader is evil and looks evil.
4. We are defending a noble purpose, not special interest.
5. The enemy is purposefully causing atrocities; we only commit mistakes.
6. The enemy is using unlawful weapons.
7. We have very little losses, the enemy is losing big.
8. Intellectuals and artists support our cause.
9. Our cause is sacred.
10. Those who doubt our propaganda are traitors."
Sound familiar?
Our country sucks. The government is either stupid or careless or both. A very large number of the "citizenry" are a bunch of low class hucksters and ass clowns. Decent people who work every day, follow the rules, pay their taxes, etc. are bled dry to pay for all of this bullshit.
"The official in charge of Covid relief tells NBC News' Lester Holt that programs like PPP were structured in ways that were "an invitation" to fraudsters."
If you're going to be stupid, you had better be tough.
In this credit mania chasing all things, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop where the roles are reversed and there is an uprising of the indebted class. If they co-ordinate their efforts and default en masse, they can in fact "stick it up the banker's ass" as the banker/debt servicer is ill equipped to handle massive defaults all at once. In effect, the debtors can break the bank. Witnessing such an event would give your old Uncle Kenny an even greater sense of creamy satisfaction.
More from Yahoo: "Additional key findings include that 81% of buyers said they had to make at least one compromise in order to afford their home, 39% ended up in a location that increased their commute time, and 32% purchased a home that was smaller than they initially planned to buy. "
Zillow Group Inc. has announced its exit from the home-flipping industry, citing losses of more than $550 million on houses acquired in the second half of this year for which it acknowledges it overpaid.
The real estate firm blamed a defective algorithmic model for shuttering its iBuying business of buying and selling properties swiftly, announcing that approximately a quarter of its workforce will be laid off. The unexpected withdrawal, which came with mediocre quarterly earnings, sent shares soaring in current trading session.
“We’ve determined the unpredictability in forecasting home prices far exceeds what we anticipated and continuing to scale Zillow Offers would result in too much earnings and balance-sheet volatility,” Zillow Group Z, -2.12% ZG, -3.43% co-founder and Chief Executive Rich Barton said in a statement.
According to Barton, dissolving the flipping business would take several quarters and will result in a 25% reduction in Zillow’s staff. Zillow revealed that it wrote down $304 million in losses in the third quarter due to houses purchased for too high a price, and expects losses of $240 million to $265 million in the fourth quarter for the same reason, bringing the total losses on those houses to more than $550 million after gross losses in the segment of $245 million in the third quarter.
Bad news has hit the mortgage industry across the United States, as Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase have announced job cuts in their divisions totaling nearly 2,000 positions on top of additional losses.
Wells Fargo plans to lay off 1,800 employees from their mortgage division, one month after they cut another 2,300 positions from the same unit, according to the Associated Press. The company said they are making the cuts because a lower number of people are refinancing mortgages than they expected. Layoffs were spread around the country, though some employees may be shifted into different positions within the company.
An additional 145 mortgage employees from JPMorgan Chase have been laid off in its Chicago-area offices, according to Chicago Business. The layoffs were said to be caused by company restructuring and reduced demand.
These job losses follow other significant trends around the country in recent months, as borrower demand has declined as a result of higher interest rates in the market over the past few months. This downturn comes one year after mortgage servicers went on hiring sprees to meet demand from near-record-low rates.
If you believe that housing is in for a "soft landing", think again.
"Better.com, an online mortgage lender, said Tuesday it's making more cuts to its workforce just three months after the company's CEO faced criticism for firing 900 employees over a Zoom call.
Better, which has about 9,000 employees, plans to lay off about a third of its workforce, or about 3,000 employees, according to numbers provided to The New York Times.
"We must take the difficult step of streamlining our operations further and reducing our workforce in both the US and India in a substantial way," Interim President Kevin Ryan said in a letter to employees and posted to Better's website Tuesday.
Ryan said in the letter that affected employees would be notified of their termination in the coming days by a member of the company's leadership team. He said affected employees will get 60 to 80 days of severance and three months of COBRA health care coverage.
However, some employees learned they were being laid off before being contacted by a supervisor when severance appeared in their payroll account, according to TechCrunch. Better confirmed that "a small number of employees were unintentionally notified of their separation" from the company early due to payroll notices."
Washington was far and away our greatest President and leader.
"It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world."
From The World, 2010:
BOSTON — Charlie Wilson, the high-living Texas Congressman who did so much to support America’s covert resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, is dead.
But “Charlie Wilson’s War,” the title of a book and film about his exploits, lives on.
The Soviets are gone. Indeed the Soviet Union is gone, but the war in Afghanistan rolls on, with no clear end in sight. In one of the ironies of history we have become the new Soviets in the sense that it is Americans who are now fighting and dying in Afghanistan against many of the same religious warriors that Charlie Wilson and the United States supported.
In CIA-speak, the 30-year war represents the greatest and most devastating example of “blowback” in the agency’s history. Blowback is the unintended consequence of an operation that turns around and savages its handlers.
To the end of his life Charlie Wilson regretted that, once the Soviets had retreated back across the Oxus River, more wasn’t done to stabilize the country.
From The Nation, 2019:
Five years ago, Ukraine’s Maidan uprising ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, to the cheers and support of the West. Politicians and analysts in the United States and Europe not only celebrated the uprising as a triumph of democracy, but denied reports of Maidan’s ultranationalism, smearing those who warned about the dark side of the uprising as Moscow puppets and useful idiots. Freedom was on the march in Ukraine.
These stories of Ukraine’s dark nationalism aren’t coming out of Moscow; they’re being filed by Western media, including US-funded Radio Free Europe (RFE); Jewish organizations such as the World Jewish Congress and the Simon Wiesenthal Center; and watchdogs like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Freedom House, which issued a joint report warning that Kiev is losing the monopoly on the use of force in the country as far-right gangs operate with impunity.
Let me put this in Kenny Bing speak: WE NEED TO STOP MEDDLING IN THE FUCKING AFFAIRS OF OTHER COUNTRIES!!!!!!!!
The nation is suffering from the consequences of
installing corrupt and incompetent leadership over the course of many years.
In 2016, I could see the country returning to the
attitudes it had prior to the 2008-2009 bust.
Hank Paulson, Nancy Pelosi, Janet Yellen, Ben Bernanke, Obama, etc. set
up a mindset within the population that no matter what, the Fed would have Wall
Street’s back. That idiot George W. Bush
made the statement in a meeting when Bear Stearns and Lehman went tits up that
the whole enchilada could tank – and it would have without the intervention of
Congress and the Fed. And yes, many “too
big to fail” entities would have failed.
Instead, the inevitable was put off.
The can was successfully kicked down the road a little further. By 2018, it became abundantly clear how
addicted to the Fed’s cheap funding Wall Street had become. For that matter, the political class had as
well. I remember Trump publicly lambasting Powell
for ever so slightly raising the overnight interest rate to something
that was still historically very low.
All real estate developers love cheap interest rates. Trump was in many ways a bag of hot air and I
doubt that he was really worth what he claimed.
Powell should have told him to go fuck himself when he was pressuring
him to lower interest rates. Strangely,
I think Trump would have respected him had he done so as that’s the way
real estate developers from Queens, NY roll.
He may not have liked Powell, but he would have respected him.
Covid-19 was not responsible for the mess that this country is in today. It was the reaction taken by
leadership when Covid-19 broke out that has caused this current situation. Policy error piled upon policy error over the
course of several years were compounded again after Covid-19 emerged. Sprinkle in a
little corruption and you have a perfect source of mistrust for the most
powerful economic institution in the US and possibly, the world. The Fed’s glory days are behind it but it remains an 800 pound gorilla in the financial markets.
My advice to Powell: throw out anyone who showed any
signs of impropriety during the 2019 – 2020 timeframe. Restore your integrity. Throw them to the wolves publicly and make an
example out of them.
From Forbes, 2/12/2022: "The U.S. Federal Reserve, responding to
a Freedom of Information Act request by Reuters, said there are about 60 pages
of correspondence between its ethics officials and policymakers regarding
financial transactions conducted during the pandemic year 2020.
"But
it 'denied in full' to release the documents, citing exemptions under
the information act that it said applied in this case."
So, this public
institution, sitting atop the U.S. financial system with immense power to alter
markets and the economy, has "denied in full" to release key
information about the insider trading issue? Why not a redacted release or even
a summary of what those 60 pages are all about? The obvious conclusion is that
the information is too revealing - that it shows appearances of impropriety.
Then, for the fucking love of God, stop listening to
Neel Kashkari and Raphael Bostic entirely. Those two could not find their own asses using both hands, a compass and a map. They are feathers in the wind who are dead weight on the Great Ship Fed. Start listening
to Bullard.
Lastly, please, please, please – go to Tom Hoenig
and BEG him to come back. Pull whatever
fucking procedural strings you have to pull to get him back into the
discussions about future policy as he is, to my mind, Chingachgook, the last of the Mohican Chiefs.
Bio
from the Fed History: Thomas Hoenig, who served as president of the Federal Reserve
Bank of Kansas City from 1991 to 2011, was the first president to rise through
the ranks of the organization. He became well known for his views on the
"too big to fail" issue and his dissenting votes on the Federal Open
Market Committee in 2010.
Hoenig, the
second of seven siblings, was born in Fort Madison, Iowa. The son of a plumbing
contractor, he left Iowa in the mid-1960s to attend what was then called St.
Benedict’s College in Atchison, Kansas, earning a bachelor’s degree in
economics and mathematics from the school, which was later renamed Benedictine
College. Plans for graduate school were delayed by the draft for the Vietnam
War.
Once back in
the states, Hoenig married Cynthia Stegeman and moved to Ames, Iowa, where he
pursued a master’s degree, and later a doctorate, from Iowa State University.
While visiting
Kansas City in 1971, Hoenig saw a newspaper article about how the Kansas City
Fed had created the Division of Bank Supervision and Structure that would
conduct financial and competitive analysis on bank mergers.
Two years
later, Hoenig applied for a job in the Division, and he took the position in
part because of his familiarity with the area but also because it was a unique
opportunity that perfectly matched his interests.
Underwriting standards were already in the toilet. The response to Covid 19 will flush them. When anything goes, nothing really matters.
"The senator (Patty Murray - D) is also calling on the department to place borrowers who were in default before the pause back in good standing. A provision in the Cares Act ensured that each month of suspended payments would count toward student loan rehabilitation, a federal program that erases a default from a person’s credit report after nine consecutive payments."
- Washington Post
The "student loan repayment can" will likely be kicked down the road again in May. How would you like to be an investor holding bonds that were backed with that kaa-kaa? The only one stupid enough to hold the paper on all of those deadbeats IS Uncle Sam.
"The three national credit bureaus have announced plans to overhaul how they handle medical collections reporting, resulting in tens of billions of dollars in debt being wiped from U.S. consumers' credit reports. The changes, which will go into effect this summer, will get rid of roughly 70% of the medical debt in collection accounts that are currently on consumer credit reports."
- Investopedia
The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau led the charge for having the credit reporting agencies remove this from consumer (a.k.a. debt serf) files.
See, the CFPB is totally cool with allowing a car dealer to charge you $5,000 more than MSRP on a shiny new F-150 but they are NOT COOL with allowing potential creditors in your future to discover that you defaulted on your student loan and welched out on your dentist bill in 2021.... 'cause, you know, ...Covid. Our country and many members of its leeching, whining, over-indebted populace are total bullshit. I am so glad that I am no longer a part of the banking community.
That's a quote from former Secretary of the Treasury John Connally Jr. of the Nixon administration.
"China, Russia and increasingly Europe want an alternative reserve currency system. The problem is that immediate replacement of the dollar is difficult.
First, the euro, the yen, the yuan and the ruble are not realistic options. The euro's long-term future and stability isn't assured, while Japan's economy remains trapped in two decades of torpor. The Chinese and Russian political and economic systems lack transparency, and the yuan isn't fully convertible.
Second, the required change in infrastructure is daunting. Foreign-exchange markets where the US dollar is the currency of reference would have to be fundamentally restructured. Deep and liquid money markets to support a reserve currency can't be conjured up overnight."
The Dollar will lose its reserve currency status and deservedly so. We are a fool-arrogant nation that has poked our finger in the chests of other countries for decades. Like me with my ex-wife, the rest of the world has had about enough of Uncle Sam's bullshit.
"His stance, as well as that of other central bankers, shifted significantly in recent months as inflation remained persistently high. Last September, Kashkari projected no rate increases in 2022. By December, he forecast just two.
In the essay, Kashkari wrote that there's now a chance the Fed may have to be even more aggressive. The central bank will need to take a "contractionary" stance — with interest rates above 2% — if inflation turns out to be shaped by an entrenched shift rather than temporary factors tied to the waning pandemic and related bounceback of the economy. "
Going further on with the Star Tribune article
"Like many other central bankers, Kashkari often insisted last year that the spike in inflation the U.S. began experiencing would be transitory. In more recent months, he acknowledged it has been higher and lasted longer than he initially expected.
On Friday, he admitted he was wrong. He began his essay citing an apology President Abraham Lincoln wrote to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in 1863 about a tactic they disagreed upon in the Civil War. Lincoln directly told Grant he was wrong and the general was right."
"Burry (Michael Burry of The Big Short fame) told his investors to come in with him on a massive bet against the housing market in 2005. It took years for Michael's predictions to play out. However, when they did, he returned a personal profit of $100 million and $700 million for his investors."
Initially, Burry and his investors were short squeezed and it did not appear that his bet against the housing market was going to pay off. We all know how that played out over time. The bust is coming - the can will be kicked down the road for only so long.
All of these old Clemmons quotes still ring true. Powell is a lot like Arthur Burns as a Fed Chair. This is from the Federal Reserve History page:
Burns assumed leadership of the Federal Reserve during the middle of what would later become known as the Great Inflation (1965–82). In short, easy monetary policy during this period helped spur a surge in inflation and inflation expectations. When inflation began to rise, policymakers (in retrospect) responded too slowly, leading to a recession. Inflation was exacerbated by several adverse economic factors during the decade: the administration’s wage-price control program that artificially held down inflation, oil and food price shocks, and government fiscal policies that stretched economic capacities. As Burns later reflected, “In a rapidly changing world the opportunities for making mistakes are legion.”
After Burns came Miller who was a lawyer by training and an even bigger idiot. Again, from the Federal Reserve History page:
As chairman at the Board of Governors, Miller became known for his expansionary monetary policies. Unlike some of his predecessors, Miller was less focused on combating inflation, but rather was intent on promoting economic growth even if it resulted in inflation. Miller argued that the Federal Reserve should take measures to encourage investment instead of fight rising prices. He believed that inflation was caused by many factors beyond the Board’s control.
Jimmy Carter appointed Paul Volcker to replace Miller who went on to lead Treasury. People often mock Carter but he appointed the Fed Chair that would eventually break the back of inflation (and also cost Carter his job). Hindsight is always 20/20. Carter actually did the right thing for the working people of the country by filling the Chair vacancy with Volcker. They initially hated him because he brought the country to a "Come To Jesus moment" that it had avoided for several years and very much needed. No one likes disciplinarians.
In his memoirs, US President Herbert Hoover says that he received the following advice from Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon after the stock market crash of 1929:
“Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate. It will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people.” According to Hoover, Mellon “insisted that, when the people get an inflation brainstorm, the only way to get it out of their blood is to let it collapse” and that “even a panic was not altogether a bad thing.”
My opinion: Mellon was right. Enterprising people will always pick up the wrecks of less competent people. Hoover ignored Mellon's advice. Had he taken it, we would have likely had a "Panic of 1929" that would have been short lived. The government tried to intervene in what is a normal business cycle and instead, we remember a long "Great Depression". Like Mother Nature, the business cycle will have its own way come hell or high water. We can either do this the easy way or we can do it the hard way. For the most part, the government has been meddling ever since then and it is the working stiffs of the country who pay for it. The Fed should not be controlling the price of credit in a credit driven economy.
“The Fed will have to move quickly to address this situation or risk losing credibility on its inflation target,” - James Bullard, Federal Reserve
Bullard has warned for months that inflation was rising dangerously fast and that the Fed had to take action.
“We’re at more risk now than we’ve been in a generation that this could get out of control,” he said last month, even implying there was too much groupthink at the Fed.
For the record, I hate groupthink. People within a group suppress their thoughts or feelings on a subject because they fear being left "out of the group" and go along with a bullshit notion of belonging. To which I say, "Grow the fuck up. If you want a fucking friend, go get a dog. If you want to join a clique of ass hats, go back to fucking high school."
Groupthink on parade
I suspect that at least some of you ladies reading this bullshit have been there. You meet Don Juan who talks a great game. You're both laughing it up and you go back to his place with the promise of 90 minutes of non-stop, mind blowing fucking using positions you've not seen since you read the Kama Sutra during your freshman year of college. And then, approximately 80 seconds into missionary, the fucker busts his nut and can't get it back up again.
Bullard was the only Fed Governor with any balls who dissented and wanted a 50 basis point increase in the overnight rate.
8% inflation rate. Soaring PPI. One quarter increase. By that logic, you might as well attack the next California fire season equipped with water pistols and super soakers.
"However, the NATO allies were shy about clarifying their stance on letting Ukraine join NATO, though it was clearly not on their agenda before Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine. As the war intensified and caused millions of people to flee Ukraine, some NATO leaders started to admit that Ukraine’s membership is not on the agenda and voice objection to membership for the former Soviet Union country openly.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on March 4 that Ukraine’s NATO membership “will not take place.”
“I also made it clear in Moscow and in my visit that this option [Ukraine’s membership of NATO] is not on the table and will not take place,” he said during an interview with German public broadcaster ZDF."
-- They are clearly back peddling but let's just hope it is not too late. Russia was never going to allow NATO in their own back yard. Our genius leadership here in the West should have recognized that from the get go but then again, these idiots thought that inflation was going to be transitory and that Kamala "rhymes with Pamela" Harris was a terrific choice for Vice President.
Now, let's see if the warmongering jackasses here in the U.S. and U.K. will get the message.
Dear America,
If you would ever learn to pull your head out of your own ass and vote for candidates like Ron Paul, you would not have to endure things like rampant inflation, taxes up the ass and playing world cop and sleepwalking your way into bankruptcy and WWIII with a country armed with nukes.
And, if you are incapable of pulling your head out of your ass, then just do everyone a favor (including yourself) and just abstain from voting. If you are just so fucking stupid that you believe that you can get something for nothing and that every problem in your life is the fault of someone else and thereby the government's responsibility to fix, just do everyone a favor and sit down and shut the fuck up.
February's inflation number just came out and is at 7.90%. That is the highest in 40 years and we are on our way to further provoking Russia into a conflict that might be something worse than just the dick weed proxy wars that our wonderful alphabet agencies have served up in the past.
Wake up or continue sleepwalking into disaster.
Hugs and kisses,
Uncle Kenny
Powell has a difficult choice ahead. He can accept the obvious runaway inflation and dismiss it as “transitory” or he can grow a pair of balls and call bullshit on “the everything bubble”. It is as plain as the nose on your face – the everything bubble exists but many people do not want to acknowledge it because they enjoy believing in the fairy tale that their houses magically increase in value by 25% in a year and that they are stock picking Mensa members and that Tesla is somehow truly more valuable than the rest of the automobile industry combined. It’s bullshit. I know it. The Fed knows it. It’s a cheap credit mania chasing all assets. By returning the cost of overnight credit to something more normal than 0% means destroying the myth and disappointing a lot of baby boomers who hoped to retire soon on their newly minted Covid-19 riches but the value of the currency is quickly going into the toilet. The Fed knows it and the only way to correct it is by pulling a Paul Volcker move and returning some sanity and discipline to the credit markets. If you’ve been spanked recently by the stock market, you ain’t seen nothing yet if the Fed takes its responsibilities seriously on March 15 – 16. The Fed can pussy out and be the “this is fine dog” or it can be Moses returning from the mountain with the 10 Commandments in hand and sparking fear and shame into the hearts of the sinful Israelites who have been partying like it was 1999 in his absence. Take your pick Mr. Powell. Either way, old Uncle Kenny has covered his ass and will make out just fine no matter which way the wind blows.
