Homeowner equity is being erased. As higher interest rates continue to put pressure on borrowers, the ability of the average person to afford a mortgage diminishes.  Higher mortgage rates lead to downward pressure on residential home values as fewer borrowers can afford higher payments.  Simultaneously, commercial real estate is dropping in value as vacancies continue increasing.

Put both of these issues together and already tenuous banks holding mortgage bonds as assets can become more unstable.

This dynamic creates the continual tremors in the background of an economy already suffering from high inflation and low consumer purchasing of durable goods.

A perfect storm starts to realize.

(Wall Street Journal) – Sales of previously owned homes fell in April from the prior month and prices declined from a year earlier by the most in more than 11 years.

U.S. existing home sales, which make up most of the housing market, fell 3.4% in April from the prior month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.28 million, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. April sales fell 23.2% from a year earlier.

The national median existing-home price fell 1.7% in April from a year earlier to $388,800, the biggest year-over-year price decline since January 2012, NAR said. Median prices, which aren’t seasonally adjusted, were down 6% from a record $413,800 in June. Home prices have fallen the most in the western half of the U.S., while prices continue to rise from a year earlier in many eastern markets. (read more) 

(more…)

Those of you who are keen financially minded individuals will note exactly what is happening in these recent reports, HOME DEPT HERE – TARGET HERE.  Those of you who are retail investors in the stock market might also see the bigger picture.

Home Depot and Target essentially share the same customer base or market audience. They service a larger segment of the American middle class.  Both companies are reporting negative financial outcomes as a result of low comparable sales, or same store sales comparisons, to last year.   This should not be a surprise, yet Wall Street is seemingly caught off guard.

Right now, we are on the tail end of the massive inflation cycle that took place in 2021 through 2022.  Current inflation, as measured by the rate of price increase over the same period last year, is lower.

Now we are starting to see companies reporting sales comparable without the benefit of massive inflation to assist.

Example – when inflation is running at 10%, a company can report 8% sales growth, and everyone smiles.  However, the sales growth was created by the inflation.  The actual unit sales of goods have declined; the store is reporting higher sales because the prices are higher.  When the sales cycle through to lower inflationary comparisons, the drop in unit sales shows up as drops in topline sales.   This is the cause of both Target and Home Depot now reporting lower than expected comparable sales versus last year.

In real terms, this is why using sales data as a measure of economic growth is less valuable during periods of high inflation.  Significant inflation hides the diminished sales of units, which should be the true measure of sales growth.  I have been tracking unit sales as a measure of economic activity, and the truth is that unit sales have been declining since the fourth quarter of 2021.

(more…)

We have talked about the stunning price increases in pet foods during our discussions about food price overall.  However, a remarkable study by Veterinarians Org gives some context to just how much the Joe Biden inflation has driven up the cost of pet foods. [ARTICLE HERE]

Mostly driven by Biden’s created inflation hitting raw farm materials, energy prices, manufacturing and transportation costs, the prices for the most popular wet and dry dog foods have skyrocketed.

One in four pet owners have even contemplated giving their animal up for adoption because they can no longer afford them.   This is terribly sad.

(Veterinarian Org) – […] The largest percentage increase compared to 2020 prices is for a wet dog food product by PEDIGREE, which has increased by 207% compared to its 2020 price.

The largest dollar amount increase compared to 2020 prices is for a dry dog food product by Royal Canin, which is currently $43.99 more expensive per bag than it was in 2020.

In a recent Veterinarians.org survey of 1,000 U.S. pet owners, 50% of respondents indicated having to shop for cheaper alternatives to pet food as a result of rising costs. Pet owners also found themselves shopping for cheaper alternatives to pet treats (41%), pet toys (34%), and pet health supplements (28%).

55% of surveyed pet owners indicated having to cancel pet food subscriptions on Chewy.com, Amazon.com, or through a raw food/pre-cooked meal service as a result of rising costs.

(more…)

Recently I went to the supermarket to pick up some general provisions.  Given the nature of previously predicted food price increases, and proactive measures to mitigate the predictable prices, I haven’t needed to purchase basic foodstuffs in a while.   Yikes!  The prices… Wow.

Since we originally warned in ’21 about the waves of food price inflation that were coming, the prices have more than tripled on many food commodities.  That part is not as surprising in current review; however, the prices of processed foodstuffs is, well, quite frankly astounding.

I am left to wonder how working-class people are able to afford the jaw dropping price increases in highly processed food products like condiments (mayo, ketchup, mustard, etc), and even coffee and milk.  I knew the processing costs would drive those prices, but the scale is just astounding.

Beyond the foodstuff, what was truly stunning was the current price of non-food items at the store.  Items like chemical cleaners, soaps, aluminum foil, trash bags, Styrofoam products, ziploc bags, paper goods, etc.   I mean seriously, $8 for a box of trash bags, good grief.

After a review of the non-food item prices, I went back to the recent BLS report [DATA HERE] to look at the producer price index to see if the data reflected the scale of the processing cost that I was reviewing across a broad spectrum of goods.

Are consumers getting gouged by manufacturers who are taking advantage of the price shock inside the ongoing inflation?

Or are the processing costs, mostly driven by energy price increases, really that big a factor in the end product as it is generated?

(more…)

Richard Baris from People’s Pundit appears with Steve Bannon to discuss the latest polling data and political data from around the polling world. {Direct Rumble Link Here}

Baris notes some key points in the MAGA movement, the scale of the “only Trump” vote now hovering around 20% in the base of the republican party.  The working-class coalition inside the GOP is exclusively a MAGA phenomenon.   The cocktail class republicans are aligned with DeSantis and Trump, but the biggest portion of the working-class inside the republican party is only with Donald Trump.

Additionally, and in alignment with the larger MAGA economic coalition, the working-class democrats who stand beside us do not align with Ron DeSantis at all.  Without Donald Trump as the republican nominee, a big portion of working-class democrats no longer will vote with the republican party.  WATCH:

2024 is MAGA burning the ships behind us.  This one is for all the marbles. This is not a place where tepid half-measures and gentlemanly pastels will suffice.  Get right with God, put on the armor, accept that you’re fighting like the third monkey on the ramp to Noah’s ark, and get comfy being uncomfy.  When your sword is short, step forward.

Our ally is anyone who stands beside us. Our enemy is anyone who doesn’t.  The new sons and daughters of the revolution are going to look completely different.

The Green Dragon Tavern may be a bar room, a cafeteria, a church gathering, a picnic table or a tailgate.  The assembly is not focused on the labels of the assembled.   The mission is the purpose… The fight is wherever it surfaces…. When you doubt yourself, remember the bloodline you come from – and stand tall.

Protect the kids.  Defend your family and community.  Be smart. Train your brain to be smart, think like an insurgent. Delicate sensibilities need to be dispatched like a feather in a hurricane.

(more…)

The reality was/is that both political corporations do the bidding of their financiers, Wall Street.  The battle against the UniParty is always a battle of Main Street -vs- Wall Street.

Wall St funds the acceptable candidates from either wing of the UniParty; the candidates best suited to maintain the status quo and keep the elite class in control of the economy and finance.  Donald J Trump is the only threat to their interests, so the Wall Street control group fund anyone who can remove the threat.

Against this backdrop the Wall Street billionaires and multinational corporations selected Ron DeSantis as their best hope, and they poured tens of millions into his various accounts to help construct the campaign against Trump.

However, the campaign strategy, the actual blueprint to defeat President Trump, isn’t working.

First, the astroturf and games of the pretending not to run has just worn people out.  The fakery that is the Ron DeSantis campaign is leading to people looking at the candidate in a new light.  Why the fraud, fakery, manufactured branding and so much emphasis on denying the obvious.  These are the tell-tale signs of a heavily controlled GOPe operation.  People now see through the smokescreen the DeSantis handlers created.

Second, the campaign is constructed around getting the base to love their candidate’s position on social issues.  The fight against Wokeism is a tool and technique to lift the candidate.  However, too much emphasis on the social stuff leaves the candidate narrowing their base of support.  Put the two issues together and the viability of DeSantis starts dropping.  The cherry on the fail-cake is the weak character of the wind-testing principal.  It’s all an illusion.

The donors from Wall Street now see the program isn’t working.

(more…)

[BACKGROUND HERE]

To author: I think you are on point here with general thrust of argument.

But what informs you that Trump is ONLY “national economic policy” candidate? Have you, from your key conservative position/visible profile, reached out to exchange such views with Governor DeSantis?

We agree, I’d assume, that winning the White House AND Senate are CRITICAL to maintaining a free America. To SAVE our America. […] If DeSantis can align with you on NEP, is he not a more likely general election winner?

Thanks for your comments,

XXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX
Ormond Beach, FL

RESPONSE: Ron DeSantis voted for Trans-Pacific Partnership and [fast track] Trade Promotion Authority in congress. DeSantis was funded in this advocacy by Club 4 Growth, who continue to fund and organize for presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, including a February 2023 donor retreat in Miami exclusively for the multinational funders who support the C4G policy.

The C4G policy is specifically anti-America First. And represents a very specific National Economic Policy.

I do not need to ask Ron DeSantis for his National Economic Policy (NEP), because he is already meeting with, accepting donations from, and working with the C4G group that has assembled the National Economic Policy that is anti-America First.

Ron DeSantis cannot hold a NEP, against the interests of the NEP advocates that are leading the effort to install him.  Think about it. It is all common sense.

Warmest best,

Sundance

(more…)

According to those who relish the Cloward-Piven strategy, things are proceeding swimmingly.

…”As long as the decisionmakers continue doing the things that are creating the crisis, the crisis will continue.”

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said yesterday the “U.S banking system is sound and resilient,” insert uncomfortable snicker here.  However, uncertainty is continuing to pummel the banking industry, despite assurances from the Fed, Treasury, FDIC financial regulators and bankers such as Jamie Dimon who are all saying there is no crisis in the banking industry.

If you want to know the big picture source of the uncertainty, it’s the great pretending.  The average person can sense something is wrong, and the person who pays attention has the experience of institutional lying over the past several years.  The last ten years of lying and pretending has created the biggest collapse in institutional trust in U.S. history.

Russians interfered with the election – trust us. Stick this needle in your arm, it’s safe – trust us.  The FBI are the good guys – trust us. Biden won more votes – trust us. This inflation is merely transitory – trust us.

See the problem?

So, when the same voices shout, “the banking industry is sound, trust us,” well,… yeah, that suspicious cat sense that’s on high alert isn’t buying the chorus.

Reasonably intelligent people who accept things as they are, not as they would have us pretend them to be, can see the core connection to the World Economic Forum, Central Banks, and western globalist policy to change the entire dynamic of economics and finance around the “Climate Change” agenda, or Build Back Better, or Green New Deal.

Overlay that commonsense and pragmatic outlook with the logical consequences of the activity, and this banking collapse issue is a self-fulfilling prophecy.  As long as the decision makers continue doing the things that are creating the crisis, the crisis will continue.

(more…)

Here we go.  Hard data is now starting to surface showing the devastating impact of the Anheuser-Busch decision to rebrand Budweiser products as the beer for the transgender community.   The #1 and #2 best selling beers in the United States are now fully rebranded to consumers and destroyed.  Now we see the ramifications.

The irony of Budweiser creating the “born on” date and freshness date system in the beer industry is just too damned funny, here’s why.

Across the United States, wholesalers are on the hook for inventories of Bud Light and Budweiser products that no one is buying.  These products have an expiration date, thanks in part to the previously mentioned freshness campaign long ago created.  The wholesalers have to swap out the close-dated products that are not being sold in retailers and restaurants.  The wholesalers are then stuck with out-of-date product, and turn back to the corporate office for help.

From reporting in the Wall Street Journal, Anheuser-Busch (A/B) is telling the wholesalers to give the product free to their employees rather than dump it.  By law, they cannot give it away to consumers, and they cannot cross promote the beer by “bundling” alcohol with another CPG product (ie, buy chips, get free beer).

The story is being promoted as A/B being magnanimous in giving the beer to the employees; however, in reality as the product hits its expiration or sell-by date, A/B only has that option, other than to dump it in the garbage and recycle the containers.  There is so much unsold inventory, data below, they are now giving it away (lol).

(more…)

Around 15 years ago CTH outlined the inclusive goal of the progressive movement, modern Democrats as they were evolving, was to deconstruct the U.S. economic system so that Americans would be forced to live in government-controlled poverty. Essentially reduced to circling a campfire, eating sustainable algae cakes and picking parasites off our family members.

Most people understandably scoffed and said we were being hyperbolic.  However, what we were highlighting was the natural conclusion of a visible ideology and set of policies.  The modern democrat ideology is based on a worldview that feudalism is superior, and Democrats are elite in their global magnanimity (defined as their virtuous self image).

Fast forward a decade+ later, and there is Joe Biden’s Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, explaining why it is better for the health of the planet if Americans lose their jobs, lose their economic sustainability, starve in feudal poverty, as the virtuous government ships all the dirty jobs to China and retains their clean pro-climate agenda.   In Haaland’s defense, it should be noted that this has been the policy of Canada for quite a while.  WATCH: 

.

Insert vote, pull lever, get pellet… repeat!

(more…)