The more than three-year break from student loan payments is about to end. That’s more bad news for an economy that depends on consumer spending.
Interest accrual on student loans will restart on September first with payments resuming Oct. 1.
In another sign the financial crisis continues to bubble under the surface, banks borrowed an additional $3.7 billion from the Federal Reserve’s bank bailout program in July.
Currently, there are $106.9 billion in outstanding loans in the Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP).
In another blow to dollar dominance, India and the United Arab Emirates settled an oil trade without converting local currencies to dollars for the first time on Monday, as India’s top refiner made a payment for oil in rupees.
Indian Oil Corp. bought a million barrels of oil from Abu Dhabi National Oil Company in a dollar-free transaction.
Turkey’s love affair with gold has had a major impact on global gold flows, especially through the first half of 2023.
Turks have historically held a lot of gold, both in jewelry and investment form. The country ranks as the fifth-largest gold market in the world. But with recent economic turmoil in the country demand for gold has exploded.
To hear President Joe Biden tell it, the US economy is booming. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is running monthly budget deficits that you would normally see during a deep recession.
With two months left to go, the deficit for fiscal 2023 now stands at $1.61 trillion, after the federal government charted another massive shortfall in July.
And Biden wants to spend even more.
After three straight months of net sales, central banks globally became net buyers of gold again in June.
On net, central banks bought 55 tons of gold in June as the Central Bank of Turkey switched from selling back to buying, according to the most recent data compiled by the World Gold Council.
With much stronger-than-expected second-quarter GDP growth and continued labor market strength, a growing number of people in the mainstream now think the US has escaped the clutches of a recession despite the Fed driving interest rates to the highest level in 16 years. But there are plenty of signs that a recession is looming. For instance, a big plunge in the sale of cardboard boxes indicates a slowdown in economic activity.
There’s another off-the-beaten-path indicator that flashes recession — a big drop in the demand for gold in the technology sector.
Flashing another recession warning sign, credit card spending suddenly fell off a cliff in June.
American consumers have been using credit cards to make ends meet for months, but with credit card debt at record levels, rising interest rates appear to have slammed the door on spending. Credit card debt contracted in June for the first time since April 2021, according to the most recent data released by the Federal Reserve.
On August 1, a law making gold and silver legal tender in Arkansas went into effect. The new law also effectively repeals the state capital gains tax on gold and silver.
Enactment of this legislation will relieve some of the tax burden on investors, and take a step toward treating precious metal bullion as money instead of a commodity.
The debt ceiling deal was supposed to stabilize things for the US government. By suspending the debt limit for two years, Congress mitigated the fear of a US default, but the deal apparently wasn’t enough to paper over the dysfunction in Washington DC.
On Tuesday, Fitch Ratings downgraded the US’s long-term credit rating from AAA to AA+.
