Despite White House and media spin downplaying a recession, a lot of people aren’t buying. Fifty-seven percent of small business owners say a recession has already begun. Peter Schiff talked with Laura Ingraham about government spending, taxation, inflation, household debt and the recession. He said the recession is already worse than people think.
The Treasury increased the total debt by $27B in June. Activity slowed in the latest month across all instruments, but particularly the conversion of short-term to long-term. After massive moves to extend debt maturity and shrink short-term debt by $530B over 4 months (shown below by the large negative turquoise bars), July went very quiet.
According to the BLS, the economy added 528k jobs in July, blasting past analyst estimates of 250k. The strong report comes on the heels of a Fed meeting last week that made a point to state they are hyper-focused on the job market as a sign of a weakening economy. The White House and Fed are now in lock step ignoring negative GDP growth and hanging their hat on the job market. For now, that message fits their narrative.
Jobs are on everybody’s mind as the July employment report comes out. Will the labor market show more cracks? Or will it give the pundits more room to spin the idea that we’re not really in a recession? In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap, host Mike Maharrey talks about the labor market and breaks the July jobs data news as it comes out. He also talks about the “health” of the American consumer and gold’s flirtation with $1,800 an ounce.
The June trade deficit fell for a fourth straight month to -$79.6B.
While the deficit continues to drop from all-time highs, it is still larger than any month before 2022. June eclipsed December 2021 by $750M. December was a new record then, so the current deficit should be put into the context of longer history despite coming off recent highs.
Central bank gold buying notched up again in June.
Central banks globally added 59 tons of gold to their reserves last month and there were no reported sales, according to the latest data compiled by the World Gold Council.
After the second straight negative GDP print in Q2, the markets began anticipating that the Federal Reserve would pivot away from its monetary tightening. But a few choice words from some Fed members this week caused thoughts of a pivot to pivot. As Peter Schiff put it in his podcast, it appears to be damn the recession! Full ahead with rate hikes. The question is how long can the Fed keep this up?
Despite back-to-back contractions in GDP, President Joe Biden, Fed Chair Jerome Powell, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and all of their supporters in the corporate media insist the US economy isn’t in a recession. But the only data they ever point to in order to back up their assertion is the “strong” labor market.
The problem with this spin is the labor market is a lagging indicator and it’s starting to show cracks.
Personal income from all sources adjusted for inflation — real income — fell for the second straight month in June and was down 1% on the year. But American consumers continue to spend. How can this be?
They’re running up debt at a dizzying pace.
This undercuts the narrative claiming the American consumer is “healthy.”
Yesterday, an Israeli law went into effect banning the use of cash in business transactions over 6,000 NIS ($1,700). Private cash transactions can’t exceed 15,000 NIS ($4,360). This is yet another escalation in the “war on cash.”
