After all the drama, Congress finally did what everyone knew it would do. It raised the debt ceiling by $480 billion in October. The Treasury wasted no time and quickly added $480 billion to the national debt in the second half of the month.
With this new debt tagged on, if the Fed has to raise rates to 6% to fight inflation, it would increase interest costs by $250 billion within 6 months and nearly $1 trillion within a few years. This is why the Fed must tell everyone that inflation is transitory.
American consumers piled on more debt in September as higher prices squeezed wallets.
Consumer credit grew by $29.9 billion in September, bringing the total to $4.37 trillion, according to the latest data from the Federal Reserve. The increase in consumer debt nearly doubled the consensus estimate of a $15.5 billion increase.
The September trade deficit smashed the record set just last June.
September 2021 charted a total trade deficit of -$80.9 billion. That was up a massive 11.2% over the August trade deficit of -$72.8 billion and crushed the previous June record of -$73.2 billion by over 10.5%.
The Federal Reserve wrapped up its FOMC meeting on Wednesday and finally announced the much-anticipated QE taper. The Fed will cut its bond-buying program by about $15 billion a month. But so what? In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap, host Mike Maharrey digs into the Fed announcement and raises some very important questions.
The Federal Reserve has slightly slowed its asset purchases over the last few months. Was this a trial mini-taper?
If so, the results are not good news for the central bankers over at the Fed.
The Fed balance sheet stands at $8.56 trillion. That’s up by $108 billion from the prior month-end, but down over the past week by $8.7 billion. The chart below shows how the Fed Balance sheet has grown by instrument over the last 18 months.
Consumer borrowing has slowed somewhat from the record level we saw in June, but Americans continue to pile on the debt.
Consumer debt grew by $14.4 billion in August to $4.35 trillion, according to the latest data from the Federal Reserve. That represents a 4% increase.
This follows on the heels of a 4.8% increase in July after a record 10.6% increase in June.
The Federal Budget Deficit for August 2021 was $171B which was down from the $302B in July. The chart below shows the Federal Budget for the previous 18 months.
The Fed balance sheet stands at $8.33 trillion, up $111 billion from the prior month-end.
The chart below shows how the Fed Balance sheet has grown by instrument over the last 18 months. The major surge from COVID can be clearly seen as $2.5T was added within 2 months. The monthly changes since then reflect QE on autopilot.
The Federal Reserve has pumped trillions of dollars into the economy through its quantitative easing programs. This has generated a surge of inflation. But there are other less obvious impacts from the Fed’s extraordinary monetary policy. It conceals risk. Everybody sees a “booming” economy and assumes everything is fine. But underneath, the entire thing is rotting from the inside.
Gold and silver tanked after last Friday’s job report. But both metals have rallied a bit since the July CPI numbers came in right at expectations. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap, host Mike Maharrey looks a little deeper at jobs and CPI. Then he goes off-script and addresses some listener comments.