Ronald Reagan once said the most terrifying nine words in the English language are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
One of the biggest problems with government help is that it always comes at a cost. And the burden of that cost almost always falls on the very people that big government claims to help – the poor and middle class.
They tried to deny it for months, but now everybody knows we have an inflation problem. The president, Congress and all of the central bankers at the Fed are trying to find ways to solve this problem. But as host Mike Maharrey explains in this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap, all of their solutions are the equivalent of dumping buckets of water on a drowning man.
The Federal Reserve recently delivered the largest interest rate hike since 1994 in an effort to combat inflation that turned out to be not so transitory.
Economists and policy wonks continue to debate the effectiveness of these rate hikes in the face of historically high inflation, but what do they mean for you? Should you care about rising interest rates?
Here are three ways Fed rate hikes will impact your wallet.
After a weak swipe at inflation at its May meeting, the Federal Reserve delivered the biggest rate hike since 1994 at its June FOMC gathering. But is it enough to tackle persistently red-hot inflation?
Ron Paul doesn’t think so. He notes that the recent rate hikes have only raised rates to the level they were before the pandemic.
The Federal Reserve cannot increase rates to anywhere near the level they would be in a free market because doing so would increase interest payments to unsustainable levels for debt-ridden consumers, businesses, and the federal government.”
As interest rates rise, the air continues to hiss out of the housing bubble.
Existing home sales tumbled to a two-year low in May. Sales fell to a seasonally adjusted 5.41 million units, according to the latest data from the National Association of Realtors. It was a 3.4% drop, bringing existing home sales to the lowest level since June 2020. May was the tenth consecutive month of year-over-year declines.
As Americans labor under the burden of inflation, the Biden administration keeps telling us the economy is just fine. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre recently said we are “transitioning” to “steady and stable growth.” As a result, she claims the American people are in a place where they can “take on inflation.”
Americans aren’t buying it. In fact, they’re buying less of everything as rising prices squeeze their wallets. Consumer confidence has plunged to historically low levels. But as bad as things are, the worst could still be yet to come because the proposed solutions are worse than the problem.
After last week’s FOMC meeting, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell claimed that a “soft landing” was still possible. In other words, he thinks the central bank will be able to slay red-hot inflation without tipping the economy into a recession.
Is this feasible? Or is it a fairytale?
A 75 basis-point rate hike wasn’t even on the table a month ago. It appears that the central bankers over at the Fed were crawling around under the table because they found a 75-basis point rate hike.
The Fed went big at the June FOMC meeting in response to hotter-than-expected May CPI data just a week earlier. Jerome Powell admitted that Fed members were “surprised” but another big spike in prices.
So, what’s the plan here? Well, by all indications, there isn’t one.
The Federal Reserve just gave us the biggest interest rate hike since 1994. A month ago, we were told a 75 basis-point hike wasn’t on the table. It almost seems like the central bankers are winging it. Or as Friday Gold Wrap podcast host Mike Maharrey puts it, it’s like they’re playing darts while wearing blindfolds. In this episode, Mike breaks down the rhetoric coming out of this Fed meeting and speculates on what might be next.
Retail sales unexpectedly dropped in May, casting doubt on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s “the American consumer is healthy” narrative.
