It appears the government lockdowns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has hastened the deflation of the commercial real estate bubble.
According to CoStar Group, an estimated $126 billion in commercial real estate will be forced to sell at distressed prices over the next two years. That will eclipse the amount of distressed commercial property sold during the first two years after the 2008 financial crisis.
The US government kicked off fiscal 2021 with the biggest October deficit in history. But with the first of November falling on a weekend, some November spending got shifted into October, inflating that month’s deficit. Now that we have the November monthly Treasury Statement, we have a better sense of how big deficits are running in the new fiscal year.
In two words — really big.
There were two big IPOs last week – DoorDash and Airbnb. Both companies raised over $3.5 billion in their public offerings. In his podcast, Peter Schiff talked about the IPO frenzy. He argues that it has very little to do with funding great business ventures. It’s more about making a quick buck in a market juiced by easy money from the Federal Reserve.
There is a lot of talk about student loan forgiveness. The idea is wildly popular and it would relieve a huge burden crushing millions of Americans. But is there any downside to this idea? In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey talks about the student loan debacle and the possible downside of loan forgiveness. He also touches on the shaky labor market and why the bond market can’t tell us anything about inflation.
A lot of pundits and analysts insist inflation isn’t a problem because the bond market isn’t signaling any inflation concerns. But in his podcast, Peter Schiff argues that you can’t rely on this bond market to tell you anything. The bond market is broken, thanks to the Federal Reserve. It’s rigged and it’s sending false signals.
The US dollar has been showing significant weakness over the last several weeks. The dollar index closed at 90.814. Just two weeks ago, it was in the 94 range. Compared to the Swiss franc, the dollar is at a 6-year low. In his podcast, Peter talked about the dollar weakness and the Federal Reserve policy that’s causing it. The crazy thing about the rising inflation expectation is that the Fed appears poised to try to fight it with even more inflation.
After a dismal November, gold and silver are starting to show some signs of life. But what caused the big drop in the price of precious metals last month? Was it warranted? In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey looks at the economic and monetary fundamentals and tries to bring us back to reality. He argues that despite the optimism about a coronavirus vaccine, nothing will fundamentally change.
The money supply continues to grow at a torrid rate.
Based on the “true” or Rothbard-Salerno money supply measure (TMS), the money supply grew by 37.08% year-on-year in October. That was down just slightly from September’s record rate of 37.54%.
The US government is increasingly relying on the Federal Reserve to prop up the Treasury market and absorb the trillions of dollars in bonds it’s issuing in order to fund its massive budget deficits. The Fed now holds a record 16.5% of US debt. And it’s going to have to buy trillions of dollars of additional Treasuries in 2021 to keep pace with government borrowing.
In other words, there is no end in sight to quantitative easing. In fact, the central bank will have to double its scheduled monthly QE in 2021 to catch up to where it was in 2020.
The stock market is booming as everybody anticipates an end to the coronavirus pandemic with the rollout of a vaccine. But as Peter Schiff pointed out in this podcast, the rally isn’t really about a cure for COVID. It is being driven by government and central bank policies meant to shield us from the pain of the pandemic. The problem is this government “help” really isn’t helping. In fact, it’s made a bad situation much worse.
