As was widely expected, the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) put rate hikes on pause at the June meeting, although it indicated we should expect additional hikes before the end of the year.
The question is how long will the pause last and will the next Fed move actually be a rate cut?
Congress “solved” the debt ceiling problem by effectively eliminating borrowing limits for the next two years. But it did nothing to address the underlying problem. And that underlying problem is painfully obvious when you look at the monthly budget deficits the federal government continues to run month after month.
In May, the Biden administration piled another $240.3 billion onto the fiscal 2023 deficit, running it to $1.38 trillion with four months left to go, according to the latest Monthly Treasury Statement.
Despite the high interest environment intended to slow down borrowing, American consumers continue to run deeper and deeper into debt as they cope with sticky inflation.
Consumer credit spiked by another $20 billion in April, a 5.7% increase year on year, according to the latest data released by the Federal Reserve.
I warned you.
I said when the fake debt ceiling fight ended, the real problems would begin.
Well, the debt ceiling fight is over, and here we are.
On the first working day after the so-called Fiscal Responsibility Act went into effect, the national debt surged by $359 billion.
With a debt ceiling deal done, the threat of a US government default is off the table for the time being. But a wave of corporate defaults is on the horizon according to Deutsche Bank’s annual default study.
This is the inevitable consequence of central bank monetary policy and it was entirely predictable.
In March, I warned that the commercial and investment real estate markets could be the next thing to break in this bubble economy. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal put a face on my warning.
The debt ceiling fight is getting down to the wire. In a letter to Congress on Monday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that without a debt ceiling increase, it was highly likely the government wouldn’t be able to meet all of its obligations by “early June, and potentially as early as June 1.”
Despite the drama, I still expect Congress to get a deal done. And that’s when the real problems begin.
Gold had dropped by over $100 in the last two weeks. Meanwhile, the dollar rose to a 7-week high on May 17. If you’re thinking that this looks a lot like how gold and the dollar moved at the height of the Federal Reserve’s inflation fight, you’re right. That’s because the central bankers at the Fed have stepped up the hawkish rhetoric in the last couple of weeks increasing expectation that interest rates will stay higher for longer.
But talk is cheap. The real question is how will the Fed respond when the bottom drops out of the economy.
The US government ran a surplus in April, as it generally does in tax return month. But federal tax revenues collapsed year-on-year and the fiscal 2023 deficit is still close to $1 trillion despite the small April windfall.
Peter Schiff recently appeared on Real America with Dan Ball to talk about the ongoing banking and financial crisis. Peter emphasized that the Federal Reserve and the US government are trying to fix a problem that they caused. And their cure is going to unleash an inflation tsunami.
