Tag Archives: fake news

Non-Farm Payroll Propaganda – Aka Fake News

Financial Markets, Market Manipulation, U.S. Economy, , ,

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Joseph Goebbels

I dislike giving the employment report any acknowledgment because the report is constructed for the purposes of political expedience. But I can’t help posting a few comments because, once again, the non-farm payroll report for June showed significant growth in sectors of the economy for which real world business economic reports showed economic contraction. The headline number purports that the 222k new jobs were created in June. This wailed on the consensus estimate of 170k.

The Government attributes 16k in new jobs to the construction industry. How can this possibly have been the case when construction spending declined 4.4% on a quarterly basis for April and May? Moreover, housing starts have been declining for the past few months, including June. Unless there’s a new model for running a business, contracting economic activity is accompanied by payroll cost-cutting. The number is just not credible. Same with retail, for which the Government wants us to believe that 8100 jobs miraculously were created despite the fact that retail stores are being closed at one of the fast rates in history.

Then there’s the nefarious “birth/death” model, which guesstimates the number of jobs created by new companies started in June net of jobs lost from new businesses closed in June. I have news for the Bureau of Labor Statistics: new business formation, according to Gallop, is at a 40-yr low. Furthermore, potential business owners are less likely to risk borrowing money for a new business when the cost of borrowing is increasing. Maybe the BLS statisticians forgot about the Fed interest rate hikes and forgot to plug the higher cost of capital in to their new business formations blender. The B/D model attributes 102k new jobs from new businesses net of business deaths. To convolute their reporting Hmmm…23k of those came from construction…need I say more?

The above commentary is a preview of this week’s Short Seller’s Journal.

Central Bank Intervention Slams Paper Gold

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This isn’t some trader’s “fat finger” accidentally overloading the sell button and pressing “sell.” This is unadulterated BIS/ECB/BoE/Fed sponsored market intervention:

At 4:01 EST, a paper gold nuclear bomb was detonated in the Comex Globex computer system. The graph above is just the August “front month” paper gold contract on the Comex. In that contract 1.49 million ozs of paper gold were dumped into the Comex electronic trading system. Zerohedge is attributing 1.88 million ozs. That would include the selling in all of the paper gold contract months.

But that’s not the entire amount of the paper hit. There would have been a large amount of LBMA gold forward paper gold contracts dumped in correlation with the Comex paper avalanche. ZH attributes $2.2 billion in paper gold dumped.  But the real number including LBMA forwards dumped was much larger.

“The mysterious plunge has the market spooked,” says some idiot named Bob Habercorn from RJO. This was not “mysterious.” It was intentional – a shock and awe market intervention that was intended to “spook” the market. That quote is from a Bloomberg report full of fake news (caution, this article contains fake news:  LINK).

The article claims that China bought less from Hong Kong in May. In fact, the amount of gold exported from Switzerland to India and Hong Kong was up 39% from April, according to Platts. Furthermore, we have no clue how much gold moves into China through Beijing and Shanghai, numbers which are intentionally hidden from the world.

Here’s the reason that today was selected by the BIS et al to attack gold in the paper market in an effort to scare the crap out of the market:

the day was well chosen as the Muslim world including Turkey was closed for the end of Ramadan as was India which has the amiable habit of observing the holidays of religious minorities. – from John Brimelow’s Gold Jottings

Two of the largest buyers of physical gold in the world right now, India + Turkey, were closed for the observance of a religious holiday. And Shanghai closed for the day 31 minutes before the paper dump.

4:00 a.m. EST is one of the slowest, lowest volume trading periods during any 24 hour period. Why would a seller of a large number of contracts sell at that time of day, when the largest buyers of what is being sold are not in the market at the time of the sale?

If it were merely a “fat finger” – the fake news narrative – then the mistake would have been immediately corrected and the price would have quickly recovered.  Anyone who buys the “fat finger” story is either tragically ignorant or hopelessly naive.

When India returns tonight to the market, I would expect gold to get a strong bid.  Indians have a habit of buying a lot more physically deliverable gold than they might have otherwise when the western Central Banks put gold “on sale” by lowering the price in the paper market.  I suspect Turkey and China will increase their appetite as well.

The mining stocks per the HUI barely acknowledge the artificial price take-down.  The HUI is down less that 1%.  In the past, on a day when gold was taken down to this degree, the HUI would have dropped at least 4-5%.   It’s almost as if mining stock traders are laughing at the latest Central Bank antics.  I know I am…

New Home Sale Reporting Borders On Fake News

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Headline monthly reporting of New Home Sales remained of no substance, short term, as seen most frequently here with massive, unstable and continuously shifting revisions to recent history, along with statistically – insignificant monthly and annual changes that just as easily could be a gain or a loss.  – John Williams, Shadow Government Statistics

If anyone has the credibility and knowledge to excoriate the Government’s new home sales reporting, it’s John Williams.  The Census Bureau’s data collection has been marred historically with scandals and severe unreliability.  The reporting for new home sales is a great example.

New home sales represent about 10% of total home sales – i.e. the National Association of Realtors has about 9-times more homes for which to account than the Government.  And yet, the monthly reporting of new home sales has considerably more variability and less statistical reliability.  It is subject to  much greater revisions than existing home sales. How is this even possible considering the task of tabulating new homes sold is far easier than counting existing home sales?

Today’s report is a perfect example.  The Census Bureau reports that new home sales increased 2.9% over April. Yet, at the 90% level of confidence, new home sales might have been anywhere from down 10% to up 15%.   Care to place a wager on real number considering that spread?   April’s number was revised upward by 24k, on a SAAR basis.

Speaking of the SAAR calculation, it’s amusing to look at what that can do to the number. The seasonally adjusted annualized rate number takes a statistical sample, which in and of itself is highly unreliable, and puts it through the Government’s X-13ARIMA-SEATS statistical sausage grinder.  Then it takes the output and converts it into an annualized rate metric. Each step of the way errors in the data collection sample are multiplied.

I’ve never understood why the housing industry doesn’t just work on creating reliable monthly data samples that can be used to estimate sales for a given month and then simply compare the sales to the same month the previous year. There is no need to manufacture seasonal adjustments because the year over year monthly comparison is cleansed of any possibly unique seasonality for a specific month.  Go figure…

To make matters worse, new home sales are based on contracts signed.  Often a down payment, and almost always financing, are not yet in place.  The contract cancellation percentage rate for new homes typically runs in the mid-to-high teens. By the way the Census Bureau does not incorporate cancellations into its data or its historical revisions.

To demonstrate how the seasonal adjustments magically transform monthly data into many more thousands of annualized rate sales, consider this:  the not seasonally adjusted number – which is presented at the bottom of the CB’s report and never discussed by the media or Wall Street, is 58,000.  In increase of one thousand homes over April’s not adjusted number.  And yet, the reported headline fake news number – the SAAR for May – wants us to believe that 610k homes were sold on an annualized rate basis, an increase of 17k SAAR over April.  It’s nothing short of idiotic, especially considering that the reported average sales price was 10% higher in May vs. April.  You can peruse the report here:  May New Home “Sales.”

One last point, if today’s reported number is even remotely correct, how come homebuilders have been cutting back on housing starts for the last 3 months?  The last time starts declined three consecutive months was late 2008.  In short, the new home sales report for May is, in all probability, borderline fake news.  At the very least, it’s yet another form of Government propaganda aimed at creating the illusion that the economy is stronger than reality.

The next issue of the Short Seller’s Journal – published Sunday evening – will focus on the housing market, which is getting ready to head south – possibly at a shocking rate.  Unfortunately, lenders, homebuyers, and the Government failed to learn from the previous housing bubble and now all the attributes of the previous housing bubble top are emerging. I will be reviewing the market in-depth and presenting some ideas to take advantage of historically overvalued homebuilder stocks.

The stock I featured in early April is down 13.2% through today despite a 6.5% rise in the Dow Jones Home Construction index during the same time-period. This particular company will eventually choke to death on debt.  The Short Seller’s Journal is a unique subscription and you can learn more about the Short Seller’s Journal here:  LINK

Anti-Gold Propaganda Flares Up

Financial Markets, Gold, Market Manipulation, Precious Metals, U.S. Economy, , ,

Predictably, after the gold price has been pushed down in the paper market by the western Central Banks – primarily the Federal Reserve – negative propaganda to outright fake news proliferates.

The latest smear-job comes from London-based Capital Economics by way of Kitco.com.   Some “analyst” – Simona Gambarini – with the job title, “commodity economist,” reports that “gold’s luck has run out” with the 25 basis point nudge in rates by the Fed.  She further explains that her predicted two more rate hikes will cause even more money to leave the gold market.

Hmmm…if Ms. Gambarini were a true  economist, she would have conducted enough thorough research of interest rates to know that every cycle in which the Fed raises the Funds rate is accompanied by a rise in the price of gold.  This is because the market perceives the Fed to be “behind the curve” on rising inflation, something to which several Fed heads have alluded.    In fact, the latest Fed rate hike, on balance, has lowered longer term interest rates, as I detailed here:  Has The Fed Really Raised Rates?

Furthermore, to which “gold market” is Ms. Gambarini referring?  There’s the fractional paper gold markets of NYC and London and the physical importation and bullion trading markets in the eastern hemisphere.   While she does indeed acknowledge the upswing in gold demand coming from India and China, she downplays its significance.  Currently India and China are importing more physical gold than at the same time last year.  Several other smaller markets have been actively importing significantly more gold now than at the same time last year (Turkey, for example).

Finally, Ms. Gambarini – unbelievably – states that “she sees less safe-haven demand supporting the market as geopolitical concerns have started to disappear.”  I don’t even know how to respond to that idiotic assertion considering that Russian and U.S. military jets are antagonistically engaged in the sky over the Middle East as I write this.  Either Ms. Gambarini is tragically incompetent at her chose profession or she is purposely propagating fake news.

If Ms. Gambarini was smart enough to do thorough research on the topic or was interested in reporting the truth, she explain that, at least 80% of the time, the gold price rises during Asian trading hours and falls during NYC/London hours, like today:

The mining stocks have been strong relative to the price of gold this week. My bet is that this reflects the likelihood that the latest price-takedown of gold in the paper market has run its course. The dramatic drop in Comex paper gold open interest, as well as a drop in the net short position of the Comex bullion banks and a drop in the net long position of the hedge funds (per the COT report), reinforces the signal transmitted by the mining stock this week.

Any flinch from the Fed in its alleged desire to tighten its monetary policy, or if a “spark” hits the growing geopolitical powder-keg in the Middle East, and gold will quickly shoot over $1300 on its way to much higher levels.

The Housing Market Bubble Is Popping

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As with all other highly manipulated data, the financial media has a blind bias toward the “bullish” story attached to the housing market. Understandable, as the National Association of Realtors spends more on special interest interest lobbying in Congress than any other financial sector lobby interest, including Wall Street banks.

New home sales were down last month, according to the Census Bureau, 11.3% and missed Wall Street’s soothsayer estimates by a rural mile. Strange, that report, given that new homebuilder sentiment is bubbling along a record highs. Existing home sales were down 2.3%. You’ll note that the numbers reported by the Census Bureau and NAR are “SAAR” – seasonally adjusted annualized rates. There is considerable room for data manipulation and regression model bias when a monthly data sample is “seasonally adjusted/manipulated” and then annualized.  You’ll also note that mortgage rates have dropped considerably from their December highs and May is one of the seasonally strongest months for home sales.

It’s becoming pretty clear to me that the housing market’s “Roman candle” has lost its upward thrust and is poised to fall back to earth. I believe it could happen shockingly fast. Fannie Mae released its home purchase sentiment index, which FNM says is the most detailed of its kind.

The report contained some “eyebrow-raising” results. The percentage of Americans who say it’s a good time buy a home net of those who say it’s a bad time to buy a home fell 8 percent to 27% – a record low for this survey. At the same time the percentage of those who say its a good time sell net of those who say its a bad to sell rose to 32% – also a new survey high. In other words, homeowners on average are better sellers than buyers of homes relative to anytime since Fannie Mae has been compiling these statistics (June 2010).

Currently the prevailing propaganda promoted by the National Association of Realtors’ chief “economist” is that home sales are sagging because of “low inventory.” He’s been all over this fairytale like a dog in heat. The problem for him is that the narrative does not fit the actual data – data compiled by the National Association of Realtors – thereby rendering it “fake news:”

The graph above shows home inventory plotted against existing home sales from 1999 to 2015 (note:  when I tried to update the graph to include current data, I discovered that the Fed had removed all existing home sales data prior to 2013).   As you can see, up until Larry Yun decided to make stuff up about the factors which drive home sales, there is an inverse correlation between inventory and the level of home sales (i.e. low inventory = rising sales and vice versa).   I’m not making this up, it’s displayed right there in the data that used to be accessible at the St Louis Fed website.

Furthermore, if you “follow the money” in terms of new homebuilder new housing starts, you’ll discover that housing starts have dropped three months in a row. The last time this occurred was in June 2008.   IF low inventory is the cause of sagging home sales – as Larry Yun would like you to believe – then how come new homebuilders are starting less homes? If there’s a true shortage of homes, homebuilders should be starting  as many new units as they can as rapidly  as possible.

Although the Dow Jones Home Construction Index is near a 52-week high – it’s still 40% below it’s all-time high hit in 2005.  Undoubtedly it’s being dragged reluctantly higher by the S&P 500, Dow, Nasdaq and Tesla.   Despite this, I presented a homebuilder short idea to subscribers of the Short Seller’s Journal that is down 13.6% since  I presented it May 19th.  It’s been down as much as 24.2% in that time period.   It is headed to $7 or lower, likely before Christmas.  I also  presented another not well followed idea that could easily get cut in half by the end of the year.

The next issue of the Short Seller’s Journal will focus on the housing market.  I’ll discuss housing market data that tends to get covered up by Wall Street and the media. I have been collecting some compelling data to support the argument that the housing market is rolling over…you can find out more about subscribing here:  Short Seller’s Journal info.

In the latest issue released yesterday, I also reviewed Amazon’s takeover of Whole Foods:

I just read it and the analysis on Amazon is awesome. This has the potential to be the short of year when the hype wanes and reality sets in – subscriber, Andreas

Has The Fed Actually Raised Rates This Year?

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The answer is debatable but it depends on, exactly, to which rates you are referring.  The Fed has “raised,” more like “nudged,” the Fed Funds target rate about 50 basis points (one-half of one percent) this year.  That is, the Fed’s “target rate” for the Fed Funds rate was raised slightly at the end of two of the four FOMC meetings this year from 50 to 75 basis points up to 1 – 1.25%.  Wow.

But this is just one out of many interest rate benchmarks in the financial system.  The 10-yr Treasury yield – which is a key funding benchmark for a wide range of credit instruments including mortgages, municipal and corporate bonds, has declined 30 basis points this year.  Thus, for certain borrowers, the Fed has effectively lowered the cost of borrowing (I’m ignoring the “credit spread” effect, which is issuer-specific).

Moreover, the spread between the 1-month Treasury Bill and the 10-yr Treasury has declined this year from 193 basis points to 125 basis points – a 68 basis point drop in the cost funding for borrowers who have access to the highly “engineered” derivative products that enable these borrowers to take advantage the shape of the yield curve in order to lower their cost of borrowing:

In the graph above, the top blue line is the yield on the 10-yr Treasury bond and the bottom line is the rate on the 1-month T-bill.  As you can see the spread between the two has narrowed considerably.

Thus, I would place the news reports that the Fed has “raised in rates” in the category of “Propaganda,” if not outright “Fake News.”

One has to wonder if the Fed’s motives in orchestrating that graph above are intentional. On the one hand it can make the superficial claim that it is raising rates for all the reasons stated in the vomit that is mistaken for words coming from Janet Yellen’s mouth;  but on the other hand, effectively, the Fed has managed to lower interest rates for a widespread cohort of longer term borrowers.

Furthermore, this illusion of “tighter” monetary policy serves the purpose of supporting the idea of a strong dollar and enabling a highly orchestrated – albeit temporary – manipulated hit on the gold price using paper gold derivatives.

To borrow a term from Jim Sinclair, the idea that the Fed has “raised rates” is nothing more than propaganda for the primary purpose of “MOPE” – Management Of Perception Economics.  On that count, I give the Fed an A+.

Trust In The United States Was Bombed Away

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Trump employing a “wag the dog” strategy, in which he highlights his leadership on an international crisis to divert attention from domestic political problems, is reminiscent of President Bill Clinton’s threats to attack Serbia in early 1999 as his impeachment trial was underway over his sexual relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky. – Robert Parry, posted on Consortiumnews.com

Robert Parry has a blue chip track record as an investigative reporter.  He broke many news stories about the Iran-Contra affair for AP and Newsweek (back when mainstream news sources were a lot less fake) and he broke the story revealing the CIA was trafficking cocaine with the Contras in the United States in the 1980’s (we’re confident the CIA has upped its drug dealing game now that it has control of the poppy crops in Afghanistan).

Despite apparent internal dispute over the validity of the intelligence that Assad’s regime unleased a poison gas attack on ISIS, president Trump bombed Syrian air force assets.   According one of Parry’s CIA sources, the gas attack was a staged “false flag” event designed to provoke Trump into reversing his recent policy pronouncement that it would not seek regime change in Syria.   It’s also been questioned as to whether or not the gas released was even Sarin.

Amusingly, the staunch neoconservative propaganda rag known as the “Washing Post” published an editorial questioning the legitimacy of Trump’s missile attack.  Even some of the war-thirsty lunatics on Fox News were questioning the decision.

The U.S. has lost its economic and political edge in the global community.   The evidence of this mounts.  Russia and China (and other eastern bloc countries) are accumulating physical gold hand-over-fist as part of a strategy to bolster their currencies and remove the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

China and Japan, the two largest financiers of the United States’ debt-fueled consumerism and Government deficit spending, have been quietly reducing the amount of Treasuries they hold and are willing to buy.

It’s become apparent to most outside of the United States, and to some inside, that the U.S. has become one big fraud.  The stock market is artificially propped up to prevent a crash that would wipe out America’s retirement funding assets and collapse the banking system;  via the Fed,  the U.S. has orchestrated a flow of funds system by which a few of its puppet Central Banks (Belgium, Swizterland and Ireland – the value of Ireland’s U.S. Treasury holdings now exceeds its GDP) fund Treasury debt auctions;  and a propaganda-based political system has been created that would make Joseph Goebbels blind with envy.

At the root of this fraud is a fraudulent monetary system that requires the Central Bank, together with the Treasury Department, to control the price of gold for as long as possible. This is accomplished via the issuance of an unending supply of paper “fake” gold to help keep the “market” price of gold in check on the Comex and the LBMA.

At some point the demand for physically delivered gold and silver from the east will sabotage the paper manipulation operation.  That’s point at which the United States will collapse.  In today’s episode, the Shadow of Truth discusses the latest events driving U.S. politics and markets:

Fake News And Real Money

Financial Markets, Gold, Housing Market, Market Manipulation, Precious Metals, U.S. Economy, , ,

But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success. – Adolf Hitler

Propaganda, also known as “fake news,” has become the norm in mainstream media reporting. Somehow the idea of Russia hacking the DNC computers morphed into the generic, “Russia hacked the election.” Per Hitler’s formula, Hillary Clinton introduced the idea during one of the presidential debates and kept repeating it until the press seized it and ran all the way with to the end zone with “Trump is a Russian ally.” Now Congress is pre-occupied with the fraudulent charge that Russia is controlling U.S. politics. The whole spectacle is beyond idiotic.

In a similar manner, the reporting of economic statistics has become another tool of propaganda. The Government, as we all well know by now, spits out economic reports based on shoddy statistical samples that are seasonally adjusted. Then the data that is cooked for any specific month is annualized. While the result might not be too far off base for any specific month, the errors aggregate over time so that some statistics, like the GDP report, bear no resemblance to reality.

A great example of using propaganda to promote an idea is the continuous mantra coming from the National Association of Realtors that “low inventory” is hampering home sales. It’s an effective device to make the public think that a lack of homes for sale is the explanation for declining sales. It’s also a lie. Homebuilders are sitting on a record level of inventory. Flippers and investors bought 37% of all existing homes that traded in 2016. Many are sitting on homes they can’t sell for enough to cover their rehab expenses. The over $750,000 segment of the market is flooded with inventory.

The truth is that, if you examine the historical data in order to question the NAR’s assertions, the facts show that since 1999 – which is when the Fed began tracking existing home sales – relative inventory levels do not drive home sales:

In fact – if anything – there is an inverse correlation between inventory levels and home sales. In other words, since 1999, homes sales rise when inventories are low!

Thus propaganda is a tool used to manage public perception.  Unfortunately, a high percentage of the population only consumes headlines and sound-bytes.  It’s the perfect set-up for politicians to employ Hitler’s advice on administering propaganda.  The commonly accepted idea is, in fact, the opposite of the truth.

The commandeering of a country by elitists begins by eliminating real money and replacing it with a fraudulent fiat currency.  But the eastern hemisphere is moving in an opposite direction as the west.  As reproduced in The Daily Coin, Russia and China have quietly struck an agreement laying the groundwork to replace the U.S. dollar’s reserve status with a gold-backed currency system:   Moscow and Beijing join forces to bypass US dollar in world money market.    In today’s episode of the Shadow of Truth we discuss the decline of the United States and the advancement of the new superpower bloc emerging in the east.

Gold & Silver Manipulation: The Biggest Financial Crime In History

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Investment Research Dynamics is pleased to present another truth-seeking missile launched by Stewart Dougherty:

This crime is already 285 times bigger than the LIBOR scandal, and 500 times bigger than Madoff’s swindle. It is, in fact, the largest, most destructive financial crime in history.

According to the mainstream financial media (MFM), the biggest financial frauds in history are the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, with roughly $20 billion in net investor losses, and the Bank State rigging of LIBOR, which resulted in 16 guilty banks paying $35 billion in fines, which supposedly equated to their theft.

The MFM have conveniently ignored a far larger financial crime that has been perpetrated for 37 years and counting, and that has netted its orchestrators more than $1,000,000,000,000.00 ($1 trillion) in stolen profits. This crime is so powerful that it can produce fraudulent proceeds of $1+ billion on demand and in minutes, making it unique in the annals of theft. It is a crime that has been committed literally thousands of times since 1980, and is now being committed in the most blatant and brazen manner ever. This crime is already 285 times bigger than the LIBOR scandal, and 500 times bigger than Madoff’s swindle. It is, in fact, the largest, most destructive financial crime in history.

To read the rest of this, please click here:  Gold & Silver Manipulation

 

Bank Loans Take A Dive: It’s The Economy, Stupid

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I am compelled to correct a report posted on Zerohedge about the cliff-dive going on in commercial, industrial and consumer loans. The report in ZH suggested the plunge is connected to two possibilities: 1) this one from a Wall Street sleazebag from Barclays: “it is possible that companies have shifted from the loan to the bond market, and are selling more bonds to lock in cheap financing before rates rise, while not encumbering assets with issuing unsecured debt;” and 2) political uncertainty connected to Trump.

The first possibility could have some small amount of legitimacy except that if you parse through all the data available at the Fed, you’ll see that bank credit has plunged across the entire spectrum of U.S. business (I used size of loan as the proxy). Smaller businesses do not have access to public credit markets and thus the first explanation is the typical apology for a negative economic report that we would expect from a Wall Street con-artist. Furthermore, some people are forgetting that this decline of bank loans could be down to the fact that there are now more options for people to get loans. More people are looking into loans like the smaller Auto Title Loans as a way to get quick money rather than look to the banks for help. This is happening all over the world, with Swedens using snabblån utan UC to help when they are looking for some quick cash and others using payday lenders. The second possibility is part of the anti-Trump narrative found in the fake news reports coming from the ignorant.

“It’s The Economy, Stupid”

That quote was created by James Carville as one of Bill Clinton’s campaign slogans in 1992. Those words ring even truer today. A primary example is the restaurant industry numbers discussed above. “Hope” and “confidence” do not generate economic activity. And “hope” is not a valid investment strategy. A better guide to what’s happening to economic activity on Main Street is to see what banks are doing with their lending capital. I borrowed the two graphs below from the @DonDraperClone Twitter feed (click to enlarge):

Commercial bank lending is a great barometer of economic activity. The top graph above shows the year over year percentage change in commercial and industrial loans for all commercial banks. You can see that the rate of bank lending to businesses is falling doing a cliff-dive. These are primarily senior secured and revolving credit loans that sit at the top of the capital structure. If bank lending is slowing down like this, it means two things: 1) the ability of businesses to repay new loans is declining and 2) the asset values used to secure new loans will likely decline. Most companies now are opting for small loans with loan companies and not banks, such as https://xn--sm-ln-nrac.com/. In fact, it is highly probable that the tightening of credit by the banks is a directive from the Fed. Yes, the Fed. Despite its public commentary suggesting otherwise, the Fed knows as well as anyone that the economy is tanking. This is why the Fed can’t hike rates up to a level that would bring real interest rates up to at a “neutral” level (using a real price inflation measure, Fed Funds needs to be reset to at least 6%, and likely higher, to get the real rate of interest up to zero).

The only reason the Fed might “nudge” interest rates higher next week is for credibility purposes. Everyone knows inflation is escalating, which makes it difficult for the Fed to keep interest rates so close to zero. In addition, a rate hike now, even though it will be insignificant in magnitude, will give the Fed room to take rates back to zero when the public and Congress begin to scream about economy.

The second graph shows the year over year percentage change in auto loans. The implications there are fairly self-explanatory. Auto sales are slowing down because the “universe” of potential prime and subprime rated car buyers, new and used cars, has been largely exhausted. In fact, with the default rate on subprime auto loans beginning to hit double-digits, the next phase in the automobile credit market will likely be credit implosion crisis.

The above commentary was an excerpt from the latest issue of the Short Seller’s Journal.