Revelations 18:23:’For the merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.
Important Takeaways:
- 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck — ‘inflation is part of their everyday lives,’ expert says
- Even as the cost of living remains high, the number of Americans living paycheck to paycheck fell to 60% in January, according to a recent report.
- 45% of high-income earners, were living paycheck to paycheck, according to a new LendingClub report.
- “Consumers have accepted that inflation is part of their everyday lives,” says LendingClub’s Anuj Nayar.
- A few key money moves can help your financial standing amid higher prices.
- At the end of 2022, credit card debt hit a record $930.6 billion, an 18.5% spike from a year earlier, and average credit card balance rose to $5,805, according to the latest report by TransUnion.
- Total household debt also increased by 2.4% to $16.9 trillion in the fourth quarter of last year, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Revelations 18:23:’For the merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.’
Important Takeaways:
- Existing home sales unexpectedly fall in January for 12th straight month
- U.S. existing home sales slowed for the 12th consecutive month in January as high mortgage rates, surging inflation and steep home prices sapped consumer demand from the housing market.
- Sales of previously owned homes tumbled 0.7% in January from the prior month to an annual rate of 4 million units, according to new data released Tuesday by the National Association of Realtors (NAR). On an annual basis, existing home sales are down 36.9% when compared with January 2021.
- It is the slowest pace since November 2010, when the U.S. was still in the throes of the housing crisis triggered by subprime mortgage defaults.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Revelations 18:23:’For the merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.’
Important Takeaways:
- Household debt hit record $16.9 trillion last quarter, as consumers loaded up their credit cards
- Total US household debt hit a record $16.9 trillion during the fourth quarter, an increase of $394 billion, or 2.4%, from the prior three-month period, according to the Fed’s latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit. While the lion’s share of the debt is attributable to mortgages, the report showed that not only are credit card balances swelling at record levels, delinquencies are on the rise as well.
- Credit card balances increased nearly 6.6% to $986 billion during the quarter, the highest quarterly growth on record, according to New York Fed data
Read the original article by clicking here.
Revelations 18:23:’For the merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.’
Important Takeaways:
- Pakistan food crisis exacerbated by wheat shortage
- Pakistan is currently suffering from skyrocketing prices and a shortage of wheat flour, with people waiting in line for hours to receive a single bag.
- In this Video one man has to choose to wait all day in line for a bag of food or go to work
Read the original article by clicking here.
Revelations 18:23:’For the merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.’
Important Takeaways:
- The US consumer is starting to freak out
- The flush savings accounts and cheap credit that helped keep Americans spending at high rates since 2020 are disappearing
- Retail purchases have fallen in three of the past four months. Spending on services, including rent, haircuts and the bulk of bills, was flat in December, after adjusting for inflation, the worst monthly reading in nearly a year.
- Sales of existing homes in the U.S. fell last year to their lowest level since 2014 as mortgage rates rose. The auto industry posted its worst sales year in more than a decade.
- One factor making forecasting more difficult: While unemployment is trending at a half-century low, big companies including Amazon.com Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and Microsoft Corp. have begun to cut jobs.
- Also weighing on many consumers: The rapid increase in rates in the past year, tied to Fed tightening, has pushed the cost of all types of debt higher.
- Mortgage rates reached a 20-year high last fall. Some 57% of consumers were concerned about making housing payments in the fourth quarter
- Additionally, tens of millions of Americans are set to start or resume making payments on student loans later this year, after the Supreme Court rules on President Biden’s student-debt cancellation plan. Payments have been frozen since March 2020, and are scheduled to begin again 60 days after litigation is resolved or the program is implemented.
- Many taxpayers will get smaller refunds when they file their returns in the coming months because Congress didn’t extend the breaks put in place at the height of the pandemic.
- S. factories, shippers and importers are pulling back, a sign they anticipate less demand from Americans in the months ahead.
- Inbound volumes at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in California were down 20.1% in December from a year earlier, and have been behind 2019 levels since August.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Revelations 18:23:’For the merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.’
Important Takeaways:
- 57% of Americans can’t afford a $1,000 emergency expense, says new report. A look at why Americans are saving less and how you can boost your emergency savings
- According to Bankrate’s Annual Emergency Fund Report, 68% of people are worried they wouldn’t be able to cover their living expenses for just one month if they lost their primary source of income. And when push comes to shove, the majority (57%) of U.S. adults are currently unable to afford a $1,000 emergency expense.
- When broken down by generation, Gen Zers (85%) and millennials (79%) are more likely to be worried about covering an emergency expense.
- The top reason cited by respondents (74%) was inflation. Rising costs have put added pressure on the average American’s wallet
Read the original article by clicking here.
Revelations 18:23:’For the merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.’
Important Takeaways:
- Average American family is spending $72-a-month more on food due to inflation as experts predict a recession in 2023
- American families continue to attempt to meet the rising cost of living as inflation continues to plague household budgets
- The most recent CPI report showed that inflation has slowed considerably since the summer, when the figure capped out at 9.1 percent
- Despite slowing inflation, however, a group of experts surveyed by the WSJ says there is a greater than 60 percent chance of recession in 2023
- Moody’s Analytics showed that families are spending an estimated $72 more on food per month than they were a year ago.
- That figure is pulled out of a report that says the typical US household is shelling out $371 on goods and services more than they were a year ago.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Revelations 18:23:’For the merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.’
Important Takeaways:
- Rampant retail theft making inflation worse, threatens bleeding businesses, economists say
- Consumers will be forced to pay a theft tax or lose access to goods: economists
- “If companies can’t increase their costs to cover the cost of the theft, if they’re not making a profit, then they’re going to go out of business,” Andrew Puzder, the former CKE Restaurants CEO and a visiting fellow at Heritage, told Fox News.
- In 2021, retail “shrink,” or thefts, cost the industry $94.5 billion in losses, up 4% year-over-year and nearly double the $50.6 billion in 2018
Read the original article by clicking here.
Revelations 18:23:’For the merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.’
Important Takeaways:
- $7 a dozen? Why California eggs are so expensive — and increasingly hard to find
- Golden State shoppers are shelling out extreme prices for eggs, amid an outbreak of bird flu that has killed millions of hens and left local grocers struggling to stock cartons that comply with California law.
- Egg cases were bare across Los Angeles County this week, from Trader Joe’s in Long Beach to Amazon Fresh in Inglewood, Target in MidCity to Ralphs in Glendale. Those such as Hodges who found cartons were shocked by the sudden spike in price.
- “I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Anna Sanchez, 32, who scoured the half-empty shelves at a Smart & Final in University Park looking for a dozen eggs for less than $10.
- The average retail price for a dozen large eggs jumped to $7.37 in California this week, up from $4.83 at the beginning of December
- The cause is an unprecedented outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza — commonly known as bird flu — that has killed tens of millions of egg-layers nationwide.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Revelations 18:23:’For the merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.’
Important Takeaways:
- 2023 Spells Big Trouble for US Economy, Majority of Big Banks Warn: Reports
- The Wall Street Journal predict that the United States will fall into the grips of a recession in 2023 and millions of Americans will lose their jobs
- The institutions that predict a coming recession expect consumer spending to weaken as Americans deplete their savings and an aggressive Fed drives up borrowing costs, and as banks’ lending standards get tighter.
- Even though inflation has eased somewhat from its June peak, it’s far from enough for the Fed to hit the brakes on interest rates, which were brought up quickly from near zero in March 2022 to the current range of between 4.24–4.5 percent.
- Frustrated by how sticky high inflation has remained despite the rate hikes, Fed officials have pledged to keep raising rates and keep them high until inflation recedes to around the Fed’s 2 percent target
- Fed officials said they expect the terminal Fed Funds rate—meaning the highest level before it hits a ceiling and later falls—to come in at 5.1 percent.
- Rates that high will push unemployment up from the current 3.7 percent to 4.6 percent in 2023 and stay at that level in 2024, according to the Fed.
- The International Monetary Fund (IMF)… expects more economic pain. “More than a third of the global economy will contract this year or next, while the three largest economies—the United States, the European Union, and China—will continue to stall,”
- “In short, the worst is yet to come, and for many people 2023 will feel like a recession.”
Read the original article by clicking here.
