Nah!
They claim the depression is over. (Just don't call it a depression.) Of course the numbers tell us something different. The economy isn't creating jobs, real jobs that is, in most areas of the country. Here in Northern Idaho Canadians and a few summer visitors have showed up and Walmart in store sales are up 3% more than last spring.
But last Spring was horrendous! Anything looks better than last year. But it remains to be seen, if housing doesn't improve without government gimmicks and handouts, if the local lumber industry ever recovers.
But thanks to free trade and environmental regulations here, Canada stands to produce plenty of wood products for our market and the local companies will not get much of a chance to get back into the game.
Therefor, the clowns in Washington should behappy as they hate lumber and mining. Just like they couldn't wait to close down the oil industry they have been have been eviscerating the timber industry. You wonder if they get their way on destroying our economy if anyone will have any reason to create any jobs at all.
Or is that the idea? Take us back to windmills and bicycles and everyone lives happily ever after living on peace and love. I guess we'll see.
Social Security Payouts Are Already Crippling The Government This Year
They claim the depression is over. (Just don't call it a depression.) Of course the numbers tell us something different. The economy isn't creating jobs, real jobs that is, in most areas of the country. Here in Northern Idaho Canadians and a few summer visitors have showed up and Walmart in store sales are up 3% more than last spring.
But last Spring was horrendous! Anything looks better than last year. But it remains to be seen, if housing doesn't improve without government gimmicks and handouts, if the local lumber industry ever recovers.
But thanks to free trade and environmental regulations here, Canada stands to produce plenty of wood products for our market and the local companies will not get much of a chance to get back into the game.
Therefor, the clowns in Washington should behappy as they hate lumber and mining. Just like they couldn't wait to close down the oil industry they have been have been eviscerating the timber industry. You wonder if they get their way on destroying our economy if anyone will have any reason to create any jobs at all.
Or is that the idea? Take us back to windmills and bicycles and everyone lives happily ever after living on peace and love. I guess we'll see.
Social Security Payouts Are Already Crippling The Government This Year
I am stunned by the continued drop in FICA/SECA tax receipts. There are many metrics on the overall economy that have shown YoY improvement. The SS revenue numbers are telling us something different. They measure the incomes of 160 million workers. This is the broadest definition of employment we have. My read on the numbers is that we have very fundamental weakness in employment. The problem is bigger than the headline numbers from the BLS suggest.
-The payroll tax revenues versus the benefits paid number lines have crossed. Some, including the CBO, see this as a temporary phenomenon. I disagree. For there to be a return to a positive result of (payroll tax revenue – benefits) the economy would have to grow on a sustained basis at 5% and inflation would have to remain near zero. Those conditions are unlikely to be met.
-The estimated $50 billion of negative cash flow to be realized in the second half of the year is just more money that Treasury has to borrow. It does not, by itself, increase our total indebtedness. It is a shift between the Intergovernmental and Debt to Public accounts. Does an extra 50 Bil matter when the total the public holds is already 8.6 Tril? No, not really. Not as of today at least. But when the tables turn and the markets focus on the US bond/bill calendar it will make a difference.
-All heavily indebted borrowers, whether they be individuals, corporations or sovereigns are highly dependent on cash flow to service debt. When cash flow goes negative individuals and corporations go bankrupt. Most sovereigns do too. The US is in the enviable position of being able to ignore cash flow. We can simply print our way out of this problem. At least some people think we can.
-SS is $2.5T of the $4.5T Intergovernmental account. I believe that this entire group is going cash flow negative. The IG account cost us ~$160 billion in interest last year, but some out there are pretending the IG account does not exist. An example of this is in the following link.
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