Economic News Thread | Consumer Confidence declines

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farce© said:
You must be talking about retirement accounts. You can’t just get out of securities and into cash without creating some big capital gains issues in a taxable account.
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Correct, which is effectively where the bulk of my investments reside, ie roth, 401k, 403b. My liquid funds have always been kept in money markets or cash, with non-liquid, non-retirement assets in real estate and a minor stake in metals.
 

High mortgage rates and elevated home prices combined to crush home sales in January.

Pending sales, which are based on signed contracts for existing homes, dropped 4.6% from December to the lowest level since the National Association of Realtors began tracking this metric in 2001. Sales were down 5.2% from January 2024. These sales are an indicator of future closings.
 
nycfan said:

Bosses are exerting their power. What Trump’s crackdown could mean for your job.​

President Donald Trump’s crackdown on federal employees bolsters a trend revoking some workplace flexibility.


“… More companies are expected to join the movement this year as they raise performance expectations and mandate workers return to the office full time, work experts say.

“All companies I talk to are really focused on driving productivity [and] lowering cost,” said Bradford Bell, a professor at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. “It pushes things in favor of employers.”

The harder stance started in corporate America before Trump’s executive order, but the trend is expected to accelerate. Goldman Sachs, Amazon, AT&T and JPMorgan Chase have implemented strict five-day in-office mandates, noting that being in the office will help with collaboration and innovation.

In January, AT&T employees returned to the office full time to find a shortage of desks and parking spaces — a problem the company said it’s working to address.

Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, is“raising the bar” on performance and cutting 5 percent of its workforce as it gears up for an “intense year,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a recent company memo.

Last month, Microsoft said it will cut staff based on job performance, even as it vowed to pour more money into artificial intelligence.

Dell is mandating that workers who live within an hour of the office return full time beginning March 3. And remote employees won’t be eligible for promotions. …”

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Enough people walk away from jobs and the "employers" will wake up to the need for work life balance.

No level of productivity makes up for no employees to do the work.
 
nycfan said:
“…The top 10% of earners—households making about $250,000 a year or more—are splurging on everything from vacations to designer handbags, buoyed by big gains in stocks, real estate and other assets.

Those consumers now account for 49.7% of all spending, a record in data going back to 1989, according to an analysis by Moody’s Analytics. Three decades ago, they accounted for about 36%.

All this means that economic growth is unusually reliant on rich Americans continuing to shell out. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, estimated that spending by the top 10% alone accounted for almost one-third of gross domestic product.

… Taken together, well-off people have increased their spending far beyond inflation, while everyone else hasn’t. The bottom 80% of earners spent 25% more than they did four years earlier, barely outpacing price increases of 21% over that period. The top 10% spent 58% more. …”
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I'm really amazed that $250k a year is top 10 percent.
 
nycfan said:

Consumer confidence registers biggest monthly decline since August 2021 as inflation fears take hold​



“… Economic jitters are showing up across various sentiment surveys as the Trump administration aims to reconfigure America’s trade relationship with the world and inflation shows signs of getting stuck.

The latest evidence comes from The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index for February, released Tuesday morning. The index fell to 98.3, falling for the third-straight month and marking the largest monthly decline since August 2021, as expectations for inflation in the year ahead climbed. That coincides with the trends reflected in the University of Michigan’s consumer survey for February.

Homebuilders are also growing worried, according to the National Association of Home Builders; even US small businesses, which remain somewhat optimistic about deregulation and tax cuts, are in doubt about the economy’s future. The National Federation of Independent Business’ Uncertainty Index rose in January to its third-highest reading on record. …”
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For the Trumpers in the back…all these (legitimate) concerns are because Trump is president. This is all on you.
 
altmin said:

High mortgage rates and elevated home prices combined to crush home sales in January.

Pending sales, which are based on signed contracts for existing homes, dropped 4.6% from December to the lowest level since the National Association of Realtors began tracking this metric in 2001. Sales were down 5.2% from January 2024. These sales are an indicator of future closings.
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Trumpers - the high mortgage rates are also 100% on Trump. If you don’t believe, Google is your friend.
 
heelinhell said:
The median household income is around $75k a year

The average net worth of the top 10% is 6.9 million and hold 67% of the nation's wealth
The bottom 50% average net worth is $51,000 and hold 2.5% of the nation's wealth
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And to be a bit more detailed, here is the most up to date info I see:

“The median net worth of the top 10% of US families was $3,794,600, according to Investopedia. The mean net worth was $7,810,500”

Median is a better representation than average because the ultra wealthy skew the average much higher.
 

Jobless claims spike, in worrisome sign for the US labor market​



“First-time applications for unemployment benefits rose much more than expected last week, a likely indication of some “noisy” data, but also a potential worrisome hint that cracks may be forming in America’s long-solid labor market.

There were an estimated 242,000 jobless claims filed last week, according to seasonally adjusted data released Thursday by the Department of Labor. That’s an increase of 22,000 from the prior week’s tally and a figure that landed well above economists’ expectations for 220,000 claims.

It’s the largest weekly spike in claims in more than four months and the weekly claims — a proxy for layoffs — are at their highest level since early December, Labor Department data shows. …”
 
Delta74 said:
And to be a bit more detailed, here is the most up to date info I see:

“The median net worth of the top 10% of US families was $3,794,600, according to Investopedia. The mean net worth was $7,810,500”

Median is a better representation than average because the ultra wealthy skew the average much higher.
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I prefer the median because it keeps me in the top 10% 😉
 
nycfan said:

Jobless claims spike, in worrisome sign for the US labor market​



“First-time applications for unemployment benefits rose much more than expected last week, a likely indication of some “noisy” data, but also a potential worrisome hint that cracks may be forming in America’s long-solid labor market.

There were an estimated 242,000 jobless claims filed last week, according to seasonally adjusted data released Thursday by the Department of Labor. That’s an increase of 22,000 from the prior week’s tally and a figure that landed well above economists’ expectations for 220,000 claims.

It’s the largest weekly spike in claims in more than four months and the weekly claims — a proxy for layoffs — are at their highest level since early December, Labor Department data shows. …”
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Man, the Trumponomics are going to kill this country. Man, he sucks. FDT.
 
Kraftyheel89 said:
For the MAGAts, the majority of people sneaking fentenyl into this country are citizens if what country?

When you find that fact, who is responsible for search and seizure of their vehicles crossing the border by auto or plane?

And how will tariffs help this problem, aside from China?
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The chemicals to make it aren't that expensive. Even if you stopped China , you probably wouldn't dent the fentanyl trade. It might drive prices up a little but since so little goes so far, that hardly matters at the wholesale level.

And, of course, there's this fallback.


Nitazenes were developed in the nineteen fifties and sixties and were meant to be a substitute for morphine. But they were so powerful that the FDA didn’t approve them. Now they’re a schedule one drug and illegal just like heroin and LSD. Nitazines are made in the lab and are inexpensive to produce. They block pain signals in the brain by binding to opioid receptors in the brain, spinal cord, and other sites in the body.
Depending on the chemical formulation, some nitazenes are 800 times more potent than morphine and 40 times more than even fentanyl! They come in liquids, pills, and powder form. And just as illegal street drugs can be laced with fentanyl, they can also contain nitazenes without the user knowing.
 
heelinhell said:
The median household income is around $75k a year

The average net worth of the top 10% is 6.9 million and hold 67% of the nation's wealth
The bottom 50% average net worth is $51,000 and hold 2.5% of the nation's wealth
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Yes, I knew the median was around $75. $250 still just seems low for top 10%.

Of course, there's the big jump to get into the top 1%.

That article is sort of scarry. It begs the question of what has happened to the middle class.
 
mpaer said:
And I guess 60% of them voted for trumpenomics
Smart Bunch
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It's really very sad. We need our education system to do better. Of course that's not going to happen with the christian nationalist, project 2025, and the orange turd around.

I read an article the other day that stated the amount of money that Musk saved due to trumps 1st term tax cut. The article reported that the amount that Musk would have paid would have been enough to made SS solvent for decades.
 
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