Russell Vought gutted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on Saturday, one day after President Donald Trump tapped him to serve as the agency’s acting director.
The Senate confirmed Vought to serve as the next head of the Office of Management and Budget on Thursday night before he was tapped to also lead CFPB on Friday. One of Vought’s first acts at the CFPB was to issue a broad freeze of operations, including on new rules, guidance, investigations, and stakeholder communication.
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News: In Saturday night email obtained by RealClearPolitics, acting CFPB Director Russ Vought directs Consumer Financial Protection Bureau staff to issue no new rules, suspend effective dates of all final rules, and cease any new investigations: <a href="https://t.co/TIeSjr0mMq">pic.twitter.com/TIeSjr0mMq</a>
&mdash; Philip Melanchthon Wegmann (@PhilipWegmann) <a href="https://twitter.com/PhilipWegmann/status/1888409309937070128?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
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The Department of Government Efficiency, a team led by Elon Musk aimed at cutting government excess and honing operations toward Trump’s agenda, has targeted CFPB. Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1887979940269666769">posted</a> to X on Friday the message “CFPB RIP” with an emoji of a tombstone.
In addition to freezing its operations, Vought also cut off funding for the agency. The CFPB operates in a unique position relative to most of the government. Created under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, the CFPB is funded directly from the Federal Reserve outside of the normal Congressional appropriations process.
“Pursuant to the Consumer Financial Protection Act, I have notified the Federal Reserve that CFPB will not be taking its next draw of unappropriated funding because it is not ‘reasonably necessary’ to carry out its duties,” Vought posted to X on Saturday night. “The Bureau&#8217;s current balance of $711.6 billion is in fact excessive in the current fiscal environment. This spigot, long contributing to CFPB&#8217;s unaccountability, is now being turned off.”
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Pursuant to the Consumer Financial Protection Act, I have notified the Federal Reserve that CFPB will not be taking its next draw of unappropriated funding because it is not &quot;reasonably necessary&quot; to carry out its duties. The Bureau&#39;s current balance of $711.6 billion is in fact…
&mdash; Russ Vought (@russvought) <a href="https://twitter.com/russvought/status/1888418946455589013?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Vought’s request was made official in a letter to Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell requesting $0 in funding for the CFPB in the third quarter of fiscal year 2025.
“I have determined that no additional funds are necessary to carry out the authorities of the Bureau for Fiscal Year 2025. The Bureau’s current funds are more than sufficient–and are, in fact, excessive–to carry out its authorities in a manner that is consistent with the public interest,” Vought wrote.
“In the past, the Bureau has at times opted to maintain a ‘reserve fund’ for financial contingencies. But no such fund is required by statute or necessary to fulfill the Bureau’s mandate,” he continued. “The Bureau’s new leadership will run a substantially more streamlined and efficient bureau, cut this excessive fund, and do its part to reduce the federal deficit.”
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News: In letter to FED Chairman obtained by RealClearPolitics, Trump’s acting CFPB director <a href="https://twitter.com/russvought?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RussVought</a> requests for Q3 of FY25 a grand total of… $0. <a href="https://t.co/OeCoGmenJs">pic.twitter.com/OeCoGmenJs</a>
&mdash; Philip Melanchthon Wegmann (@PhilipWegmann) <a href="https://twitter.com/PhilipWegmann/status/1888418397311959198?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Russell Vought

CFPB Gutted In Latest Trump Admin Move To Cut Government Waste

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Federal Reserve

Washington D.C.

A former senior adviser for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (FRB) was arrested on Friday for allegedly conspiring to steal trade secrets for <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/communist-china" target="_blank" rel="noopener">communist China</a>.
Federal prosecutors charged 63-year-old John Harold Rogers, a U.S. citizen with a Ph.D. in economics, with conspiracy to commit economic espionage and with making false statements.
Rogers worked in the Division of International Finance of the FRB from 2010 until 2021, &#8220;where he was entrusted with confidential FRB information,&#8221; the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement. &#8220;The confidential information that Rogers allegedly shared with his Chinese co-conspirators, who worked for the intelligence and security apparatus of China and who posed as graduate students at a PRC university, is economically valuable when secret.&#8221;
Prosecutors explained that the data Rogers allegedly shared with his co-conspirators could allow China to manipulate the U.S. market in a manner that they described as &#8220;similar to insider trading.&#8221;
&#8220;Gaining advance knowledge of U.S. economic policy, including advance knowledge of changes to the federal funds rate, could provide China with an advantage when selling or buying U.S. bonds or securities,&#8221; the statement said.
Prosecutors said that under the guise of teaching classes in China, Rogers began stealing trade secrets and bringing them to the communist nation starting in at least 2018 in exchange for a $450,000 salary as &#8220;a part-time professor at a Chinese university.&#8221;
When he was questioned in 2020 by federal investigators, he allegedly lied to them, which they said &#8220;had a material impact&#8221; on the investigation.
“President Trump tasks us with protecting our fellow Americans from all enemies, foreign and domestic. As alleged in the indictment, this defendant leveraged his position within the Federal Reserve to pass sensitive financial information to the Chinese government, a designated adversary,” said U.S. Attorney Edward R. Martin Jr. for the District of Columbia. “Let this indictment serve as a warning to all who seek to betray or exploit the United States: law enforcement will find you and hold you accountable.”
Assistant Director in Charge David Sundberg of the FBI Washington Field Office said, “As alleged in the indictment, Rogers betrayed his country while employed at the Federal Reserve by providing restricted U.S. financial and economic information to Chinese government intelligence officers.”
“This information could allow adversaries to illegally gain a strategic economic advantage at the expense of the U.S.,&#8221; he said. &#8220;This indictment sends a clear message that the FBI and our partners will hold accountable those who threaten our national security.”

The back of an FBI agent

Former Senior Adviser For Federal Reserve Charged With Spying For Communist China: Feds

Communist China

Crime

U.S.

In order to ensure Kamala Harris’ victory in 2024, there has to be some sort of outsized force that propels her to it. But the problem for Harris is that there aren&#8217;t going to be more debates where points are teed up for her.
If something bad happens in the world, that cuts against the Biden-Harris administration. If a large-scale war breaks out in the Middle East right now, that&#8217;s not going to cut against former President Trump; it&#8217;s going to cut against Biden-Harris because she&#8217;s the vice president who failed to prevent it.
If there&#8217;s an economic collapse, that cuts against Harris. If there&#8217;s any piece of really bad data in the country right now, it cuts against the incumbent.
But there is one piece of news that could be released and manipulated in order to try and help Harris.
And it happened on Wednesday.
The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/economy/central-banking/fed-cuts-rates-by-half-percentage-point-03566d82" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>:
<blockquote>​The Federal Reserve voted to lower interest rates by a half-percentage point, opting for a bolder start in making its first reduction since 2020. 
Eleven of 12 Fed voters backed the cut, which brings the benchmark federal-funds rate to a range between 4.75% and 5%. Quarterly projections released Wednesday showed a narrow majority of officials penciled in cuts that would lower rates by at least a quarter-point each at meetings in November and December.</blockquote>
They&#8217;re going to start cutting, and they want a hard cut. The problem with a hard cut is that, first, inflation has not gone down all the way to the 2% number the Federal Reserve typically looks for, and, second, the economy is still pretty hot, meaning that unemployment numbers are still not radically up.
So what are they doing? They&#8217;re injecting more money into an economy that actually is not flagging enough to justify that size of a cut. The case for a 25-basis point cut could be made. You could say we need to gradually inject more money into the economy.
But interest rates should be free-flowing and not manipulated by the Federal Reserve at all. It&#8217;s ridiculous that we have a centralized government agency that decides how much your dollar is worth based on a dual mission of reducing unemployment and keeping inflation down. The free market should decide exactly how interest rates float, and sometimes the interest rates need to go up in order to clean out bubbles.
When that doesn&#8217;t happen, bubbles end up growing, and then eventually, the bubbles burst.
The Journal continues:
<blockquote>The Fed governor Michelle Bowman dissented against Wednesday’s decision in favor of a smaller, quarter-point cut. Bowman, who was appointed to the board by Donald Trump in 2018, became the first governor to dissent against an interest-rate decision since 2005. It was the first dissent by any voter on the rate-setting committee since June 2022.
The Fed rate cut marks just the sixth time in the past 30 years that the central bank switched from raising to lowering rates. Usually when the Fed starts cutting rates, it doesn’t know whether it will make a handful of small moves—as it did in 1995 and 1998, when the economy avoided a downturn—or whether it is the start of a longer series of reductions, as in 2001 and 2007, when the central bank cut rates a few months before the economy entered recession.</blockquote>
So, they&#8217;re going to start lowering the interest rates again. There are a few reasons for this. One is the United States government is borrowing money at such an unbelievable clip right now that to leave those interest rates up would ratchet up the interest payments on the national debt. In order to correct for the vast national debt we are piling up, they&#8217;re lowering the interest rates so we don&#8217;t have to pay people back at as high rates. That&#8217;s a major factor.
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Another factor is supposed to be that the economy is slowing so much we need to inject a fresh round of capital.
But let&#8217;s be real about this: Capital has not dried up in the American economy. That is why the stock market is currently riding precisely where it is. Just days ago, the price-to-earnings ratio (which assesses whether a stock is over- or under-valued) for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was riding at 31. The average PE ratio for the Dow over the past three years is 20.
That&#8217;s insane. That means stocks are overvalued. That means there&#8217;s quite a lot of money in the system that is being thrown at the stock market because people don&#8217;t know what to do with the money. Investors are getting a fresh infusion of cash in their pocket, and they&#8217;re immediately planting it where they think it will possibly earn a return. Stocks would be one place. They&#8217;re presumably going to do the same in real estate.
The problem is that the interest rates in real estate remain higher than they were five or six years ago. So even if you want to trade a house for a different house, that now means you&#8217;re giving up a 3.5% interest rate for a 6% interest rate on your mortgage, which costs you a lot more money.
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So what is the cut designed to do? Making a 50-basis point cut signals two things at the same time. First, it signals the economy is on the verge of a downturn. That&#8217;s the reasoning for cutting it 50-basis points as opposed to 25. But second, a 50-basis point cut simultaneously signals that the worries about inflation are over, which means the economy is strong and solid. Obviously, these two things are in conflict with one another.
Jerome Powell of the Federal Reserve tried to justify this. He said the Fed’s “patient approach” has paid dividends.
If by “patient approach,” he means increasing the prices of everything over the past three and a half years by roughly 20%, then well done, Jerome. Don&#8217;t strain your shoulder patting yourself on the back too hard. 
The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/19/business/economy/inflation-interest-rates-effects.html">New York Times</a> reported: 
<blockquote>People with jobs have started showing up at homeless shelters in Atlanta. Families who can’t cover their grocery bills are pushing up demand at a Boston food bank. A dearth of available houses is plaguing Sacramento. Yet reports of recent raises abound, and a partly retired homeowner near Pittsburgh is happy about his savings.
America’s bout of painfully high inflation — and the period of high interest rates meant to cure it — is finally drawing toward a close. Price increases are nearly back to a normal pace, so much so that the Federal Reserve voted on Wednesday to lower borrowing costs for the first time in more than four years.
But even as the nation’s tumultuous pandemic economic era begins to approach its end, the period is destined to leave lingering marks.</blockquote>
The Federal Reserve does not want Donald Trump in office. They clearly would like to see Harris elected.
So what is the cut really about?
What it&#8217;s about is trying to generate an ersatz feeling of good momentum on the economy, despite the fact the Business Roundtable CEO Economic Outlook Index suggests the job market is slowing.
Is it slowing, or is it solid? We don&#8217;t know. Jerome Powell won&#8217;t tell us. Is inflation conquered, or is it just coming down? We don&#8217;t know. He won&#8217;t tell us.
While White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has the nerve to suggest the White House is completely independent of the Federal Reserve, have you noticed that every major Democrat in the Senate has been calling for a lowering of interest rates for the last year and a half in an attempt to artificially jog the economy?
* * *
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US-ECONOMY-FED-POWELL

The Federal Reserve Rides To Kamala’s Rescue

2024 Election

Ben Shapiro

Dow Jones

Economy

Inflation

Interest Rates

Jerome Powell

Kamala Harris

Mortgages

Opinion

Unemployment

The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/federal-reserve" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Federal Reserve</a> cut interest rates by 50 basis points on Wednesday in the final meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) before the November election.
The cut was larger than most economists predicted and larger than the usual 25 basis point increment by which the FOMC typically moves. The rate cut is the first for the Federal Reserve in over four years since after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The cut reflected FOMC board members’ concern over recent Labor Department data that showed the labor market in a much weaker state than previously thought. Inflation remains higher than the Fed’s 2% target rate &#8212; the consumer price index <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-consumer-prices-rise-moderately-august-2024-09-11/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rose</a> 0.2 points in August to 2.5%. Officials cited the Fed’s dual mandate to fight inflation while encouraging full employment to justify its decision to cut rates, however.
“This recalibration of our policy stance will help maintain the strength of the economy and the labor market and will continue to enable further progress on inflation as we begin the process of moving towards a more neutral stance,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said at a Wednesday press conference, according to the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/bff9e6d8-8906-4b3d-9ff3-72b091b6cd9e" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Financial Times</a>.
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The rate cut <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/labor-dept-overestimated-job-growth-by-more-than-800k-revises-data" target="_blank" rel="noopener">comes</a> after a Labor Department review of employment statistics revealed potentially the largest downward revision of jobs estimates in over 15 years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last month that job growth throughout the 12 months ending in March would be revised downward by 818,000 jobs, roughly equivalent to 0.5% of total U.S. jobs.
The potential revision suggests that monthly jobs numbers reported in the year leading up to the annual review have been seriously inflated, painting a much healthier picture of the economy. The size of the interest rate cut suggests that the FOMC was surprised at the size of the correction of Labor Department data revealed last month.
The next Fed meeting is <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/fomccalendars.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">scheduled</a> for November 6-7, the days immediately after the presidential election.

Fed Slashes Interest Rates In Final Meeting Before Election

The entire Kamala Harris campaign relies on you knowing nothing about Kamala Harris.
First rule of Kamala Harris Fight Club: Nobody talks about Kamala Harris. You must never mention her positions. You must never mention what her crap administration has done. You must never mention anything of the sort. And you must certainly never attempt to get to the underlying philosophy that motivates her politics. You must never ever attempt to do that.
That’s because if you dig just a tiny bit, you find that the Democratic Party has gone so radically far to the Left that they are now indistinguishable from the Democratic Socialists of America. That is the reality.
Look at the great “intellectual luminaries” of the Democratic Party. I&#8217;m not talking about the politicians; I&#8217;m talking about the thought leaders.
Among those <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-usual-suspects-claim-gays-ouster-was-coordinated-racist-attack-it-doesnt-go-well">thought leaders</a> is Nikole Hannah-Jones. You may not have heard about Hannah-Jones recently because, after all, she hasn&#8217;t done any actual work for the last five years. She wrote the absolutely fictitious “The 1619 Project” and in 2020 was given a Pulitzer for it. It is trash. The entire 1619 Project is rooted in the idea that every element of American life is built on the foundation of slavery, and thus morally corrupt and evil and must be wiped away.
The 1619 Project falsifies history, as professional historians have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/1619-project-book-panned-by-historians-hits-amazons-bestseller-list" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pointed out.</a> But this supposed genius was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2017. She is the apotheosis of a “Democratic intellectual.” She gave a <a href="https://www.bmc.org/eqty2024" target="_blank" rel="noopener">speech recently</a> in which <a href="https://x.com/6gems/status/1828522478852771875" target="_blank" rel="noopener">she said</a>, “You know what COVID taught me? That we have enough for everybody. Overnight, we printed $6 trillion. We had universal health care. We had universal basic income. COVID proved it&#8217;s possible.”
If that sounds like communism to you, that&#8217;s because it is communism. You may recall that COVID ended with a 40-year high in inflation, a massively spiraling debt problem, and the complete shutdown of the American economy.
You might remember because you were there. But according to Hannah-Jones, that was amazing. That is what America ought to look like. It ought to look like the government paying you to stay home, shutting down your business, and then compensating you for shutting down your business. The government ought to provide everything for free, and it will have no impact.
In June, Hannah-Jones <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dVGFzvOKdQ">said</a>:
<blockquote>Y’all remember this thing called a pandemic? Y&#8217;all remember that? Do you remember how when all of a sudden all of America was experiencing what black people experience regularly, high unemployment rates, housing instability, inability to access health care, we printed 3 to $6 trillion overnight, overnight. And all of a sudden you couldn&#8217;t evict people. We had universal housing. Anybody who wanted to go get their shot didn&#8217;t have to show a lick of paper or a dollar. Nothing. You showed up, You got the shot.
We paid people income, universal income. My cousin Shamir, who&#8217;s in the 1619 documentary in the capitalism episode, started working at 15 years old. The most she ever made was when she got laid off for COVID and got a check from the government to stay at home. The most she ever made. And she cried about it because she was like, “I have been able to save $1,000 for the first time in my life only because all these people are dying out here. That&#8217;s the first time America cared about me.” </blockquote>
The proposal is free money.
The reason the government compensated people during COVID is because the government told them they could not work. The government said you cannot go to school. You cannot go into your place of work. You have to shut down your business. They shut down the entire country, and then they had to do something so people could remain living.
They took away your livelihood, which is not the same thing as a high unemployment rate that results from high levels of high school dropouts, single motherhood, or dysfunction in the home, community, or schools.
It’s not the same, but this is the actual ideal Democrats are shooting for. They won&#8217;t say it out loud because if they ever did, people would recognize how ugly it is. The big problem for the Democrats with Hannah-Jones is that she&#8217;s constantly saying the Democratic ideal out loud.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2037-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h4>
The reality is that the Biden-Harris administration has tried a lot of this.
Blowing money into the economy, the modern monetary theory that debt doesn&#8217;t matter, that doing so creates a rising tide lifting all boats doesn’t work.
It&#8217;s amoral. Money doesn&#8217;t grow on trees. It&#8217;s not magically popping out of the ground because the Federal Reserve says it is. Money is merely a mechanism of exchange. Money does not have its own inherent value any more than inches have their own inherent value on a ruler. It is a measure and a way of quantifying exchange. That is all money is. That&#8217;s all it’s ever been.
But for the Democrats, the Democratic Party, and Harris, the basic idea is the government can magically make money and then just give it out, and that&#8217;s what makes the economy go. That is the basic theory of leftism when it comes to economics. It&#8217;s the basic Keynesian theory as to how economics should work.
But the actual result is people feel left behind — because it doesn&#8217;t actually work that way.
We are now spending more money year on year than any country in the history of the planet. Yet fewer Americans feel they can achieve what the government has been promising them: the home, the family, the retirement.
That&#8217;s not a spending problem. That is something else. It is a perversion of all the incentives leading people to make the right decisions that allow them to build a home and a family and a retirement. Only <a href="https://www.wsj.com/economy/consumers/american-dream-poll-us-economy-e5ddf640?mod=hp_lead_pos7" target="_blank" rel="noopener">10% of Americans</a> believe home ownership is easy or somewhat easy to achieve.
Guess whose fault that might be.
How about the Biden-Harris administration, which has created the most unaffordable housing market in history? Look at all the restrictions the Democrats have put on building all across the country. Look at how they have inflated the currency, which means an increase in the interest rates, which means higher mortgage rates. Then, nobody wants to sell their homes to end up with a higher mortgage.
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In 2005, George W. Bush suggested privatizing Social Security and Democrats went nuts. In January 2005, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 10,603. Bush was pointing out Social Security is a pyramid scheme. If we had taken the money, put it in an index fund, and left it there until now, trillions of dollars would have flowed into Social Security because today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is 41,000.
Instead, the federal government was left in charge of the program, so they could raid it whenever necessary.
That is Democratic policy making: You cannot bring the private markets to bear on anything.
Democrats have said everyone needs to go to college, and we need to pour money into student loans. And the cost of college has shot up and the worth of a degree has dropped precipitously.
Harris is proposing $5 trillion in tax increases, including a 28% federal corporate tax rate and a 44.6% top capital gains and dividend tax rate, which would give America the highest total tax rate on corporate income in the developed world.
Democrat policies fail.
And Harris, the most leftist major party presidential candidate in American history, has not been forced to answer for any of them.
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Kamala Harris Campaigns For President In Savannah, Georgia

Defending Kam-unism

Communism

Democratic Party

Democrats

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

Economics

Leftists

Nikole Hannah-Jones

There will come a point when Kamala Harris has to answer a serious question. 
Democrats are hoping that doesn&#8217;t happen until after the election. After all, there are only 98 days until the election and early voting begins in roughly one month. In September, early voting will begin in some of the swing states like Pennsylvania. And today is August 5. All Harris has to do is avoid serious questions for the next couple of weeks, and then she will be at the Democratic National Convention. She will hit a bump coming out of that. 
So the Harris honeymoon will likely continue for another solid three weeks or more. 
We are now at 16 days and counting since Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee. She has not been asked one question over two weeks. Zero questions. 
The press acts as the Praetorian Guard for Kamala Harris. Donald Trump should be saying he wants to debate her every week from now until the election because no one else is going to ask her a tough question. 
She&#8217;s being completely dishonest about the debate challenge. Trump accepted a debate under certain circumstances with Biden, and then they slotted in Harris. Why won&#8217;t he keep that same debate calendar? Because she’s a different human. Does she have to debate JD Vance now since she had agreed to a vice presidential debate with JD Vance when Biden was the actual nominee? 
The American people know Donald Trump. The American people do not know Kamala Harris. The vast majority of Americans have no idea who is the sitting vice president of the United States right now. They have no idea what Harris even does for a living.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2019-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h4>
She should be forced to answer questions since her administration is sitting at the top of American governance. It’s amazing that until now, it was always the Biden-Harris administration, even while Biden was attempting to shuttle her off somewhere so that she didn&#8217;t have any part in governance. She kept glomming onto him and claiming that she was part of all the decision-making.
Fine. If she was and still is part of the decision-making, why doesn’t she have to answer for the fact that we&#8217;re in the middle of a massive stock market sell-off? According to the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/australia-shares-shaping-for-hefty-opening-drop-b608ea61">Wall Street Journal</a>: 
<blockquote>A stock-market selloff intensified around the world, sending U.S. indexes sliding and volatility spiking to its highest levels since the Covid-19 pandemic. 
In early trading, the Nasdaq Composite fell more than 5%, while the S&amp;P 500 fell about 4% and the Dow was around 3% lower. 
Painful turbulence started in Japan early Monday, with the Nikkei 225 falling more than 12%, its worst one-day drop since the crash after Black Monday in 1987. Losses then cascaded across South Korea, Europe and the U.S., as investors dumped riskier assets and flocked to safety.
The declines extended what has been a dizzying few days on Wall Street during which this year’s most popular trades have been aggressively unwound. A selloff in tech shares continued Monday, with Nvidia, Meta and Apple each losing 9% or more. (The iPhone maker took an extra hit from news that Berkshire Hathaway had slashed its Apple stake.) </blockquote>
Why is all of this happening? Because people are beginning to realize that as the job market is coming in really, really soft, we may be entering a recession. When inflation rates are jacked up to 10% or 12%, even with jacking them back down all the way to 2.5%, all the loose money is siphoned off in that process, which leads to less investment and to job losses, which is what is about to begin happening.
The Wall Street Journal continues in their report, writing:
<blockquote>Concerns about a slowing U.S. economy are front and center for investors after job growth slowed sharply in July. Investors are worried that the Federal Reserve has moved too slowly and will need to play catch up in cutting rates. 
</blockquote>
One of the things that&#8217;s so amazing about how our global economy works at this point is how much of it is run by the central banks.
Your job should not be reliant on whether Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is good at his. Your job should not be reliant on whether central bankers in London are good at predicting the future and determining exactly what the inflation rate should be. This is why the very idea of a Federal Reserve in the United States that jacked up and down the supply of money in order to manipulate job markets is ridiculous.
What you really want is a perfectly predictable regime in monetary and fiscal terms so that you can make good decisions about whether or not to invest or not invest. That&#8217;s not the way this works anymore. Now, we&#8217;re all reading tea leaves. Now, we&#8217;ve all been sitting around wondering what Jerome Powell was going to do. Maybe he was too late on the gas or maybe he was too late on the brake.
That is not the way a healthy global economy should run. That is the way things are running, however, and a lot of that has been brought about, of course, by the massive spending Harris voted for. Remember, the Inflation Reduction Act was a 50-50 vote in the Senate — and she was the deciding vote.
Does she get to take credit for that? It seems to me that if she gets to take credit for all of the supposed Biden administration accomplishments, when the stock market starts to tank, she gets to take credit for that one as well.
Warren Buffett is looking at the markets and saying, “I don&#8217;t like what I&#8217;m seeing here.” The <a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-dow-sp500-nasdaq-live-08-05-2024/card/apple-stock-price-sinks-8-after-warren-buffett-s-berkshire-hathaway-cuts-stake-d8C0uZXxxW9rbYnOgANm?mod=lctimeline_finance" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Wall Street Journal&#8217;s</a> “Stock Market Today” writes:
<blockquote>Shares of the iPhone maker dropped more than 6% Monday after Warren Buffett&#8217;s Berkshire Hathaway disclosed over the weekend that it had sold nearly half of its Apple stock in the second quarter. Buffett’s reputation as one of the all-time greatest stock pickers means his decisions can significantly sway the market. But Apple is also facing pressure from an aggressive rotation out of technology stocks. In addition to Apple, shares of Nvidia, Tesla and Alphabet also fell sharply as investors unloaded riskier assets.</blockquote>
Meanwhile, Wall Street&#8217;s fear gauge has been soaring. CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/05/wall-streets-fear-gauge-the-vix-rises-to-the-highest-since-2020.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>: 
<blockquote>The Cboe Volatility Index, or VIX, briefly broke above 65 on Monday morning, up from about 23 on Friday and roughly 17 a week ago. It had cooled to about 32 shortly after noon ET.
The Monday morning peak was the highest level the VIX has hit since March 2020, shortly after the Federal Reserve’s emergency actions during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to FactSet. The VIX rose as high as 85.47 in March 2020, according to FactSet.
The VIX is calculated based on market pricing for options on the S&amp;P 500. It is designed to be a measure of expected volatility over the next 30 days, and is often referred to as Wall Street’s “fear gauge.”</blockquote>
Even after the COVID lockdowns were over, Biden just kept spending oodles and oodles of money, keeping the money loose. Signs of lower consumer spending are cropping up. And there&#8217;s the inverted yield curve where longer dated bonds have a lower yield than the short-term Fed funds rate, which usually signals recession.
Where is Kamala Harris in all this?
Given the supreme importance of the economy to voters, this could turn a neck-and-neck race between Trump and Harris to one strongly in favor of Trump.
* * *
<h4><a href="http://www.amiracist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH THE TRAILER FOR &#8216;AM I RACIST?&#8217; — A MATT WALSH COMEDY ON DEI</a></h4>

Dow Plunges Over 1000 Points As Markets Continue Sell Off

The Kamala Harris Stock Market Crash 

Donald Trump

finance

JD Vance

Readers Pass

Stock Market

As a commodities trader I rarely dabble in equities, other than the ole 401k and IRA. But it behooves traders in any market to pay attention to activity in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), S&amp;P 500 Index (SPX) and NASDAQ Composite Index (Nasdaq) as they can be a harbinger of demand for energy and raw materials down the road. So, as of the close of trading today, the DJIA is down over 1,000 points, the SPX down 160, two-and-half and 3% declines respectively. For the DJIA, this represents a roughly 6% decline from last month’s all-time high and 8 1/2% for the SPX.  The tech-heavy Nasdaq is down almost 3 1/2% today, compounding a 13% retracement from its all-time high, which is more interesting, and concerning.
So what’s happening? Several factors seem to be at play here. Some fundamental, some international, some even psychological. 
First the fundamentals. The Nasdaq has been propelled to record highs recently on big bets in AI stocks. But after earnings from tech goliaths Amazon, Microsoft, Tesla, Alphabet and Apple disappointed (Meta being a bright exception, although it’s not helping its share price), the luster seems to have faded, at least in the short term. And Intel, once a tech giant now playing catchup in the AI game, had its worst day in 50 years on Friday and is down another 6 1/4% today — it is down an astounding 42% on the year.  
The broad sell-off was more or less triggered on Friday when the monthly jobs report was weaker than expected, adding only 114,000 new jobs when 175,000 was the expectation. Unemployment also grew, climbing from 4.1% to 4.3%, igniting fears that the economy may be slowing down. This, of course, is bearish in any environment let alone one already teetering under the weight of disappointing earnings when markets are at lifetime highs.
This turns traders’ attention to The Fed, which many now say has been too slow to lower rates (which it steadily raised in response to 40-year-high inflation levels). High rates for too long stifle an economy’s ability to expand as the cost of money remains high. In response, traders did what they always do — they dumped their stocks and moved their money into the safe haven of bonds, just as I explain in my <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Life-Pits-Rough-Tumble-Exchange/dp/B0CKPNCMQW/ref=monarch_sidesheet_title" target="_blank" rel="noopener">latest book</a>. They anticipate The Fed will have to be more aggressive in its future rate cuts to play catch-up with a cooling economy.
One more factor to consider. The Nikkei Stock Average Volatility Index (Nikkei 225 VI) has rocketed to the highest levels since first being tracked in 2001. This is a direct result of dumping Japanese stocks due to the rising yen against the dollar. Why does this matter? Many trades in the market (too detailed for this format) are made with the assumption of cheap yen borrowing. This has been upended in recent days as the Bank of Japan raised rates last week. This, combined with belief that the U.S. central bank must move to cut rates quickly, has sent the dollar-to-yen spread surging. Japan, the fourth largest economy in the world, is in a bind. 
Raise rates to curb inflation and the cost of money (in this case the yen) rises, causing the markets to tumble. Lower rates to stimulate the economy and the currency is devalued and thus triggers inflation. Rinse and repeat. Oh, to be a central banker in Tokyo today. No thanks!
To recap: earnings bad, economic data bad, Fed action too late, Japan bad. And here we are. 
 
There is also a psychological factor in all this as markets are, in the end, human constructs. All this uncertainty as to Fed action and slowing economic growth has led to increased volatility in the equities markets as reflected in the CBOE Market Volatility Index (VIX). As of this writing, this number has spiked up just under a whopping 39% — levels not seen since May 2020. By way of comparison, though, its current level of 32.5 is still half what the VIX was in March 2020. But when you consider it is still almost double what it was just three trading sessions ago, this is worth watching. Investors — not to be confused with traders — loathe uncertainty. And when they feel their spidey senses tingling, as volatility is just a measure of uncertainty they tend to initiate what is known as a “flight to quality.” Dumping stocks and buying bond futures in anticipation of The Fed trying to salvage a cooling economy by making dollars, thus investment capital, cheaper through interest rate cuts. A bond future’s value is inverse to interest rates. As such, rates go down, bond futures go up and yields go down.
<h4><a href="http://www.amiracist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH THE TRAILER FOR &#8216;AM I RACIST?&#8217; — A MATT WALSH COMEDY ON DEI</a></h4>
As you can see, emotion is often a driver of these sell-offs. One which has put the Nasdaq in official “correction” territory. Having been in the markets for over three decades, one can see this same pattern repeating itself again and again. Investors move like a shoal of fish, and once the mass of dealers changes course, they tend to run in that direction for a while. 
The most important question an investor must ask is this: Is this the beginning of a prolonged and painful sell-off in equities (and concurrent rally in bonds)? Or is this a buying opportunity? And if I knew the answer to either of those questions, I’d be writing this from my destroyer-sized yacht in Monte Carlo rather than a little trading office in New Jersey. But I do know that, in markets especially, history repeats itself. Because people are the same, even if the manner in which they transact has changed due to technology.
So, we shall see what today, which is really a continuation of the rumblings The Street began to experience in its gut last week, portends. 
For what it’s worth, the crash of 1987, one of the greatest buying opportunities in a generation, saw the DJIA plummet 22% in one day, as opposed to 2.6% today. It just feels more dramatic because, obviously, 2.6% of 40,000 is nominally bigger than 22% of 2,300. Therefore, much of the sturm und drang could be emotions taking place of analysis.
Whether this is a hiccup or the big one remains to be seen. Only time will tell.
* * *
Brad Schaeffer is a commodities trader, columnist, and author of two acclaimed novels. Along with Daily Wire, his articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Daily News, New York Post, National Review, The Federalist, The Hill and other media outlets. His newest book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Life-Pits-Rough-Tumble-Exchange/dp/B0CKPNCMQW/ref=sr_1_1?adgrpid=1331509151681009&amp;hvadid=83219665089301&amp;hvbmt=bp&amp;hvdev=c&amp;hvlocphy=97755&amp;hvnetw=o&amp;hvqmt=p&amp;hvtargid=kwd-83219680392082%3Aloc-190&amp;hydadcr=18892_13467888&amp;keywords=brad+schaeffer&amp;qid=1698162015&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/Life-Pits-Rough-Tumble-Exchange/dp/B0CKPNCMQW/ref%3Dsr_1_1?adgrpid%3D1331509151681009%26hvadid%3D83219665089301%26hvbmt%3Dbp%26hvdev%3Dc%26hvlocphy%3D97755%26hvnetw%3Do%26hvqmt%3Dp%26hvtargid%3Dkwd-83219680392082%253Aloc-190%26hydadcr%3D18892_13467888%26keywords%3Dbrad%2Bschaeffer%26qid%3D1698162015%26sr%3D8-1&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1722366620272000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0vhiW3SrKDrsWDil8BZYgg">LIFE IN THE PITS: My Time as a Trader on the Rough-and-Tumble Exchange Floors</a>, is a fun and informative memoir of his time as a floor trader in Chicago and New York. You can also find more of Brad’s articles on <a href="https://bradschaeffer.substack.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://bradschaeffer.substack.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1722366620272000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3J2TVu4lEyxt1MB9TGXQzF">Substack</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
UPDATE: The numbers and percentages in this article have been updated to reflect market value at close of business on Monday, August 5, 2024.

Is The Market Sell-Off A ’Hiccup’ Or ’The Big One’? 

Joe Biden and Democrats are hoping that Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell saves them.
The big problem right now for Biden is that economic growth has slowed. There have been a bunch of retroactive revisions of the job numbers that push them down. This keeps happening over and over where the media says, “Those are pretty strong,” and then a month later they admit, “Well, subtract 100,000 from that.”
Inflation has not fully been conquered yet. So the Biden administration is desperately hoping that Jerome Powell will step in and try to cut interest rates before the election and give an artificial boost to Joe Biden&#8217;s reelection chances.
According to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/economy/central-banking/jerome-powell-senate-testimony-july-b7805d54">The Wall Street Journal</a>, “Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell made a subtle but important shift that moved the central bank closer to lowering interest rates when he suggested Tuesday that a further cooling in the labor market could be undesirable. ‘Elevated inflation is not the only risk we face,’ Powell told the Senate Banking Committee during the first of two days of testimony Tuesday. ‘We’ve seen that the labor market has cooled really significantly across so many measures.…It’s not a source of broad inflationary pressures for the economy now.’&#8230; Powell conceded that he wouldn’t have arrived at such a judgment as recently as two months ago…”
Powell said the slowdown in hiring means that they&#8217;re afraid there are too many unemployed people.
Perhaps the Fed is going to jog the economy with more money. The problem is that inflation is still at 2.6%, and 2% is the target. Fed officials have not conquered inflation; if they are to lower interest rates now, presumably what you will get is renewed inflation, just in time for the election.
Joe Biden is creating an economic box for himself, and I don&#8217;t think Jerome Powell is necessarily going to let him out of that box. It doesn’t seem as though the economy or the American perception of the economy is going to change radically prior to the election.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2001-democrats-stick-with-dementia-addled-biden-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h4>
Which leaves the question open as to what exactly is going to change before the election. You can only say bad things, correct? What&#8217;s going to change for Biden before the election? What&#8217;s going to change for Trump?
Trump is absolutely the same as he was in 2016, as he was in 2020, except more disciplined. The big question for Trump is going to be whom he selects as his running mate. 
What&#8217;s going to change for Joe Biden? Because it&#8217;s hard to see what changes in a positive direction for him at this point.
It seems as though the only things that can happen at this point are pretty bad for him. Barring some sort of economic boom that suddenly breaks in, it’s going to be hard to change the direction of this election.
And the polls are running in Trump’s direction. In brand-new Emerson College polling, Trump is running ahead of Biden 46% to 43%. And Biden is the best the Democrats can do; Trump beats Kamala Harris 49% to 43%; Bernie Sanders by six, Al Gore by five, Hillary Clinton by seven, and Gavin Newsom by eight.
Nate Silver says Trump is leading by 3.1 percentage points. He stated that Trump is doing well in the swing states; leading in Pennsylvania by three, in Wisconsin by two, in Georgia by five, in Michigan by one, in North Carolina by six, in Arizona by seven, in Nevada by six, in Florida by nine, and in Texas by ten.
The Real Clear Politics polling average shows Donald Trump with a lead of five and a half points in Pennsylvania, up two in Wisconsin, one in Michigan, five in Arizona, four in Georgia, five in Nevada, and six in North Carolina.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/scamala-kamala-harris-unmasked#" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: Ben Shapiro&#8217;s new three-part series &#8220;Scamala: Kamala Harris Unmasked&#8221; on DailyWire+</a></h4>
The Cook Political Report revealed insider information from internal polling from Democrats showing Biden down in Pennsylvania by ten points.
All momentum currently is with Trump.
The problem for Joe Biden is no matter how much he tries to talk himself through this race, no matter how he tries to convince everyone that he is healthy, youthful, full of vim and vigor, he is not.
And as much as some Democrats want him to, Joe Biden is not dropping out.

US-VOTE-POLITICS-BIDEN

Biden Looks To The Fed To Save Him

Joe Biden

Polls

Some supporters of former President Donald Trump are pushing for the Federal Reserve Board to be more answerable to the president, hoping that if Trump is elected in November he can influence the Fed’s policies, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/economy/central-banking/trump-allies-federal-reserve-independence-54423c2f?mod=e2tw">according</a> to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
Some suggestions reportedly include the Fed consulting the president on interest rate changes, making Fed regulations subject to a review from the White House, and having the Fed monitored by the Treasury Department, a part of the executive branch. Although Fed chairman Jerome Powell’s term expires in 2026, the group would allegedly like Trump to have the capacity to oust Powell before then if he sees fit, leaving Powell as a member of the board of governors but no longer the Fed chairman. All governors of the Fed have a 14-year term.
The WSJ noted that it&#8217;s unclear whether Trump is aware of or endorses the proposals.
“Let us be very specific here: unless a message is coming directly from President Trump or an authorized member of his campaign team, no aspect of future presidential staffing or policy announcements should be deemed official,” Trump senior advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita stated, according to the WSJ.
“Interest-rate policy is decided by the Federal Open Market Committee, which includes seven members of the Washington-based board of governors, who are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, and 12 presidents of regional Fed banks, who are appointed by those banks’ private boards,” the Journal noted.
Last year, in the wake of inflation reaching the highest level in 40 years, the Fed raised interest rates to the highest level since 2001; they have stayed there ever since.
Trump, who appointed Powell as Fed chairman, has been harshly critical of him in recent years. Although it is unclear whether a president can fire the Fed chairman, in 2018, a report said Trump, frustrated with the Fed raising interest rates and watching the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunging in the worst week it had had in 10 years, had <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-22/trump-said-to-discuss-firing-fed-s-powell-after-latest-rate-hike" target="_blank" rel="noopener">discussed</a> the idea of firing Powell.
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In February, Trump <a href="https://thehill.com/business/4444150-trump-blasts-powell-as-political-as-fed-weighs-rate-cuts/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> Fox News Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo, “I think he’s going to do something to probably help the Democrats, I think, if he lowers interest rates. &#8230; It looks to me like he’s trying to lower interest rates for the sake of maybe getting people elected, I don’t know.”
Asked if he would reappoint Powell, Trump answered, “No, I wouldn’t do that.”

President Trump Announces The Nominee For Federal Reserve Chair Of The Board Of Governors

Trump Allies Want Fed Answerable To Him If He’s Elected: Report

Executive

Politics

An economist at the Federal Reserve reportedly said that the U.S. Central Bank worked against former President Donald Trump and is prepared to do so again.
Aurel Hizmo, a principal economist at the Federal Reserve, was reportedly caught on a hidden camera sting by a self-proclaimed guerilla journalist from James O’Keefe’s O’Keefe Media Group (OMG). An OMG “swiper” interviewed Hizmo across several pseudo-dates that the swiper went on with the Fed economist.
Over the course of the dates, Hizmo said he believes Trump is “a crazy person” that the Fed needs to keep in check when he “messes up.” Hizmo also suggested that Fed chairman Jerome Powell hates the former president and wants to be remembered as someone who “held the line” against Trump.
“Trump is just a crazy person,” Hizmo told his date. “It’s very clear. I mean, he’s a dumb guy.”
Trump and Powell hated each other, according to Hizmo. On the other hand, Powell has a good relationship with President Joe Biden and his administration, he said.
Hizmo stated that Powell is motivated by a desire to preserve his legacy “as a savior.”
“[Powell] is doing it for the legacy. He wants to be remembered in history … as somebody who held the line against, like, Trump and helped the economy out of COVID,” Hizmo said on hidden camera. “There’s all kinds of stuff that comes to his desk that he says, ‘No, because this is going to jeopardize the legacy of the Fed or my legacy as chair.’”
Trump nominated Powell to lead the Federal Reserve in 2017. Hizmo suggested that Powell used his authority as the chairman of the U.S. Central Bank to curb Trump’s deregulatory agenda. Hizmo suggested to his date that Powell and the Federal Reserve are willing to act again should Trump win the White House in 2024.
“So the feeling is this: we don’t want Trump to be in the government, but if he comes, we’re still going to try to the best we can for the country,” Hizmo said to his date. “Now, if he messes up, if he does something stupid, then we have to fix it.”
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Hizmo explained: “So, he, like, removed a lot of regulations and stripped that, and made that entity really weak … so now the Fed has to be like oh we have to kind of, like, do something more to regulate …”
The Fed economist went on to say that Powell generally has a good relationship with Democrats because Powell is “responsive.”
“Like under Powell, the Fed has changed to think about equity issues, like racial issues, think about wealth inequality as part of the mandate, as part of the things we are following, think about climate change,” Hizmo said in the OMG undercover video.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
BREAKING, INSIDE THE FEDERAL RESERVE: Hidden Camera captures Principal Economist <a href="https://twitter.com/federalreserve?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@federalreserve</a> talking about Jerome Powell’s legacy as “somebody who held the line against like, Trump.” The influential agency responsible for maintaining a stable monetary system appears to not… <a href="https://t.co/5CqZX2LhwT">pic.twitter.com/5CqZX2LhwT</a>
&mdash; James O&#39;Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) <a href="https://twitter.com/JamesOKeefeIII/status/1778157381907513802?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 10, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Fed Economist On Hidden Camera: Central Bank Worked To Counter Trump

James O'Keefe

Last week’s jobs report, combined with Wednesday’s <a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/cpi-report-today-inflation-stock-market-04-10-2024">inflation number</a>, shows that we are living in two economies. One, in which the macroeconomic, top line numbers, combined with the stock market points to a robust economy. The second, in which the microeconomic numbers point to Americans struggling to make ends meet.
The United States labor market added more than 300,000 <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/05/heres-where-the-jobs-are-for-march-2024-in-one-chart-in-one-chart.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">jobs</a> in March, which on the surface is excellent news. Unfortunately, the top sectors for gains — health care, social assistance, government jobs, and leisure and hospitality — drove the growth, accounting for more than 60% of the gains for the month. 
Conservatives, of course, want the government to be shrinking in size, not growing.
Beneath the surface, the numbers spell bad news for working Americans.
The growth in employment came from part-time, not full-time jobs.
An additional 525,000 part-time jobs were added in <a href="https://pro.thestreet.com/market-commentary/theres-a-serious-catch-in-the-jobs-report-and-no-one-is-talking-about-it" target="_blank" rel="noopener">March</a> and full-time jobs decreased by 222,000, according to The Street.
The <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/immigrants-get-100000-new-jobs-one-month-1887354#:~:text=Diane%20Swonk%2C%20KPMG%27s%20chief%20economist,she%20said%20in%20a%20note." target="_blank" rel="noopener">growth</a> in employment is primarily being driven by foreign-born workers, who have filled more than 1.25 million jobs over the last two months while the number of newly employed native-born Americans only increased by 435,000 over the same time period. As The New York Post noted, this helps to explain why <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/04/05/business/us-employers-add-303k-jobs-in-march-unemployment-ticks-lower/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wages</a> increased at a modest 4.1% from a year ago, the smallest increase since June of 2021.
It is getting harder to make ends meet.
At the start of 2024, 8.7 million people were working <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/8-7-million-americans-now-193011733.html?guccounter=1&amp;guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&amp;guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMdnvpG6jLSb5Ete-vfg-p37rW6obahlKfRMwpoebJ5JKHMbbX3YihV55W49tAb2huZGSKGbHCEyqQ2lBA6_TrVSbGdxxJXLmBleJ6l_k5iSJdNragzOV-lgdRcKxs7KeKLYo2AFzjoFeSGCLQvDYAqdBvEa9SdqyCSa2e4OE8MK" target="_blank" rel="noopener">multiple</a> jobs in the United States, in order to fill their cars with gas and put food on the table. A report in USA Today found that at the start of 2024 there were 4.2 million people working <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/01/25/part-time-jobs-hit-record-high/72331112007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">part-time</a>, not by choice, but because their employers reduced hours or they could not find full-time work.
This combination of the growth in part-time work and depressed wages point to a weak job market, not a strong job market. The number of people working multiple jobs also artificially inflates the job numbers, as each job counts, not each person.
The rising tide of a “hot” jobs market and a soaring stock market is not lifting all boats. The <a href="https://www.morningstar.com/markets/is-stock-market-expensive-right-now" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stock market</a> rose nearly 8% in the first quarter of 2024 and is up more than 25% since its October 2023 lows, according to Morningstar.
However, there&#8217;s a marked increase in emergency 401(k) withdrawals, auto repossessions, and record numbers of people backing out of agreements to purchase a home.
Nearly 3.6% of workers who have a 401(k) <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/401k-hardship-withdrawals-surge-another-record-high-inflation-stings" target="_blank" rel="noopener">retirement</a> plan made a hardship withdrawal in 2023, a major increase from the 2.8% in 2022. The pre-pandemic average was 2%. The Federal Reserve <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/401k-hardship-withdrawals-surge-another-record-high-inflation-stings" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bank</a> of New York reported that “the annual rate for car owners behind a month or more on their payments was 7.7%, the highest rate since 2010.” And in November 2023, nearly 17% of potential home buyers backed out of their agreement to purchase a home for which they had signed a contract.
Perhaps this explains why Americans are skipping meals to afford housing. A study from Redfin, as reported by <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/401k-hardship-withdrawals-surge-another-record-high-inflation-stings" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CBS News</a> shows that half of homeowners and renters have had to make sacrifices to afford their mortgage or rent payment. Homeowners report selling belongings, working overtime, canceling vacations, taking on a second job, and skipping meals in order to make a mortgage payment.
The March 2024 <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/401k-hardship-withdrawals-surge-another-record-high-inflation-stings" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Consumer Price Index</a>, the common measure of inflation, was at 3.5%, above expectations, driven by energy, food, and shelter; the basket of needs for all Americans. Core CPI, which excludes volatile variables such as fuel and food was at 3.8%. Both numbers were hotter than expected. 
Dow futures immediately <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/401k-hardship-withdrawals-surge-another-record-high-inflation-stings" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dropped</a> over 500 points upon the release of March&#8217;s inflation numbers.
<a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/401k-hardship-withdrawals-surge-another-record-high-inflation-stings" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cumulative</a> inflation since January 2021, when Joe Biden took office, is 18%, 6% per year — three times the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%.
Working Americans do not care about The Fed’s inflation target, they care that, since Biden took office, it now takes nearly $120 to buy what $100 would buy you at the end of the Trump presidency.
Americans are also seeing <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/401k-hardship-withdrawals-surge-another-record-high-inflation-stings" target="_blank" rel="noopener">inflation</a> at the pump, according to NerdWallet. Oil is at $85 per barrel, and the average regular gas price in the United States, as of April 5, was $3.582 per gallon, 22 cents higher than March’s average. The price of a gallon of gas has increased 49 cents since the start of 2024.
Commodity prices are rising, with <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/401k-hardship-withdrawals-surge-another-record-high-inflation-stings" target="_blank" rel="noopener">gold</a> at record highs, signaling that people are bearish on the U.S. economy and the U.S. Dollar.
It is no wonder credit card <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/401k-hardship-withdrawals-surge-another-record-high-inflation-stings" target="_blank" rel="noopener">debt</a> is at record highs, topping $1.13 trillion. Working Americans are not maxing out their credit cards in order to fly to Paris, pay for massages, or by that 75-inch TV. No, they are buying groceries, gas, and paying their utility bills, and paying nearly 25% <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/401k-hardship-withdrawals-surge-another-record-high-inflation-stings" target="_blank" rel="noopener">interest</a> for the privilege of doing so.
More than 33% of Americans have more credit card <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/401k-hardship-withdrawals-surge-another-record-high-inflation-stings" target="_blank" rel="noopener">debt</a> than emergency savings and 56 million Americans have been in credit card debt for at least a year.
Nearly one-third of residents in the country’s largest 100 metropolitan cities were behind on at least one debt payment in Q3 2023, and more than 25% had delinquencies of 90-days or more. 
Americans are working more part-time jobs, making less money, losing their cars, and unable to purchase a home. If they can afford a home, lunch becomes a forgotten meal.
Commodity prices are rising, gas is more expensive, and inflation is certainly not transitory. None of the indicators point towards an interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve in 2024. In fact, one could argue that we need another quarter-point increase in rates.
Will the Fed play a political role and give Joe Biden the gift of interest rate cuts, or will the Fed fulfill its apolitical charter and guide the economy?

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