The Federal Reserve has left interest rates unchanged at a target range of 5.00 and 5.25 percent. Here is the statement from the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC): Recent indicators suggest that economic activity has continued to expand at a modest pace. Job gains have been robust in recent months, and the unemployment rate has […]
Archives for June 2023
Inflation is falling? Check out this chart
President Joe Biden is running victory laps because inflation growth is lower than it was a year ago. The May consumer price index (CPI) eased to four percent, down from 4.9 percent. Core inflation, which strips the volatile food and energy sectors, dipped to just 5.3 percent, down from 5.5 percent. Of course, it is […]
De-Dollarization: Pakistan pays for Russian crude oil shipment in Chinese yuan
The de-dollarization campaign has taken a breather in recent months. And then came a Reuters report that Pakistan paid for a Russian crude oil shipment in Chinese yuan. Interesting. Here is what the newswire reported: Pakistan paid for its first government-to-government import of discounted Russian crude in Chinese currency, the South Asian country’s petroleum minister […]
LOL: Biden-McCarthy debt ceiling agreement will trim national debt by $1.5 trillion over 10 years, CBO says
When a new debt ceiling agreement was reached, the Republican leadership acted like they balanced the budget. What a joke. Instead, they achieved $50 billion in savings one exchange for raising the debt ceiling by $4 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its report on the Fiscal Responsibility Act, and its findings found that […]
Eurozone slips into technical recession after ECB insisted no downturn was in the forecast
Europe is in a recession. According to new data from EUROSTAT, the eurozone economy unexpectedly contracted 0.1 percent in the first quarter. In the fourth quarter, the eurozone economy also fell 0.1 percent. This means that the bloc slipped into a technical recession. More from Trading Economics: “In Q1 2023, household expenditure decreased 0.3% (vs […]