What began for many as a way to pay for concert tickets and vacations is becoming an ordinary tool that Gen Z and millennial shoppers use for food, contact lenses and trash bags.

by J.J. McCorvey
NBC News

Buying now and paying later is still a popular way to splurge on airfare to Cabo. It’s an increasingly common way to buy groceries and lawn furniture, too.

Consumers ages 35 and under comprise 53% of “buy now, pay later” users but just 35% of traditional credit card holders, according to LexisNexis Risk Solutions. Many of those core “BNPL” borrowers have grown so comfortable using the installment loans for just-out-of-reach luxuries that they’re putting more everyday purchases on them as well.

Apparel and accessories were the most popular product category among millennial (ages 30-44) and Gen Z (18-29) users of the BNPL provider Afterpay in 2021 and 2022.

Continue Reading at NBCNews.com…

from Zero Hedge

With 10yr US yields around -10bps lower, and the S&P 500 around +2% higher than where they were just before last month’s higher-than-expected CPI, DB’s Jim Reid concludes that “it’s fair to say that markets have shrugged off this upside print alongside the high PPI and core PCE prints that followed.” The question now is whether this week we get to do it all over again, but before we preview the US CPI (tomorrow) and PPI (Thursday), the other main US highlights are the NY Fed 1-yr inflation expectations survey (today), retail sales (Thursday) and UoM consumer sentiment (Friday). There are also 3-, 10- and 30-yr UST auctions today through Wednesday.

Continue Reading at ZeroHedge.com…

from Epic Economist

Shrinkflation is just inflation by another name, and two other facts to keep in mind during tonight’s State of the Union address.

by Eric Boehm
Reason.com

President Joe Biden will reportedly use tonight’s State of the Union address to once more rail against what the White House has taken to calling “shrinkflation”—the annoying corporate practice of shrinking the size of products rather than raising prices.

Politico reported this week that “recent drafts of Biden’s State of the Union address have included a reference to shrinkflation as part of a broader segment on administration efforts to pressure companies to lower costs across the board.” A White House spokesperson told the outlet that Biden “will continue to call out rip-offs such as shrinkflation, greedflation, and price gouging.”

You’ll note that, up there in the first sentence, I acknowledged that shrinkflation is annoying. It is, and polls show that consumers are indeed put off by the practice.

Continue Reading at Reason.com…

by Jack Hellner
American Thinker

A recent article from Matt Egan at CNN admits that Americans have a problem paying for things… but neither he, nor any of the outlet’s other employees ever bring up Joe Biden or his policies as a significant cause of the problem; read here:

Americans’ cost of living remains a massive headache, even as recession fears fade

The long-rumored recession has been postponed – or perhaps canceled altogether.

The soft-landing vibes are real. Inflation is cooling. The economy is growing at a shockingly strong pace. And unemployment hasn’t been this low for this long since the late 1960s.

And yet, hidden behind these boomy-economic indicators, a frustrating reality persists: Life is far too expensive for far too many.

Continue Reading at AmericanThinker.com…

by Greg Hunter
USA Watchdog

Analyst and financial writer John Rubino warned nearly four months ago of a “U.S. Financial Death Spiral.” This past week, Bank of America caught up to Rubino and issued a warning about a “US dollar death spiral” because the federal government was going deeper in the red by creating “$1 trillion in new debt every 100 days.” Maybe this is why gold and Bitcoin have been hitting new all-time highs day after day. Rubino says, “When a building was worth $200 million and someone sells it for $48 million, that means there is a loss that someone has to take. Those losses are mostly on the books of regional and local banks. So, they are in big trouble financially. . . . You will get these massive bank runs that the government will have to step in and bail out. This is one of many things that will happen in the not-so-distant future. This will impact government finances in a scary way that will send people’s attention to the currency. In other words, if we have another $3 trillion bailout on top of everything else that’s going on . . .what is that going to do to the dollar? . . . . Currencies are being inflated away with all these bailouts, deficits, wars and all these things that are going on that are bad for the currency. So, people start selling government bonds, which push up interest rates and blows up even more bad real estate and paper . . . until you get a debt spiral, a real live financial death spiral than cannot be fixed. . . . I was talking to a real estate guy the other day, and he said this is not just inevitable, it is imminent. It is happening now. It is happening quickly, and it is going to hit the headlines. . . . In this case, what is inevitable in commercial real estate is also looking imminent.”

Continue Reading at USAWatchdog.com…

by Peter C. Earle
The American Institute for Economic Research

The one-year anniversary of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) is upon us. And while some of the factors behind that catastrophe have been tamped down, a new crop of problems have emerged to cast a shadow over the banking system and the health of the US economy. In the year since, only the sources of difficulty have changed.

In March of 2023, the size and rapidity of the Fed’s rate hikes had driven a handful of banks with highly concentrated deposit bases into duration gaps, triggering runs and ultimately failure and government seizure: Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, First Republic Bank, Heartland Tri-State Bank (a complicated situation), and Citizens Bank of Sac City Iowa. Within that same month, Silvergate Bank voluntarily liquidated, and Credit Suisse First Boston collapsed. The demise of the latter owed not to rapidly rising interest rates, but a litany of accumulated blows over the years ranging from scandals, bad strategic choices, and periodic trading losses.

Continue Reading at AIER.org…

from Bloomberg Television

by Craig Hemke
TF Metals Report

Here we go with a new week. Pending are the latest inflation numbers as well as an update on US retail sales. Also pending…who knows? So let’s just take it day by day and see where we are by Friday.

I hope you had a relaxing weekend with the knowledge that not only did gold extend from its all-time highs on Friday, the 1st, it extended by almost a full $100. My concern as last week began was that The Banks might come for us as they did in early December but it appears that the intervening 90 days allowed them time to get their books in order. Here’s one more look at last week….

Continue Reading at TFMetalsReport.com…

by Simon Moore
Forbes

Consumer Price Index data for February is expected to show relatively high monthly inflation on nowcast estimates compared to recent data. If this forecast holds, that would be similar to January, where inflation sees a relatively high monthly increase, but stays close to 3% in terms of the annual inflation rate.

When Is The February CPI Report?

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics will release CPI data for the month of February 2024 on Tuesday, March 12 at 8:30 a.m. ET. This will come roughly a week ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s next scheduled meeting on March 20.

Continue Reading at Forbes.com…

Gold price clings to all-time highs and awaits US Inflation data for further action.

by Sagar Dua
FX Street

Gold price (XAU/USD) rally hit a pause in Monday’s European session as investors await the United States Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for February, which will be published on Tuesday. The precious metal takes a breather as the inflation data will provide cues about the US interest rate outlook.

The Gold price remains near all-time highs as yields on interest-bearing government bonds were hit hard after the Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) report indicated that the labor market conditions are cooling. The 10-year US Treasury yields drop to 4.07%. The US Dollar Index (DXY) also exhibits a subdued performance, trading at around 102.73. On Friday, the USD Index recovered after printing a fresh seven-week low near 102.35.

Continue Reading at FXStreet.com…

by Paul Bois
Breitbart.com

CLAIM: President Joe Biden said during his State of the Union address that the record inflation that has crippled the nation during his tenure has been trending down.

VERDICT: Misleading. While it’s true that inflation has fallen from nine percent to 3.1 percent, it has been trending upward for the past three months.

The monthly pace of inflation began to rise in November and has increased in each subsequent month, according to the Department of Labor’s consumer price index.”

“Biden brags ‘wages keep going up’ (real earnings are down 2.1% under Biden) and “‘inflation keeps coming down’ (overall prices are up nearly 18% under Biden). ‘Bidenomics’ is a FAILURE!” the RNC posted on X.

Continue Reading at Breitbart.com…

from Fox Business

from Zero Hedge

Authored by Ven Ram, Bloomberg cross-asset strategist,

Gold is still hovering near a nominal record, but the scope for further gains from here may be limited.

Bullion approached $2,200 an ounce last week, annexing a new record, though stated in real terms, gold is still shy of its previous peak set more than a decade ago. Even at current levels, an investor who bought gold at the end of 2012, when it was trading around $1,675 an ounce, would still be sitting on losses of more than 3% after adjusting for the corrosive effect of inflation on the dollar.

Continue Reading at ZeroHedge.com…

from Fox Business

Cadavers accumulating in storage units as cost of living — and dying — rises

by Anthony Germain and Mike Moore
CBC

A smattering of nondescript storage containers sit nestled on a concrete slab in a back alley in St. John’s, taking up a couple of hundred square feet between the Janeway children’s hospital and Memorial University’s school of medicine.

A large, bright green dumpster is pushed up against the rail that cordons them off.

Anyone making use of the nearby busy parking lot — only a stone’s throw away — would likely pay no attention to the scene.

But the containers are actually freezer units, and inside are dozens of corpses in body bags. Twenty-eight was the most recent number they held, CBC News confirmed, but that number changes daily as bodies are added or removed during the night.

The morgue at the Health Sciences Centre in St. John’s uses the containers as overflow storage. Bodies are placed in the freezers until the next of kin can claim them.

But some are no longer claiming the bodies of their loved ones. Inflation and the cost of living are eating away at pocketbooks, leaving very little left over for the costs of cremation or other funeral services.

Continue Reading at CBC.ca…

from Zero Hedge

In prepared remarks, released ahead of his ‘Humphrey-Hawkins’ testimony this morning, Fed Chair Powell reiterated to lawmakers that the US central bank is in no rush to cut interest rates until policymakers are convinced they have won their battle over inflation.

“The committee does not expect that it will be appropriate to reduce the target range until it has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2%,” Powell confirmed.

The snoozer of prepared remarks simply reiterate the more-hawkish stance that has appeared recently after proclaiming the pivot prompted rational exuberance in every quarter of the markets.

Continue Reading at ZeroHedge.com…

from Peter Schiff

Bubbles exhibit a “final blow-off top” right before they burst. We’re in that stage right now. The evidence is compelling. What happens next? And how should you prepare? Tune in to find out.

by Dr. Chris Martenson
Chris Martenson’s Peak Prosperity

Imagine, if you will, a world where Nvidia is “worth” more than Saudi Aramco. That’s in quotes because it’s a ridiculous notion.

But it’s also the current ‘reality.’

But we’re surrounded by numerous examples of bubble charts, ones where it’s impossible to distinguish their shape from that of the infamous Tulip bubble of 1634 to 1637. And it’s across all western markets including Germany and Japan’s equity markets, and it’s flitting effortlessly from one stock (Apple) to another (Nvidia).

But what will happen when the mega bubble finally bursts? Will it be a new dark age? Quite possibly, which is why I desperately want to warn people so they can become more resilient and prepared.

Continue Reading at PeakProsperity.com…

by Brian Maher
Daily Reckoning

How does a man descend into bankruptcy?

Gradually — then suddenly — in Mr. Hemingway’s famous telling.

The United States government has passed beyond bankruptcy’s gradual phase.

It has entered bankruptcy’s sudden phase.

Mr. Michael Hartnett, Bank of America’s chief strategist:

“The U.S. national debt is rising by $1 trillion every 100 days.”

United States debt first scaled $1 trillion 205 years after its inception. And today?

Continue Reading at DailyReckoning.com…