Our financial system is crumbling this week.

[Popeye_Card]

Well as I am sure most have seen by now, our Vice President likened the US economy to the Titanic. The giant ship that everyone was confidently riding believing there was no way it would ever sink, and further was not outfitted with enough life rafts.

Seems incredibly prophetic.

[mikechamp]

Well as I am sure most have seen by now, our Vice President likened the US economy to the Titanic. The giant ship that everyone was confidently riding believing there was no way it would ever sink, and further was not outfitted with enough life rafts.

Seems incredibly prophetic.

Yeah, I shared that here:

viewtopic.php?p=2161764#p2161764

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

If y’all wanted to see what it would look like if foreign investors sold bonds back, you can get a sneak peak with how the us handles the interest rate hike in Japan. It may not seem similar; but I think it is.

[mikechamp]

I don't know when we're going to actually do something about this:

‘This cannot be sustainable’: The U.S. borrowed $50 billion a week for the past five months, the CBO says

The U.S. Treasury’s borrowing showed no signs of slowing as the U.S. headed deeper into fiscal year 2026, with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reporting that another $1 trillion was added to the federal deficit in the first five months of the year.

The monthly budget review from the CBO, updated to February 2026 and released yesterday, showed that the government is estimated to have borrowed $308 billion last month alone.

Of course, with more borrowing comes higher interest costs on the debt. Between October 2025 (when the 2026 fiscal year started) and February, the Treasury spent an additional $31 billion on net interest on public debt, compared to the prior year. As a result, in just five months, the Treasury forked out a total of $433 billion to service public debt, which is now nearing $38.9 trillion.

Despite the eye-watering sums, the deficit was actually an improvement on last year’s borrowing. For the same period (October 2024 to February 2025), the government needed to borrow an additional $142 billion compared to this year’s figure.

However, the improvement will do little to reassure budget hawks pushing for the U.S. to get its fiscal house in better order. Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), said that interest payments on the debt are expected to exceed $1 trillion this year, and will surpass $2 trillion by 2036. “This cannot be sustainable,” MacGuineas said. “Our fiscal problems will not solve themselves. We need policymakers to come together, agree to reduce deficits—a 3% deficit-to-GDP target would be a great start—and put our national debt on a downward sustainable path as a share of the economy.”

Economists aren’t necessarily worried by the total level of debt (in fact, government debt is a necessary foundation of global markets). Rather it’s the debt-to-GDP ratio, which measures a nation’s borrowing against its growth. If this tips too far out of balance, growth can be hampered by the excessive amount of cash needed for interest payments.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/cann ... 04511.html

[mikechamp]

I brought this up 3 months ago. It hasn't gone away, nor has it gotten better:

The K-shaped economy is more split than ever — and it's showing up in groceries, credit cards, and the workplace

It's a bifurcated time in the American economy.

Billionaires are hitting the vacation and social circuit, showing up everywhere from fashion week to the Super Bowl. Other high earners are doing well: They're booking increasingly snazzy premium seats on airplanes and spending thousands on their pets' grooming.

Meanwhile, America's lower- and middle-income earners are cutting back on their economy airplane seats, buying cheaper groceries, and getting worried about maxing out their credit cards.

For the past few years, and in a variety of ways, the country has been sliding into what's called a K-shaped economy: Earners and consumers at the top of the K are doing OK; they're able to plug along, make good money, and easily spend on both everyday necessities and leisure activities. The lower-earners at the bottom of the K, though, are cutting back and pulling away from unnecessary spending. It's on companies' radar: Both executives and analysts are increasingly talking about the K on earnings calls.

We dug into the multiple factors that make up the macro K. From groceries to Broadway shows, here's how the various Ks are shaping the economy we're experiencing today.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/k-sh ... 01894.html

[Popeye_Card]

Dow has dropped ~7% since Pam Bondi's infamous "the Dow is over 50,000" remark. I'm sure it's fine.

[mikechamp]

For those who are thinking about the future of Social Security:

Social Security has 6 years left. The fix that sounds cruelest may be the smartest

Social Security is six years from insolvency. That’s not a projection buried in an actuarial footnote—it’s the opening finding of a new report from the Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM), released Thursday, which puts the program’s Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund on track to run dry by 2032.

And the fix lawmakers will likely reach for first—raising taxes—may be precisely the wrong move.

That’s the stark, counterintuitive conclusion suggested by PWBM researchers Seul Ki “Sophie” Shin and Kent Smetters, who modeled five distinct reform packages ranging from all-tax to all-cuts and found the approach most conventional analysts dismiss as politically radioactive—deep benefit reductions—generates the strongest long-term economic growth.​

https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/curre ... 10273.html

[mikechamp]

Talk about an unintended consequence:

The First Federal Reserve Inflation Forecast for March Is In -- and It's Not Pretty

While the stock market is always contending with headwinds threatening to pull the rug out from beneath investors, some are more nefarious than others. Historically, oil price shock events tend to be big-time trouble -- and the initial March inflation forecast from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland proves it.

The Iran war represents the largest disruption to the global energy supply chain in history. While it's possible that the release of strategic reserves by select countries may temper the near-term demand shock, the impact of this disruption and the uncertainty of how long this military conflict may extend are being felt in the U.S.

Gas prices in the US have moved up to $3.88/gallon, their highest level since October 2022. The 33% spike over the last month ($2.92/gallon to $3.88/gallon) is the biggest we've seen in the past 30 years. Although prices at the pump are the most direct way consumers feel the sting of oil price shock events, they aren't the only way the U.S. economy is impacted. It suddenly costs quite a bit more to transport goods, be it by truck, air, boat, or train. This ripples throughout the U.S. economy and drives up the inflation rate.

On March 11, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the February inflation report, which contained few surprises. The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) rose by 2.4% over the trailing 12-month period, with energy commodities dragging down inflation from the prior-year period.

This will not be the case come March. Following a surge in crude oil prices, the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland's Inflation Nowcasting tool expects the CPI to surge to 3.02% as of its March 19 update. Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) are also expected to jump from an estimated 2.67% in February to 3.14% in March, according to the Cleveland Fed.

Although the length of the Iran war matters for the Federal Reserve's interest rate decision-making, a rapid increase in inflation has the potential to throw a monkey wrench into its current rate-easing cycle. The probability of the central bank cutting rates at the April Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting is effectively 0% now, while the probability of a rate hike is 8.3%. In a matter of weeks, we've shifted from an expectation of one or more rate cuts in 2026 to the very real possibility of rate hikes.

https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/polic ... 00302.html

[cardinalkarp]

What makes you think this is unintentional?

[mikechamp]

What makes you think this is unintentional?

Trump has been griping about the Fed and lowering interest rates for months, so why would he intentionally do something that would cause them to go higher?