About this episode
* The Dow Jones had its worst week since January - closed the week at 17,568, down 518 points * Friday's drop alone accounted for 163 points * Capital One had a huge earnings miss and announced big layoffs * Big losses on bad debt * All the economic data from this year has been negative * There is no precedent for the Fed to raise rates when all economic indicators are down * Normally The Fed stimulates when the economy is down * The most interesting economic news on Friday was a leak from the Federal Reserve * Fed employees' internal projections are way below the Fed's public estimates * Projections go all the way out to 2020 and can only amount to guesses * The document is posted on my Facebook page * Real GDP: 2015: 2.31 way below the official forecast but still overly optimistic * Real GDP for 2016: 2.38 - 2017: 2.17 - 2018:1.76 - 2019:1.75 - 2020:1.74 * This shows an average of under 2% for the next 5 years * If the Fed believes its staff's estimates, why would they be talking about raising rates? * Inflation numbers are even more difficult to believe: * 2015: 1.15 - 2016: 1.54 - 2017:1.76 - 2018:1.89 - 2019: 1.92 - 2020: 1.94 * How can they possibly know? It looks like they just picked numbers somewhere below 2% * They even have the core PCE * 2015: 1.33 - 2016: 1.52 - 2017: 1.78 - 2018: 1.9 - 2019: 1.92 - 2020: 1.94 * Fed Funds Numbers: * 2015: .35%(implies one rate hike) - 2016: 1.26% - 2017: 2.12% - 2018: 2.8% - 2019: 3.1% - 202 : 3.34% * After 5 years of tightening rates would still be at historically low levels * This indicates how little confidence the Fed has in the economy * They predict the yield on the 10-year note to rise 2.63% in 2015 up to 4.2 in 5 years * One of the most ridiculous assumptions is unemployment: 2015: 5.34% - 2016: 5.24% - 2017: 5.18 - 2018: 5.15 - 2019: 5.15 - 2020: 5.16 * These are all just guesses. How do they know? * This shows by the Fed's own estimates that employment is not expected to improve * Th * The Fed expects the economy to grow even slower over the next 5 years than during the preceding 5 years * The Fed is either ignoring staff's numbers to paint a rosy picture or they don't trust their own staff * I think the market can't handle the truth and that may have been the reason for Friday'd drop in the Dow * The only thing that will stop the market from going down is some talk from Janet Yellen to dial back the rate hikes and to open the door to QE4 * Another number that came out on Friday which confirms the slowdown in the economy is the new home sales * The current rise in new home sales is primarily for those trying to beat the Fed * June's number was awful: 482,000 against an expectation of 550,000 * The last 2 month's estimates were revised down * The July plunge was the biggest number since November of 2014, and the biggest miss in a year * There is also an interesting statistic on new homes: prices are continuing to rise * It now requires 10 times your salary to buy a new home * In the 1950's it took 2 times a year's salary to buy a new home * All the government spending on "affordable housing" has managed to increase the cost of a home from twice a worker's salary to ten times a worker's salary * That is a 500% increase - that is far beyond failure * This also illustrates how much our standard of living has fallen * New York State passed a minimum wage of $15/hr, which applies to chains of over 30 restaurants * Because employers cannot be forced to pay wages higher than workers' productivity allows, employers will be forced to fire some employees and will seek automation to replace unskilled workers. Our Sponsors: * Check out FRE and use my code LISTEN20 for a great deal: https://frepouch.com * Check out Infinite Epigenetics: https://infiniteepigenetics.com/GOLD * Check out Justin Wine and use my code SCHIFF20 for a great deal: https://www.justinwine.com Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy