ECONOMIC UPDATE: Rich Get Richer, Plantation Workers Get Poorer

The United States was once the Land of Opportunity…no longer

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The facts are there for all to see.

Across the globe, the rich are getting richer as the plantation workers of Slavelandia get poorer.

SCARE DURING BROADCAST: INTRUDER TRIES TO ATTACK CELENTE (6-minute mark)

And to make a bad situation worse, the era of Dragflation, where economies go down and inflation rises, has just begun.

NULAND SAYS A WIN IN UKRAINE FOR PUTIN IS A WIN FOR EVIL

In the United States, once the Land of Opportunity, today the Census Bureau’s annual report on income, poverty, and health insurance coverage showed that inflation-adjusted household income fell 2.3 percent last year from 2021. With the cost of living increasing, the median income in 2022 was $74,580 compared with $76,330 in 2021.

Yes, the median income is $74,580. To put that in perspective, the average price of a new car is $48,334, according to Kelley Blue Book. And with the median home sales price at $416,100, a median-income plantation worker can’t afford to buy one.

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And what is a median household? According to the Census Bureau, “This includes the income of the householder and all other individuals 15 years old and over in the household, whether they are related to the householder or not.”

Buy a house? A family of three, four, or more barely has enough to live on after the government steals their money in the name of taxes and spends what little they have left on essentials.

Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that “Stubbornly high prices would likely keep home-buying affordability near its worst level in decades.”

According to a LendingClub report, 61 percent of American adults are living paycheck to paycheck.

TD Bank’s annual consumer spending index reports that inflation has changed the spending habits of four out of five consumers.

Illustrating the severity of higher inflation, a CNBC Your Money Financial Confidence Survey found that some 70 percent of Americans say they are stressed out about finances, mostly because of rising inflation, rising interest rates, and lower savings… while only 45 percent of adults said they have an emergency fund.

And yesterday, the New York Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Expectations for August found that 60 percent of American consumers are concerned that because of higher interest rates and tighter bank lending standards, the ability to get loans, credit cards, and mortgages is harder now than it was a year ago… which was the highest level of worry since June 2013.

It’s Global

The Trend is Your Friend! Follow the facts.

Despite the equity market news, which constantly promotes better times ahead so stock prices keep rising, the economic reports on facts and data signal trouble ahead.

Over in China, the world’s second-largest economy, factory activity in August slumped for the fifth month in a row, with its Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) coming in at 49.7 and it non-manufacturing PMI hitting 51.0 last month compared to 55.5 in July and 53.2 in June. Any number below 50 is considered a contraction. 

Signaling the global slowdown, China’s exports fell for the fourth month in a row.

And in Germany, Europe’s largest economy and the fourth largest in the world, day after day the economic news has gone from bad to worse. 

With its economy shrinking and stagnating since the start of the year, its Bundesbank reported that “Economic output is likely to more or less stagnate again in the third quarter of 2023.”

Germany’s Ifo Institute reports that business confidence fell to a 10-month low while the government said that German industry production fell 0.8 percent month-on-month… while new orders for German industry slumped nearly 11 percent in July, racking up its worst performance since April 2020 when the world closed down to fight the COVID War.

Gloom and Doom

For Europe, according to S&P Global, business activity is contracting faster than expected, with the EU’s PMI slumping to 46.7 in August.

S&P Global said that “For the first time in 2023 so far, output fell in both the services and manufacturing sectors. The service sector ended a seven-month run of growth with the steepest contraction since February 2021. Goods production meanwhile dropped for the fifth month running and at another rapid rate.”

Feeling the pressure of higher interest rates and slumping productivity, HCOB Eurozone CPI construction hit its lowest level of the year, falling from 43.5 in July to 43.4 in August. Getting hit the hardest, housing construction fell to its lowest level since April 2020 when the world locked down to fight the COVID War. 

Admitting to the damage ahead, the European Commission said that because of persistent inflation, they lowered the forecast for EU growth to just 0.8 percent this year and 1.4 percent for 2024. In May they predicted 1 percent growth this year and 1.7 percent for next year. 

TREND FORECAST: As we greatly detail, among the economic pressures bringing down economies and spending is inflation. What is barely being reported is that a bad situation will be made much worse as oil prices keep rising while the economies keep declining… a key factor of Dragflation: Declining economic growth and rising inflation. 

As we go to press, Brent Crude is trading at $92.24 … up $20 since June. Thus, the higher oil prices rise, the deeper economies will fall… a situation that will worsen as winter sets in across the Northern Hemisphere. And should the Ukraine War continue to escalate, oil prices will continue to rise. 

And, this comes as no surprise to Trends Journal subscribers, since we had forecast at the beginning of the year that Brent Crude would hit near the $100 per barrel mark.

Also, we maintain our forecast that U.S. equities will sink in September and October.