Billiejeens
Diamond Member
- Jun 27, 2019
- 35,361
- 23,344
Last year, the U.S. economy formally entered a recession -- which, until 2022, when the Biden administration attempted to redefine the word, universally meant consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. Around the same time last year, annualized inflation on the consumer price index surpassed 9% -- the highest reading in four decades since the infamous "stagflation" of the Jimmy Carter era. Inflation was particularly thorny for many basic household food staples, such as chicken and eggs, some of which experienced 20%-30% inflation at summertime 2022 peaks.
Inflation has since cooled down a bit but is still running considerably hotter than the Federal Reserve's stipulated 2% target. Accordingly, Fed Chair Jerome Powell has not ruled out further interest rate hikes at a time when mortgage payments are already catastrophically high; for the median American family buying a home, mortgage payments doubled from roughly 14% of monthly household income in 2020 to nearly 29% in June 2023. That is the highest that particular metric has been in nearly four decades. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and Russia have announced more oil production cuts through the end of 2023, at a time when the national average price of a gallon of gas is already near a record high.
Inflation has since cooled down a bit but is still running considerably hotter than the Federal Reserve's stipulated 2% target. Accordingly, Fed Chair Jerome Powell has not ruled out further interest rate hikes at a time when mortgage payments are already catastrophically high; for the median American family buying a home, mortgage payments doubled from roughly 14% of monthly household income in 2020 to nearly 29% in June 2023. That is the highest that particular metric has been in nearly four decades. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and Russia have announced more oil production cuts through the end of 2023, at a time when the national average price of a gallon of gas is already near a record high.
