The slumping U.S. housing market wallows in a 13-year-low in existing-home sales amid record high prices due to constrained supply and mortgage rates, now at a 22-year high. The Wall Street Journal reported today that home prices hit a record level in September, pushing homeownership further out of reach for an increasing number of Americans …

Update 737 — Undersupply and Costs: Problems Besetting the Housing Market Read More »

Now that Congress has passed and the President has signed the Continuing Resolution (CR) funding the government at current levels into early 2024, the opportunity arises for Congress to take up the many issues unaddressed during the House leadership elections and CR negotiations. We will leave these for consideration here until after the Thanksgiving break. …

Update 736 — Thanksgiving Leftovers: CR Signed; Room for December Items? Read More »

A moment of comity prevailed late yesterday, on a day including physical threats in both chambers, when the House adopted Speaker Johnson’s early holiday gift of a clean, two-step laddered continuing resolution, with the Senate and President Biden expected to sign on and avert a government shutdown until January 19. Democrats provided a majority of …

Update 735 — FY24 Funding Smoke Signals: Shutdown Threat on Hold Two More Months Read More »

The halting progress on the FY24 appropriations bills since Speaker Mike Johnson’s election will itself likely come to a halt next week, with the current continuing resolution (CR) keeping the government open expiring at 12:01 am deadline next Saturday. With a CR extension or without one, this process will resume thereafter, but between now and …

Update 734 — Calm Before the Storm: Will CR Bring Christmas in November? Read More »

The House Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Monetary Policy held a hearing yesterday featuring an attack on the Basel III Endgame capital requirements rule proposed by the Fed and other financial regulators in July. The comment period for the proposal is January 16. We have seen the banking industry’s ads on TV and social media …

Update 733 — Aiming at Basil Endgame: GOP’s Copious Canards on Capital Rules Read More »

Despite, or perhaps due to, the installation of a new Speaker of the House, Congress remains stuck in a fiscal policy time warp. 15 days remain before the Continuing Resolution (CR) keeping the government funded expires, and the House and Senate are making their way through a regular order appropriations process that is very unlikely …

Update 732 — Regular Order in Slow Motion: FY24 Progress Resumes, Sides Miles Apart Read More »

The Federal Reserve once again held interest rates in place, maintaining a 5.35-5.50 percent prime rate target, driving slowly like a car with dimmed headlights in a fog rather than stopping and preparing for an imminent reversal of hikes. Its critical December meeting could be the occasion for another, possibly final, rate hike on the …

Update 731 — Fed Again Pauses Rates: No News is Good News or Hawkish Hold? Read More »

The massive increase in GDP last quarter — the economy grew by 4.9 percent on an annualized basis from July to September, double the growth over the previous quarter — was long predicted only by the Atlanta Fed. The consensus among other observers is that this surge, and the consumer spending driving it, cannot be …

Update 730 — 3d Qtr GDP Jumps up 4.9%: Surge Sustainable or Subject to Fed Rates? Read More »