Jane Timm from NBC was working very diligently today, on International Women's Day of all days, in order to set the record straight for you Trumpsters out there who believe that he's done anything at all on the jobs front (note: ADP said 298k new jobs were created in America for the month of February, far exceeding the forecast of 190k).
Via Patrick Cox of MauldinEconomics.com,
The US fertility rate fell again last year, marking the lowest rate of reproduction since the CDC started keeping records in 1909. This prompted the amusing Bloomberg headline, “Make America Mate Again.”
The above chart shows that in 2015, there were only 62.5 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age. That fertility rate dropped even further, touching 62.3 births per 1,000 women, in the first half of 2016.
Demographic Headwinds
In an "Onion-sounding" article in Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda, titled "Trump-Pump-Pump And Our Big Bang", Russian military expert Viktor Baranetz, a retired colonel and former defense ministry spokesman asserted that Russia has asymmetrical responses to the increase in the U.S. military budget.
The US economy continues to implode as inflation ignites.
GDP Now has collapsed from 3.4% in early February to 1.3% today. It will be revised even lower based on the awful deficit numbers (the US trade deficit hit a five year high in January).
Meanwhile, inflation is soaring.
The Fed tracks FOUR inflation metrics. They are Core CPI, Core PCE, Trimmed Mean CPI and Cleveland Median CPI.
Roughly all four are now at or above the Fed’s so-called “target” of 2%.
· Core CPI is growing at an annualized rate of 2.1%.
As 2016 drew to a close, even as US bank stocks posted some of the biggest gains since Mr. Trump got elected, it seemed their counterparts down-under aren’t doing that well! All signs point to a huge weakening in Aussie bank stocks in 2017. But the bigger question is: Will we hear a loud boom as banks down under go bust?
THE OMINOUS SIGNS