sell! sell! sell!

[tiznow]

[h=2]Americans are going deeper into debt to buy cars[/h]By Peter Valdes-Dapena July 4, 2017: 10:34 AM ET


Car buyers are going deeper into debt and for longer periods of time as they reach to buy more expensive new cars.
The average car loan last month stretched out for 69.3 months, or nearly six years, according to Edmunds.com.
That's the longest average loan term ever recorded since Edmunds.com began tracking the statistic in 2002. Based on industry trends, it's very unlikely that it has ever been higher.

​

The long loans are a sign of consumers' confidence in the economy and their belief they will be able to pay up, Edmunds.com analyst Jessica Caldwell said.
But they're also driven by the allure of crossover SUVs, which cost more than cars, and by all the tempting new technology features cars now offer.
"You can still get a perfectly nice compact car for under $20,000," Caldwell said. Not as many customers want those, though, especially with gasoline prices at historic lows.
Great looking cars on a budget
Last month, car buyers borrowed an average of $31,000 with average monthly payments of $517, the highest so far this year.
There are serious downsides to long auto loans.

For one thing, since a longer loan is paid off more slowly, borrowers will be "upside down" in the car longer -- meaning they will owe more on the car than what it's actually worth for longer.
Cars buyers end up owing money on about a third of cars that are traded in at dealerships, Caldwell said. That debt then usually gets wrapped up in the new car loan, making for bigger monthly payments and a cycle of expanding debt.
"You hear stories about someone driving a $40,000 Toyota Camry," Caldwell said. "That's where that comes from." A new Camry typically sells for around $30,000.
Consumer Reports Top Pick cars
Even as they are taking out longer loans, they're also putting down bigger down payments. The average down payment in June was $2,453, an increase of over 7% from last year.
These record loan lengths come as auto sales continue to plateau following years of increases.
July 04
NEW YORK

 

[eek.]

If you want a piece of the cryptocoin action then I would recommend Litecoins, heading for 60 bucks at the moment

It's a well backed and respected coin, $1000 dollars worth is well worth a punt

Or buy 1oz of golds worth today, 20 coins, and watch them kick golds ass

 

[tiznow]

Teslas bubble finally burst?

fan of musk and everything he does especially space X but...

 

[tiznow]

If you want a piece of the cryptocoin action then I would recommend Litecoins, heading for 60 bucks at the moment

It's a well backed and respected coin, $1000 dollars worth is well worth a punt

Or buy 1oz of golds worth today, 20 coins, and watch them kick golds ass

Diversity never a bad thing

I got gold, fiat, crypto, equity longs, and equity shorts..

biggest ? I have on crypto is what happens to it when the everything bubble bursts.. think that whole arena may be bigger than the everything bubble as increasingly people distrust authority and government fiat..

 

[tiznow]

Everything bubble looking done for.. only a matter of timing not if... volatility continues to go up.. naz futures around 1% down..

they've been working like hell to keep gold down.. the miners have held up much better.. once it's clear the wheels are falling off the everything bubble gold should shine (no more rare hikes potential QE etc).. green right now as markets dive..

 

[tiznow]

Pretty solid G20 protests in Hamburg this year..

market looks done.. and ready to pop..

tesla 390 to 307 in less than two weeks

 

[RoofTop]

Bought some RAI, LB & RHP at the end of the day

 

[tiznow]

https://mobile.twitter.com/NorthmanTrader/status/882670288177172480/photo/1

deliquency rate rising.. loan creation dropping..

maybe this time will magically be different than 2000 and 2007

 

[tiznow]

[h=1]The Fast Track to “Carmageddon”[/h]Back in the 1950s when GM had 50% of the auto market they always said that, “As General Motors goes, so goes the nation.”
That was obviously a tribute to GM’s economic muscle and its role as the driver of growth and rising living standards in post-war America’s booming economy. Those days are long gone for both GM and the nation. GM’s drastically reduced 20% market share of U.S. light vehicle sales in June was still an economic harbinger, albeit of a different sort.
GM offered a record $4,361 of cash incentives during June. That was up 7% from last year and represented 12% of its average selling price of $35,650 per vehicle, also a record. But what it had to show for this muscular marketing effort was a 5% decline in year-over-year sales and soaring inventories. The latter was up 46% from last June.
My purpose is not to lament GM’s ragged estate, but to note that it — along with the entire auto industry — has become a ward of the Fed’s debt-fueled false prosperity. The June auto sales reports make that absolutely clear.
In a word, consumers spent the month “renting” new rides on more favorable terms than ever before. But that couldn’t stop the slide of vehicle “sales” from its 2016 peak.
In fact, June represented the 6th straight month of year-over-year decline. And the fall-off was nearly universal — with FiatChrysler down 7.4%, Ford and GM off about 5% and Hyundai down by 19.3%.
The evident rollover of U.S. auto sales is a very big deal because the exuberant auto rebound from the Great Recession lows during the last six years has been a major contributor to the weak recovery of overall GDP.
In fact, overall industrial production is actually no higher today than it was in the fall of 2007. That means there has been zero growth in the aggregate industrial economy for a full decade.
Real production in most sectors of the U.S. economy has actually shrunk considerably, but has been partially offset by a 15% gain in auto production from the prior peak, and a 130% gain from the early 2010 bottom.
By comparison, the index for consumer goods excluding autos is still 7% below its late 2007 level.
So if the so-called “recovery” loses its automotive turbo-charger, where will the growth come from?
These industrial production figures powerfully underscore the extent to which the weak expansion of real sales and GDP over the past seven years has been artificially supported by an energetic but unsustainable snapback in the auto sector. The soft June auto sales report further underscores that this happy booster shot is now over. Its opposite — Carmageddon — is metastasizing rapidly.
Still, booming economic growth is exactly what is priced into the still soaring stock market averages. But the Carmageddon story is evidence of the rot which lies beneath today’s mutant economy and lunatic financial bubbles.
It turns out that during June 2017, the average selling price for a light vehicle was $31,720. That’s up 75% from the average selling price recorded 20 years ago in 1997. Yet during that same interval, median household income grew by just 52% (from $37k to $56k).
So how did U.S. households afford to buy their new rides when their incomes have lagged the purchase price of a new car by nearly one-third over the last two decades? They didn’t. Financing for the average new vehicle during June amounted to $30,945 or 97.6% of the average purchase price.
That’s up 29% from the great recession lows and shows quite dramatically how the Fed’s Bubble Finance actually works. Namely, it has permitted the U.S. economy to borrow its way into an auto boom based on the rising collateral value of autos, not a commensurate gain in earned income and sustainable purchasing power of U.S. households.

In fact, since about 85% of new cars are financed, means households are taking out cash to finance transaction fees, pay-off underwater loans on trade-ins or take a joy-trip in their new ride.
Needless to say, borrowing more than the price tag of a new car and financing it over a record 69.3 months amounts to still another version of Ponzi finance. That’s especially true in this instance because unlike homes during the subprime mortgage mania, it is evident even now — before the real car loan bust — that autos depreciate rapidly, and far more rapidly than debt is reduced under current typical loans.
So the repo man will be immensely busy in the years ahead, and that will have its own harmful economic effects. And it also needs be pointed out that auto loans are essentially supported by the collateral value of the vehicle rather than the income and credit worthiness of the borrower.
As the tide of soured auto loans rises, there will be more and more horror stories about wages being garnished and other court-imposed extractions from the hard-pressed households which were sucked into the auto finance Ponzi, and at length defaulted.
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65098)][h=3]After The Dollar… But Before A Return to Gold[/h]When the dollar finally croaks, these alternatives will rebuild society… Sign up for the Daily Reckoning today and get your copy of our free report: The Top Digital Alternatives to the Dollar.
We will NOT share your email address





[/COLOR]
Not surprisingly, auto debt per capita is now at an all-time high of $4,200 and is up 40% from the post-crisis low of $3,000 in 2010.
So the Fed may crow about a recovery that has been the weakest in modern history, but it is only a statistical paint-by-the-numbers upturn. It was purchased at the cost of burying U.S. households in levels of auto debt that were heretofore inconceivable, and which, in any event, are surely unsustainable.
The truth of the matter is that the Fed has just caused the pea to be shuffled under a different shell. Thus, Yellen and her posse continue to dismiss the threat of bad debt based on the purported success of “prudential regulation” and the improvement of bank balance sheets and the home mortgage market.
In fact, household debt has just been shoved into the auto file. At the peak of the mortgage boom in 2008 there were 98 million mortgage loans (including second mortgages and home equity lines) outstanding compared to 88 million auto loans.
The latter has now soared to 108 million car loans — an off-the-charts record level that now exceeds the number of mortgage loans outstanding by 35%.

It goes without saying that to generate 108 million auto loans, any consumer who could fog a rearview mirror had to be admitted into the auto finance game. Accordingly, subprime auto debt is now at an all-time high — notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence from the financial crisis that much of this debt will become delinquent or default when either payroll checks falter or used car prices tumble — leaving car loans hopelessly underwater.
The latter point is crucial and underscores why this time the auto debt contraction cycle will be far worse than 2008-2009. That’s because nearly one-third of vehicle trade-ins are now carrying negative equity.
This means, in turn, that prospective new-car buyers are having to stump-up increasing amounts of cash to pay off old loans, thereby pressuring volume-hungry lenders and dealers to extend loan-to-value ratios to even more absurd heights than the 120% level now prevalent.
That’s kicking the metal down the road with a vengeance!
At the end of the day, the precarious nature of the debt pyramid that underlies the auto market cannot be gainsaid. It belies the illusory debt-fueled prosperity of the auto sector, and, instead, underscores how consumers are being led even deeper into the Fed’s colossal debt trap.
That’s why GM’s June results were truly a harbinger. Even the Fed’s own surveys show that the household sector is tapped out on the auto credit front, and that auto loan demand has turned negative for the first time since the 2008-2009 collapse.
Current paychecks are still barely keeping up with inflation — especially as reflected in the cost of food, energy, medical and housing. Needless to say, if employment growth falters during the inexorable recession just ahead, the Fed’s debt-o-topia will come full circle.
After rebounding during the past two years at a rate between 5% and 6.8% year-over-year, even credit cards are again tapped out.
With balances now exceeding $1 trillion, they are back to the unsustainable level of May 2008 just before they blew up during the Great Recession.
So why are the casino gamblers still buying the dips?
Because that’s “what’s working”… until it doesn’t.
Regards,
David Stockman
for The Daily Reckoning
Ed. Note: Get daily insight, insider scoops and actionable investment tips six times a week with The Daily Edge! Just click here for a FREE subscription!

 

[eek.]

I got gold, fiat, crypto, etc.

So what crypto you got Tiz?

 

[tiznow]

So what crypto you got Tiz?

Like I said putin likes ether so I like ether..

crypto bubble might be running on fumes.. fun trading regardless lol

 

[snoop]

It's summer Tiz. The rich are all away on holiday until September/October

(That's why October is scary time)

Oil is an easy target to get beat up again. Sub $30s oil will force Yellen to think twice about hiking rate. Deflation is an enemy of the Fed....Judging from the last interview Yellen is very determined to not the bubble to crash on her watch.

 

[tiznow]

Oil is an easy target to get beat up again. Sub $30s oil will force Yellen to think twice about hiking rate. Deflation is an enemy of the Fed....Judging from the last interview Yellen is very determined to not the bubble to crash on her watch.

Gotta be getting near/close to the end regardless of fed..

volitility heating up.. some strange flash crash on nasdaq recently.. both gold and silver experience "fat fingers"/flash crashes in recent weeks

us commodity index/S&P ratio is at levels not seen since before 2000 bubble burst

https://mobile.twitter.com/jessefelder/status/882963194712641536

think now more than ever is a time to buy real tangible hard assets and dump paper but what do i know..

 

[eek.]

An Interesting article which really cuts to the underlying nitty gritty,

OJ Simpsons verdict happened because of Rodney King

Donald Trump won, in no small part because "Those Liberal elites sneering at you are those Liberal elites sneering at me"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40683038

 

[tiznow]

Finally time for the insanity to end and pop the latest megabubble?

huge reversal on Nasdaq today..

vix recently hit all time low..

 

[tiznow]

Back near 2007 savings rates when shit hit the fan last time.. consumer will be tapped out again soon.. after having 8+ years of ZIRP to go wild and save little...

gold perking up again.. finally ready to make a push for 1400+ which has been the ceiling for 5+ years during its consolidation period.. loooonnngg term gold still in secular bull that started in 2000 around 300... that's when central bankers etc really started to lose their minds.. so no coincidence there... as long as fiscal insanity continues gold should do wel loooonnnng term...

-----------

Americans Aren’t Saving Money Like They Used To

By Rich Miller
July 28, 2017, 8:30 AM EDTJuly 28, 2017, 8:41 AM EDT

• Fourth-quarter personal savings rate was just 3.6 percent
• The savings rate has recovered somewhat so far this year

The figures suggest that consumers were dipping into savings to maintain their spending entering 2017.Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/BloombergAmerican households scaled back their pace of savings to the lowest level in nine years at the end of 2016 as the growth of their wages and salaries slowed, updated government figures show.
The personal savings rate was 3.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2016, down from a previously published 4.9 percent, according to annual revisions to gross domestic product and related data, released Friday by the Commerce Department. That’s the lowest reading since a 2.8 percent rate in the final three months of 2007, just as the U.S. was entering a recession.
The figures suggest that consumers were saving less to maintain their spending entering 2017. That’s significant because consumption accounts for more than two-thirds of gross domestic product, and the revisions may help explain some of the slowdown in first-quarter purchases.

​

The saving rate recovered somewhat in the first three months of the year, to 3.9 percent after a previously reported 5.1 percent. In the second quarter, it was little changed at 3.8 percent.
A lower fourth-quarter rate was one of the bigger changes in the government’s annual update of GDP that otherwise did little to alter the contours of the eight-year economic expansion.
2014-2016

Economic growth from 2014 through 2016 was marked up to an average annual rate of 2.2 percent from 2.1 percent. Inflation, as measured by the personal consumption expenditures price index, was also revised higher, to 1.1 percent over the period, from 1 percent, still well below the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent goal.
Core inflation -- which excludes food and energy costs -- did rise to an average 2 percent in the first three quarters of last year, before falling back to 1.3 percent in the last three months of 2016, according to the revised figures. The mark-up in inflation largely reflected higher charges for financial services in the second and third quarters.
The component of GDP that showed the biggest revision over the last three years was private investment. It’s now seen as climbing by an average 2.6 percent from the fourth quarter of 2013 to the final three months of 2016, instead of 2.1 percent. Spending on equipment, nonresidential structures and intellectual property was stronger than previously recorded.

​

The big downward revision in last year’s saving rate -- it’s now put at 4.9 percent for 2016 as whole, instead of 5.7 percent -- reflected new, lower figures for employee compensation. Wages, salaries and supplements rose 2.8 percent last year, after expanding by 4.9 percent in 2015.
Based on the updated figures, the current expansion remains the slowest of the post-World War II period, registering average annual growth of 2.2 percent through the end of 2016, according to the BEA. Now in its ninth year, it’s also the third longest. I'm

 

[eek.]

I seriously doubt they will crash the system while Donald Trump is in charge, it would simply give him too much power via emergency legislation etc

Is it just me or am I also noticing a form of gridlocked government emerging?(and This is a GOOD thing)

If you get two opposite government camps battling one another then they basically leave us, and the world, alone while they fight it out in the corridors of power
So no stupid stuff happens, foreign invasions, stupid biased legislation etc

I've seen it happen before where I live and peace breaks out for the little people
It's great, you can get on with your life while the corrupt scum in power on each side of the political divide tear one another apart

Long live gridlocked government !

 

[eek.]

Clmate data is hookey, and not in a good way

Stuff like HFC23 is baaaad news, and we're pumping shedloads of it out, and then we're saying we're not...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-40669449

I'm no tree-hugger but it looks like we're pretty fucked, there's some serious pollution not being declared by governments all over the world, CO2 is the least of our problems

 

[roadreeler57]

[h=1]Someone Just Noticed That Trump Is Getting Stuff Done [/h]

• 8/04/2017

Reprints
​

Achievements: After weeks and months of fixating on tweets and Russia, someone in the press decided to have a look at what the Trump administration has been up to since January. Lo and behold, they discovered that it's getting a lot done.
"Trump Has Quietly Accomplished More Than It Appears" reads the headline in the Atlantic.
"With the Trump administration's chaos sucking up all the attention," the article begins, "it's been able to move forward on a range of its priorities.... It is remaking the justice system, rewriting environmental rules, overhauling public-lands administration, and greenlighting major infrastructure projects. It is appointing figures who will guarantee the triumph of its ideological vision for decades to come."
It goes on to detail these achievements, many of which we've highlighted on these pages.
Border crossings, for example, have plummeted, even though all Trump has done so far is promise to enforce existing laws.
The Supreme Court approved parts of Trump's travel ban, a success made possible by Trump's appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the bench.
Trump is busy filling lower court positions with conservative justices. Ron Klain, a White House aide to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, said that Trump "is proving wildly successful in one respect: naming youthful conservative nominees to the federal bench in record-setting numbers."
What else? Well, Trump pulled out of the Paris climate change deal, which as we noted in this space is a yuuuge win for the economy.
The EPA, meanwhile, is dismantling Obama's coal-killing, growth-choking Clean Power Plan, and draining the heavy-handed Waters of the United States rule. When a veteran EPA official resigned this week, she complained in a letter to her former colleagues that "the new EPA Administrator already has repeals of 30 rules under consideration," which the New York Times described as "a regulatory rollback larger in scope than any other over so short a time in the agency's 47-year history."
Trump promised to kill two regulations for every new one enacted, but in his first six months the ratio was 16-to-1.
Trump also approved the Keystone XL and other pipeline projects held up by Obama. He's also rolled back a ban on coal mining on public lands.
To be sure, Trump hasn't scored a major legislative achievement on signature issues like ObamaCare and tax reform.
The Atlantic writer describes the administration's achievements as something akin to a shadow government. But these actions aren't in the shadows. They're just being ignored by a media that is obsessed with digging up dirt on Trump.http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/someone-just-noticed-that-trump-is-getting-stuff-done/

 

[tiznow]

Clmate data is hookey, and not in a good way

Stuff like HFC23 is baaaad news, and we're pumping shedloads of it out, and then we're saying we're not...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-40669449

I'm no tree-hugger but it looks like we're pretty fucked, there's some serious pollution not being declared by governments all over the world, CO2 is the least of our problems

Yeah global warming debate is a small portion of the debate for me..

how mankind lives now is simply unsustainable on a 1000 year time scale.. and a 1000 years on a universal time scale is tiny.. which is why I keep saying the rise of mankind since industrial revoution is essentially a big meteor hitting the earth.. the changes taking place are extremely rapid on a universal time scale.. species extinction rates through the roof.. we now 250 years post industrial revolution.. imagine what would would look like if we kept burning fossil fuels like we do now for next 750 years like trump wants... wouldn't be a pretty picture..