Remember my estimate of one $trillion per year in “magic money machine” printing, based on the systemic BLS inflation coverup of at least 8% per year? If true, that theft is a massive, ongoing transfer of wealth (8%, per year, from your savings and mine) to the government-adjacent gangsters. It needs to end. But the initial impact will be deflationary – kinda like stopping drinking isn’t so much fun once you’ve admitted you have a problem. We’re also now seeing possible self-deportations, via the decline in foreign-born employment. That’s also deflationary (less spending from the migrants) – but long term, it means more jobs for the actual citizens. One month doesn’t make a trend, but this month looked positive.
Consumer Economy
Nonfarm Payrolls (PAYEMS); 159.5M +177K, (+0.11% m/m)
Personal Income (PI); 25.5T +116.9B (+0.46% m/m)
Auto/Light Truck Sales (ALTSALES); 17.8M +1.76M, (+9.90% m/m)
GDP (GDP); 29.978T +253.8B, (+0.85% q/q)
Personal Income is decent but not keeping up with actual inflation (annualized: +5.5%).
Auto/Light Truck sales screamed higher – annualized, that’s a 118% increase. ALTSALES is now almost back to the 2021 high. Probably a Tariff effect.
Chris covered the GDP; it wasn’t great, but investments showed a surprisingly large move higher.
Employed: Native-Born (LNU02073413): 132.2M +1.042M +0.79%
Employed: Foreign-Born (LNU02073395): 31.8M -410K -1.27%
In spite of the CCP memes about “overweight” native-born US workers, a million of them found jobs this month, while 410k foreign-born stopped working. That does look to be a trend change for the native-born, but not (yet) for the foreign-born.
CNP 16+, With a Disability (LNU00074597): 34.78M +385K +1.12%
CLF 16+, With a Disability (LNU01074597): 8.4M +202K +2.46%
All sectors (16+ population, employed, looking, not-looking) saw a “with a disability” increase this month. Disability continues to be in an uptrend, even though it should be taking a dip now because of end-of-winter seasonality.
Credit & Rates
Fed Balance Sheet (WALCL); 6.709T -17.7B (-0.26% w/w)
Total Bank Credit (TOTBKCR); 18.299T -3.1B (-0.02% w/w)
30 Year Mortgage Rate (MORTGAGE30US); 6.76% +5 bp
10 Year Treasury (DGS10); 4.33% +4 bp
20+ Year Treasury ETF (TLT); -1.30% w/w
There was some modest QT this week – it was the first meaningful decline in 4 weeks.
by larrythelogger 
