Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a pretty blanket statement. That same down payment will not be effective at all. Current interest rates have definitely impacted housing prices but its not significant enough to make up for the difference in monthly payment. Think of it this way: Scenario 0: 500k house, 30yr/3% interest rate, 100k down (20% standard) = 400k total loan amount and 1,686 monthly payment Scenario 1: 400k house, 30yr/7% interest r…
Scenario 2: 400k house, 20% down, 30yr/7% = 320k loan, $2129 payment. You save $20k cash, which covers your increase in payment for ~4 years. By then maybe you can refinance back to Scenario 0.
Fed increases target rate to 3.75-4.00%
171–180 of 183 posts
Re: Fed increases target rate to 3.75-4.00%
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Great Depression wasn't so good.. that came after the Fed.
One example does not negate the evidence I just posted including 51 examples, nor does it change the vastly better trends under the Fed. So why pick a single event, ignore 50 others, ignore the trends shown in US (and 100's of other country) datasets, covering hundreds of years? I just posted a decent intro to the evidence. Please read it. The economic evidence for the benefits of central banking versus not having a…
Re: Fed increases target rate to 3.75-4.00%
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
It wasn't said that corporations were good but now are not, and it is not a requirement for the above to be relevant or true. The theory is that corporations will price at the highest price the market will bear and know that price from price tests they are willing to perform. "Inflation in the air" gave them all an impetus to more aggressively explore the space of prices consumers would bear, and it turns out, people…
The straightforward solution is that measurable surging consumer demand in durable goods allowed firms to set higher prices. Your theory around sticky prices doesn't explain firms running out of things despite keeping increasing inventory. Certainly, prices can be sticky and may be less sticky during the pandemic but firms still have to compete with each other on cost.
Re: Fed increases target rate to 3.75-4.00%
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your second sentence is the position we're in. We were very fortunate to buy a house in a nice area a year ago. Right at the peak, but it was a fixer-upper from a friend, so we got a good deal and skipped a lot of fees/commissions. Even with what we've put in to fix it up, we should still be above water post-dip. And that sweet, sweet 2.375% mortgage...
It's a good place to be in! Pretty much only secondary to the folks who did it a couple cycles ago and paid everything off, and managed to not explode things/screw it up. Enjoy, and hopefully no one comes around to give you grief about it.
Re: Fed increases target rate to 3.75-4.00%
#175"I am once again asking for" a common sense explanation for how increasing interest rates will reduce the prices of retail food and gas. (This should be the new Deleuze meme.)
The simplistic version is one idea of the cause of inflation is there's too much demand for all goods as a whole in the economy because there's too much money floating around causing demand to push higher on the demand/supply curve because it's more expensive to produce more of something past a certain point. Making it harder to get loans decreases the money flowing in for some expenditures so there's less expansion in areas like hiring (which when we're near full employment like now usually means having to raise wages pushing costs up and injecting money into the more general market). Thus by increasing the cost of expansion you slow it down and cool the labor market and maybe even cause it to contract.
In the end it boils down to getting more people out of work so they can't buy as much and are willing to accept lower wages meaning it costs less to produce so you might meet the increased demand curve in the middle. It's an incredibly shaky way to try to run the economy but the government has limited knobs to turn and ideally it's easier to target relief at people put out of work because of this than it is to aid the entire population generally.
That's one theory I've heard explained at least. It's incredibly callous to me though because it depends on just putting people out of work and our safety nets in the US are extremely weak meaning you wind up with the fact that a 1 percentage point increase in the unemployment number is associated with a 1-1.6& increase in suicide rates. [0]
[0] https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hpb20220302.274862/....
Re: Fed increases target rate to 3.75-4.00%
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
Money circulates between people. Person A takes out a loan and pays person B to do some work. Person B buys food and gas with the money.
Person A stops paying person B. Is person B going to stop buying food and gas?
Re: Fed increases target rate to 3.75-4.00%
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
More expensive credit to businesses leads to less investment and growth leading to less hiring leading to higher unemployment. Higher unemployment means some people won't be able to afford food and gas lowering the demand for food and gas. That's the theory anyway, they don't say it in plain terms like that though.
> Higher unemployment means some people won't be able to afford food and gas lowering the demand for food and gas. People need food and gas to survive. They're not going to stop buying food and gas, unless they are dead.
Just because something is 'essential' doesn't mean you'll always spend the same amount on it regardless of your economic situation.
Re: Fed increases target rate to 3.75-4.00%
#178Not a huge increase. Inflation is under control in the sense it's not rising, but they need to still pull a ton of money out of the economy; or let it ride. Powell's speech doesn't matter at all until we see the results of midterms.
well good news for you then, a year from now they’ll just say inflation rose 2% from November 2022 despite still being 10% above November 2021 and your people will say “we did it guys!”
Im not sure who you think 'my people' are... my people aren't in power and wont be for years. Remember, not all people live in the USA.
Re: Fed increases target rate to 3.75-4.00%
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
And economists have predicted 9 of the last 5 recessions. And in an economy with 3.5% unemployment, the odds of a recession seem pretty low in my opinion.
We are pretty early into the cycle to declare such a thing. The rate increases are likely not close to ending. It takes time for this stuff to unwind. Also note that we are in a similar situation as when Nixon propped up the economy before an election in 1972. It took a while for his policies to backfire. Unemployment rate was 3.5% when Nixon was elected and doubled by 1974. The current dominating party in the US is…
It's not the election, it's Black Friday that will be the bellweather, I think. If inflation is still ongoing, discounts will be minimal. If the economy is going south, sales will be tepid. Nobody is ready to lower prices permanently, but temporarily? Massive discounts are the traditional way for retailers to lower prices in times of uncertainty. The rise of the dollar and the inflation of the past year will give retailers lots of room for discounts, so I expect to see them liberally applied. And with unemployment so low and low-income wages rising so quickly, I expect to see record retail spending this month.
Re: Fed increases target rate to 3.75-4.00%
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
We are pretty early into the cycle to declare such a thing. The rate increases are likely not close to ending. It takes time for this stuff to unwind. Also note that we are in a similar situation as when Nixon propped up the economy before an election in 1972. It took a while for his policies to backfire. Unemployment rate was 3.5% when Nixon was elected and doubled by 1974. The current dominating party in the US is…
We are also pretty early into the cycle to declare that a recession is inevitable. Yet that's what a lot of people are saying. The only thing that can be said with certainty is that the future is risky and unclear. IOW, situation normal, all f^#$ed up. It's not the election, it's Black Friday that will be the bellweather, I think. If inflation is still ongoing, discounts will be minimal. If the economy is going south…
This Black Friday is unlikely to be any kind of bellweather. It normally takes 6-12 months after rate hikes stop for them to be felt in the broader market. Next Black Friday might be a bellweather, but I expect that we'll already be in it by then.