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Financial and news media site Zero Hedge ran a headline that raised the following concern. “Is The US Going To Transition From Stagflation Directly Into A Full-Blown Economic Depression?” Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com, Snyder opened with, “Should the fact that the U.S. economy actually contracted during the first quarter actually surprise any of us? Since the start of 2022, there has been crisis after crisis, and now the war in Ukraine is depressing economic activity all over the planet.”
Among the pull quotes:
“Pantheon Macroeconomics chief economist Ian Shepherdson wrote in a report. “The economy is not falling into recession.” … “But if the economy is so strong, then why are foreclosure filings absolutely soaring?…”
Last month, 33,333 properties across the U.S. faced foreclosure, a 181 percent jump from March 2021 and 29 percent pop from February, according to a report by foreclosure tracker Attom. The first quarter saw 78,271 properties with a foreclosure filing, a 39 percent from the previous quarter and 132 percent from last year.”
Snyder noted that China is expected to nose dive in the 2nd quarter into contraction. Other nations have a range of economic issues too.
- “Gross domestic product unexpectedly declined at a 1.4% annualized pace in the first quarter, marking an abrupt reversal for an economy coming off its best performance since 1984, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.
- The negative growth rate missed even the subdued Dow Jones estimate of a 1% gain for the quarter, but the initial estimate for Q1 was the worst since the pandemic-induced recession in 2020.”
On MHProNews.com and here on MHLivingNews.com, the question has been asked if there is a housing bubble? If so, how will it play out for manufactured home residents and professionals?
With that backdrop, this economic report goes through the numbers, according to the compilation of federal and media sources from the left- and right as provided to MHLivingNews by the WND NewsCenter.
WND
Biden drives economy into worst quarter since full-blown COVID pandemic
Shrinks 1.4% when experts forecast growth
By Bob Unruh
Published April 28, 2022 at 11:42am
Joe Biden has steered the American economy into the worst quarter since the COVID-19 pandemic was full-blown, and was being cited as the reason for governments literally ordering businesses to shut down.
A report from Fox Business said the economy shrank 1.4% in the first quarter, prompting Harvard University professor Kenneth Rogoff, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, to warn that was “even below the worst” he expected.
The Fox Business report cited “snarled supply chains, record-high inflation and labor shortages.”
Most of those factors can be traced back to Biden’s policies that have come out of the White House.
The Commerce Department reported the gross domestic product, a broad measure of goods and services, fell by 1.4% on an annualized basis in the three-month period January through March.
Economists had expected, instead, growth of 1.1% and the report charged it was the “worst performance” since spring of 2020 when the U.S. economy was under assault from not only the COVID-19 pandemic and the deaths of thousands but widespread government orders that businesses close, schools go to remote teaching and even churches close their doors.
Chris Zaccarelli, of Independent Adviser Alliance, told Fox Business, “Today’s shock drop in GDP is a wake-up call that the economy isn’t as strong as we all thought. It’s possible that GDP gets revised higher next month, as this is just the first release and there will be two revisions, but it is a warning sign.”
The report continued, “The substantial downturn stems from a widening trade deficit, with the U.S. importing far more than it exported, and a slower pace of inventory investment by businesses in the first quarter.”
The report on Biden’s economic accomplishments, or lack, added to the concern that a recession could be looming under Biden’s presidency – triggered by soaring inflation and Federal Reserve plans to surge interest rates.
The organization boosted interest rates by a quarter point last month and now are talking about hikes of half-point at a time.
MSN attempted to describe the situation as the U.S. economy contracting “for the first time since the early days of the pandemic as historic inflation crashed into the otherwise strong recovery.”
It’s that inflation, under Biden’s agenda, that has surged to levels approaching 9% across the nation, and critical individual category costs for consumers, like gasoline for cars in which they commute to their jobs, have exploded by more than a dollar per gallon.
MSN warned the numbers underscore “the bumpier path ahead for the country’s rebound. On one hand, the first months of 2022 saw the omicron wave crest and then quickly ease. Daily virus infections hit their lowest levels since the summer in March, and while case counts have trended slightly upward, they remain well below the highs seen during the second half of last year.”
But it continued, “But while the coronavirus’s threat has largely faded, inflation took its place as the economy’s biggest downside risk. Price growth accelerated to a year-over-year pace of 8.5% in March, marking the fastest inflation since 1981 and a sizeable pickup from the rate seen at the end of 2021.” ##
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Snyder noted that: “In Gallup’s April survey, only 18 percent of Americans rated economic conditions as “good”, and only 2 percent rated them as “excellent”…
The GDP news comes on the heels of newly released polling data from Gallup that suggested that economy confidence is extremely low among the American public.
More than four in ten (42%) of Americans said that economic conditions in America were “poor,” while another 38% said that they were only “fair” in Gallup’s April survey. Just 2% said economic conditions were “excellent,” while 18% said they were “good.””
The video below, while it presents the information differently, raises the point that the federal government shares blame for the housing shortage that the producer says ‘rigged’ the housing market in 2022. Factually, there are others that make a similar point.
Please see the related reports linked above and below for more insights.
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That’s a wrap on this installment of “News through the lens of manufactured homes and factory-built housing” © where “We Provide, You Decide.” © ## (Affordable housing, manufactured homes, reports, fact-checks, analysis, and commentary. Third-party images or content are provided under fair use guidelines for media.) (See Related Reports, further below. Text/image boxes often are hot-linked to other reports that can be access by clicking on them.)
By L.A. “Tony” Kovach – for MHLivingNews.com.
Tony earned a journalism scholarship and earned numerous awards in history and in manufactured housing. For example, he earned the prestigious Lottinville Award in history from the University of Oklahoma, where he studied history and business management. He’s a managing member and co-founder of LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC, the parent company to MHProNews, and MHLivingNews.com. This article reflects the LLC’s and/or the writer’s position, and may or may not reflect the views of sponsors or supporters.
Connect on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/latonykovach
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