Gaslighting

Home Prices Just Did Something That They Have Never Done Before

Everyone knew that home prices were going crazy, and now we have some solid numbers that are simply incredible.  Home prices are rising faster than they ever have before, and so if you are shopping for a home in this environment I truly feel sorry for you.  In many parts of the country, average hard working American families have already been completely priced out of the market.  Prior to the pandemic, the largest price bubbles were in major urban areas along both coasts, but now desirable rural and suburban communities all over the nation are red hot.  In some cases, we have seen wild bidding wars that result in buyers paying more than a million dollars over asking price, and this unprecedented frenzy is pushing home prices to dizzying heights.

On Tuesday, the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller home price data for the month of April was released, and it quickly made headlines all across America…

U.S. home prices jumped the most in more than 30 years in April.

Nationally, the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller index of property values climbed 14.6% from a year earlier, according to a statement Tuesday, the biggest gain in data going back to 1988. That came after 13.2% increase in March, and was the 11th straight month that price gains accelerated.

This particular series of data only goes back to 1988, and in all that time we have never seen a rise of this magnitude.

One expert that is being quoted by CNBC is calling the rise in prices “truly extraordinary”…

“April’s performance was truly extraordinary. The 14.6% gain in the National Composite is literally the highest reading in more than 30 years of S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller data,” said Craig Lazzara, managing director and global head of index investment strategy at S&P Dow Jones Indices.

Redfin has also released new numbers, and their numbers show an even faster rate of increase for home prices…

… it makes sense that home prices are also surging thanks to trillions in stimmy checks, near-record low mortgage rates and an exodus away from cities, and as we noted two last month that’s precisely what they are doing, with Redfin reporting an 18% jump in median home sale prices to an all time high…

… as a record 58% of all houses sell within two weeks of listing, of which 45% sell for more than their listing price, also a record.

But don’t worry about these numbers.  Officials at the Federal Reserve insist that inflation is “low” and that they have everything under control.

If you can’t afford to buy a home, you can still try to rent a place, but rent prices are also starting to explode in many areas around the country…

Leading the trend is Boise, ID, where rents grew another 6 percent in June and are now up 39 percent since the start of the pandemic. But the fastest single-month rent growth took place in Spokane, WA, where prices shot up 8.1 percent in June and sit 31 percent above pre-pandemic levels. After that, a handful of fast-growing cities have experienced roughly 20 percent price appreciation over the last year and a half. With the exception of Virginia Beach, VA, all of them are located in the Western United States, absorbing the rental demand overflowing from nearby, pricey metros like the San Francisco Bay Area and Greater Los Angeles.

Those that are having their rents jacked up will be just fine as long as their paychecks are increasing at the same rate.

Oh, but that isn’t happening for most people, is it?

Vehicle prices are getting crazy too.  According to the Wall Street Journal, some dealers are now selling new vehicles for “thousands of dollars” above the sticker price…

Some buyers say they have encountered dealerships asking for thousands of dollars above MSRP. And analysts and dealers say the practice is becoming more widespread and occurring on a wider range of vehicles, including more mainstream models that typically wouldn’t be targeted for such price increases.

In the old days, the goal was to negotiate a deal that was as far below sticker price as possible.

Unfortunately, these days many customers are willingly making offers that are much higher than the MSRP….

“I was shocked,” said Ken Baird, a 61-year-old Boca Raton, Fla., resident who was recently shopping for a Kia Telluride. The window sticker on the particular model he was looking at read $45,000, and he said he offered to pay $3,000 over that knowing the vehicle was in high demand.

Needless to say, food prices are getting very painful as well.

In fact, an official at one food bank in Chicago says that their food purchasing budget “has doubled” over the past 12 months…

Soaring food prices aren’t just impacting financially strapped families and the working poor. They’re also affecting the mission of US food banks who are spending a lot more on food than ever before.

“We’re already spending a lot more on food than we have in years past,” said Greg Trotter, a spokesman for the Greater Chicago Food Depository, a large food bank, who spoke with VOA News. “Our food purchasing budget has doubled this year.”

All of this has been caused by the actions of our leaders.  Our politicians in Washington decided to go on the greatest spending binge in history and the Fed decided to pump trillions of fresh dollars into the financial system in order to “save the economy”, and now we have rip-roaring inflation as a result.

In addition to very painful inflation, we are also now dealing with widespread shortages.  For example, as the holiday weekend approaches many locations around the nation are once again running out of gasoline…

Gas stations across the country are running out of gasoline just as 43 million Americans are preparing to hit the road for the July 4th holiday weekend.

Those that do manage to find gas are likely to find some of the highest prices in almost seven years, with gas now averaging $3.10 a gallon across the US – the highest since October 2014.

The corporate media would have us believe that extremely high inflation and widespread shortages are signs that the U.S. economy is “booming”.

But to me, it sounds way too much like a rerun of the Jimmy Carter era of the 1970s.

Sadly, this is just the start of the pain.  The politicians in Washington continue to spend money like drunken sailors, and the Federal Reserve continues to pump more fresh cash into the financial system each week.

So the short-term outlook is quite bleak, and the long-term outlook is even worse.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook, Twitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

They Are Gaslighting Us! Nightmarish Inflation Is Already Here But The Fed Is Denying That It Even Exists

They would like us to believe that what we can see happening right in front of our eyes is not actually real.  Over the past year, our politicians in Washington have gone on the largest spending binge in U.S. history by a very wide margin, and the Federal Reserve has created the most enormous financial bubble of all time by pumping trillions upon trillions of fresh dollars into the financial markets.  Of course this was going to cause very painful inflation, and prices are rising very aggressively all around us.  But Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and other leaders in Washington are trying to convince us that even though they added all of this money to the system it has hardly affected the overall rate of inflation at all.  They are “gaslighting” us, and it is absolutely infuriating.

If you are not familiar with the term “gaslighting”, the following is how Wikipedia defines it…

Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person or a group covertly sows seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or group, making them question their own memory, perception, or judgement.

This is precisely what they are trying to do to all of us.  Everyone can see that nightmarish inflation is already here, but they are trying to manipulate us into thinking that it is not.

Just look at home prices.  Everyone needs a place to live, and existing home prices have risen 23.6 percent over the past year…

The median existing-home price rose 23.6% in May from a year earlier to $350,300, a record high, NAR said. The annual price appreciation was the strongest in data going back to 1999. Median sales prices have climbed sharply since rising above $300,000 for the first time last July.

At this point, homes are absolutely flying off the market.  In fact, the average time that a home stays on the market has hit a record low…

Homes are selling quickly. The typical home that sold in May spent 17 days on the market, matching the record low reached in April, NAR said.

Buyers with limited cash for down payments are struggling the most to compete. Half of existing-home buyers in April who used mortgages put at least 20% down, according to a NAR survey.

But Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell insists that everything is just fine and that the Fed is perfectly capable of keeping inflation around 2 percent…

“When Congress spends trillions of dollars and the Fed prints money, something’s got to give,” Rep. Mark Green (R., Tenn.) said. He asked Mr. Powell whether the price increases seen in recent months are “the start of something that could be as bad as the ‘70s,” when inflation reached double digits.

Mr. Powell said such a scenario is “very, very unlikely,” in part because the central bank “is strongly prepared to use its tools to keep us around 2% inflation.”

What an insane thing to say.

How can you claim that you are going to “keep us around 2% inflation” when inflation is already out of control?

As John Williams of shadowstats.com has documented, if honest numbers were being used the official rate of inflation would already be well into double digits.

Of course for certain categories we are now seeing triple digit inflation.  For instance, at one point in May the price of lumber was four times higher than it was at the same time last year…

The price of lumber, which shot up to $1,600 per thousand board feet in May from $400 early last year, is making renovations more expensive – especially projects that involve kitchens cabinets, hardwood floors and additions that require framing.

But Powell just told Congress that he is not troubled by any of this…

“If you look behind the headline and look at the categories where these prices are really going up, you’ll see that it tends to be areas that are directly affected by the reopening,” Mr. Powell said in a hearing before a House subcommittee. “That’s something that we’ll go through over a period. It will then be over. And it should not leave much of a mark on the ongoing inflation process.”

These days, Powell is definitely starting to sound a lot like Frank Drebin.

We are supposed to believe that nothing out of the ordinary is happening, but meanwhile the wholesale price of chicken wings has more than tripled…

“The [wholesale] price of wings a year ago was as low as 98 cents,” per pound, Charlie Morrison, Chairman and CEO of Wingstop Restaurants Inc., told CNN Business. “Today, it’s at $3.22. So it’s a meaningful difference.”

Our leaders insist that this is perfectly normal.

Nothing to see here.

Please move along.

To me, one of the craziest examples of inflation in our economy is what is happening to used car prices.

At this point, some used vehicles are now selling for more than they sold for when they were brand new…

When it was new, the window sticker price on a typical 2019 Toyota Tacoma SR double cab pickup was just under $29,000. Two years later, dealers are paying almost $1,000 more than that to buy the same vehicle, even though it’s used. Then they’re selling it to consumers for more than $33,000.

Welcome to the wacky world of U.S. car and truck sales, where the pandemic and a global shortage of computer chips have pushed prices to record levels.

I was absolutely floored when I first read that.

We have never seen anything happen like this before in all of U.S. history.

But Fed officials are going to continue to tell you that everything is just fine in the months ahead even as economic conditions continue to go haywire all around us.

I warned that extremely painful inflation was coming in my last book, and I will be warning about it again in the new book that I will soon be releasing.

Our leaders consciously made the decision to flood the system with new money in a desperate attempt “to save the economy”, and they should just be honest with us about the consequences of that decision.

But instead, they are just going to keep trying to spin the truth for as long as they can.

Unfortunately for them, the clock is ticking, and time is not on their side.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook, Twitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.