President Joe Biden has repeatedly touted that US manufacturing is strong as hell. The White House claims the sector has created 800,000 new jobs, companies are reshoring, and taxpayers are subsidizing the construction of new facilities. Liberty Nation has disputed some of the numbers presented by the administration. But what cannot be contested is that the industry is in a recession, and the latest data suggest the situation is deteriorating for what is supposed to be the bread and butter of the president’s Build Back Better agenda.
The US Manufacturing Recession
The S&P Global Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) declined to 46.3 in June, down from 48.4 in May. This was also below the consensus estimate of 48.5 and represented the seventh contraction over the last eight months. Remember, the Institute for Supply Management’s (ISM) Manufacturing PMI, a gauge of where the sector is heading, also slid to 46.9, the seventh straight monthly contraction. Other crucial regional central bank manufacturing metrics weakened in the past month: the Kansas Fed Manufacturing Index slumped to -10, the Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index eased to -13.7, and the Dallas Fed Manufacturing clocked in at -26.5.
This comes as the manufacturing sector has been shedding jobs in the last couple of months.
Do these numbers support the broader recession case? Not exactly. Manufacturing accounts for a smaller percentage of the overall economy (11%), so any sharp downturn is likely to impact the US less than other industries. Still, it does present an indictment on Bidenomics since the administration has spent hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on domestic manufacturing with little to show.
Keep Panicking and Raise Rates
(Photo by Peter Dazeley/Getty Images)
Can Britons keep calm and carry on? Hardly. Economic conditions are brutal across the pond, and it does not appear to be improving at all.
The annual inflation rate was stuck at 8.7% in May, higher than the market forecast of 8.4%. The core inflation rate, which strips the volatile energy and food components, surged to 7.1% year-over-year in May, up from 6.8% and above economists’ expectations. This forced the Bank of England (BoE) to pull the trigger on a 50-basis-point rate hike at the June policy meeting to 5%. Because of how high inflation is in the UK, investors anticipate that the benchmark interest rate will top 6%. But will this be enough? Not according to Andrew Bailey, the BoE chief.
Bailey had the temerity to tell Sky News on June 22 that Brits are to blame for rampant price inflation, urging the public to stop asking for wage hikes:
“We’ve got to get, and we will get inflation back to its target. To do that, I have to be clear – and we expect inflation to come down this year – to do that, we cannot continue to have the current level of wage increases. And we can’t have companies seeking to rebuild profit margins which means prices continue to go up at their current rates. But what I would say to people is we expect inflation to come down, and it is important then that price setting and wage setting reflects that. Because the current levels, I’ll be absolutely honest, are unsustainable.”
Of course, it is easy for a civil servant making $600,000 a year to make these demands. That said, he believes low- and middle-income folks are at fault for trying to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. What about the central bank running the printing presses in 2020 and slashing interest rates to all-time lows? It is astounding that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell sounds more reasonable than his British counterpart.
A Global CBDC Coming?
Countries worldwide are working on initiatives to digitize their currencies. But if the entire planet embraces central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), why can’t an international digital currency be created? International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Kristalina Georgieva essentially made this case during a recent presentation, revealing that the organization is “working hard on the concept of a global CBDC platform.” She stated in her remarks: “If we are to be successful, CBDCs could not be fragmented national propositions. To have transactions more efficient and fairer, we need systems that connect countries. In other words, we need interoperability.” Georgieva’s remarks are not exactly surprising, as a global CBDC is an endgame for the globalists.
