Market Watch

[Hay Dude]

I just found out the local Massey Ferguson dealer bit the dust and is no longer in business. Can't say I'm too surprised. There were signs of major cracks that I picked up early on. I remember that dealer telling me they were selling the heck out of those tractors yet they had a yard full of them all the time. Now they went belly up. The economic storm that is hitting this industry is real.

It’s very real. Dealerships are consolidating to survive. This reminds me of the late 70’s early 80’s. Runaway inflation, high interest rates and unstable energy.

 

[Gator6x4]

$100,000.00 CD Three years ago @ 0.015 percent interest paid the handsome sum of $15.00 annually or $1.25 a month.

$100,000.00 CD today @ 5.76 percent interest pays $5,760 dollars annually or $480.00 a month.

Same $100,000.00 in savings. One huge difference in what interest rate is paid. Three years ago negative interest was being pushed. Negative interest would mean Banks would charge you for storing the $100,000.00.

The days of the Great Depression would have returned and people would have withdrawn savings and buried the money in fruit jars in the back yard. Or, do as people with savings in Japan have been doing for the past 7 years while Negative Interest rates have been in effect buy a home safe to keep the money in at home.

Bank of Japan will end negative interest rates in 2024, most economists say: Reuters poll

The Bank of Japan will end its negative interest rate policy next year, the majority of economists said in a Reuters poll, as the market has begun to envisage the demise of its ultra-easy monetary settings.

www.reuters.com

 

[ultrarunner]

$100,000.00 CD Three years ago @ 0.015 percent interest paid the handsome sum of $15.00 annually or $1.25 a month.

$100,000.00 CD today @ 5.76 percent interest pays $5,760 dollars annually or $480.00 a month.

Same $100,000.00 in savings. One huge difference in what interest rate is paid. Three years ago negative interest was being pushed. Negative interest would mean Banks would charge you for storing the $100,000.00.

The days of the Great Depression would have returned and people would have withdrawn savings and buried the money in fruit jars in the back yard. Or, do as people with savings in Japan have been doing for the past 7 years while Negative Interest rates have been in effect buy a home safe to keep the money in at home.

Bank of Japan will end negative interest rates in 2024, most economists say: Reuters poll

The Bank of Japan will end its negative interest rate policy next year, the majority of economists said in a Reuters poll, as the market has begun to envisage the demise of its ultra-easy monetary settings.

www.reuters.com

Yep… the day negative interest rate start is the same day I go shopping for a bigger mattress.

Lots of advanced aged retired hit hard by low CD rates.

Moms neighbor at 93 was beside herself saying her deceased husband left clear instructions to only spend interest but there was no interest to spend…

 

[2manyrocks]

My Mom worked with other families whose ancestors are buried in a rural cemetery to jointly fund a cemetery care fund that depended on CD interest to pay for the mowing. The current administrator had no choice but to eat into the principal to continue to pay for mowing.

 

[ultrarunner]

Many did and more than a few had new hardship as interest rates fell into the basement and stayed there.

 

[Gator6x4]

Many did and more than a few had new hardship as interest rates fell into the basement and stayed there.

The really sad thing was that when people were receiving a good interest rate on savings, loans to children and grandchildren were made and not repaid. Then the prolonged low interest drought hung on and the principal started decreasing and what had been a self sufficient elderly person became a person in need.

 

[ultrarunner]

Seen it happen… grandma and her old ways who pays cash for everything and starts the month first making sure the bills are paid… often in person for utilities.

Tough times make tough people and even in good times they remember.

It’s hard for someone only knowing good times to adjust or even fathom what bad times are plus we really do have a safety net that boggles the mind much of which I had no idea existed until I started managing low income housing where the taxpayers will give you a middle class home with a gardener and utilities discount services and cell and Internet and computer can be free and food is provided plus a hot school lunch as well as transportation, education and childcare…

It’s the rare individual that can break out if raised with the above.

 

[Gator6x4]

I am sure there is no one who posts in this forum that would be happy if there employer called them into the office and happily informed them that he was going to do them the biggest favor anyone had every done for them. He then announces he was going to cut there salary and by doing this it would make them more financially secure and give them more money.

Never happen you say. Don't be too hasty with your response. We as a nation have had that done twice recently and we are paying for it today. Salary's were not cut but taxes were, which caused a determinable domino effect in the Nations Financial Spread Sheet.

In 2018, shortly after the last, "I am going to cut your taxes occurred" and were signed into law, a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report predicted that Tax Revenues would plummet; annual deficits would grow; and not even the promise of economic growth being made by politicians to justify the giveaway would be enough to make up the difference in the budget.

The day of reckoning has come. Time to stop dancing and pay the Fiddler has come.

MSN

 

[2manyrocks]

CBO has been telling them for many, many years what they are doing is unsustainable.

 

[ultrarunner]

Why is it when taxes are reduced spending increases?

It seems the real disconnect is spending on the Federal Level is independent of revenue.

Unsustainable is right but financial constraints seem not to apply at the Federal level.

Taxes of all kinds are by far my biggest expense and property tax is the worst as it is a tax for simply "Owning"

Sales tax requires a transaction, Income tax require income, etc.

Then there is the value derived from taxes paid? How many 2 million dollar restrooms does it take to rip through a budget or bike lanes to no where?

On a city level not much... police no where to be found and lawlessness has no bounds...

On a State level the State will willing pay more for goods and services and restrain trade based on politics... such as California travel bans to many other States... mandating higher cost energy, forced obsolescence of diesel and two stroke equipment just for starters and this includes tractors.