Real news from real people. Sourced through social media
Visuals that decode the economy-GDP shifts, inflation trends, rate moves, and policy signals-all in plain sight for citizen investors and thinkers.
The Producer Price Index for June showed a 0% month-over-month change. No growth. No contraction. Just flat. This comes three and a half months after the April tariff wave, giving producers time to adapt. And yet, there’s no visible inflation showing up in the data. That reveals something important, foreign
The housing market is tipping out of balance and homebuilders are throwing every tool they have to stop it. July 2025 confirms what’s already moving under the surface. Correction-mode is spreading across the Southeast. States like Arkansas, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama are seeing inventory pile up, buyers hesitate, and
The economic data released this morning, July 17, 2025 at 08:30am ET, paints a clear picture: inflation is not accelerating. It’s cooling, and the Fed has breathing room. Import prices rose just 0.1% month-over-month in June, with the year-over-year rate at -0.2%. That’s deflationary. Export prices jumped 0.5% MoM and
The American ethos places way too much importance on having a house. Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it doesn’t. Right now it doesn’t from a rent vs buy perspective, especially if you need to take out a mortgage. It might in a few years after prices mean revert. pic.twitter.com/aweWIcMS1h —
June’s inflation report came in cool and quiet. Producer Price Index printed 0.0% month-over-month. That’s no movement at all. Consensus was for a 0.2% climb. Core PPI, which excludes food and energy, also showed zero change. Year-over-year headline inflation eased to 2.3%. Core year-over-year landed at 2.5%. Both figures came
by Michael Do you feel financial stress on a regular basis? If so, you are certainly not alone. As you will see below, a new survey has discovered that more than two-thirds of the entire country is feeling “anxiety and depression” due to financial stress. The cost of living is
Inflation is back on the move. The June CPI came in at 2.7%, marking the first upside surprise in five months and the highest print since February. Core CPI ticked up to 2.9%. Monthly inflation accelerated to 0.3%, up from 0.1% in May. Gasoline dropped, but everything else climbed. Shelter
The pizza business is a great way to measure the real economy because it shows us what real people can afford and cannot afford or are choosing to spend their money on right now. And it’s a huge indicator of where the economy is headed. Pizza sales across the board
Prime Day 2025 didn’t just break records. It rewrote the playbook. U.S. retailers pulled in $24.1 billion in online spend from July 8 to July 11, according to Adobe’s final tally. That’s a 30.3% jump from last year. But here’s the catch: Prime Day was stretched from 2 days to
by Michael Everybody agrees that the rich have been getting even richer in recent years. But what about all the rest of us? Unfortunately, it turns out that flooding the system with money was really good for the wealthy, but it has made things much worse for almost everyone else.
The warning lights are flashing across the consumer credit landscape. In Q1 2025, the share of credit card balances at large banks that were 30 or more days past due hit 3.40%. That’s the third-highest reading in over a decade. The 60-day and 90-day buckets climbed to 2.47% and 1.77%,
Asia’s deflation wave is no longer a theory. It’s a measurable shift. In June 2025, China’s producer price index dropped 3.6% year over year. That marks the sharpest contraction since July 2023 and extends the deflation streak to 33 consecutive months. The cost of production materials fell 4.4%. Mining prices
The entire fiscal setup of the United States is stretched beyond its design limits. Anyone still thinking the next forty years will play out like the last is ignoring what the spreadsheets already show. The math is exposed. The fuse is lit. Federal debt crossed $36 trillion in July 2025.
Housing defaults are accelerating at levels not seen since 2012, and the catalyst is clear. The Federal Reserve raised rates from near 0% to 5.5% in just 18 months, forcing 30-year mortgage rates to spike from 2.65% to 8.03% late last year. Current rates are sitting at 6.625% on average
It’s July 10 and the numbers are locked. The average American parent is spending 22% of household income on child care. That’s triple the federal affordability benchmark of 7%. Weekly costs for center-based infant care now sit at $343, up 6.9% from last year. Family care centers are charging $344,
In the second quarter of 2025, the auto finance market crossed a threshold that’s hard to ignore. Total auto loan debt in the United States has now reached $1.63 trillion, officially surpassing the student loan balance for the first time. According to Edmunds, 19.3% of new car buyers committed to
President Trump has formally notified Brazil that a 50% tariff will be imposed on all goods entering the United States beginning August 1. The letter, posted publicly on July 9, marks the highest rate among the 21 countries targeted in this round of trade enforcement. While other nations received standard
The Federal Housing Finance Agency just cleared a major shift in mortgage qualification rules. Rent payments can now be counted toward mortgage applications, a change aimed at broadening access for renters hoping to buy homes. This move coincides with the return of 40-year adjustable-rate mortgages, offering longer terms but variable
If the economy is already "booming," why do we need to cut the rates ? https://t.co/VuNcTJCX3h — Craig Shapiro (@ces921) July 8, 2025 Copper breaks to an ATH today in a monster 13% move. Hmmm … but everyone wants rate cuts. 🤔 pic.twitter.com/TdSJdIv2MT — John (@market_sleuth) July 8, 2025 The
Job openings are falling. Unemployment is flat.We’ve seen this movie before. The 2020–2025 labor market setup is starting to rhyme with 2007, when JOLTS rolled over quietly, and the unemployment rate held steady… until it didn’t. Not a perfect correlation yet, but one H2… pic.twitter.com/lCiYvZUDqL — Kurt S. Altrichter, CRPS®