Economic indicators seem to indicate that the US economy is treading water with some indicators up and others down .

American consumers continue to spend what they don’t have.

Credit card indebtedness reached a record $1.03 trillion in the second quarter of 2023, according to the New York Federal Reserve Bank. Total household debt exceeds $17 trillion, with 72.4% of that coming from mortgages and home equity lines of credit.

The Index of Consumer Sentiment ticked down from 71.6 in July  to 71.2 in August. The July reading was the best reading since October 2021. But Americans remain anxious about the economy overall.

The Small Business Optimism Index increased from 91.0 in June to 91.9 in July, the highest reading since November. Despite the uptick in sentiment, small business owners remain concerned about the economy, with the uncertainty index rising to a 25-month high. The top “single most important problem” was the difficulty in finding enough qualified labor (23%), followed closely by inflation (21%). Despite this, fewer NFIB business members plan to increase prices over the next three months… falling to the lowest rate since December 2020.

Consumer prices rose 0.2% in July for the second straight month, with 3.2% growth over the past 12 months. Excluding food and energy, core consumer inflation has increased 4.7% since July 2022, the weakest reading since October 2021.

Yet, core inflation remained stubbornly high.

Producer prices for final demand goods and services rose 0.3% in July, the strongest gain since January but driven largely by higher costs for services.

Overall, inflation continued to moderate, but even so the Federal Reserve is predicted to keep interest relatively high. They are not being predicted to make any changes in interest rates at their next meeting in September.

By Brett Rowland,The Center Square

The U.S. Postal Service reported a $1.7 billion loss in the third quarter adding to ongoing losses for the once self-sufficient agency. 

The U.S. Postal Service, an independent federal establishment that is mandated to be self-financing, said the third quarter losses were “almost exclusively to the non-cash impact of the Postal Service Reform Act in April 2022.” The act removed the Postal Service’s obligation to pre-fund retiree health benefits and eliminated all previously imposed pre-funding requirements that remained unpaid, among other changes. The law was intended to improve the Postal Service’s financial sustainability. 

“Continued rising costs in several areas of our business pose a challenge,” Chief Financial Officer Joseph Corbett said in a statement. “We continue to manage the costs within our control, such as by reducing work hours by 6 million hours compared to the same quarter last year and by focusing on transportation and other operating costs.”

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said the Postal Service continues to face inflation and other pressures.

“Our team is working hard to reduce our cost of performance which is helping to offset still sizeable inflationary and economic pressures,” he said in a statement. “We are setting the stage for long-term financial sustainability as we continue to modernize our processing, transportation, retail and delivery networks.”

Congress designed the U.S. Postal Service to be self-sustaining, but in fiscal year 2007, expenses overtook revenue. This has led to losses of $87 billion through 2020. The agency is further saddled with $188 billion in unfunded liabilities and debt, according to a 2021 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

The U.S. Postal Service is the largest postal service in the world, delivering an estimated 49% of all mail sent globally. 

A serious crime in the Biden Administration is the sale of incandescent light bulbs, the sale of which is now illegal.

The Biden administration has enacted a regulation that places retailer or online seller offering incandescent light bulbs for sale subject to severe punishment under the full enforcement of the federal government.

The crackdown on Thomas Edison’s familiar light bulb has been in the works for a long time. It started with provisions tucked into the big 2007 energy bill signed into law by then-President George Bush. These provisions created energy efficiency standards for residential lighting that incandescent bulbs would have great difficulty achieving.  The regulations were designed to get progressively more stringent in the ensuing years.

At the time, many environmental activists and some advantage-seeking light bulb manufacturers were aggressively pushing compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) as the green alternative. But those twisty CFL bulbs, with their high price and harsh glare, proved very unpopular with consumers – a backlash not unlike the one seen early this year after a Biden administration official suggested banning gas stoves.  Nonetheless the Obama administration Department of Energy (DOE), in its waning days in January 2017, finalized rules accelerating the demise of incandescent bulbs.

Governor Greg Gianforte recently opposed a proposed resource management plan amendment offered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) that would restrict responsible coal production in Montana.

“Affordable power generated by coal keeps the lights on in Montana and fuels manufacturing across the country and world,” Gov. Gianforte said. “I’m urging the Biden administration to scrap its plan that would undermine coal production in eastern Montana, eliminate a source of funding for our public schools, and destabilize our energy grid.”

Last week, the governor submitted a letter to BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning and other agency officials as part of the public comment process for BLM’s Miles City Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement/Resource Management Plan Amendment.

The BLM is currently contemplating changes to its coal screening process that would nearly block all coal reserves in Montana from production.

Revenues from coal reserves on state trust lands fund schools and other public institutions in Montana.

By Brett Rowland, The Center Square

A congressional watchdog repeatedly warned lawmakers about national spending and debt levels before a second of the Big Three credit rating agencies dropped the United States government’s credit rating down a notch.

Fitch Ratings made the decision recently to downgrade the government’s credit rating from the highest level of AAA down one tier to AA+. Fitch pointed to the U.S. government’s high national debt and deficits and an “erosion of governance.”

“In Fitch’s view, there has been a steady deterioration in standards of governance over the last 20 years, including on fiscal and debt matters, notwithstanding the June bipartisan agreement to suspend the debt limit until January 2025,” according to credit-rating agency. “The repeated debt-limit political standoffs and last-minute resolutions have eroded confidence in fiscal management. In addition, the government lacks a medium-term fiscal framework, unlike most peers, and has a complex budgeting process. These factors, along with several economic shocks as well as tax cuts and new spending initiatives, have contributed to successive debt increases over the last decade. Additionally, there has been only limited progress in tackling medium-term challenges related to rising social security and Medicare costs due to an aging population.”

After the announcement from Fitch, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the downgrade was “arbitrary and based on outdated data.” In 2011, S&P Rating dropped the U.S. government’s credit rating one notch. Moody’s is the only one of the Big Three that has kept the U.S. credit rating at the top level of AAA. 

But the federal government’s own agencies have repeatedly raised concerns about federal spending and debt.

In February, the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s audit of the federal government’s financial statements found it “continues to face an unsustainable long-term fiscal path.”

“The growing debt is a consequence of borrowing to finance increasingly large annual budget deficits,” according to the report. “GAO projects that spending for Social Security, federal health care programs, and all other federal program spending increases more than revenue, resulting in the primary deficit; and net interest spending, which primarily represents the federal government’s cost to service its debt, steadily increases over the next 30 years, further widening the total budget deficits.”

The International Monetary Fund listed the United States’ debt as a percentage of GDP at 106% in 2021. Countries with high debt-to-GDP figures in 2021 included Cyprus (142.82%), Italy (146.55%), Singapore (163.89%), Eritrea (176.25%), Sudan (181.97%), Greece (212.4%) and Japan (221.32%).