No, Consumer Spending Didn’t Plunge in January and Auto Sales Didn’t Collapse, or Whatever, But the Huge Seasonal Adjustments Might Have Gone Awry by Wolf Richter • Feb 28, 2025 • 82 Comments Year-over-year, consumer spending jumped by 5.6% and retail sales by 4.8% in January. So there’s that.
Our Drunken Sailors and their Credit Cards: Delinquencies, Balances, Burden, and Available Credit in Q4 2024 by Wolf Richter • Feb 19, 2025 • 39 Comments More people, more workers, higher incomes, more spending. Banks eager to lend at high rates and collect swipe fees.
Auto Debts, Auto-Loan-to-Income Ratio, Serious Delinquencies for Prime & Subprime: Our Drunken Sailors and their Auto Loans by Wolf Richter • Feb 18, 2025 • 61 Comments Subprime, which means “bad credit” and not “low income,” is always in trouble. But it’s only 14% of auto loans. Prime is in pristine condition.
Here Come the HELOCs: Mortgages, Housing-Debt-to-Income-Ratio, Serious Delinquencies & Foreclosures in Q4 2024 by Wolf Richter • Feb 15, 2025 • 68 Comments HELOC balances surged, mortgage balances barely budged: More households, more income, more housing debt.
Household Debts, Debt-to-Income Ratio, Serious Delinquencies, Collections, Foreclosures, Bankruptcies: Our Drunken Sailors’ Debts in Q4 2024 by Wolf Richter • Feb 13, 2025 • 114 Comments More people, more workers, more income, more debt.
Our Drunken Sailors Partied Massively in Q4, Propped Up GDP Growth. Debt-to-GDP Ratio Worsened to 121.8% by Wolf Richter • Jan 30, 2025 • 59 Comments Biggest consumer spending surge in nearly two years overpowered the drop in private domestic investment and change in private inventories.
Subprime, Prime, and Overall Auto-Loan Delinquency Rates: Why this Surge in “Subprime” Delinquencies when “Prime” Is Pristine? by Wolf Richter • Jan 22, 2025 • 55 Comments We’re in the 4th cycle of the subprime profit motive after auto-loan securitizations became a thing in the early 1990s.
The Fed Needs to Watch Out: Amid Strong Demand from our Drunken Sailors, Retail Sales Surged in Late 2024 and Inflation Caught its Second Wind by Wolf Richter • Jan 16, 2025 • 162 Comments More consumers, more workers, more jobs, more money. GDPNow jumps upon these retail sales.
Money Market Funds, Large CDs, Small CDs, and Total Deposits: Americans’ Huge Piles of Interest-Earning Cash as Rates Drop by Wolf Richter • Dec 13, 2024 • 48 Comments Household cash in money market funds jumps to a record but CD balances begin to decline.
Americans Buy Ever Bigger, More Powerful, More Fuel-Efficient Trucks, SUVs & Cars. EVs Escalate the Horsepower War by Wolf Richter • Nov 25, 2024 • 83 Comments “The roughly linear increase in specific power” of ICE vehicles over the past 50 years “does not appear to be slowing”: EPA.
