The FED-Induced Housing Crisis
While the Federal Reserve’s inflationary policies are publicized as protecting the American people, they are causing the American dream of homeownership to slip away.
By raising the federal funds rate to combat their self-inflicted inflation, the Fed has driven up mortgage costs, making it harder for aspiring homeowners to secure a place in the housing market. These policies have resigned aspiring homeowners to a future of perpetual renting.
At the beginning of 2022, the federal funds rate was 0.08%. As of June 2024, that number is 5.33%. The rate hike was in response to the rampant inflation of previous years. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 7.0% in 2021 and 6.5% in 2022, far exceeding the Fed’s 2% target. This spike was caused by the trillion-dollar infrastructure bills, COVID stimulus packages, and other imprudent government expenditures that had motivated the FED to increase the money supply. This inflation erodes purchasing power, increasing the cost of living for millions of Americans. With the economy in this desperate state, the FED attempted to counteract it with a federal funds rate surge. While increasing this rate is a proven tool to combat inflation, it is not without cost to consumers.
The federal funds rate is the interest rate banks lend each other overnight. It effectively sets the interest rate floor for the economy. When the FED increases this rate, it creates a chain reaction that increases borrowing costs for everyone, including those seeking mortgages. In response to the federal funds rate hike, the 2021 mortgage rate of 2.65% skyrocketed to 7.74% in June 2024.
This surge is devastating for potential homebuyers. Higher mortgage rates reduce what potential homeowners can afford. More of their monthly payment goes towards interest rather than principal, drastically affecting their buying power. For every 1% increase in mortgage rates, a buyer’s purchasing power decreases by approximately 13.80%. This means that a potential buyer who could previously afford a $750,000 home may now only qualify for a $646,500 home, assuming a fixed amount for a down payment.
This pushes previously affordable homes out of reach for many buyers and slows the housing market. According to the National Association of Realtors, the Housing Affordability Index dropped from 148.2 in 2021 to 98.2 in 2023, indicating a significant decrease in the ability of a median-income family to afford a median-priced home. This decline in affordability has led to a slowdown in home sales, with existing home sales falling from 6.12 million in 2021 to 4.09 million in 2023.
For borrowers with adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs), the impact of federal funds rate hikes is even more direct. The federal funds rate influences the financial indices to which ARMs are tied. As the rate increases, so does the index, leading to higher monthly payments for ARM holders. This process creates financial strain for borrowers who didn’t anticipate such increases when they initially took out their loans.
Federal funds rate hikes have also had broader economic implications. The housing market is a crucial driver of economic activity, influencing everything from construction and real estate services to consumer spending on household goods. Housing-related activities typically account for 15-18% of GDP and the recent downturn has affected various sectors. For instance, new housing starts declined from 1.61 million in 2021 to 1.41 million in 2023, reflecting the cooling effect of higher rates on construction activity. When mortgage rates climb and home buying slows, these sectors experience a downturn, rippling throughout the economy.
Raising the federal funds rate is one of the FED’s classic inflation reduction methods. However, the root of the problem is the source of the inflation. Wasteful government spending and expansionary monetary policy were the origin of the crisis. The current regime believes frivolous expenditures and printing money won’t lead to negative consequences. But for the millions of Americans struggling to buy a home, or crushed by the crippling cost of living, these policies are far from benign. For rich politicians whose financial futures are set, the gravity of the situation may not be evident. But for homeless, hungry Americans, the time for action is now.
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Biden Will Run
It’s hardly news that the mainstream media lies, is it?
But what’s more striking than the lies themselves are the contradictions, those moments when the mainstream media simply flips the narrative and says precisely the opposite of what it was saying five minutes ago.
This is done openly, brazenly and totally without shame.
It isn’t done just to save face, or even to lord it over the ignorant plebs who are too stupid to see what’s going on in front of their eyes. Maybe not all the time, anyway.
Sometimes, these contradictions serve a deeper purpose.
For four years, we were told by the mainstream media that Trump was a paranoid egomaniac dreaming up shadowy enemies—the “deep state” especially—to rationalise and justify his failures as a president. Nobody was secretly conspiring against Trump. Not the FBI, not the CIA, not the Justice Department. Not Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Trump was just a big orange baby, crying and scattering his toys across the floor because he’d made himself look stupid again.
For four years that was the narrative. It was replayed in the aftermath of the 2020 election, until the events of Jan. 6th made it unnecessary to say anything more on the subject.
And then, once Trump was finally out of the White House, Time just came out and said it: In the days and weeks after the election, there really was “a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes.” This conspiracy ensured that Trump was unable to rally support to challenge the election result. To stop the steal. Former supporters—powerful supporters, especially in business—simply deserted him. Trump had known something strange was happening—Time even said he knew and commented publicly on it—but he was powerless to do anything about it.
It went much deeper than that. In fact, that conspiracy hadn’t just been taking place in the days and weeks after the election. As Time admitted, secret negotiations and preparations about the 2020 election had been taking place for months, even a year or longer.
Time called this, without even a blush of shame, “The Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election.”
There’s a remarkable paragraph early on in the piece that deserves repeating in full, because it lays out just how coordinated this shadow campaign was, and how it justified itself.
“The handshake between business and labor was just one component of a vast, cross-partisan campaign to protect the election—an extraordinary shadow effort dedicated not to winning the vote but to ensuring it would be free and fair, credible and uncorrupted. For more than a year, a loosely organized coalition of operatives scrambled to shore up America’s institutions as they came under simultaneous attack from a remorseless pandemic and an autocratically inclined President. Though much of this activity took place on the left, it was separate from the Biden campaign and crossed ideological lines, with crucial contributions by nonpartisan and conservative actors. The scenario the shadow campaigners were desperate to stop was not a Trump victory. It was an election so calamitous that no result could be discerned at all, a failure of the central act of democratic self-governance that has been a hallmark of America since its founding.”
The article then lists the myriad things this “coalition” did to ensure “calamity” was averted.
“They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding. They fended off voter-suppression lawsuits, recruited armies of poll workers and got millions of people to vote by mail for the first time. They successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation and used data-driven strategies to fight viral smears. They executed national public-awareness campaigns that helped Americans understand how the vote count would unfold over days or weeks, preventing Trump’s conspiracy theories and false claims of victory from getting more traction. After Election Day, they monitored every pressure point to ensure that Trump could not overturn the result.”
Like I said, Time printed this without a blush of shame, just a month after Trump left office. Donald Trump’s “lies” were repurposed into a feelgood story, a heartwarming tale about the triumph of American democracy through its own subversion.
The message was clear: voting is no longer enough. For American democracy to survive in its darkest hour, it must be managed from the shadows.
You won’t know who these people are or what they’re doing. You haven’t elected them and you can’t monitor them. But don’t worry: they’ll make sure the result goes the right way.
Over the weekend, another narrative flip took place, and I think it tells us a similar story about where American democracy is heading.
Axios admitted, in the most casual manner, that a “Biden oligarchy” really is running the Biden presidency. It’s this oligarchy that will decide whether the President will continue his campaign for 2024, or whether he’ll bow out and be replaced by someone who still remembers how to tie his laces and what he had for breakfast.
“The only way President Biden steps aside, despite his debate debacle, is if the same small group of lifelong loyalists who enabled his run suddenly — and shockingly — decides it’s time for him to call it quits,” the Axios article stated.
The group of “lifelong loyalists” includes the President’s wife, Dr Jill Biden, his sister, his advisor Ted Kaufman and “a small band of White House advisers.”
“This decades-long kitchen cabinet operates as an extended family, council of elders and governing oligarchy. These allies alone hold sway over decisions big and small in Biden’s life and presidency.”
Before Thursday night’s abysmal debate, nobody in the mainstream media would ever have admitted this. The mere suggestion that Biden wasn’t fully in charge of his administration was dismissed as a “deranged conspiracy theory.” Those were New York magazine’s actual words, in 2023:
“The Trump version of this attack [Biden isn’t in charge] is a characteristically deranged conspiracy theory, in which some other person, either Barack Obama or Kamala Harris, is actually running the presidency while decrepit Joe Biden is being spooned mouthfuls of apple sauce.”
We can see this volte-face as an admission that Biden is actually going to be replaced. After all, nobody elected Dr Jill Biden and Biden’s sister to the office of president. How can Biden continue?
But I don’t think that’s why we’ve been told about this “governing oligarchy” now.
Biden isn’t just going to step aside—the Axios piece makes this clear. Biden and his closest intimates have been firm on this point, publicly. They returned from “crunch talks” at Camp David on Sunday and reaffirmed their determination not to drop out, but to soldier on.
The President also maintains the support of the Obamas, including, presumably, Michelle Obama, who is being touted, by some, to replace Biden.
On Friday morning, while talking heads were losing theirs, Barack Obama appeared, to do his “cool, calm, collected” thing on Twitter and reassure people that, although Biden obviously thinks it’s still 1988, he’s the only man to beat Donald Trump in November.
“Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself,” Obama wrote on Twitter.
“Between someone who tells the truth; who knows right from wrong and will give it to the American people straight — and someone who lies through his teeth for his own benefit. Last night didn’t change that, and it’s why so much is at stake in November.”
2020 was an election for managed democracy—it’s just that the American people didn’t know it until after they’d cast their votes and Time told them so. Now, however, with the revelation of the existence of the Biden oligarchy, nobody can claim that a vote for Biden in November is a vote for Biden, for an executive function as it has existed since the founding of the nation. It isn’t. It’s a knowing vote for a frontman, for managed democracy instead of Trump. Axios have already told you so.
This November, the secret custodians of American democracy will ask the American people to put the seal on their silent coup. Mark my words: Biden will run.
Leftists Call on Biden to Drone Strike Trump in Wake of Supreme Court Immunity Ruling
Deranged leftists panicked over Monday’s Supreme Court presidential immunity ruling reacted by calling on Joe Biden to order an assassination on former President Donald Trump.
Incensed by the decision throwing Special Counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents case against Trump into question, leftists on social media urged Biden to take advantage of the SCOTUS decision by immediately declaring himself a dictator and launching military action against the former president.
Masks are off pic.twitter.com/LTfcroLxLS
— BowTiedRanger (@BowTiedRanger) July 1, 2024
“The Supreme Court just gave Biden unequivocal immunity to order the military to take action against Trump,” claimed liberal lawyer Bradley P. Moss on X.
The Supreme Court just gave Biden unequivocal immunity to order the military to take action against Trump.
Today. Right now.— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) July 1, 2024
“The Supreme Court just ruled that a president can have the military execute them and the president is immune from prosecution for it,” Moss added in an update.
The Supreme Court just ruled that a president can have the military execute them and the president is immune from prosecution for it.
— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) July 1, 2024
“I strongly encourage Joe Biden to take advantage of his absolute immunity — which he has been lawfully granted by Trump’s Supreme Court Justices — to do whatever ‘official acts’ he needs to do in order to prevent Donald Trump from becoming President,” suggested pro-Biden political commentator Dash Dobrofsky.
I strongly encourage Joe Biden to take advantage of his absolute immunity — which he has been lawfully granted by Trump’s Supreme Court Justices — to do whatever ‘official acts’ he needs to do in order to prevent Donald Trump from becoming President.
— Dash Dobrofsky (@DashDobrofsky) July 1, 2024
Left-leaning lawyer Max Kennerly went further, tweeting a photoshop of last week’s New York Times headline calling on Biden to “leave the race.”
In full compliance with the Supreme Court’s ruling. pic.twitter.com/1lRJJ5cqHO
— Max Kennerly (@MaxKennerly) July 1, 2024
Leftist writer Aaron Rupar asked if the ruling meant Biden could imprison Chief Supreme Court Justice John Roberts.
“If President Biden declared today’s Supreme Court ruling to be an assault on democracy and ordered Chief Justice John Roberts imprisoned indefinitely, would that be an ‘official act?’” Rupar asked.
if President Biden declared today’s Supreme Court ruling to be an assault on democracy and ordered Chief Justice John Roberts imprisoned indefinitely, would that be an “official act?”
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 1, 2024
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor touched on the possibility a president immune from criminal liability for “official” acts could order military action against a rival, insinuating Trump could retaliate against Biden if restored to office.
The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military dissenting coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune. Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority’s message today.
Following Biden’s abysmal debate performance last Thursday, Democrats had been calling to swap him out for another candidate, however, it appears the TDS-suffering left is comfortable with Biden staying in power if he uses presidential immunity to destroy Trump.
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HECKENLIVELY: The Biden Administration Pressured Amazon To Censor Two Of My Books On Vaccines
When I saw a recent post from Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, reading, “In response to a subpoena from @Judiciary GOP, @Amazon revealed the 43 book titles it censored because of the Biden White House’s pressure,” I clicked the link out of curiosity.
Imagine my surprise when I found two of my books on the list: Plague: One Scientist’s Intrepid Search for the Truth About Human Retroviruses, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), Autism, and Other Diseases, as well as Inoculated: How Science Lost Its Soul in Autism. What was even more startling was that they’d twice listed Plague — for the original 2014 hardcover and the 2017 paperback.
They must really hate that book.
As Jordan tweeted, “Whether you love or hate the books on this list, no bookstore should be censoring books because of government power.”
One of the wild things about their censorship of that thick, 417-page book is that it takes the position that many chronic diseases are the result of immune exhaustion due to long-term, low-level viral infection of a recently discovered retrovirus, known as XMRV. The book was not an anti-virus book and had in fact been authored with a 20-year government scientist, Dr. Judy Mikovits, known for her work in virology.
The book was abundantly sourced with hundreds of footnotes.
Watch New York Times bestselling author Kent Heckenlively’s previous appearances on Infowars below.
VIDEO: Eisenhower’s Forgotten Warning with Author Kent Heckenlively
New Book Exposes Real Life Vampiric Globalist Elites
Big Rig Hauling More Than 60 Migrants Busted Near Southern Border
Authorities discovered more than 60 migrants hiding in a big rig near the U.S.-Mexico border over the weekend.
The bust unfolded on Saturday at a highway checkpoint in the town of Samalayuca, which lies roughly 25 miles south of Ciudad Juarez.
Officials inspected a suspicious soft-top trailer and found 63 U.S.-bound migrants from Central and South America and the Caribbean crammed inside.
The National Migration Institute (INM) reported “overcrowded conditions and high temperatures” inside the cargo area.
“During the review, the Federal Migration Agents (AFM) identified that the migrants were moving irregularly and are from Guatemala (18); Ecuador (23); El Salvador (6); Dominican Republic (2); Honduras (5); as well as three family units with two members each from Guatemala, Honduras and Ecuador.”
#Comunicado ? En una acción conjunta con fuerzas federales, @INAMI_mx #Chihuahua ubicó a 63 personas extranjeras que viajaban en condiciones de hacinamiento en la caja de un camión de carga; fueron ubicados en el poblado desértico de #Samalayuca.
— INM (@INAMI_mx) June 30, 2024
? https://t.co/hrEAeaScjl pic.twitter.com/Y9PiAOx1M3
While most of the migrants were determined to be single adults, three were identified as ‘unaccompanied minors.’
The single adults were taken to immigration facilities for processing while the children and family units were transferred to agencies responsible for handling such cases.
Days prior, the INM announced the apprehensions of 84 migrants from China, India, Central and South America, and the Caribbean.
The migrants, who were presumably hoping to reach the U.S., were encountered under unspecified circumstances in the municipality of Cuautitlán Izcalli.
#Comunicado ?| @INAMI_mx atendió a 84 personas migrantes en Cuautitlán Izcalli, eran originarias de China, India, Centro, Sudamérica y el Caribe, viajaban de manera irregular y previamente habían sido rescatadas por agentes de seguridad estatal y federal.https://t.co/1aOCF8F5zF pic.twitter.com/0GpYqianiD
— INM (@INAMI_mx) June 27, 2024
Authorities in Mexico and the U.S. frequently find trailers packed with migrants, some of whom don’t survive the perilous journey.
Jack Posobiec joins Alex Jones live in-studio to give his expert analysis of the state of the union.
.jpg?itok=2mp802U3 "Trump Says Immunity Ruling ‘Big Win For Democracy’")
Trump Says Immunity Ruling ‘Big Win For Democracy’
The Supreme Court on Monday ruled in a 6-3 vote that former presidents, including Trump, enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct involving official acts during tenure in office, but he’s not immune from unofficial acts.
As Bloomberg notes, the decision – which kicks the ball back to the lower court – ‘all but ensures’ that a trial won’t happen in Trump’s classified documents case before the November election.
The justices, voting 6-3 along ideological lines, said a federal appeals court was too categorical in rejecting Trump’s immunity arguments, ruling for the first time that former presidents are shielded from prosecution for some official acts taken while in office. The majority ordered the lower courts to revisit the case to decide the extent of the allegations that are off limits to prosecution.
“Just as former presidents have immunity from civil liability for official acts, they have immunity from criminal prosecution unless they are impeached and removed from office for the crime alleged. This decision is supported by the writings of the framers of the Constitution, the text of the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent,” wrote X user Martin Harry.
As constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley notes, now “the issue is whether what constitutes official acts,” adding that the ruling will “further delay the lower court proceedings, but Trump will have to argue that his actions fall within these navigational beacons.”
“The lower court judge has been highly favorable for Jack Smith in the past. Yet the court is arguing that there is a presumption of immunity for their official acts beyond the absolute immunity on core constitutional powers.”
…”The question then becomes whether that presumption of immunity is rebutted under the circumstances. When the Vice President presides over the January 6 certification proceeding, he does so in his capacity as President of the Senate. “
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) July 1, 2024
KEY PARAGRAPH: “Taking into account these competing considerations, the Court concludes that the separation of powers principles explicated in the Court’s precedent necessitate at least a presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for a President’s acts within the outer… https://t.co/Ux5gGq8EsY
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) July 1, 2024
Meanwhile, Justice Thomas called into question the legality of Smith’s office:
Justice Thomas’ concurrence in Trump v. U.S. is hugely significant. He questions whether Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office is constitutional.
— Benjamin Weingarten (@bhweingarten) July 1, 2024
“If there is no law establishing the office that the Special Counsel occupies, then he cannot proceed with this prosecution. A private…
Justice Thomas launches a legal missile at AG Merrick Garland:
— Benjamin Weingarten (@bhweingarten) July 1, 2024
“It is difficult to see how the Special Counsel has an office ‘established by Law,’ as required by the Constitution”
“…None of the statutes cited by the Attorney General appears to create an office for the… pic.twitter.com/J0b4eSNaik
In a blistering dissent, Justice Sotomayor writes that the ruling “makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our constitution and system of government, that no man is above the law.”
“Relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom… the court gives former President trump all the immunity he asked for and more.“
Justice Sotomayor’s dissent warning is unlike anything I’ve ever seen in a Supreme Court opinion https://t.co/eXkFnckIY7 pic.twitter.com/kNNbde5WzE
— Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) July 1, 2024
Special counsel Jack Smith is leading two federal probes against Trump, both of which led to criminal charges. In Washington, Trump has been targeted over alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election, while a Florida case revolves around the mishandling of classified documents – for which Trump has claimed presidential immunity.
In response to the ruling, Trump said on Truth Social that it was a “”BIG WIN FOR OUR CONSTITUTION AND DEMOCRACY.”
It’s a massive Trump W. Presumptive immunity for official acts.
— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) July 1, 2024
No J6 trial in DC before the election, absolutely no chance.
Trump Supreme Court Immunit… by Zerohedge
MUST WATCH: Dr. David Martin Interview — U.S. Gov. Is Coordinating A Depopulation Program Against The World