The Keystone Speculator's Housing Market Indicator; UNITED STATES IS IN A HOUSING RECESSION FOR 23 MONTHS AND COUNTING

People will say it is different this time, and it never is, but this time it is truly different. Anytime that the housing market dipped into recession, an overall US recession quickly followed, especially with a manufacturing and labor recession also ongoing. Not this time. Decades past, life was simpler. No tech wizardry, just folks going to work each day and then having plenty of leisure time each evening and on weekends. All that mattered was the housing and auto industries. When they went south, the US was in recession. It was simple. Not anymore.

Computer technology arrived on the scene in a big way through the 1980's and 1990's many of us starting with the old amber screens and floppy discs that needed formatted using the DOS program. Screen savers were not a thing yet so you had to make sure the same image did not stay on the coal black screen too long. Chips run computers. Thus, as the railroads opened the door to an economic boon, especially in the Midwest and Western US a century ago, semiconductors, chips for short, fuel the economic path forward for the last 30 years and ahead with NVIDIA's Jensen now waving his advanced AI (Artificial Intelligence) chip in the air.

The US is in a housing recession for 23 months almost 2 solid years, an ongoing manufacturing recession and weakness for the last couple years, and a labor recession that is 14 months along. Housing Starts peaked almost 3 years ago and have dropped to the lowest numbers in 4 years. The downward channel remains in play and conditions are worsening as the red and green lines separate. How could the United States not be in an overall recession? The Godot Recession has not yet arrived despite the weakness in housing, manufacturing and labor. One reason is the tech industry and chips but there is a second reason; the Federal Reserve.

The Fed's money-printing since 2009 is so obscene it would make Caligula blush. It enriches America's wealthy class to stupendous heights while screwing common folks that do not own any stocks. One-half of Americans do not own a single share of stock so the Fed's money-printing did not make any of them filthy rich.

Further, once the COVID-19 pandemic hit,  the Fed fired another huge money bazooka of monetary stimulus, and then Congress stepped in with fiscal stimulus, showering the rich Americans with more free money, manna from heaven. Folks, that dough goes into the stock market driving asset prices bigtime higher and the elite privileged class, and upper middle class sycophants that live in McMansions that service the elite, are the ones that own stocks. It is a great racket if you are rich and part of the club, but 300 million Americans are not part of the Big Club, as the notable scholar George Carlin said. It will never get fixed, folks. Get with the program.

It is enough to make you vomit. Look at the chart above. The housing market takes off higher with the Fed's and Congress's thumbs on the scale. Obviously, capitalism does not exist. Capitalism is only a theoretical concept in business textbooks. America is best described as a 'faux free market crony capitalism system' on its last legs. Human greed destroys everything throughout man's 'civilized' 5,000 year existence. The present day is no different. Greed is more powerful than love, hate or fear, and it always will be.

Anyhoo, the joy in tech and semiconductors, and the enormous wealth effect felt by America's wealthy class, and those upper middle class sycophants that service the filthy rich that want to remain in their McMansions, are keeping the US economy afloat and avoiding an overall recession with their robust spending.

The top 20% wealthy Americans are accounting for about one-half of the spending in the US currently. Say no more. The middle class is gonzo. America's now lower middle class, disabled, homeless, minorities, and working poor do not have a pot to p*ss in working two jobs and still unable to make ends meet. Meanwhile, America's wealthy, in bed with the Federal Reserve, enjoy vast riches due to the enormous stock market gains. They are still spending big money preventing an overall recession while asking why everyone else is so glum? Don't you love the filthy crony capitalism system?

However, even the wealthy stop spending eventually. How many brand new $800,000 McMansions, $90,000 Mercedes convertibles, and $9,000 refrigerators do you need? They are still buying for now as Christmas quickly approaches. And on the chip front, the so-called AI revolution needs to start showing concrete results and cost-savings for companies; so far it remains a lot of hype. What happens when the consumer sales for gadgets go south (since the average American does not have a pot to pee in) and tech companies have less money to spend on developing the new chips and gadgets? Everything slows down of course; it is called a recession.