Credit Card Spending Sagged Again in April Suggesting American Consumers Are Tapped Out

(Mike Maharrey, Money Metals News Service) American consumers kept their credit cards in their pockets for the second straight month in April, a bad sign for an economy that has run on plastic for the last year.

After cratering in March, revolving credit contracted in April. 

Meanwhile, non-revolving credit continued to grow at a tepid rate, a trend we’ve seen for well over a year.

Both of these data points, along with the crash in retail sales in April and slowing GDP growth signal the American consumer may well be tapped out. 

Overall, consumer debt grew by $6.4 billion in April, a 1.5 percent annual increase, according to the latest data from the Federal Reserve. Americans now owe $5.05 trillion in consumer debt.

The Federal Reserve consumer debt figures include credit card debt, student loans, and auto loans, but do not factor in mortgage debt. When you include mortgages, U.S. households are buried under a record level of debt. As of the end of 2023, total household debt stood at $17.5 trillion

Pundits and politicians have talked up the “robust economy” and the “resilient” American consumer for months, but this economic growth was brought to you by Visa and Mastercard. Now, it appears the Americans might have maxed out their credit cards, or they’re at least feeling the strain of sky-high interest rates.

Revolving debt, primarily reflecting credit card balances, contracted by $500 million in April, a 0.4 percent decline.

Even with this slight decline in revolving debt, Americans still owe $1.34 trillion.

The double whammy of rising debt and interest rates exacerbates the debt problem. Average credit card interest rates eclipsed the previous record high of 17.87 percent months ago. The average annual percentage rate (APR) currently stands at 20.68 percent, with some companies charging rates as high as 28 percent.

This is one of the problems confronting the Federal Reserve. Even though inflation remains sticky, the central bank needs to ease interest rates before they bury debt-saddled American consumers.

Consumer debt is also putting strain on banks. The net charge-off rate on credit card loans came in at 4.15 percent as of the end of 2023. It was the highest rate for this portfolio reported by the banking industry since the first quarter of 2012.

All of this underscores the fundamental problem of running an economy on credit cards. It’s expensive and they have an inconvenient thing called “a limit.”

And it appears American consumers may be at that limit. This could be part of the reason GDP growth unexpectedly fell in the first quarter.

The growth in non-revolving debt also reveals problems in America’s borrow-and-spend paradise. 

Non-revolving debt, primarily reflecting outstanding auto loans, student loans, and loans for other big-ticket durable goods, increased by 2.2 percent. The March number was revised down to a contraction of 0.9 percent. This continues a trend of sagging spending on big-ticket items that we’ve seen in recent months. Before the pandemic, revolving credit growth averaged 5 percent. 

This plunge in spending was inevitable. The post-pandemic economic rally was never sustainable. 

As prices skyrocketed last year, Americans blew through their savings to make ends meet. Aggregate savings peaked at $2.1 trillion in August 2021. As of June 2023, the San Francisco Fed estimated that aggregate savings had dropped to $190 billion.

In other words, Americans ran through $1.9 trillion in savings in just two years. 

Then they turned to credit cards.

Now that they’ve apparently maxed out the credit cards, what happens?


Mike Maharrey is a journalist and market analyst for MoneyMetals.com with over a decade of experience in precious metals. He holds a BS in accounting from the University of Kentucky and a BA in journalism from the University of South Florida.

State Dept. Media Smears Americans Who Oppose Funding Ukraine War

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) A Ukrainian publication sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development, which funds non-governmental organizations around the world, has published a report smearing 391 American lawmakers, journalists, researchers and others for not supporting Joe Biden’s proxy war against Russia.

USAID, currently headed by former Obama official Samantha Power, has been described as the biggest funder of journalism in the world. The publication to smear anti-Biden Americans is the USAID-backed Ukrainian “Data Journalism Agency,” also known as TEXTY, which was reportedly co-founded by Anatoly Bondarenko—a former State Department instructor who trained foreign journalists and activists.

TEXTY’s  June 6 report, which was about Americans who spread “Russian propaganda,” named Sen. JD Vance, Sen. Rand Paul, Rep. Matt Gaetz, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Rep. Jim Jordan, among others.

There were also 76 organizations named by the USAID-backed outlet, including The American Conservative, antiwar.com, the Ron Paul Institute and the Libertarian Institute—the latter for which this reporter contributes.

TEXTY accused the named Americans of spreading disinformation, but the outlet made numerous errors in the process, as noted by Ron Paul Institute’s Daniel McAdams, who is also on the list.

“Even long-debunked myths continue to surface, such as claims of Nazi dominance and American Biolabs in Ukraine and the portrayal of the 2014 Revolution of Dignity as a coup,” McAdams said in a rebuttal to the report.

McAdams further noted the bitter irony of the U.S. government funding a media outlet that smears American citizens.

“One wonders how, for example, former US President Donald Trump and dozens of members of the US Congress will react when they hear that US tax dollars are being sent to Ukraine for US-backed Ukrainian organizations to make “hate lists” and “kill lists” of patriotic Americans like themselves,” he said.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

What Do We Make of the Recent Knee-Jerk Gold Selloff?

(Mike Maharrey, Money Metals News Service) Gold crashed through several support levels on Friday. The yellow metal plunged from $2,376 Thursday to under $2,300 by Friday afternoon.

The mainstream financial media bandied about two primary reasons for the big kneejerk selloff, and neither seem like particularly good reasons to sell gold.

Chinese Central Bank Gold Buying

The selloff started at 4 a.m. EDT Friday when the People’s Bank of China announced it did not add gold to its reserves in May. That broke an 18-month streak of gold buying by the Chinese central bank.

When the news hit, the price of gold fell about $40.

The fact the PBoC didn’t buy any gold in May is certainly interesting, but it hardly counts as earthshaking news. Standing pat for one month doesn’t mean “China has stopped buying gold” as some news outlets framed it. It could be nothing more than a 1-month pause.

Of course, it could be the end of the bank’s gold-buying spree, but that won’t become clear until we see consecutive months with no increase in Chinese reserves. Traders selling off on what could be a one-off month seem to have jumped the gun.

And even if China has stopped adding gold to its reserves for the time being, there is still plenty of central bank gold buying to take up the slack. 

In April, China’s buying dipped to just under 2 tons of gold. But even with that slowdown in Chinese purchases, central banks globally still gobbled up 33 tons of gold. That’s in line with the monthly net buying we’ve seen all year.

China was the biggest central bank gold buyer in 2023, but Turkey has led the way so far this year.

I should also note that we’re talking about official increases in China’s gold reserves. There are good reasons to believe China buys even more gold under the table, and that it likely holds far more gold than it reports. As Jim Rickards pointed out on Mises Daily back in 2015, many analysts believe that China keeps several thousand tons of gold “off the books” in a separate entity called the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE). 

Central bank gold buying has indeed been a significant factor supporting gold demand over the last two years, and China has been a big part of that story. But it’s not the only player in the game. There is no reason to think central bank gold buying will suddenly stop, no matter what China does.

“Strong” Jobs Report

The gold selloff picked up momentum on Friday after a “stronger than expected” non-farm payroll report. That fueled speculation that the Federal Reserve will continue to hold interest rates higher for longer.

The expectation was for 180,000 new jobs in May. According to the BLS data, the economy gained 272,000 jobs.

Even with all the new jobs, the unemployment rate ticked up to 4 percent.  Meanwhile, the labor force participation rate ticked downward from 62.7 percent to 62.5 percent.

Mainstream talking heads tend to focus on the headline number and assume it signals a “strong” economy.

That’s not necessarily the case.

In fact, the economy continues to lose full-time jobs while part-time employment surges. The number of full-time workers declined by 626,000 in May while the economy added 286,000 part-time workers. That’s hardly a sign of a healthy economy.

Not everybody bought into the “more jobs, strong economy” narrative. Tastylive.com head of Futures and Forex Christopher Vecchio said the employment numbers “were not as healthy as the market thinks.” He pointed out that there is a huge discrepancy between the BLS numbers and the household survey that showed job losses of 408,000. 

Barchart.com senior analyst Darin Newsom called the gold selloff “a knee-jerk reaction to the comic relief known as U.S. monthly employment numbers.”

Nevertheless, the markets fear central bankers at the Fed will use the BLS report as an excuse to hold interest rates higher for longer. But the mainstream is missing the fact that the Fed isn’t looking for reasons to keep rates at the current level. Fed officials desperately want to justify cutting rates.

The Fed is stuck between a rock and a hard place. The central bank has not done enough to slay price inflation. But the Fed has hiked rates high enough to break things in this debt-riddled bubble economy. It has already sparked a financial crisis that continues to bubble under the surface.  It’s only a matter of time before the economy unravels. That’s when the markets will get the rate cuts they desperately want – despite the fact that inflation is nowhere near dead.

Looking at the broader financial picture and the underlying economic dynamics, selling gold as a knee-jerk reaction to every job report isn’t a smart move.

Once you take a breath and step back, there wasn’t any fundamental change in the economy. We still have high price inflation. The Fed is still on the path to rate cuts (meaning even more inflation). There is still plenty of geopolitical uncertainty. We still have rampant government spending and increasing debt. All of these things are supportive of gold in the long term. 

But we live in a microwave world where most people flip and flop based on the last hour’s news. It’s important to cut through all clutter and keep your eyes on the big picture.


Mike Maharrey is a journalist and market analyst for MoneyMetals.com with over a decade of experience in precious metals. He holds a BS in accounting from the University of Kentucky and a BA in journalism from the University of South Florida.

AOC Frightened Trump Might Use Dems’ Tactics Against Her

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., voiced concern that former President Donald Trump would imprison her, similar to what her own party has sought to do against the 2024 presidential candidate. 

“I mean, it sounds nuts, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy threw me in jail,” Ocasio-Cortez claimed during an interview on the On with Kara Swisher podcast. “He’s out of his mind. I mean, he did his whole first campaign around ‘lock her up.’ This is his motto.” 

The New York Democrat asserted that she takes Trump at his word, despite the former president stating he would not seek retribution for what Democrats have done to him. 

“I take him at his word when he says that he’s going to round up people. I take him at his word when he threatens journalists. I take him at his word,” she said.  

“I feel like what we saw in his first presidency was an amuse-bouche to what his intentions are. He has learned from his mistakes of appointing professionals, and he will not make that mistake next time,” the Democrat added. 

Despite Ocasio-Cortez’s claims, Trump has dismissed rumors that if elected, he would use the DOJ against the Democratic Party. 

“Number one, they’re wrong,” Trump asserted during an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity.  

Trump added, “It has to stop, because otherwise, we’re not going to have a country. Look, when this election is over, based on what they’ve done, I would have every right to go after them, and it’s easy, because it’s Joe Biden and you see all the criminality, all of the money that’s going into the family and him, all of this money from China, from Russia, from Ukraine.” 

Shortly after being indicted on 34 felony counts over alleged falsification of business records, Trump said that his revenge would be “success,” specifically by fixing President Joe Biden’s “disastrous” four-year record. 

Shocker: NYTimes Finally Fact-Checks Biden’s Countless Falsehoods

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) In a surprising shift, the leftist New York Times published a fact-check piece on Saturday, scrutinizing several demonstrably false claims made by President Joe Biden.  

This move marks a departure from the newspaper’s never-ending favorable coverage of the Biden administration. 

The Times’s fact-check highlights Biden’s attempts to connect with voters through “hyperbole” and false anecdotes.  

“In President Biden’s telling, he was a teenage civil rights activist, a former trucker, the first in his family to go college and the nephew of a cannibalism victim,” the report stated. 

“All of these claims stretch the truth or are downright false. But Mr. Biden persists in telling personal tales with rhetorical flourishes and factual liberty when he works a room or regales an audience,” the Times continued. 

One of the claims fact-checked by the Times involves Biden’s assertion that he was appointed to the Naval Academy by then-Sen. J. Caleb Boggs, D-Dela., who lost his seat to a then-27-year-old Biden.  

The newspaper debunked this claim, adding it to the list of exaggerated stories.

Another claim under scrutiny is Biden’s assertion that he used to “drive an 18-wheeler.” The Times clarified that Biden drove a school bus during law school and took a 500-mile trip on a cargo truck in the 1970s. 

The Times also addressed Biden’s claims of being an activist during the Civil Rights Movement. 

“For decades, Mr. Biden has occasionally suggested that he played a greater role in the civil rights movement than he actually did,” the newspaper noted. “While there is corroboration of Mr. Biden’s participation in a few desegregation events, he has also said he would not consider himself an activist in the movement. There is no evidence that he was ever arrested.”

Recently, Biden claimed that his World War II veteran uncle, Ambrose Finnegan, was eaten by cannibals after his plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean in 1944. He suggested that the region, covering Papua New Guinea, was inhabited by cannibals at the time. However, no records support Biden’s claim.

Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape criticized Biden’s remarks, stating, “President Biden’s remarks may have been a slip of the tongue; however, my country does not deserve to be labeled as such.” 

The Times’s fact-check represents a drastic change in the newspaper’s approach, coming at a time when President Biden faces a shaky re-election campaign. 

Kamala Harris Mourns ‘Innocent Lives’ Lost During Israeli Rescue Mission

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Vice President Kamala Harris expressed sorrow over the deaths of Gazans during a successful rescue mission that freed four hostages previously held in the Gaza Strip, Fox News reported. 

In a Saturday speech to the Michigan Democratic Party, Harris stated, “Before I begin, I just say a few words about the morning which I know weighs heavily on all of our hearts.”

Harris continued, “On Oct. 7, Hamas committed a brutal massacre of 1,200 innocent people and abducted 250 hostages. Thankfully, four of those hostages were reunited with their families tonight. And we mourn all of the innocent lives that have been lost in Gaza, including those tragically killed today.” 

Hamas terrorists originally captured the four hostages on October 7 at a desert concert, which abruptly ended as the terrorists stormed southern Israel on the same day.

The four released hostages were Noa Argamani, Andrey Kozlov, Almog Meir Jan and Shlomi Ziv.

Argamani was seen in a widely shared video pleading for her life as Hamas militants took her from the concert into the Gaza Strip.

Kozlov, a Russian national, worked as a security guard at the music festival before being taken to Gaza. Ziv was also a security guard. 

Meir Jan, a 22-year-old, was scheduled to begin a new job at a tech company. On the day of the attack, he texted his mother, “Mom, they closed the festival. There are rockets and shooting everywhere.” 

During her speech, Harris spoke about efforts to end the conflict between Israel and Hamas. 

“We have been working every day to bring an end to this conflict in a way that ensures Israel is secure, brings home all hostages, ends ongoing suffering for Palestinian people and ensures that Palestinians can enjoy their right to self-determination, dignity and freedom,” she claimed, as reported by Fox News.  

“As President Biden said last week, it is time for this war to end,” Harris concluded. 

UN to Denounce Israel and Hamas for Treatment of Children

(Headline USA) The U.N. secretary-general will tell the Security Council next week that both Israel and Hamas are violating children’s rights and leaving them exposed to danger in their war.

The secretary-general annually makes a global list of states and militias that are menacing children and threatening them. Parties on the list have ranged from the Kachin Independence Army in Myanmar to — last year — Russia during its war with Ukraine.

Now Israel is set to join them.

António Guterres sends the list to the Security Council and the council can then decide whether to take action. The United States is one of five veto-wielding permanent council members and has been reluctant to act against Israel, its longtime ally.

Another permanent member is Russia and when the United Nations put Russian forces on its blacklist last year for killing boys and girls and attacking schools and hospitals in Ukraine, the council took no action.

The inclusion of Israel this month will likely just put more of a global spotlight on the country’s conduct of the war in Gaza and increase already high tensions in its relationship with the global body.

The preface of last year’s U.N. report says it lists parties engaged in “the killing and maiming of children, rape and other forms of sexual violence perpetrated against children, attacks on schools, hospitals and protected persons.”

The head of Guterres’ office called Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Gilad Erdan, on Friday to inform him that Israel would be in the report when it is sent to the council next week, U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric told reporters.

The militant Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad groups will also be listed.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “the U.N. put itself on the black list of history today” as the move heightened the long-running feud between Israel and the U.N.

The normally equanimous secretary-general’s spokesman broke from the good-natured tone of his noon briefing when asked to discuss the latest development.

“The call was a courtesy afforded to countries that are newly listed on the annex of the report,” Dujarric said. “The partial release of that recording on Twitter is shocking and unacceptable and frankly, something I’ve never seen in my 24 years serving this organization.”

Condemnation of the secretary-general’s decision appeared to bring together Israel’s increasingly fractious leadership — from the right-wing Netanyahu and Erdan to the popular centrist member of the War Cabinet, Benny Gantz.

Gantz cited Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, as saying “it matter not what say the goyim, what is important is what do the Jews.”

For months Israel has faced heavy international criticism over civilian casualties in Gaza and questions about whether it has done enough to prevent them in the eight-month-old war. Two recent airstrikes in Gaza killed dozens of civilians.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Kennedy on Florida Presidential Ballot as Reform Party Candidate

(Steve Wilson, The Center Square) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will appear on Florida ballots as the Reform Party candidate after the Florida Division of Elections recertified its party status on Friday.

“We’re thrilled to give Floridians an independent option this November,” said Reform Party of Florida Chairwoman Jenniffer Desatoff in a release.

“We’ve been eagerly waiting to collaborate with the Kennedy campaign here in Florida and make history together.”

The party’s national committee nominated Kennedy and his running mate Nicole Shanahan two weeks ago to be their candidates.

More importantly, the move allows the third-party candidate to raise more money.

Now that he has a party nomination, the party can raise an additional $41,300 from donors previously limited to $6,600 each.

Ross Perot supporters founded the party in 1996.

The party said in the release it has spent $15 million on a ballot access operation to ensure Kennedy and Shanahan will appear on ballots in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia.

The ticket is officially on the ballot in nine states – Utah, Michigan, California, Delaware, Oklahoma, Hawaii, Texas, South Carolina and Florida — and has collected enough signatures for ballot access in nine other states.

Major Mountain Pass Highway Collapsed Overnight

(Headline USA) A large chunk of a twisting mountain pass road collapsed in Wyoming, authorities said Saturday, leaving a gaping chasm in the highway and severing a well-traveled commuter link between small towns in eastern Idaho and the tourist destination of Jackson.

Aerial photos and drone video of the collapse show the Teton Pass road riven with deep cracks, and a big section of the pavement disappeared altogether. Part of the guardrail dangled into the void, and orange traffic drums marked off the danger area. The road was closed at the time of the collapse.

The section that failed first drew attention Thursday when a crack and drop in the road contributed to the crash of a motorcycle.

Geologists and engineers who were sent to the area that day noticed “that crack and that drop started to move a lot,” said Stephanie Harsha, a spokesperson for District 3 of the Wyoming Department of Transportation. A paving crew temporarily patched the road, and traffic began moving again that night.

But that was short-lived as maintenance crews were sent to respond to a mudslide a couple of miles away in the pre-dawn hours of Friday, prompting the road to be closed once again.

Crews then noticed that the damage to the pavement had become more pronounced. Workers trying to figure out a detour around that section left for the night, “and by 5 a.m., this morning, WYDOT had discovered that the road had completely failed,” Harsha said Saturday.

“We were very, very lucky that no crews were harmed. No equipment was damaged,” she said. “So now, engineers and geologists are doing geological assessments on the pass. They’ve been looking at it all day.”

The transportation department said via social media that the road “catastrophically failed” at milepost 12.8.

It was not immediately clear how long it will take to reopen the road, a vital artery for people who live across the border in Idaho and work in pricey Jackson, which is also close to the popular Grand Teton National Park.

Harsha said an alternate route between Jackson and the area of Victor, Idaho, goes more than 60 miles (97 kilometers) out of the way and adds “quite a bit to any commute.”

Gov. Mark Gordon signed an executive order declaring an emergency, which his office said would help the state access additional resources from the Federal Highway Administration to begin repair work.

In a statement, the governor said the transportation department is working on “a long-term solution to rebuild this critical roadway.”

“I recognize the significant impacts this closure has to Teton County residents, regional commuters and the local economy,” Gordon said.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Pres

San Fran. Opens City’s 1st $5M Taxpayer-Funded Free Food ‘Market’

(Kenneth Schrupp, The Center Square) San Francisco opened its first $5.5 million free food “market”, where approved residents can show a benefits eligibility card, put what they want in their carts, check out to keep track of outgoing inventory, and leave without paying.

The Bayview-Hunters Point facility aims to be a food pantry alternative that replicates the supermarket experience in an area where many grocery stores have come but few have remained due to high crime.

The 4000-square foot District 10 Market is the first of San Francisco’s food empowerment “markets” funded by the San Francisco’s Human Services Agency. Eligible individuals receive a Costo-like benefits card that allows use of the facility once per month. Eligibility is limited to individuals who live within one of three zip codes, are verified social services clients, have dependents under 25 or a qualified food-related illness, and be referred by one of eleven community organizations in the market’s referral network.

Geoffrea Morris, who spearheaded San Francisco’s Food Empowerment Market legislation in 2021 while working for a county supervisor and is a senior consultant for the District 10 Market, explains the program is meant to supplement food stamps that run out towards the end of the month, especially due to rising food costs from inflation.

“This is a supplemental source for food. Food stamps should be the primary source. This is a supplemental source especially close to the end of the month when families are facing the pain, especially with inflation,” Morris told The Center Square.

The facility is designed to closely replicate the supermarket experience, with individuals’ items weighed and scanned upon “check-out” to keep track of inventory and manage supply chains. District 10 Market, which is operating on a $5.5 million grant from San Francisco, uses taxpayer funds to purchase high-quality fresh produce from Rodriguez Brothers Ranch in Watsonville, and largely relies on donations from other grocery stores for its shelf-stable items and toiletries.

“If we didn’t tell you it was free you’d think you’d have to pay,” Morris said.

Morris also detailed how District 10 Market’s referral process is meant to ensure use of wraparound services.

“If you’re having food insecurity you’re having other issues as well and you need to be engaged with the services the city has put in place to improve your life and the life of your children,” Morris said.

District 10 is one of San Francisco’s poorest communities, and is home to some of the city’s largest public housing projects. As a result of high crime, grocery stores have had a hard time staying in businesses in the area, despite the large population.

“We’ve had plenty of chains come in and out of the community. Over my lifetime plenty of chains have come in and left,” recalled Morris.

The Bayview-Hunters Point community has 40,495 residents, is home to designated United States Department of Agriculture “food desert” with low fresh food availability, and a high property crime rate in the area. In the first six months of 2019, the area had reports of 143 robberies, 129 assaults, 195 burglaries, 308 motor vehicle thefts, 889 larceny thefts. Those numbers largely declined in the first six months of 2024, in which 78 robberies, 120 assaults, 174 burglaries, 353 motor vehicle thefts, 431 larceny thefts were reported, but business organizations say apparent crime reductions as reported in San Francisco and much of California are from less reporting of crime, not less actual crime.

“We know that there is underreporting. Since Prop 47 was passed, murder, rape and robbery increased by more than 20% in the number of crimes. Same holds true for motor vehicle theft which is up 19.8% since the passage of Proposition 47,” said Matt Ross, Communications Director for Californians Against Retail & Residential Theft, to The Center Square. “The only significant drop is burglary at 30%  So either California is doing an amazing job at stopping burglary when every other crime stat is on the increase, or there is underreporting.”

Should the Bayview-Hunters Point facility meet city goals, the city plans on rolling out more facilities in other low-income districts.