Mohacsy's Safe Portfolio Member Forum

[santafe2]

The August ADP jobs report came in weak at just under 100,000. ADP extrapolates overall employment trends from a list of 25MM employees. This is the weakest jobs growth since January 2021.

Consumer revolving debt began to slow its growth in March and since then has only grown 1.3%. Consumers may be tapped out now that the COVID free money program has run its course and consumer revolving debt has increased by 45% since April 2021.

Student loan debt peaked in Q1 of 2023 at $1.78T, Since then the Biden administration has been able to lower that by 1.75%. They like to use the raw number, $33B, because it sounds like they're making a difference.

Over the last ~15 years, US government debt has increased by over $25T. That's an increase of 265% in 15 years while GDP only grew 92%. The social security trust fund currently has 11 years before its depleted.

As I look at the current level of consumer and federal government debt, I don't see a path out of this that doesn't require some type of painful reset. Who will suffer the most pain and when, remains to be seen.