We haven't heard too much about the economy in the last week or two, presumably because the media are desperate to conceal the awful truth of it all and give Democrats as much of an edge as possible in November. Standard operating procedure.
But the economy's still out there. And it's still not doing very well.
The number of housing starts tumbled in July, an indication that the housing market is taking a hit and may be falling into a recession.
Housing starts measure the annualized change in the number of new residential buildings that began construction. Last month, they declined by a hefty 9.6% to a 1.45 million annualized rate after posting slight gains in June, according to a Tuesday report from the Commerce Department.
Additionally, permits to build, which are seen as a proxy for future construction, decreased by 1.3% in July, further adding strain to the housing market.
Reading those numbers like:
Why is this a problem?
Well, it's one indicator of an inflated housing market that's about to collapse, and anyone who knows what happened back in 2008 knows how bad that can be.
The probability of a "severe downturn" in the US housing market is on the rise, according to new guidance from credit reporting agency Fitch.
Fitch's likely projections suggest that US home prices could sink by 10% to 15% in the case of a major housing slump, alongside a roughly 30% decline or more in housing activity over the next few years.
Well, that's okay, you CNN readers say. We'd have to have a recession in order to see a crash like that!
About that...
People can only be misled for so long:
The news comes a day after a report indicated that homebuilder confidence fell for an eighth straight month.
The housing market index released Monday by the National Association of Homebuilders and Wells Fargo found that builders' confidence in the market for new single-family homes sunk 6 percentage points this month to fall into negative territory for the first time since a brief period at the start of the pandemic.
Most people can see the evidence with their own eyes and their own bank accounts. And those people will probably vote in November.
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