One of our kids is 3-1/2 years into a 30 year house loan. The mortgage company occasionally contacts them to offer a refinance into a lower monthly payment. The interest rate might go down a little bit, but the major payment lowering will be from restarting the 30 year clock. And I don't think they disclose that the refinance costs will eat up a few years of savings from the lowered monthly payment. I tell them to not do it, that it's not even worth looking at if the loan rate doesn't go down at least a full percent, plus to not extend the length of the loan. Surely the mortgage company knows it's a bad deal for the borrower, but since it's a good deal for the company, why should they care? Not a whole lot of big-picture difference between rent and an eternal mortgage payment.
Money & Economics
- Thread starter bigredfish
- Start date
Oceanslider
Known around here
Freight is definitely weak, no doubt. 36 straight months down and -7% YoY isn’t nothing.
But I think people are skipping over the Covid distortion here.
2020–2022 was not normal. Stimulus checks, everyone stuck at home buying goods instead of services, companies panic-ordering inventory, supply chains backed up. Freight volumes were pulled way forward and pushed way above trend.
What we’re seeing now looks a lot like the unwind of that Covid surge. If you spike demand artificially, you usually get a long hangover after.
Also freight mostly reflects the goods side of the economy. The US economy is mostly services. Weak trucking doesn’t automatically equal a full-blown economic collapse.
In 2008 you had banks failing, housing imploding, credit markets freezing, unemployment exploding. That’s not the setup today.
So yeah, industrial/goods side has clearly been in a recession. But a lot of this looks Covid-related and inventory-cycle driven, not systemic crisis stuff.
The real question is whether it spreads to jobs and services. If it doesn’t, this stays a freight recession, not a 2008 repeat.
But I think people are skipping over the Covid distortion here.
2020–2022 was not normal. Stimulus checks, everyone stuck at home buying goods instead of services, companies panic-ordering inventory, supply chains backed up. Freight volumes were pulled way forward and pushed way above trend.
What we’re seeing now looks a lot like the unwind of that Covid surge. If you spike demand artificially, you usually get a long hangover after.
Also freight mostly reflects the goods side of the economy. The US economy is mostly services. Weak trucking doesn’t automatically equal a full-blown economic collapse.
In 2008 you had banks failing, housing imploding, credit markets freezing, unemployment exploding. That’s not the setup today.
So yeah, industrial/goods side has clearly been in a recession. But a lot of this looks Covid-related and inventory-cycle driven, not systemic crisis stuff.
The real question is whether it spreads to jobs and services. If it doesn’t, this stays a freight recession, not a 2008 repeat.
A while back a person here could not understand that his success was the exact the things he rails here about.
Private Equities Funds and Wall Street are the ones raping EVERYONE! The destruction of the "Middle Class" is
the makings of all of the Billionaires that our nation brags about.
You experience it every day with shrinkflation etc. but, you made %20 on your paltry retirement funds.
A shining example is fast food with a " I don't remember it tasting like that or, "Where's the beef" (if you are old enough).
Here is a shining example...
Private Equities Funds and Wall Street are the ones raping EVERYONE! The destruction of the "Middle Class" is
the makings of all of the Billionaires that our nation brags about.
You experience it every day with shrinkflation etc. but, you made %20 on your paltry retirement funds.
A shining example is fast food with a " I don't remember it tasting like that or, "Where's the beef" (if you are old enough).
Here is a shining example...