16 year cycle

 Are we on a loop, repeating events from 16 years ago?  Of course not exactly, but I think things are uncannily close.

Here are the interest rates from 9/28/2007 and 9/28/2023:

Date		6 Mo	1 Yr	3 Yr	10 Yr	30 Yr
=========	=====   ====	====	=====	=====
09/28/2007	 4.09	4.05	4.03	4.59	4.83
09/28/2023	 5.53	5.46	4.83	4.59	4.71

Source: https://home.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/TextView?type=daily_treasury_yield_curve&field_tdr_date_value_month=202309

The 10 years rates are exactly the same.

Other maybe parallels:

President:    George W Bush vs Joe Biden

War:    Iraq vs Ukraine

Housing Market:  The housing market peaked sometime in 2006. The credit markets froze in the summer of 2007, and a housing crash began in August 2007.  vs Now: The housing market peaked about May 2022.  

Interest Rates:  The Fed rose rates to 5.25% in July 2006 where they stayed until Sept 2007 when they dropped to 4.75. And now the Fed rose rates to 5.25% in July 2023.  

Update: 10-year and 30-year Treasury yields rise to their highest levels since 2007

Business Cycle:  The Great Recession began in December 2007 and lasted until June 2009.

Stock Market Peak:  Oct 9, 2007:  DJIA peaks at 14,164.  Jan 4, 2022: DJIA hits all time high of 36,800. Aug 1, 2023: DJIA hits 2023 peak of 35,679.

Update: Treasury 10-Year Yield Breaches 5% for First Time Since 2007

New Football Alignment

 For background see:  https://aftermath2022.blogspot.com/2012/08/football-follies.html

In the "Good Ole Days" (pre-1996), football teams in the western US looked like:

The Big 8 consisted of CU, Nebraska, Iowa State, Missouri, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.
The Southwest Conference (SWC) consisted of Arkansas, Baylor, Rice, Texas, Texas A&M, SMU, TCU, Texas Tech and Houston.
The Western Athletic Conference (WAC) consisted of BYU, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado State, UTEP, San Diego State, Hawaii, Air Force and Fresno State. 

The Pacific 10 (PAC-10) consisted of Arizona, Arizona State, UC-Berkeley, UCLA, Oregon, Oregon State, USC, Stanford, Washington and Washington State.

Many, many changes have occurred since then, but I just want to see how things will look after 2025.

1. The Big 8 became the Big 12 and will have 16 members:  Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, TCU, West Virginia, BYU, UCF, Cincinnati, Houston, Colorado, Utah, Arizona State, and Arizona.  Oklahoma and Texas will be joining Southeastern Conference (SEC).  Nebraska is part of the Big 10. Missouri is part of the SEC.

2. The SWC has disappeared.  Baylor, Houston, TCU, and Texas Tech are part of the Big 12. Arkansas joined the SEC. Texas A&M is in the SEC. Rice and SMU are in the AAC.

3. The WAC was succeeded by the Mountain West Conference (MWC) which will have the following 12 members: Air Force Academy, Boise State, Calif State-Fresno, CSU, UN-Reno, UNLV, New Mexico, SDSU, SJSU, Utah State, Wyoming, Hawaii.   In addition, Oregon State and Washington State will probably join, giving this 14.  Changes from the old WAC are: BYU went to the Big 12, Utah went to the Big 12, and UTEP is in Conference USA.

4. The PAC-12 of course is imploding, with Arizona, and Arizona State joining the Big 12, UC Berkeley (renamed to Cal) and Stanford joining the ACC; UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington joining the Big 10, and Oregon State and Washington State probably joining the MWC. 

So which of the 40 or so of the teams originally listed are not part of the new Big 12 or MWC?

To the SEC: Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Texas A&M.  To the Big 10: Nebraska.  Also UCLA, USC, Oregon, Washington.  To the AAC: Rice and SMU.  To Conference USA: UTEP. To the ACC: Cal and Stanford.

I think that is correct, there are 5 additional conferences that teams went to.  The only thing that seems weird to me is that SMU should be in the Big 12, why are they in the AAC?  The Big 12 passed on them, even though the headquarter of the Big 12 is in the DFW area and so is SMU.  Also, why did the Big 12 accept UCF?

Anyways, this is very confusing, but kind of interesting.

Update: After I just posted this, I found out that SMU will be moving from the AAC to the ACC, along with Cal and Stanford.

Update 2: What are the best conferences in College Football?  I think these are the rankings:

1. SEC. 2. Big 10, 3. Big 12,  4. ACC, 5. MWC, 6. AAC. The worst are Sun Belt, Conference USA and Mid-American.

Who are the winners on the original list (they went to a better conference)?  Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M, Missouri, Arkansas, Nebraska, UCLA, USC, Oregon, Washington.  Who are the losers (they went to a worse conference)? Rice and UTEP.  Everyone else stayed pretty much the same.

Massive hidden losses at megabanks

 The megabanks (which is what I call the too-big-to-fail banks) bought trillions of low-interest Treasury securities in 2020 and 2021. Then the Fed started raising the interest rates from 0% in March 2022 to 5.25% in June 2023.  See "The Perfect Storm Hits Big Banks".  The banks have at least $500 billion in unrealized losses.  But, no problem you say, they can just keep them until maturity.  But they also have deposit flight, which may require them to sell securities to raise capital.  So the banking crisis which started with Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank is not over.  But the megabanks are too big to fail, so I think the Fed will be forced to step in and purchase some of these securities at face value, thus covering the losses.

Update:  Bank of America has unrealized losses on its hold-to-maturity bond portfolio of at least $100 billion and possibly as much as $135 billion. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/topstocks/jpmorgan-bond-losses-hit-40-billion-bank-of-america-s-should-be-more/ar-AA1iaRAk

Update 2:

Moody's estimated last month that US financial institutions had racked up $650 billion worth of paper losses on their portfolios by September 30 — up 15% from June 30. The ratings agency's data still doesn't account for a hellish October where the longer-term collapse in bond prices spiraled into one of the worst routs in market history. These "losses" are not the same as debt, however, which describes actual borrowings that need to be repaid.  Bank of America is the big lender worst affected by the crash in bond prices, having disclosed a potential $130 billion hole in its balance sheet last month. The other "Big Four" banks — Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo — have also racked up unrealized losses in the tens of billions, according to their second- and third-quarter earnings reports.

 https://uk.style.yahoo.com/bond-market-crash-leaves-big-211843623.html

National Debt hits $33 Trillion

 On 9/15/2023, the National Debt officially hit $33,044,858,730,468.04.  This was just 3 months after it hit $32 trillion.  It bears reminding that it was only $23 trillion on 12/31/2019, and it has increased $10 trillion since then.

When was it $16.5 trillion?  On 2/13/2013, so the doubling time is just over 10 years.  So in 2033, it will be $66 trillion, if it increases at the same rate.   Before, I said that it would hit $64 trillion on 2034, but it will obviously be faster than that.

When was the last time the debt didn't increase by at least $2 trillion in a calendar year? That would be 2018, when the debt increased to $21 trillion, and that was the only milestone that year.

So, we can expect this to hit $34 trillion in about 6 months, say by March 1, 2024.

Update:  Read this - https://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2023/09/national-debt-now-more-than-33-trillion.html

Surplus of $90 Billion in August 2023

See: https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2023-09/59474-MBR.pdf

The year-to-date deficit is $1.523 trillion.  

The only thing I really care about is net interest and defense spending.  Net Interest FYTD is $644 billion and last month was $572 billion, so that is $72 billion for the month, which is probably the highest it has ever been.  Defense spending FYTD is $692 billion and last month was $630 billion, so it was $62 billion for the month. So interest won again.  

Will defense ever spend more in a month than net interest?  It's not that I am trying to encourage defense spending, but the point is that interest is crowding out defense spending.  I previously thought  that wouldn't happen until 2029.  Now it looks like starting next fiscal year, which starts in October, that spending on interest will permanently exceed spending on defense.

There is usually a deficit in September, so the total 2023 deficit should be close to the prediction of $1.685 trillion.  We will know in about a month.

Update (9/20/23):  Here is another metric we should be watching: net interest as a percent of tax revenue. For August '23 the tax revenue was $284 billion.  So the net interest as a percent is 25.3%.  This is a huge problem, but lets see where it is for FY2022 as a whole - the numbers should be out in about a month.

 ===================

As of 8/31/23 the national debt was $32.914 trillion.  As of 8/31/22 it was $30.936 trillion.  It increased 6.4% in one year.

Debt to the Public hits $26 trillion

 On 8/31/23, Debt to the Public was $26,044,050,577,584.54.  It seems like it was just a couple of months ago that it was at $25.5 trillion.  The public debt to GDP ratio is now at 96.9%, so no worries.

When did it hit $13 trillion? On 12/30/2014, just under 9 years ago.  So in 9 years from now, in 2032, it should be at $52 trillion.