CHRISTIAN TOTO: Media Downplay Oliver Anthony’s Overnight Success. “The far-Left outlet bemoans that Anthony lacks a sizable paper trail, all but saying the reporter dug for any dirt possible but came up empty.”
Related: Record debt and inflation from the ‘Rich Men North of Richmond.’
According to the Treasury Department, for the first time ever, spending on interest on the debt not only surpassed military spending in July but tied the cost of our health care leviathan! At $67 billion, the cost of servicing our debt was eclipsed only by Social Security and education (because of student loans) and was 20% costlier than national defense. Put another way, more than 50% of all tax revenue collected from all payroll taxes of all U.S. workers went toward interest on the debt. Headed forward, assuming interest rates aren’t forced up even higher, we will pay an annualized rate of $1 trillion in interest on the debt of government programs and functions that shouldn’t exist even if they were free.
I wrote about that part two weeks ago, but here’s what it means for the not-so-rich folks south of Richmond, and most other places outside the Beltway:
Average mortgage rates are now close to $7.5%, the highest since 2000. However, housing prices are much higher than ever before. The median home price is now 560% of median household income. Even during the record 2008 housing bubble, it was only 360% of income. Homeowners are now spending a record 40% of their gross income on mortgages, aside from record-high down payments. The average mortgage is now over $2,800 – up from $1,427 in 2021 – before we get to the high levels of real estate taxes on inflated prices. This has created such a shortage of people willing to sell homes that even older homes now cost the same as new homes for the first time.
And:
In total, the annual expenses of a family of four have now outpaced the median male income by over $12,000 a year. In 1985, the median family of four on one income would net a surplus of $5,450.
The memes almost make themselves.
Bidenomics, it’s working!