The countries that have rarely borrowed, such as Brazil or Mexico, often pay much higher interest rates than those that have much higher debt ratios, like Japan or China.
Intriguing chart by Alpine Macro
In the US, interest rates on household items are skyrocketing
In just 1 year, the average interest rate on credit card debt has gone from 14% to 21%+. New car loan rates went from 4% to 8% while used car loan rates are at 12%+. Mortgage rates are at a fresh high of 7.2%, up from 2.7% in 2021. Will the US consumer be able to absorb all these debt servicing costs? Source: The Kobeissi Letter, Macrobond, IN
The lagging effects of higher interest rates ?
Yellow Corp. filed for bankruptcy and will remain shuttered after the trucking firm’s long-running financial woes (rising bond & loan payments) were compounded by a dispute with its labor force (wage inflation). The firm closes after nearly 100 years and leaves 30k employees jobless (this will likely be reflected in a lower payroll print for August). Source: Bloomberg
Interest payments on US government debt are soaring
source: Markets & Mayhem
Robinhood now makes much more collecting interest on client cash than from its core business.
This is $234 million that RH's customers should be collecting but they are currently handling to the Trading App. Source: www.zerohedge.com, Robinhood
US interest expenses have surged by about 50% in the past year, to nearly $1 trillion on an annualized basis
Source: Lisa Ambramowicz, Bloomberg
