Beloved Las Vegas, Las Vegas Strip tradition closer to the end
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die. That’s a line sung by Bradley Cooper’s character in the hit "A Star Is Born" remake he and Lady Gaga co-starred…
Maybe it's time to let the old ways die.
That's a line sung by Bradley Cooper's character in the hit "A Star Is Born" remake he and Lady Gaga co-starred in. And in many ways, that's what slowly happens on the Las Vegas Strip and eventually throughout the city as the old ways, the so-called classic Las Vegas, get relegated to the fringes before they eventually disappear.
The classic Las Vegas showgirl review followed this arc. First, it was pretty much a Strip necessity to have showgirls as part of your big headline show. Then it became more of a novelty, then it became nostalgia and, finally, it ended.
When "Jubilee," the last showgirls show on the Las Vegas Strip, closed in 2016, an NPR article about it was headlined "Trapped in Time." It was an art form with a peak that had passed, which now exists solely in the semiparody/semicreepy women dressed in showgirl outfits on the Strip trying to sell photographs (and maybe more).
Lots of other Las Vegas traditions are just memories. Slots are no longer played with coins, for example, which has changed what a Las Vegas resort casino sounds like. Instead of the the clanging of quarters, you now get a DJ's playlist.
You can no longer get $0.99 shrimp cocktail, and a lot of the old food deals designed to get people into a casino have gone away.
That also includes another Las Vegas tradition that was dying before the pandemic and has seen its demise hastened by changing trends.
The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.Showgirls have disappeared from Las Vegas' entertainment lineup.Image source: Shutterstock
Las Vegas is no longer the land of buffets
In the 1990s and 2000s, every resort casino seemed to have a buffet. Most of them were closer to Golden Corral than fine dining. But the idea was to keep people in the casino, get them fed (maybe even with a comp) and then get them back on the casino floor.
As Las Vegas has become a culinary capital of the world, Caesars Entertainment, MGM Resorts International MGM, Wynn Resorts, and the other Las Vegas Strip players realized that they could make more money from low- and mid-tier gamblers by selling them Guy Fieri, Wolfgang Puck, Bobby Flay, Gordon Ramsay and other big-name celebrity chefs than by having them playing slots.
That has made the space once devoted to buffets valuable real estate that makes more sense as a high-end restaurant than it does as a low-end all-you-can-eat eatery.
"On the Las Vegas Strip, only eight buffets remain (the Bacchanal at Caesars Palace, The Buffet at Bellagio, Wicked Spoon at Cosmopolitan, The Buffet at Wynn Las Vegas, the MGM Grand Buffet, the Buffet at Excalibur, the Circus Buffet at Circus Circus, and The Buffet at Luxor) where 18 once stood," Casino.org reported.
VISIT LAS VEGAS: Are you ready to plan your dream Las Vegas Strip getaway?
Most of those, aside from from Excalibur and Circus, are very high-end affairs that can cost nearly (or over for some special servings) $100.
Buffets have met the same fate off the Strip, and another has closed to make way for a new trend, a food hall.
Rio is closing its buffet
When Resorts World opened on the North Strip during the pandemic, it did not have a buffet. Instead, it offered a massive food hall that contained more than 40 food and beverage options.
This offered people choice — maybe a better selection than even the best buffets — by grouping lots of options in one space. At Resorts World's food hall you can even order from multiple places from your phone, and then collect your food when it is ready.
It's an upscale take on the old classic that comes with higher costs for customers, but also higher quality. Now, Rio, which was just transferred from Caesars operating it to a new owner, Dreamscape, has decided to close its Carnival World Buffet and replace it with Canteen Food Hall.
F1? SUPER BOWL? MARCH MADNESS? Plan a dream Las Vegas getaway.
The new concept will open in January. Rio is undergoing a $350 million transformation under its new owners.
Canteen will offer a wide array of choices with a ramen shop, a Mexican eatery focused on burritos, the famed Tony Luke's cheesesteak shop and a burger concept, as well as different take on chicken tenders, and a stall selling Japanese street food.
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Authored by Marie Hawthorne via The Organic Prepper blog,
Talk of a “Cyber 9/11” has been circulating for years. With the next presidential election twelve months away now, some folks are predicting that a major cyber event will happen before then, throwing a monkey wrench into the 2024 election process.
What the heck is Cyber 9/11?
What does Cyber 9/11 mean? Is there a real risk? What should we be preparing for?
There are two aspects to the Cyber 9/11 concept. The first is the disaster itself; 9/11 was a catastrophe that ended the lives of over 3000 people in one day. There are fears that if power grids were hacked or enough damage was done to logistical centers, the ensuing chaos would cause deaths.
Quite memorably, back in 2000, a disgruntled public works employee in Australia hacked into the water treatment system and caused raw sewage to pour into public areas, flooding a Hyatt hotel. One man acting alone caused a disgusting, expensive mess. Of course security experts are concerned with what a team of angry individuals could do.
The second aspect to a potential Cyber 9/11 is the change in the regulatory landscape that occurred after 9/11 in 2001. I remember flying as a teenager in the 90s. So many things changed later. The airport changes were most obvious to regular citizens, but the passage of the Patriot Act in October 2001 was far more consequential. It dramatically changed the way surveillance was conducted.
Under the Fourth Amendment, private citizens are supposed to be protected from warrantless search and seizures. The Patriot Act really weakened that. Law enforcement is now allowed to delay the notice of search warrants. They don’t need nearly as much oversight from judges to conduct phone and internet surveillance.
These Constitution-weakening changes occurred after 9/11 in 2001.
How might our Constitutional rights be altered after a Cyber 9/11?
Centralized powers have made it obvious that they love using calamities to push through changes the public would never otherwise accept. Winston Churchill was the first person on record to say, “Never let a crisis go to waste,” as he worked to establish the UN in the 1940s, but he was hardly the last.
Rahm Emmanuel, regarding the 2008 banking crisis: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”
Klaus Schwab, regarding the Covid pandemic: “. . . the pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world to create a healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous future.”
Understanding this tendency to see crisis as opportunity is absolutely vital to understanding everything else going on today.
So, is a Cyber 9/11 something we should be preparing for?
Some experts believe that a Cyber 9/11 would be difficult to pull off by the known terrorist groups for technical reasons. And the world is too connected, globally, for most governments to pursue large-scale cyberattacks, even between unfriendly nations. For people who want to use the internet to harm American society, there are simply better ways to do it.
However, we can’t ignore the fact that cyberattacks have been increasing. Ask any small business owner. Daisy has mentioned in previous articles that most of this site’s income goes to security. And I’ve heard similar things from friends that work in fields as diverse as accounting and energy.
These stories from friends align with what security professionals have found, too. The Information Security Forum is a London-based firm that provides guidance on internet security for many Fortune 500 companies and governments around the world. They have seen a huge increase in cyberattacks, too, and in June this year, they hosted an Operational Technology Cyber Simulation exercise in Brussels. This gave industry leaders an opportunity to meet and collaborate, working through a simulation of a cyberattack on a fictitious manufacturing facility
How would governments react to a major cyberattack?
I don’t think a major cyberattack is an unreasonable concern. I also don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask, if we did have a major cyber event, how would our governments react?
Central banks and governments around the world have been talking an awful lot about implementing CBDCs. In late June, 130 countries representing 98% of the global economy were exploring CBDCs. This is despite a lack of interest by average citizens. During Covid, many people became aware of how China used its social credit system, interconnected with online banking, to enforce compliance.
It’s not just China that people can look to with alarm. When Nigeria’s government tried to impose CBDCs on their citizens, widespread protests erupted.
In the U.S., Republican Senators introduced legislation that would ban the federal government from implementing a CBDC. Europeans don’t want CBDCs, either. It has simply become too obvious that CBDCs will be used as a means of control, and politicians have been caught admitting it.
Look at the Rumble pranksters who convinced European Central Bank President Christine LaGarde that she was on the phone with Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky. She admits, thinking that she is speaking privately, that CBDCs would be used to control what kind of payments the population would be able to make.
There’s no putting the cat back in that bag. Politicians and central bankers want total financial control, and they think they have the technology to do it, through CBDCs. Average citizens worldwide have been making it clear that they would really prefer to have the option of private, decentralized payments through crypto or cash, and so there is a legitimate concern that any upcoming cyberattack (no matter who actually conducts it) could be used to reset financial systems worldwide.
But do they have the technology to pull this off successfully?
Who knows.
We’ve talked before about Ukraine’s Diia app and how, shortly after it launched, they had a massive data breach in which millions of people had their personal information released all over the dark web.
This breach was tiny compared to what just happened to the people of India in the recent Aadhaar data breach.
Aadhaar is the Indian program launched to streamline the identification process of Indian citizens. The program was rolled out in 2009, issuing a unique 12-digit number to each person who registered in exchange for their biometric data/
Before Aadhaar, there was no universal identification program within India, and as you can imagine, this led to widespread abuse and corruption. Aadhaar claimed to solve that problem.
Within a few years of launching, Aadhaar had become the world’s largest biometric data collection service. As of 2023, 99% of Indians, or 1.3 billion people, have handed over their fingerprints and iris scans in exchange for access to government services. The Indian government has boasted that this allows the poorest Indians, many of whom had no official identification beforehand, to receive benefits.
A court ruling in 2018 claimed that the Indian government could demand Aadhaar data, but that private entities such as banks and phone companies could not. However, despite this court ruling, many educated people within India claim that it was not clear what services would or would not be withheld based on Aadhaar participation. Instances of fraud have been playing out since its adoption. It has been used for voter fraud. And, once you opt-in, there’s no opting out.
Within the past two weeks, India has suffered a massive data breach, with 815 million people having their biometric data and banking information put up for sale on the dark web.
This is the biggest data breach in history. Eight hundred fifteen million people means that more than 1 in 10 people on planet Earth just had their data stolen. You can find many, many videos on YouTube of furious Indians talking about the data breach, but Western media has totally ignored this for reasons that are probably obvious.
How am I preparing?
So, after all this, am I preparing for Cyber 9/11? Am I prepping for the attack itself, or some kind of biometrically linked CBDC to roll out?
General chaos, leading to Thirdworldization, is my pre-2024 election prediction. There are some power-hungry people individuals who would love to have the whole world living under a global digital system, but I think that forced implementation is more likely to cause chaos than anything else. These systems are not foolproof and lead to problems wherever they’re tried.
We may not be able to avoid attempts at forced implementation. But we can prepare by paying attention to our surroundings, becoming more skilled producers rather than consumers, and most of all, developing trusted networks of friends and family in the real world.
For more information on preparing for a cyberattack, check out this article and this one.
Guest Contribution: “The Fed Approaches the End of the Rate Hiking Cycle”
Today, we present a guest post written by David Papell and Ruxandra Prodan, Professor and Associate Instructional Professor of Economics at the University…
Today, we present a guest post written by David Papell and Ruxandra Prodan, Professor and Associate Instructional Professor of Economics at the University of Houston.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) maintained the target range for the federal funds rate (FFR) at 5.25 – 5.5 percent in its November 2023 meeting. While the September 2023 Summary of Economic Projections (SEP) projected a range between 5.5 and 5.75 percent by the end of 2023, it clear that the Committee will wait before deciding whether to end the rate hiking cycle or to have one more rate increase at a subsequent meeting.
There is widespread agreement that the Fed fell “behind the curve” by not raising rates when inflation rose in 2021, forcing it to play “catch-up” in 2022. “Behind the curve,” however, is meaningless without a measure of “on the curve.” In the latest version of our paper, “Policy Rules and Forward Guidance Following the Covid-19 Recession,” we use data from the SEP’s from September 2020 to June 2023 to compare policy rule prescriptions with actual and FOMC projections of the FFR. This provides a precise definition of “behind the curve” as the difference between the FFR prescribed by the policy rule and the actual or projected FFR. We analyze four policy rules that are relevant for the future path of the FFR in the post:
The Taylor (1993) rule with an unemployment gap is as follows,
where Rt is the level of the short-term federal funds interest rate prescribed by the rule, πt is the inflation rate, πLR is the 2 percent target level of inflation, ULRt is the 4 percent rate of unemployment in the longer run, Ut is the current unemployment rate, and rLRt is the ½ percent neutral real interest rate from the current SEP.
Yellen (2012) analyzed the balanced approach rule where the coefficient on the inflation gap is 0.5 but the coefficient on the unemployment gap is raised to 2.0.
The balanced approach rule received considerable attention following the Great Recession and became the standard policy rule used by the Fed.
These rules are non-inertial because the FFR fully adjusts whenever the target FFR changes. This is not in accord with FOMC practice to smooth rate increases when inflation rises. We specify inertial versions of the rules based on Clarida, Gali, and Gertler (1999),
where p is the degree of inertia and is the target level of the federal funds rate prescribed by Equations (1) and (2). We set p as in Bernanke, Kiley, and Roberts (2019). Rt-1 equals the rate prescribed by the rule if it is positive and zero if the prescribed rate is negative.
Figure 1 depicts the midpoint for the target range of the FFR for September 2020 to September 2023 and the projected FFR for December 2023 to December 2026 from the September 2023 SEP. Following the exit from the ELB to 0.375 in March 2022, the FFR rose to 5.375 in September 2023 and is projected to rise to 5.625 in December 2023 before falling to 4.875 in December 2024, 3.875 in December 2025, and 2.875 in December 2026. The figure also depicts policy rule prescriptions. Between September 2020 and September 2023, we use real-time inflation and unemployment data that was available at the time of the FOMC meetings. Between December 2023 and December 2026, we use inflation and unemployment projections from the September 2023 SEP. The differences in the prescribed FFR’s between the inertial and non-inertial rules are much larger than those between the Taylor and balanced approach rules.
Figure 1. The Federal Funds Rate and Policy Rule Prescriptions. Panel A. Non-Inertial Rules
Policy rule prescriptions are reported in Panel A for the non-inertial Taylor and balanced approach rules. They are not in accord with the FOMC’s practice of smoothing rate increases when inflation rises. The prescriptions for the two rules are identical at the ELB through March 2021. The FOMC fell behind the curve starting in June 2021 when the prescribed FFR increased from the ELB of 0.125 to 2.625 for the Taylor rule and to 0.375 for the balanced approach rule while the actual FFR stayed at the ELB. The policy rule prescriptions sharply increased through 2021 and peaked in March 2022 to 7.875 for the Taylor rule and 8.125 for the balanced approach rule when the FFR first rose above the ELB to 0.375. The gap also peaked in March 2022 at 750 basis points for the Taylor rule and 775 basis points for the balanced approach rule. The gap narrowed considerably between March 2022 and September 2023 as the FFR rose from 0.375 to 5.375 while the Taylor rule prescriptions fell to 6.125 and the balanced approach rule prescriptions fell to 6.625. Looking forward, the gap between the FFR projections and the policy rule prescriptions reverses in December 2023 and the FFR projections are above the policy rule prescriptions through December 2026.
Figure 1. The Federal Funds Rate and Policy Rule Prescriptions. Panel B. Inertial Rules
Panel B reports the results for the inertial Taylor and balanced approach rules. They are much more in accord with the FOMC’s practice of raising the FFR slowly when inflation rises. The prescriptions for the two rules are identical at the ELB through March 2021 and rise to 0.375 for the Taylor rule in June 2021. The FOMC fell behind the curve starting in September 2021 when the prescribed FFR increased to 0.875 for the Taylor rule and 0.625 for the balanced approach rule while the actual FFR stayed at the ELB. The gap between the policy rule prescriptions and the FFR peaked in March 2022 at 200 basis points when the prescribed FFR was 2.325 for both rules while the FFR first rose above the ELB to 0.375.
The Fed is no longer behind the curve. The gap narrowed steadily and, in September 2023, the FFR was equal to the inertial balanced approach rule prescription and 25 basis points above the inertial Taylor rule prescription. As of the November 2023 meeting, it is unclear whether the FOMC will follow the prescriptions in the September 2023 SEP and raise the FFR to 5.625 or leave it unchanged at 5.375 at the December 2023 meeting. If the FOMC raises the FFR to 5.625, it will be 25 basis points above the balanced approach rule prescription and 50 basis points above the Taylor rule prescription. If the FOMC leaves the FFR unchanged at 5.375, it will be equal to the balanced approach rule prescription and 25 basis points above the Taylor rule prescription.
The inertial rules prescribe a much smoother path of rate increases from September 2021 through June 2023 than that adopted by the FOMC. If the Fed had followed the inertial Taylor or balanced approach rule instead of the FOMC’s forward guidance, it could have avoided the pattern of falling behind the curve, pivot, and getting back on track that characterized Fed policy during 2021 and 2022. Looking forward, the FFR projections from the September 2023 SEP are generally 25 basis points above the policy rule prescriptions through June 2025, equal to the policy rule prescriptions through March 2026, and 25 basis points below the policy rule prescriptions through December 2026. The current and projected FFR is in accord with prescriptions from inertial policy rules.
This post written by David Papell and Ruxandra Prodan.recessionunemploymentcovid-19fomcopen market committeefedrecession unemployment
Credit Card Delinquencies Continue to Rise—Who Is Missing Payments?
This morning, the New York Fed’s Center for Microeconomic Data released the 2023:Q3 Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit. After only moderate…
Andrew Haughwout, Donghoon Lee, Daniel Mangrum, Belicia Rodriguez, Joelle Scally, Wilbert van der Klaauw, and Crystal Wang
This morning, the New York Fed’s Center for Microeconomic Data released the 2023:Q3 Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit. After only moderate growth in the second quarter, total household debt balances grew $228 billion in the third quarter across all types, especially credit cards and student loans. Credit card balances grew $48 billion this quarter and marked the eighth quarter of consecutive year-over year increases. The $154 billion nominal year-over-year increase in credit card balances marks the largest such increase since the beginning of our time series in 1999. The increase in balances is consistent with strong nominal spending and real GDP growth over the same time frame. But credit card delinquencies continue to rise from their historical lows seen during the pandemic and have now surpassed pre-pandemic levels. In this post, we focus on which groups have fallen behind on debt payments and discuss whether rising delinquencies are narrowly concentrated or broad based.
The Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit (page 13) shows the percentage of balances transitioning to delinquency by loan type, which are reported as four-quarter moving sums to avoid seasonal trends. These series reached historic lows for all loan types during 2021 due to large fiscal transfers, reduced consumption opportunities, and broad-based forbearance. Apart from student loans, which were aided by administrative forbearance that only recently ended, new delinquencies for all loan types have risen since. Rising delinquencies were inevitable from historic lows, but it has been less clear how high and until when they might rise.
In our last blog post, we hinted that there were some signs of stabilization for auto loan and credit card delinquencies. And while auto loan delinquency does seem to be stabilizing for all except the young, moderating new credit card delinquencies in the first and second quarter were followed by higher delinquency transitions in the third quarter. The chart below (and all subsequent charts) shows the person-level rate of transitions from current status last quarter to delinquency in this quarter. Notably, this differs from the credit card series in page 13 of the Quarterly Report since these are not balance-weighted and do not account for seasonal trends. Historically, new credit card delinquency transitions peak in the fourth quarter and decline in first and second quarter before larger increases over the third and fourth quarters. The series shows that 2 percent of credit card users moved from current status in the second quarter of 2023 to thirty or more days past due on at least one account in the third quarter. This is up from roughly 1.7 percent in the first and second quarters of 2023, and higher than the third quarter average between 2015-19 of 1.7 percent.
The Share of Newly Delinquent Credit Card Users Rose in the Third Quarter and Exceeds the Pre-Pandemic Average
Share of credit card borrowers who are newly delinquent (in percent)
Source: New York Fed Consumer Credit Panel/Equifax.
Who Is Driving the Rising Credit Card Delinquencies?
In the next series of charts, we explore the variation in this delinquency transition rate for several different groups of credit card users. First, we look at delinquencies by birth generation. While Baby Boomers (born 1946-64), Generation X (born 1965-79), and Generation Z (born 1995-2011) credit card users have delinquency rates similar to their pre-pandemic levels and trends, Millennial (born 1980-94) credit card users began exceeding pre-pandemic delinquency levels in the middle of last year and now have transition rates 0.4 percentage point higher than in the third quarter of 2019.
Millennial Credit Card Delinquency Exceeds Pre-Pandemic Levels while Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Generation Z Are at or near Their 2019 Averages
Share of credit card borrowers who are newly delinquent (in percent)
Source: New York Fed Consumer Credit Panel/Equifax.
Notes: Credit card users are categorized into generations using their birth year. Baby Boomers are those born between 1946 and 1964, Generation X are 1965 to 1979, Millennials are 1980 to 1994, and Generation Z are 1995 to 2011.
The chart below shows how credit card delinquencies have evolved by zip median income. We categorize all zip codes into four groups ranked by area income with the first quartile representing the lowest and the fourth quartile representing the highest income. The lowest-income areas persistently have the highest delinquency rates, but all four quartiles are now above their pre-pandemic levels. Although not shown here, the pattern for delinquency rates by U.S. Census region is similar to the zip income pattern. The South has higher delinquency rates over the time series, but all regions have new credit card delinquency rates higher than their pre-pandemic averages and are evolving similarly.
Delinquency Rates Are Rising Fastest for Lower-Income Areas, but Each Income Quartile Area Has Rates at or above Their 2019 Levels
Share of credit card borrowers who are newly delinquent (in percent)
Sources: New York Fed Consumer Credit Panel/Equifax; American Community Survey.
Notes: Credit card users are categorized into zip income quartiles by ranking zip code median income from lowest to highest and splitting zip codes into four equally sized groups by population.
Next, we look at how balances have evolved based on borrower credit profiles. The chart below shows the delinquency transition rates for card users by their outstanding total credit card balances in the previous quarter. Generally, those with higher total balances are more likely to transition to delinquency, and recent trends are consistent with this pattern. Those with combined balances over $20,000 have the highest transition rate since the beginning of 2022 both in the level and the pace of increase, but the prevalence of balances this large is low at 6 percent of credit card holders. Meanwhile, borrowers with balances of less than $5,000, 68 percent of credit card borrowers last quarter, have recent delinquency transition rates similar to their pre-pandemic levels.
Those with the Largest Credit Card Balances Were the Most Likely to Fall behind but Make Up a Small Share of Credit Card Users
Share of credit card borrowers who are newly delinquent (in percent)
Source: New York Fed Consumer Credit Panel/Equifax.
Notes: Credit card users are categorized into balance groups using their total credit card balance in the previous quarter. Those who had a zero balance in both the current quarter and previous quarter are excluded (as they cannot transition to delinquency). Borrowers with balances over $1 million are excluded.
The last of these charts shows the delinquency transition rates for credit card users based on whether a borrower also has other types of debt. The share of mortgage holders with a new credit card delinquency is only slightly higher than before the pandemic. Meanwhile, borrowers with auto loans (gold line) or student loans (red line) were more likely to fall behind on their loans than before the pandemic. This was especially the case for those with student loans and auto loans (shown in light blue). This group’s transition rate into a credit card delinquency is 0.6 percentage point higher than it was prior to the pandemic. These repayment difficulties will likely continue to mount for student loan borrowers, as shown in our recent special survey of such borrowers, now that student loan payments have resumed.
Credit Card Delinquencies Are Rising Particularly Quickly for Those with Auto and Student Loans
Share of credit card borrowers who are newly delinquent (in percent)
Source: New York Fed Consumer Credit Panel/Equifax.
Notes: Credit card users are categorized into groups based on whether they had a nonzero balance for other debt types. Borrowers can contribute to multiple groups depending on which loans they hold.
Conclusion
Delinquency rates on most credit product types have been rising from historic lows since the middle of 2021. The transition rate into delinquency remains below the pre-pandemic level for mortgages, which comprise the largest share of household debt, but auto loan and credit card delinquencies have surpassed pre-pandemic levels and continue to rise. While the growth in auto loan delinquency has appeared to moderate over recent quarters, credit card delinquency rates have risen at a sharper pace. Even though the increase in delinquency appears to be broad based across income groups and regions, it is disproportionately driven by Millennials, those with auto or student loans, and those with relatively higher credit card balances. The labor market and the general economy have remained resilient throughout this period which makes pinning down the causes of rising delinquencies rates more difficult. Whether this is a consequence of shifts in lending, overextension, or deeper economic distress associated with higher borrowing costs and price pressures is an important topic for further research. We will continue to monitor conditions for household balance sheets for further signs of distress.
Andrew F. Haughwout is the director of Household and Public Policy Research in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Research and Statistics Group.
Donghoon Lee is an economic research advisor in Consumer Behavior Studies in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Research and Statistics Group.
Daniel Mangrum is a research economist in Equitable Growth Studies in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Research and Statistics Group.
Belicia Rodriguez is a senior research analyst in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Communications and Outreach Group.
Wilbert van der Klaauw is the economic research advisor for Household and Public Policy Research in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Research and Statistics Group.
Joelle Scally is a regional economic principal in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Research and Statistics Group.
Crystal Wang is a research analyst in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Research and Statistics Group.
How to cite this post:
Andrew Haughwout, Donghoon Lee, Daniel Mangrum, Belicia Rodriguez, Joelle Scally, Wilbert van der Klaauw, and Crystal Wang, “Credit Card Delinquencies Continue to Rise—Who Is Missing Payments?,” Federal Reserve Bank of New York Liberty Street Economics, November 7, 2023, https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2023/11/credit-card-delinquencies-continue-to-rise-who-is-missing-payments/.
Disclaimer
The views expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System. Any errors or omissions are the responsibility of the author(s).
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where Rt is the level of the short-term federal funds interest rate prescribed by the rule, πt is the inflation rate, πLR is the 2 percent target level of inflation, ULRt is the 4 percent rate of unemployment in the longer run, Ut is the current unemployment rate, and rLRt is the ½ percent neutral real interest rate from the current SEP.
Yellen (2012) analyzed the balanced approach rule where the coefficient on the inflation gap is 0.5 but the coefficient on the unemployment gap is raised to 2.0.
The balanced approach rule received considerable attention following the Great Recession and became the standard policy rule used by the Fed.
These rules are non-inertial because the FFR fully adjusts whenever the target FFR changes. This is not in accord with FOMC practice to smooth rate increases when inflation rises. We specify inertial versions of the rules based on Clarida, Gali, and Gertler (1999),
where p is the degree of inertia and is the target level of the federal funds rate prescribed by Equations (1) and (2). We set p as in Bernanke, Kiley, and Roberts (2019). Rt-1 equals the rate prescribed by the rule if it is positive and zero if the prescribed rate is negative.
Figure 1 depicts the midpoint for the target range of the FFR for September 2020 to September 2023 and the projected FFR for December 2023 to December 2026 from the September 2023 SEP. Following the exit from the ELB to 0.375 in March 2022, the FFR rose to 5.375 in September 2023 and is projected to rise to 5.625 in December 2023 before falling to 4.875 in December 2024, 3.875 in December 2025, and 2.875 in December 2026. The figure also depicts policy rule prescriptions. Between September 2020 and September 2023, we use real-time inflation and unemployment data that was available at the time of the FOMC meetings. Between December 2023 and December 2026, we use inflation and unemployment projections from the September 2023 SEP. The differences in the prescribed FFR’s between the inertial and non-inertial rules are much larger than those between the Taylor and balanced approach rules.
Figure 1. The Federal Funds Rate and Policy Rule Prescriptions. Panel A. Non-Inertial Rules
Policy rule prescriptions are reported in Panel A for the non-inertial Taylor and balanced approach rules. They are not in accord with the FOMC’s practice of smoothing rate increases when inflation rises. The prescriptions for the two rules are identical at the ELB through March 2021. The FOMC fell behind the curve starting in June 2021 when the prescribed FFR increased from the ELB of 0.125 to 2.625 for the Taylor rule and to 0.375 for the balanced approach rule while the actual FFR stayed at the ELB. The policy rule prescriptions sharply increased through 2021 and peaked in March 2022 to 7.875 for the Taylor rule and 8.125 for the balanced approach rule when the FFR first rose above the ELB to 0.375. The gap also peaked in March 2022 at 750 basis points for the Taylor rule and 775 basis points for the balanced approach rule. The gap narrowed considerably between March 2022 and September 2023 as the FFR rose from 0.375 to 5.375 while the Taylor rule prescriptions fell to 6.125 and the balanced approach rule prescriptions fell to 6.625. Looking forward, the gap between the FFR projections and the policy rule prescriptions reverses in December 2023 and the FFR projections are above the policy rule prescriptions through December 2026.
Figure 1. The Federal Funds Rate and Policy Rule Prescriptions. Panel B. Inertial Rules
Panel B reports the results for the inertial Taylor and balanced approach rules. They are much more in accord with the FOMC’s practice of raising the FFR slowly when inflation rises. The prescriptions for the two rules are identical at the ELB through March 2021 and rise to 0.375 for the Taylor rule in June 2021. The FOMC fell behind the curve starting in September 2021 when the prescribed FFR increased to 0.875 for the Taylor rule and 0.625 for the balanced approach rule while the actual FFR stayed at the ELB. The gap between the policy rule prescriptions and the FFR peaked in March 2022 at 200 basis points when the prescribed FFR was 2.325 for both rules while the FFR first rose above the ELB to 0.375.
The Fed is no longer behind the curve. The gap narrowed steadily and, in September 2023, the FFR was equal to the inertial balanced approach rule prescription and 25 basis points above the inertial Taylor rule prescription. As of the November 2023 meeting, it is unclear whether the FOMC will follow the prescriptions in the September 2023 SEP and raise the FFR to 5.625 or leave it unchanged at 5.375 at the December 2023 meeting. If the FOMC raises the FFR to 5.625, it will be 25 basis points above the balanced approach rule prescription and 50 basis points above the Taylor rule prescription. If the FOMC leaves the FFR unchanged at 5.375, it will be equal to the balanced approach rule prescription and 25 basis points above the Taylor rule prescription.
The inertial rules prescribe a much smoother path of rate increases from September 2021 through June 2023 than that adopted by the FOMC. If the Fed had followed the inertial Taylor or balanced approach rule instead of the FOMC’s forward guidance, it could have avoided the pattern of falling behind the curve, pivot, and getting back on track that characterized Fed policy during 2021 and 2022. Looking forward, the FFR projections from the September 2023 SEP are generally 25 basis points above the policy rule prescriptions through June 2025, equal to the policy rule prescriptions through March 2026, and 25 basis points below the policy rule prescriptions through December 2026. The current and projected FFR is in accord with prescriptions from inertial policy rules.
where Rt is the level of the short-term federal funds interest rate prescribed by the rule, πt is the inflation rate, πLR is the 2 percent target level of inflation, ULRt is the 4 percent rate of unemployment in the longer run, Ut is the current unemployment rate, and rLRt is the ½ percent neutral real interest rate from the current SEP.
Yellen (2012) analyzed the balanced approach rule where the coefficient on the inflation gap is 0.5 but the coefficient on the unemployment gap is raised to 2.0.
The balanced approach rule received considerable attention following the Great Recession and became the standard policy rule used by the Fed.
These rules are non-inertial because the FFR fully adjusts whenever the target FFR changes. This is not in accord with FOMC practice to smooth rate increases when inflation rises. We specify inertial versions of the rules based on Clarida, Gali, and Gertler (1999),
where p is the degree of inertia and is the target level of the federal funds rate prescribed by Equations (1) and (2). We set p as in Bernanke, Kiley, and Roberts (2019). Rt-1 equals the rate prescribed by the rule if it is positive and zero if the prescribed rate is negative.
Figure 1 depicts the midpoint for the target range of the FFR for September 2020 to September 2023 and the projected FFR for December 2023 to December 2026 from the September 2023 SEP. Following the exit from the ELB to 0.375 in March 2022, the FFR rose to 5.375 in September 2023 and is projected to rise to 5.625 in December 2023 before falling to 4.875 in December 2024, 3.875 in December 2025, and 2.875 in December 2026. The figure also depicts policy rule prescriptions. Between September 2020 and September 2023, we use real-time inflation and unemployment data that was available at the time of the FOMC meetings. Between December 2023 and December 2026, we use inflation and unemployment projections from the September 2023 SEP. The differences in the prescribed FFR’s between the inertial and non-inertial rules are much larger than those between the Taylor and balanced approach rules.
Figure 1. The Federal Funds Rate and Policy Rule Prescriptions. Panel A. Non-Inertial Rules
Policy rule prescriptions are reported in Panel A for the non-inertial Taylor and balanced approach rules. They are not in accord with the FOMC’s practice of smoothing rate increases when inflation rises. The prescriptions for the two rules are identical at the ELB through March 2021. The FOMC fell behind the curve starting in June 2021 when the prescribed FFR increased from the ELB of 0.125 to 2.625 for the Taylor rule and to 0.375 for the balanced approach rule while the actual FFR stayed at the ELB. The policy rule prescriptions sharply increased through 2021 and peaked in March 2022 to 7.875 for the Taylor rule and 8.125 for the balanced approach rule when the FFR first rose above the ELB to 0.375. The gap also peaked in March 2022 at 750 basis points for the Taylor rule and 775 basis points for the balanced approach rule. The gap narrowed considerably between March 2022 and September 2023 as the FFR rose from 0.375 to 5.375 while the Taylor rule prescriptions fell to 6.125 and the balanced approach rule prescriptions fell to 6.625. Looking forward, the gap between the FFR projections and the policy rule prescriptions reverses in December 2023 and the FFR projections are above the policy rule prescriptions through December 2026.
Figure 1. The Federal Funds Rate and Policy Rule Prescriptions. Panel B. Inertial Rules
Panel B reports the results for the inertial Taylor and balanced approach rules. They are much more in accord with the FOMC’s practice of raising the FFR slowly when inflation rises. The prescriptions for the two rules are identical at the ELB through March 2021 and rise to 0.375 for the Taylor rule in June 2021. The FOMC fell behind the curve starting in September 2021 when the prescribed FFR increased to 0.875 for the Taylor rule and 0.625 for the balanced approach rule while the actual FFR stayed at the ELB. The gap between the policy rule prescriptions and the FFR peaked in March 2022 at 200 basis points when the prescribed FFR was 2.325 for both rules while the FFR first rose above the ELB to 0.375.
The Fed is no longer behind the curve. The gap narrowed steadily and, in September 2023, the FFR was equal to the inertial balanced approach rule prescription and 25 basis points above the inertial Taylor rule prescription. As of the November 2023 meeting, it is unclear whether the FOMC will follow the prescriptions in the September 2023 SEP and raise the FFR to 5.625 or leave it unchanged at 5.375 at the December 2023 meeting. If the FOMC raises the FFR to 5.625, it will be 25 basis points above the balanced approach rule prescription and 50 basis points above the Taylor rule prescription. If the FOMC leaves the FFR unchanged at 5.375, it will be equal to the balanced approach rule prescription and 25 basis points above the Taylor rule prescription.
The inertial rules prescribe a much smoother path of rate increases from September 2021 through June 2023 than that adopted by the FOMC. If the Fed had followed the inertial Taylor or balanced approach rule instead of the FOMC’s forward guidance, it could have avoided the pattern of falling behind the curve, pivot, and getting back on track that characterized Fed policy during 2021 and 2022. Looking forward, the FFR projections from the September 2023 SEP are generally 25 basis points above the policy rule prescriptions through June 2025, equal to the policy rule prescriptions through March 2026, and 25 basis points below the policy rule prescriptions through December 2026. The current and projected FFR is in accord with prescriptions from inertial policy rules.
