Old Glory Vortex

📈 Mortgage rates climb back above 7% after Moody's U.S. debt downgrade 🏠 The average interest rate for a 30-year mortgage jumped back above the 7% threshold on Monday, with the increase coming after Moody's downgraded the U.S. credit rating on Friday over concerns about the government's growing debt levels. 📊 It's the first time since April 11 that the average 30-year mortgage rate has jumped above 7%, according to Mortgage News Daily. The rate eased slightly later in the day, settling at about 6.99%. 💵 Despite the Federal Reserve’s interest rate cuts last year, mortgage rates have remained near their 25-year peak, since they track the 10-year Treasury bond, which is sensitive to economic conditions. 📉 With Moody’s downgrade, the markets slipped in early trading and the yield on the 10-year Treasury jumped above 5%, the highest since late 2023. Stock and bond prices later trimmed losses — S\&P 500 reversed from a 1.1% loss to a 0.2% gain. 🧠 Analysts from Wells Fargo say the debt issues are already priced in and expect “limited additional market impact” from the downgrade. 🚫 Elevated mortgage rates are likely to persist, while homebuyers face a shortage of affordable properties. Home prices remain near record highs and higher borrowing costs make financing more difficult. 📉 Only about 1 in 5 homes listed in March were affordable for households with $75,000 income, compared to about half of all listings before the pandemic, according to NAR. 📉 Home buying activity tends to pick up when mortgage rates drop below 6.7%, said Nadia Evangelou, senior economist at NAR. #Moody #ratings #debt Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), the global body representing the Travel & Tourism private sector, today announced its latest Economic Impact Research which found that the U.S. is on track to lose a staggering $12.5BN in international visitor spending this year. Notably, international visitor spending to the U.S. is projected to fall to just under $169BN this year, down from $181BN in 2024. This significant shortfall represents a 22.5% decline compared to the previous peak. The loss won’t be felt by Travel & Tourism alone, with WTTC saying it represents a direct blow to the U.S. economy overall, impacting communities, jobs, and businesses from coast to coast. According to the study, the U.S, the largest Travel & Tourism sector in the world, is the only country among 184 economies analysed by WTTC and Oxford Economics, forecast to see international visitor spending decline in 2025. #Tourism #Travel Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

Republican Sen. John Curtis (R-UT), who replaced Mitt Romney in the U.S. Senate, sat down with CNN’s Manu Raju and offered an ominous warning about the fiscal state of the country. Curtis spoke to Raju after delivering a speech on the Senate floor urging greater transparency in government. Raju began the Sunday interview, noting,

“One of the big things you talked about was telling the truth, telling the truth to the American public.”

#Trump #Tariffs #GOP Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

📞 For months, President Trump has been threatening to simply walk away from the frustrating negotiations for a cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine. After a phone call on Monday between Mr. Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, that appears to be exactly what the American president is doing. The deeper question now is whether he is also abandoning America’s three-year-long project to support Ukraine, a nascent democracy that he has frequently blamed for being illegally invaded. 🗣 Mr. Trump told President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and other European leaders after his call with Mr. Putin that Russia and Ukraine would have to find a solution to the war themselves, just days after saying that only he and Mr. Putin had the power to broker a deal. And he backed away from his own threats to join a European pressure campaign that would include new sanctions on Russia, according to six officials who were familiar with the discussion. They spoke on condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation. 🔍 Their account sheds light on Mr. Trump’s decision to throw up his hands when it comes to a peace process that he had previously promised to resolve in just 24 hours. And, unless he again reverses course, Monday’s developments left Mr. Putin with exactly what he wanted: not only an end to American pressure, but the creation of a deep fissure inside NATO, between the Americans and their traditional European allies, who say they are going ahead with sanctions anyway. ⚠️ To many, Mr. Trump’s decision was foretold — first by his fiery, televised encounter with Mr. Zelensky in the Oval Office, then by the resignation of the American ambassador in Kyiv.

💬 “The policy since the beginning of the Trump administration has been to put pressure on the victim, Ukraine, rather than the aggressor, Russia,”

Bridget A. Brink, the former ambassador and a longtime Foreign Service officer, wrote after leaving Kyiv last month.

“Peace at any price is not peace at all — it is appeasement.”

🚫 But Mr. Trump discovered that he could not get peace at any price, because Mr. Putin rejected his overtures. Even after Mr. Trump’s defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, declared that Ukraine would never join NATO and must abandon hopes of winning back all the territory that Russia had seized — two of Mr. Putin’s demands — it was not enough to get a cease-fire. #Trump #Ukraine #Russia Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

🛶Back in the New Deal era, the Northwest's mighty rivers were dammed, allowing barges to cheaply bring grain from the wheat fields of eastern Washington to the coast for export. Today, at ports along the Snake River, trucks unload grain to five-story-high bins along the banks. Most barges that pull up to the terminals carry the equivalent of 150 semitrucks worth of grain downriver to Portland. Typically more than 90% of all the wheat grown here ends up in countries like Japan, Korea and the Philippines, where it's used for noodles, confections and crackers. This is how it's been for as long as Jim Moyer can remember. His family first started farming along the rolling, fertile Palouse region of Washington in the 1890s.

"You can see the house and the buildings,"

Moyer says, walking through a newly planted field of spring wheat above the family's old farmhouse and barns.

"They've been there for well over a hundred years."

#farmers #prices #TradeWar Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

⏸The joint statement issued on May 12 — announcing a provisional halt to the spiraling tariff war between Washington and Beijing — did more than mark a pause in hostilities. It quietly affirmed a deeper, more uncomfortable truth for Washington:

Beijing, measured and unyielding, has once again managed to outmaneuver a Trump administration boxed in by its own belligerence.

Far from a victory lap, the agreement reads as a reluctant American retreat from a tariff crusade that threatened to destabilize not just bilateral trade, but global economic equilibrium. It underscored a reality that many in Washington are reluctant to admit:

Beijing has outplayed a belligerent but ultimately cornered Trump administration.

That the deal took place at all is remarkable, considering the rhetorical bellows emanating from the White House just weeks ago. President Donald Trump, evidently emboldened by his own mythos of disruption, had ramped up tariffs to an astonishing 145 percent on a broad swath of Chinese imports. China responded in kind, implementing symmetrical retaliatory measures — tariffs soaring to 125 percent and rare earth export curbs that sent American manufacturers scrambling. The result was a near paralysis of $600 billion in two-way trade, stoking recessionary fears and dislocating supply chains around the globe. The Geneva statement, then, represents not just a cooling-off period, but an implicit concession — if not an outright defeat — for Washington’s maximalist tariff strategy. The mutual suspension of 24 percentage points from the most recently imposed duties, and a rollback of others entirely, is not the outcome one would expect if Trump’s “art of the deal” were truly in effect. What we are witnessing is the collapse of a house built on the fallacy that economic warfare can be won by brute force alone. It is instructive to note how adroitly Beijing handled the escalation. Unlike Trump’s scattergun approach — unilateral edicts and rhetorical bombast — China operated with clinical restraint. Its officials, led by Vice Premier He Lifeng, never ruled out talks. Nor did they preclude countermeasures. Instead, they allowed the Trump administration to walk itself into a corner, where economic costs began to outweigh political theatrics. #Trump #Tariffs #China Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

💵It's no surprise that money remains a major source of stress for many Americans. From rising living expenses to uncertainty about retirement, financial anxiety continues to weigh heavily on households — and it's not just about what's happening today, but about how secure people feel about their futures. A recent Gallup survey offers new insight into what's weighing on American households. Inflation remains the most-cited financial concern, named by 29% of respondents. That number is down from 41% in 2022 — a notable drop — but still much higher than pre-2021 levels. It's clear that people are still feeling the aftershocks of the inflation surge, even if price increases have slowed. The survey also found that housing costs and a general lack of money tied as the second-biggest concerns, each cited by 12% of Americans. #Poll #inflation #prices Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

The House Budget Committee approved President Trump's "big, beautiful bill" Sunday after Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) convinced a cadre of Republican opponents to drop their opposition pending changes that have not yet been publicly disclosed and may still be in flux. Why it matters: It's a big win for Johnson and Trump, two days after GOP opposition torpedoed their first attempt at committee passage. But they'll still need to pass it through House Rules and on the House floor, where Republicans have a razor-thin majority. The vote was 17-16, with four Republicans voting "present" and all Democrats in opposition. GOP Reps. Chip Roy (Texas), Ralph Norman (S.C.), Andrew Clyde (Ga.) and Josh Brecheen (Okla.) voted present after voting "no" on Friday. Norman said he was "excited about the changes" in the works for the bill. #budget #Congress Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

More than 50 Democratic state lawmakers sent a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson late Thursday night in opposition to a proposed moratorium on state and local attempts to regulate the artificial intelligence industry. The controversial attempt to preempt state-level AI regulations is part of the House GOP’s proposed budget bill, which is scheduled to be marked up on Friday morning.

“This proposed moratorium would not only undermine the work of state and local legislatures to minimize existing harms, but would also exacerbate the risks AI development poses by selectively excluding from the moratorium any legislation that makes it easier to remove the guardrails states have already enacted,”

reads the letter, which was shared with City & State. The sign-on letter was organized by state Sen. Kristen Gonzalez, the chair of the Senate Committee on Internet and Technology.

“I believe New York is leading the nation in the fight for the safe and responsible adoption of AI technology,”

Gonzalez said in a statement.

“This moratorium, if passed, would undermine the work of state legislatures at a time when big tech’s influence has never been greater, and corporations are putting profit over the responsibility to protect people’s privacy, autonomy, and livelihoods. With over 50 New York legislators, we are standing up against this federal overreach and calling on House Republicans to work with states in safeguarding AI technology now, before it's too late.”

#AI #Democrats #GOP Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

The Trump administration conceded this weekend what economists, CEOs and consumers already knew: Americans pay for tariffs. Why it matters: Nearly a decade of Trump trade arguments held that foreign countries, not Americans, paid the ultimate cost of a trade war. But the president and his economic team now acknowledge that tariffs are raising prices for everyone, from industrial ports to retail storefronts. The big picture: Trump's sweeping global tariffs, effectively the highest in nearly a century, are expected to cost the average household more than $2,300 a year, according to the Yale Budget Lab. Even companies that once promised to hold the line on those costs, like Walmart, now say they have no choice but to pass them along. Inflation may be benign for now, but experts are increasingly convinced that higher prices are only a matter of time. Catch up quick: After Walmart said this week it would raise prices, a furious Trump insisted on Truth Social that the company "eat the tariffs" — a concession, of sorts, that someone this side of the border had to pay something, somehow. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent then went on the Sunday TV shows and said that while Walmart would eat some of the tariffs, consumers would have to pay, too. #Trump #Tariffs #inflation Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

The United Nations on Thursday forecast slower global economic growth this year and next, pointing to the impact of the surge in U.S. tariffs and increasing trade tensions. U.N. economists also cited the volatile geopolitical landscape and threats of rising production costs, supply chain disruptions and financial turbulence.

“These days, there’s so much uncertainty in the air,”

said Shantanu Mukherjee, director of the Economic Analysis and Policy Division at the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

“It’s been a nervous time for the global economy,”

he told reporters while launching the midyear forecast.

“In January this year, we were expecting two years of stable — if subpar — growth, and since then, prospects have diminished, accompanied by significant volatility across various dimensions.”

The U.N. is now forecasting global economic growth of 2.4% this year and 2.5% next year — a drop of 0.4 percentage point each year from its projections in January. Last year, the global economy grew 2.9%. Mukherjee said the slowing is affecting most countries and regions, but among the most severely hit are the poorest and least developed countries, whose growth prospects have fallen from 4.6% to 4.1% just since January. #UN #economy #forecast Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

The world’s largest retailer is sounding the alarm on President Donald Trump’s tariffs. Walmart Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said in an interview with CNBC that Trump’s tariffs on most imports into the U.S. are still “too high” despite the administration cutting the levy on goods from China earlier this week. He warned consumers will begin to see higher prices on products by the end of the month.

“We’re wired for everyday low prices, but the magnitude of these increases is more than any retailer can absorb,”

he said in the interview. #Trump #China Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

🎙 A four-minute audio clip of President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s 2023 special counsel interview released Friday evening showed Mr. Biden speaking softly and haltingly as he struggled to recall key dates. 📰 The audio was published by Axios as the Trump administration made plans to release the full interview recording. It offers a firsthand look at Mr. Biden’s much-debated interview with Robert K. Hur, the special counsel, as part of an investigation into Mr. Biden’s handling of classified documents. ⏳ The clip showed Mr. Biden stumbling over the years his son died and Donald J. Trump was first elected, and when he left office as vice president. 📄 A transcript of the interview was released in 2024, when Mr. Hur released his report and declined to recommend charges against Mr. Biden. The Biden administration blocked the release of the audio recordings, which show Mr. Biden’s verbal and memory struggles. 📅 As early as next week, the Trump administration plans to release the audio recordings of the interview, according to people familiar with the matter. 🏛 Mr. Biden was interviewed at the White House for roughly five hours over two days in October 2023 by Robert K. Hur, who had been appointed to investigate whether crimes had been committed related to classified documents found at Mr. Biden’s former office and home after he left the Obama administration. ⚖️ In 2024, Mr. Hur announced he would not seek to file any charges in the case, in part because Mr. Biden would probably appear to be a sympathetic figure to a jury — an older man with a poor memory. 📉 The emergence of the recording comes as Democrats are grappling with new revelations about Mr. Biden’s health while in office, and efforts at that time by his aides and other party leaders to quash concerns about his ability to run for re-election. 🗣 About a month after Mr. Hur’s announcement not to seek charges, officials released a transcript of his interview with Mr. Biden. But for more than a year, Republicans have been demanding that the government also release the audio recording, arguing that it might offer evidence of a decline in Mr. Biden’s mental acuity.

📢 “The transcripts were released by the Biden administration more than a year ago,”

said Kelly Scully, a spokeswoman for the former president.

“The audio does nothing but confirm what is already public.”

🔒 The Biden administration did not release the audio, asserting executive privilege. Officials also said releasing such a recording could make it harder for prosecutors to get cooperation from witnesses in future investigations. #Biden #interview Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

📉 The credit rating of the United States received a potentially costly downgrade on Friday, as the ratings firm Moody’s determined that the government’s rising debt levels stood to grow further if Republicans enact a package of new tax cuts. ⚠️ The downgrade, to one notch below the highest triple-A rating, amounted to a repudiation of Washington, where President Trump only hours earlier had pushed his party to adopt a legislative package that might add trillions of dollars to the nation’s fiscal imbalance. 🏦 The downgrade from Moody’s means that each of the three major credit rating agencies no longer gives the United States its best rating. Fitch downgraded the United States in 2023, citing fiscal concerns, and Standard & Poor’s downgraded the country in 2011. 🌊 The new rating decrease could send ripple effects throughout the economy if it prompts investors to demand higher payments on bonds, which in turn could raise consumers’ borrowing costs. So far, though, past downgrades have proved largely symbolic, as the American government’s debt remains the bedrock of the global financial system. 🏛 Moody’s pointed to decades of gridlock and dysfunction in the nation’s capital. It found that Democrats and Republicans alike had failed to meaningfully curtail U.S. debt, which now towers above $36 trillion. ⚖️ Nor had the U.S. government addressed myriad well-known, and long-term, financial challenges, Moody’s said, especially the rising costs and persistent underfunding of programs like Social Security and Medicare. 💵 While Moody’s described the U.S. financial system as stable, and found the dollar to be strong and reliable, it also acknowledged the vast policy uncertainty — and it obliquely referred to the ways in which political stability and constitutional order can be “tested at times.”

🗣 “Successive U.S. administrations and Congress have failed to agree on measures to reverse the trend of large annual fiscal deficits and growing interest costs,”

the report from Moody’s said.

“We do not believe that material multiyear reductions in mandatory spending and deficits will result from current fiscal proposals under consideration.”

📉 Moody’s specifically referred to the push to renew the expensive tax cuts adopted under Mr. Trump in 2017, a task that Republicans are now struggling with on Capitol Hill. ⚖️ The party is trying to offset some of the roughly $3.8 trillion cost of lowering taxes with cuts to spending on health care, clean energy incentives and food stamps. But the scope and the approach of the package have divided Republican lawmakers, with hard-right conservatives demanding steeper cuts as some moderates caution against taking benefits away from too many Americans. #budget #Moody #ratings Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

🚫 Conservatives on the House Budget Committee on Friday blocked their party’s megabill from reaching the floor, citing concerns that the legislation to fulfill President Trump’s domestic agenda would add too much to the deficit. ⚠️ It was a remarkable revolt that threatened to upend the party’s goal of pushing the legislation through the House before its Memorial Day recess and sent Republican leaders scrambling to try to put down the uprising. 🤹 The setback underscored the treacherous balancing act that Speaker Mike Johnson is trying to pull off. Without the support of Republican hard-liners on the Budget Committee, the bill cannot advance. But any changes to win their backing could alienate the more moderate Republicans whose votes will also be needed to pass the measure on the House floor. 🗳 Five Republican representatives — Chip Roy of Texas, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, and Lloyd Smucker of Pennsylvania — joined Democrats in voting to block the legislation. The vote was 16 to 21 on a motion to advance the bill.

💬 “This bill falls profoundly short; it does not do what we say it does with respect to deficits,”

Mr. Roy said ahead of the vote, explaining his opposition.

“Deficits will go up in the first half of the 10-year budget window, and we all know it’s true, and we shouldn’t do that. We shouldn’t say that we’re doing something we’re not doing.”

⏳ A few hours after the vote failed, committee leaders announced that the panel would reconvene Sunday at 10 p.m. to reconsider the legislation. It was not clear what, if any, changes Republican leaders agreed to before calling lawmakers back. 😕 But immediately after the vote, they had not seemed optimistic: The committee’s chairman, Representative Jodey C. Arrington of Texas, told its members they could return home to their districts.

🙏 “Well, the noes have it,”

Mr. Arrington said.

“I want to thank everybody for their time and patience, and godspeed and safe travels.”

🔄 Mr. Smucker, who changed his “yes” vote to a “no” vote at the last minute, said he did so for procedural reasons. Because he voted against the bill, he will be able to ask to call the legislation back up for consideration once Republicans broker a deal. 💸 The legislation the party is trying to push through would make Mr. Trump’s 2017 tax cuts permanent and eliminate taxes on tips and overtime pay through 2028, fulfilling a campaign pledge. Cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and subsidies for clean energy would partly offset the roughly $3.8 trillion cost of those tax measures over 10 years, as well as increased spending on the military and immigration enforcement. ✂️ But the conservatives are demanding changes to the bill, arguing that their leaders did not go far enough to cut federal spending. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group that calls for lower deficits, estimated that the bill would add roughly $3.3 trillion to the deficit over the next decade. A number of House conservatives have said they do not want to vote for legislation unless it is deficit neutral. #GOP #Trump #Congress Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

🛂 Federal officials are building a sprawling new database system they're calling "ImmigrationOS" to track and target millions of people living illegally in the United States. 💰 A $30 million no-bid contract with GOP megadonor Peter Thiel's Palantir Technologies will help Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents build a sophisticated system to prioritize people for deportation, including accused gang members and people who have overstayed their tourist visas. The contract with the Denver-based company calls for rolling out a prototype this fall. 👥 Thiel, the founder and chairman of Palantir, is close to Vice President JD Vance and DOGE head Elon Musk, with whom he launched PayPal. 🧠 The ImmigrationOS project reflects the approach DOGE has brought to the federal bureaucracy under Trump, as Musk's deputies seek technology-focused solutions to make government more efficient. Palantir already runs the ICE system used for Homeland Security investigations, and the new ImmigrationOS will merge data from multiple databases from government and private sources.

⚠️ "These transnational organizations' ongoing campaigns of violence and terror in the United States and internationally are extraordinarily violent, vicious, and similarly threaten the American people,"

ICE officials said in justifying the no-bid contract with Palantir.

"They present an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States."

📊 Palantir's existing contract with ICE has already topped \$88 million, and the new ImmigrationOS system will cost another $30 million, according to contract details reviewed by USA TODAY. Several of Musk's DOGE deputies have previously worked at Palantir, according to postings on LinkedIn and other social media sites. #DOGE #immigration #tracking Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

Walmart expects to raise some prices because of the impact of President Trump's tariffs, officials said Thursday. Why it matters: The world's largest retailer, which had pledged to hold the line on pricing, said it was now too late to avoid higher costs for consumers, even with the China trade deal earlier this week.

• "We will do our best to keep our prices as low as possible,"

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said Thursday during the retailer's quarterly earnings call.

"But given the magnitude of the tariffs, even at the reduced levels announced this week, we aren't able to absorb all the pressure given the reality of narrow retail margins."

Catch up quick: For the next 90 days, the U.S. will slash the tariffs on Chinese goods to 30%, from the 145% levy in effect for the past month. China agreed to cut its rate on U.S. exports to 10% from 125%. • American retailers, including Walmart, have been growing worried that Trump's trade war and increased volatility will lead to empty shelves, higher prices and store closures as Chinese imports screeched to a halt. • In an April 21 meeting, McMillon and the CEOs of Target and Home Depot privately warned Trump that his trade policy could trigger massive product shortages and price spikes. #Wallmart #prices #Tariffs Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

After installing anti-fraud checks for benefit claims made over the phone early last month, the Social Security Administration is considering walking back the policy after finding only two cases that had a high probability of being fraudulent. The anti-fraud tool set up last month after weeks of changes to the agency’s telephone policies has slowed retirement claim processing by 25% and led to a "degradation of public service,” according to an internal May document obtained by Nextgov/FCW that examined potentially cutting the anti-fraud tool for phone claims.  Under the new policy, the agency found that only two benefit claims out of over 110,000 had a high probability of being fraudulent — and they aren’t guaranteed to be so. Less than 1% of claims were flagged as even potentially fraudulent at all. 

“No significant fraud has been detected from the flagged cases,”

the internal document said.  #DOGE #Musk Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

Markets surged on this week’s de-escalation in the U.S.-China trade war. But the so-called “breakthrough” is riddled with caveats — and investors may be celebrating too soon.📈 To hear many on Wall Street tell it, the global economy just dodged a bullet. Stocks soared. Treasuries rallied. Analysts at Wedbush called it a “dream scenario.” But beneath the market’s exuberance lies a messier reality: The trade war isn’t close to over, and the “deal” investors are cheering may be less a breakthrough than a well-branded pause. #markets #Tariffs Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

As grocery prices have gone up over the last four years, credit card delinquencies have too, according to a new study. We're talking about people who are at least 60 days past due on their credit card bill. From February 2022 to August 2024, credit card delinquencies in North Carolina rose 36.8% to 306,962 people who were two payments late on their credit cards, according to Urban Institute. During that time, 1 in 4 Americans reported using credit cards and taking on debt just to buy groceries. 5 On Your Side met Jaimie Williams outside a Wake County Harris Teeter. She’d just finished shopping and said she’s been able to avoid having to use a credit card for groceries, but she’s not surprised that delinquencies have shot up.

“I don’t doubt it, because I guess if I had to choose between buying groceries and paying my credit card, I would probably buy groceries,”

Williams said.

“We're seeing a problem now that may only get worse,”

warned Adam Rust, Director of Financial Services at the Consumer Federation of America. #economy #prices Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸