{"id":76159,"date":"2022-12-17T01:15:41","date_gmt":"2022-12-17T09:15:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/?p=76159"},"modified":"2022-12-20T08:03:09","modified_gmt":"2022-12-20T16:03:09","slug":"black-coffee-17-dec-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/id76159-black-coffee-17-dec-2022.html","title":{"rendered":"Black Coffee: ‘Tis the Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"It’s time to sit back, relax and enjoy a little joe<\/em> …<\/p>\n

Welcome to another rousing edition of Black Coffee, your off-beat weekly round-up of what’s been going on in the world of money and personal finance.<\/p>\n

Well … another busy week is behind us. So with that in mind, let’s get this holiday party started …<\/p>\n

Please to put a nickel; please to put a dime. How petitions trickle in at Christmas time!<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

– Phyllis McGinley<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want – and their kids pay for it.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

– Richard Lamm<\/strong><\/p>\n

Credits and Debits<\/strong><\/p>\n

Debit:<\/strong><\/span> Did you see this? Price inflation in Egypt is causing its national currency, the pound, to lose value at a rapid pace over the past year. If that isn’t bad enough, the Egyptian central bank is expected to make an additional devaluation to the Egyptian pound in the coming weeks. As a result, panicked Egyptians are now turning to gold<\/a> and are hoarding as much as the yellow metal as they can in an effort to protect what is left of their savings from total annihilation. The bad news is, they are now paying far higher prices for the yellow metal than those who bought their wealth insurance before the currency crisis started. Imagine that.<\/p>\n

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Credit:<\/strong><\/span> Meanwhile, here in the US approximately 450,000 homebuyers currently owe more than their house is worth. Of those, around 60%, or 270,000, bought their homes in the first nine months of 2022. In total, around 8% of mortgages taken out in 2022 are now marginally underwater<\/a>, with another 20% having a low equity position. And while the overall total is far from staggering, the growing number of underwater homeowners is yet another sign that the latest housing bubble is about to burst. Oh … and speaking of bursting bubbles:<\/p>\n