Started by Jimmy Finkelstein following his sale of The Hill in 2021, it was supposed to be the answer to the left-vs-right paradigm in modern corporate media. With most outlets leaning — and oftentimes lurching — to the left and the remainder leaning right, Finkelstein wanted something that was truly fair and balanced. What he delivered still ended up leaning left and as a result it had trouble paying for the 300 mostly woke employees they hired.

As much as I would love to see a news outlet that is TRULY unbiased, I’m not sure if that’s even possible anymore. I respect what Finkelstein tried to do and it’s discouraging that it failed, but it was also predictable.

Some, like us, don’t even pretend to be unbiased. Heck, the name of one of our sites is “America First Report” so we proudly hang our conservative badge. But those who pretend to be unbiased like CNN and the NY Times invariably lurch to the left which is why they fail. You either tell the truth and pick a side or you lie and pretend to be unbiased.

According to Jason Cohen at Daily Caller:

The Messenger’s CEO and founder Jimmy Finkelstein launched the outlet in 2023 after selling The Hill in 2021 for $130 million, according to Axios. Within a brief timeframe, the company onboarded 300 employees, providing them with generous salaries.

“This is truly the last thing I wanted, and I am deeply sorry,” Finkelstein wrote in an email to employees, according to The New York Times.

The Messenger produced centrist news on various topics and had a substantial audience, but it could not afford its large newsroom, according to Axios. It spent millions on travel and entertainment without making sufficient advertising revenue, according to Semafor.

“Over the past few weeks, literally until earlier today, we exhausted every option available and have endeavored to raise sufficient capital to reach profitability,” Finkelstein wrote, according to the NYT. “Unfortunately, we have been unable to do so.”

Finkelstein recently met with conservative media and business executives, including Omeed Malik, Garrett Ventry, Ryan Coyne and George Farmer to discuss selling a majority stake in The Messenger at Mar-a-Lago, Axios reported.

Many legacy media publications are dealing with economic challenges affecting the news industry and resorting to drastic measures, Axios reported on Friday. Close to a dozen are laying off workers, dealing with employee strikes or trying to sell.

For instance, The Arena Group recently let go of nearly the entire union staff of Sports Illustrated, and the Los Angeles Times announced it would lay off over 100 journalists as the publication lost as much as $40 million a year, decreasing its newsroom employees by 20%. BuzzFeed has been in talks to unload two of its brands, Complex and Tasty, according to The Wall Street Journal.

What’s not being said is that revenue influences pushed The Messenger to make editorial decisions… just as it does with all corporate media outlets. Those who are beholden to big advertisers such as Big Pharma or huge ad networks like Google Adsense can never publish the whole truth. For example, data surrounding Covid-19 “vaccines” is always suppressed by outlets that rely on Big Tech for traffic, revenue, or both. It’s also suppressed by direct advertisers that account for a huge chunk of the revenue paid to corporate media outlets.

This is why we only work with patriotic advertisers and never with ad networks. We will say what we want and reveal the truth without fear.

The takeaway here isn’t that being unbiased goes against human nature, though that’s true too. The real takeaway is that corporate media can only be successful if they are honest with their audience, and that’s only happening in the trenches of independent journalism today.

To be sure, economic growth, the labor market and consumer spending have proven unexpectedly resilient in the face of rising interest rates and elevated inflation. But there are still plenty of signs a recession might still be on its way.

1. An “uncertain outlook” from leading indicators

Many mainstay economic indicators measure the past. So-called leading indicators reflect what likely lies ahead. The Conference Board’s U.S. Leading Economic Index for July marked its 16th consecutive drop and its longest losing streak since the run-up to the Great Recession in 2007 and 2008.

The index is based on 10 components, ranging from stock prices and interest rates to unemployment claims and consumer expectations for business conditions.

“The outlook remains highly uncertain,” said Justyna Zabinska-La Monica, senior manager of business cycle indicators, at The Conference Board. “The leading index continues to suggest that economic activity is likely to decelerate and descend into mild contraction in the months ahead.”

2. Consumer confidence is just a hair above recessionary levels

The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index came in at 80.2 in August, hovering just above 80, the level that often signals the U.S. economy is headed for a recession in the coming year.

It is also a leading indicator used to predict consumer spending, which drives more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity.

3. Consumers are foregoing big-ticket purchases

Retailers report that their customers have shifted their purchasing habits, spending less on furniture and other big ticket items in favor of necessities.  They have also been trading down on grocery items, ditching pricier cuts of beef and buying chicken.

“We saw some switch even to some canned products, like canned chicken and canned tuna and things like that,” Costco’s Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti told analysts on a May conference call.

Consumer spending has remained one of the bright spots in the economy, but most investors expect consumer spending to slow by as early as next year, Bloomberg’s latest Markets Live Pulse survey found.

4. Credit cards are getting maxed out

U.S. consumers ran up their credit card debt past the $1 trillion mark for the first time last month, according to a report on household debt from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Total household debt, which includes home and auto loans, has eclipsed $17 trillion.

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis reports that credit card delinquencies, which are still low compared to periods such as the Great Financial Crisis, are on the rise.

5. Banks are increasingly reluctant to lend

The latest Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey by the Federal Reserve reports tightening credit conditions across the board, from business loans to home mortgages and consumer credit.

When banks pull back on lending, businesses curb their investments and consumers cut spending, and this trend is expected to continue for at least the rest of the year.

“Regarding banks’ outlook for the second half of 2023, banks reported expecting to further tighten standards on all loan categories,” the Fed survey concluded. “Banks most frequently cited a less favorable or more uncertain economic outlook and expected deterioration in collateral values and the credit quality of loans as reasons for expecting to tighten lending standards further.”

6. Corporate bonds are maturing and refinancing them will be costly

Goldman Sachs estimates that $1.8 trillion in corporate debt is coming due over the next two years and it will have to be refinanced at higher interest rates. The expense will eat up more corporate resources, possibly leading to slower growth and investment.

Recessions occur as debt levels peak and borrowers begin to default. Moody’s has already reported a surge in corporate defaults this year. In the first half of the year, it counted 55, that’s 53% more than the 36 that defaulted in all of 2022.

7. Manufacturing remains in a prolonged post-pandemic slump

Manufacturing has been in decline for 10 consecutive months, as measured by the ISM Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index. Respondents to the ISM survey reported weaker customer demand because of higher prices and interest rates.

“Orders are in fact falling faster than factories are cutting output, suggesting firms will need to continue scaling back their production volumes into the near future,” writes Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence.  “An increasing sense of gloom about the near-term outlook has meanwhile hit hiring and led to a further major pull-back in purchasing activity.”

8. ‘Cascading crises’ could tip the balance of a slowing global economy

China, a growth engine for the past 40 years, is still struggling to recover from the pandemic, global economic growth has fallen below long-term average, and the ailing world could pull the U.S. economy down with it.

Like a plane crash, every economic disaster stems from a confluence of mishaps. Along these lines, G20 nations on Saturday put out a dire warning:

“Cascading crises have posed challenges to long-term growth,” the group said. “With notable tightening in global financial conditions, which could worsen debt vulnerabilities, persistent inflation and geoeconomic tensions, the balance of risks remains tilted to the downside.”

9. The yield curve, a classic recessionary signal, is still inverted

Investors should be paid more for taking a long-term risk than they should for a short-term risk. That’s why the yield on a 10-year Treasury is supposed to pay a higher yield than a 2-year Treasury.

When this is not the case, it’s called an inverted yield curve, and it has long been considered a sign that a recession is due within the next 18 months.

The yield curve for 10-year and the 2-year Treasury has been inverted since July 2022. It’s been inverted for so long that many observers have given up on its reliability — though it still hasn’t been 18 months since it first inverted. As for history, the yield curve last inverted was in late 2019, just before the pandemic U.S. recession.

10. Inflation is sticky, and the Fed isn’t done

The soft landing scenario that is  so widely embraced is based on observations that inflation has dropped precipitously as the economy continues to grow at a healthy pace and the labor market is still  holding strong with the unemployment rate at 3.8%.

The Fed, which has raised interest rates 11 times since March 2022 to curb inflation, can now take a bow. The consumer price index, which measures inflation, has come down from a peak of over 9% in June 2022 to 3.2% on its last reading in July.

The next reading on CPI, for August, comes out Wednesday, and it may not have budged much.

Meanwhile, the Fed, which next meets on Sept. 19-20 to decide on interest rates, is holding fast to its 2% target for inflation and will keep rates higher for longer, or possibly even raise them further to meet that goal.

Wall Street traders are not expecting another increase this month, according to the CME FedWatch tool, which is based on Fed funds futures trading.

Policy makers are still waiting to see what happens next after raising rates to their highest level in 22 years. Perhaps those actions have already sent the economy on a path of contraction. Or perhaps they haven’t done enough to continue slowing inflation.

Sticky inflation presents on ongoing risk of a recession.

“I believe we must proceed gradually,” Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan said last week, “weighing the risk that inflation will be too high against the risk of dampening the economy too much.”

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