Behold the flattening U.S. yield curve! Reading through the latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit, you might get the impression that things are still humming along just fine. After all total household debt just hit a new high in the latest survey posting at $12.96 trillion. Mortgage debt is still below the previous bubble peak, so home buyers would appear to be doing doing just fine. If you peak below the headline metrics, however, you begin to see some cracks in the “everything is awesome” narrative.

One of the first things that stands out in the latest household debt report is the sharp spike in subprime auto loan delinquencies, particularly within auto loan finance company originations. Auto finance companies are some of the most reckless lenders in the business because they view subprime car buyers as easy targets. Just think of the subprime mortgage game that let to the last housing bust and you get the picture. It’s a big reason why new car sales have been as strong as they are during the last few years, and why new automobile sales will likely continue their slide once the hurricane-related jump fades away.

But getting back to the flattening yield curve theme, the warnings about a coming slowdown are pretty easy to see. If you ask your garden variety economist or mainstream industry puppets they will likely dismiss it, just like the Fed has continually done, as a “transitory” problem that warrants little concern. These “experts’ dismiss the warning signs because that is what they are paid to do.

The Fed isn’t going to tell mom and pop that the U.S. Yield curve continues to flatten because their trickle-down monetary experiment was a colossal failure in terms of the real economy even though it made bankers and billionaires even richer than they were before the crisis. The Fed isn’t going to publicly admit that they covered up the great recession with a huge pile of new debt and trillions in new reserves, much of which is still sitting and spinning on those bank balance sheets. (see included graphic of excess reserves) Most importantly, the Fed is not going to tell the public that the policies they pursued, policies specifically designed to make the banks and Wall Street whole, are primary causes of the broad economic stagnation the U.S. is experiencing along with massive (and growing) wealth & income inequality.

People like good news, and the more the better. Like much of the U.S. economy these days (see the S&P index and home prices as just a few examples), the sky is the limit when the govt and the Fed are cooking the books. Facts are for little people, and the Fed certainly doesn’t want those pesky facts getting in the way of their “recovery” narrative. Unmasking a phony recovery that has only benefited the top 10 percent of the population wouldn’t be good for job security or credibility so the show must go on.

Today the US Treasury 10-Yr-2Yr curve slope fell to the lowest level since November of 2007. That is some “recovery” indeed.