Free Republic

The Federal Reserve is stuck between a rock and a hard place. If the Fed pushes rates higher, interest payments on our 34 trillion dollar national debt could spin wildly out of control and bank balance sheets will be in even worse condition than they are now. First Republic just bit the dust, and literally thousands of other small and mid-size banks and in serious jeopardy. So it would be suicidal to hike rates at this point. But if the Fed were to reduce rates, that would be like injecting jet fuel into a raging fire. Our ongoing inflation crisis...

The unbroken string of economic disasters that is Bidenomics now has a solid explanation. Jared Bernstein, the Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers doesn't understand economics. While being interviewed for the newly released documentary Finding the Money, he was unable to explain how the Federal Reserve creates money--something I taught to freshmen in macroeconomics classes for 23 years. "The government definitely prints money, and it definitely lends that money by selling bonds," Bernstein guessed. "Is that what they do? They sell bonds, yeah, they sell bonds. Right? Since they sell bonds, and people buy the bonds and lend...

A vegan cafe owner in Milwaukee who recently spoke beside former President Trump at a Waukesha rally told Fox News that her remarks were a plea to the person she voted for in 2020 — President Biden — to understand the plight of struggling business owners like herself. Shana Gray said that since her appearance, it has been an "eventful" time, which host Laura Ingraham reported included messages of hate and at least one case of a person with differing political beliefs "storm[ing]" her cafe. "I just pretty much put a plea out there to the administration of which I...

Here at Jalopnik, we know there’s nothing wrong with keeping a beloved old beater running for mile after mile, and we regularly celebrate high mileage heroes. Now, it turns out the rest of America is catching onto this way of thinking as the savings of holding onto an old car for longer begin mounting up. Drivers across the country are increasingly holding onto their cars for longer than ever, with an increasing number hitting more than 100,000 miles in their cars, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal. The trend comes as drivers realize the savings to...

The Biden administration has saddled the U.S. economy with more than $1 trillion worth of final rules and regulations thus far in 2024, according to analysis conducted by the American Action Forum (AAF).The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) final emissions regulations for light- and medium-duty vehicles, which some have characterized as an electric vehicle (EV) mandate, pushed the costs of the Biden administration’s regulatory agenda over the $1 trillion threshold for 2024, alone, according to AAF’s analysis. Across all agencies and regulatory actions last week, the federal government published regulations imposing $103 billion worth of total costs and 11.6 million annual...

A viral clip of an interview with President Joe Biden’s economic adviser Jared Bernstein shows the official struggling to explain why the U.S. government chooses to borrow money when it can just print more. "The government definitely prints money, and it definitely lends that money … by selling bonds. Is that what they do? They sell bonds, yeah, they sell bonds. Right? Since they sell bonds, and people buy the bonds and lend them the money," Bernstein, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, said when asked why the federal government borrows currency it can print. "I guess I’m just,...

A morning rush is nothing new for a coffee shop, especially not Starbucks. However, the global coffee chain recently found that its struggle to keep up with demand is leading some customers to second-guess purchasing their morning coffee. Starbucks just announced its financial earnings for the second quarter of 2024. Overall, its leadership was upfront in saying that the second quarter of 2024 was not a successful one for the business as a whole. The chain’s U.S. same-store sales declined 3%, and sales outside of North America decreased 6%. “Let me be clear,” Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan said on the...

Economy, other factors have put pressure on consumers People seem to be buying less food from quick-service restaurants (QSR). That appears to be the case after companies such as Yum! Brands, Starbucks and McDonald’s offered their latest quarterly updates on their businesses. In the first quarter, the corporate parent of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut said its overall same-store sales narrowed by 3%, which was "expected," said Yum! Brands CEO David Gibbs in the company’s press release Wednesday. CFO Chris Turner told analysts and investors who tuned into the earnings call that Yum! Brands had expected the first quarter...

The April pronouncements of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell at Stanford University have sparked a crucial discourse about the ramifications of mass immigration on the American economy. Powell's observations emphasized the significant role of immigrants, particularly within lower-paying sectors of the labor market, prompting economists to hastily reconsider their projections. The forecasts presented by the Congressional Budget Office (C.B.O.) paint a stark panorama: an astounding 3.3 million individuals entered the United States in 2023 alone, with similar figures anticipated for 2024. While some champion these statistics as heralds of economic expansion, the underlying reality is bleak. The majority of this...

Former President Donald Trump vowed in Wisconsin to trash President Joe Biden’s so-called “Bidenomics” and reinstate “MAGAnomics” upon victory in November. The average Wisconsin family lost $21,981 due to the increased cost of living under Biden, the Republican National Committee estimated. The economy is the number one issue in 2024, according to CNN. About half of voters in swing states Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan believe the economy got worse under Biden’s management, a CBS News poll found Sunday.

Americans have been sour on the economy since President Joe Biden was sworn into office. As we head into an election season that is likely to be a 2020 rematch between Biden and former President Donald Trump, voters give Republicans and Trump an edge on economic issues. An April 12-14 poll from Echelon Insights found that 57 percent of all voters somewhat or strongly disapproved of the way Biden is handling the economy, and favored Trump on making the economy work better by 48 percent to 40 percent. That's only a recent example of what surveys have routinely shown: Voters...

Biden is again on a tax-raising rampage. He proposes to increase income taxes by nearly $5 trillion for corporations. Increasing the corporate income tax rate to 28% (from 21%) will be a great driver of negative effects on the U.S. economy, reducing long-run GDP by 0.9%, the capital stock by 1.7%, wages by 0.8%, and full-time jobs by 192,000. Additionally, Biden's new tax proposals include increasing the recently enacted corporate alternative minimum tax rate from 15% to 21% and denying business deductions for employee compensation above $1 million.Biden proposes an increase of the corporate income tax that's a higher tax...

The Biden administration’s analysis of its revenue proposals for fiscal year 2025 argues targeted tax hikes that disproportionately affect white people would ease racial wealth inequality. Increasing taxes on capital gains and income-based wealth would reduce racial wealth inequality for black and Hispanic families, the Treasury Department outlined in the analysis published in mid-March. The Treasury points out that white families disproportionately hold assets subject to capital gains tax or are in a higher tax bracket, meaning a hike in those taxes would benefit black and Hispanic families. (RELATED: US Economic Growth Slows Down Massively, Well Below Expectations) The Biden...

White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Jared Bernstein dismissed concerns that the economy is under-performing, saying "I can't get myself worked up over mere statistics in the GDP or CPI. Folks don't eat the GDP. The CPI includes volatile components like food, energy, and housing. If we exclude the price spikes in these areas inflation doesn't look so bad." "A key strength that our Republican critics overlook is that government spending remains robust," Bernstein added. "Under Bidenomics we're not at the mercy of private sector investments for economic growth. Their anti-social quest for increased profits is supplanted by a...

grocery prices '20 vs '24 January I January Price Item 2020 2024 I Increase Orange juice (128 fl oz) $2.99 $4.29 43.48% Coffee (12 oz) $6.99 $8.99 28.64% White bread (20 oz) $1.49 $1.99 33,56% Eggs (1 dozen) $1.49 $2.99 100.67% Chicken breast (2 Ibs) $4.99 $799 60.12% Ground beef (1 !b) $4.99 $6.99 40.08% Rice (1 Ib) $0.99 $1.49 50.51% Iceberg lettuce $0.99 $1.49 50.51% Tomatoes (4) $2.99 $3.99 33.44% Potatoes (3 Ibs) $2.99 $4.49 50.17% Milk (1 gallon) $2.99 $4.49 50.17% Butter (1 Ib) $3.99 $5.49 37.57% Bananas (2 Ibs) $0.99 $1.49 50.51% Cheerios (18 oz) $2.99 $4.29...

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser were both warned about the security situation prior to January 6th and both of them turned down National Guard troops at the US Capitol that day. Pelosi and Mayor Muriel Bowser turned down thousands of National Guard troops at the Capitol on January 6 for political reasons. Chris Wray’s FBI also refused to notify the Trump administration and his cabinet secretaries that they believed there could be violence like the mass protests at the Capitol that took place that day. Nancy Pelosi also refused...

Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said Sunday on MSNBC’s “Inside” that it was “clear” former President Donald Trump “is a grifter.” Host Jen Psaki said, “You’ve been ahead of the curve that Trump is a conman for a long time. The fact they want to pay his own legal bills despite claiming he is a billionaire feels like it’s an in-your-face example. I know your concern is not the Republican donors, but are they being duped? Pelosi said, “Well, I think it’s very clear that Trump is a grifter. That is the way it is. Integrity which is something we all...

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently told Republican Rep. Mike Lawler that he should thank Gov. Kathy Hochul for helping him and other New York GOPers get elected, the Hudson Valley lawmaker told The Post Friday. Pelosi said Lawler and his fellow Republican state reps should be grateful to Hochul because weak Democratic results had allowed them to win their House races two years ago. The California Democrat noted, too, that they should express gratitude after the governor approved new congressional maps last month with limited alterations to district lines. “We all had a great laugh,” Lawler told Politico, who...

Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Democrats had to win the election because former President Donald Trump was “predicting a bloodbath.” Saturday, at a rally in Dayton, OH, Trump said, “If you’re listening, President Xi — and you and I are friends — but he understands the way I deal. Those big monster car manufacturing plants that you’re building in Mexico right now, and you think you’re going to get that, you’re going to not hire Americans, and you’re going to sell the cars as now we’re going to put a 100% tariff...

Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said Monday on MSNBC’s “Katy Tur Reports” that if the Democrats win majorities in Congress and the White House, they will ditch the filibuster to legalize abortion nationwide. Pelosi said, “People have to view abortion as a democracy issue. This is about freedom to make your own decisions for a woman. It’s a personal decision, it’s an economic decision at the kitchen table of America’s families, if and when they could expand their families or even start their families.” Tur asked, “Do you think it’s going to be a more powerful issue at the ballot box...