Free Republic

-A year after Silicon Valley Bank's failure, less than half of U.S. banks have established borrowing capacity by pledging collateral at the Federal Reserve's emergency lending facility, according to Fed data released on Friday. That's despite a crescendo of calls from financial regulators for banks to make sure they can access the Fed's discount window quickly if trouble arises. But the data also showed some real progress, with an increase in the number of banks signing up and a jump in the amount of total collateral pledged. SVB's inability to access the window in March of last year in the...

American households now have an average of $10,170 credit card debt, as record numbers say they are worried about being cut off from access to loans. Data from the New York Federal Reserve shows nationwide credit card debt swelled by $43 billion in the second quarter of the year - the second largest increase on record. *** But some states are faring much worse than others as households in Hawaii have the highest debt currently, according to fresh analysis by WalletHub. Families in the Aloha state have $10,637 in credit card loans on average. It was followed by Alaska, California...

The U.S. Congressional Budget Office said Monday the federal government has accumulated more than a trillion dollars in debt only six months into the fiscal year. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget released a report pointing out that those figures amount to an average of $6 billion per day so far in fiscal year 2023. “Our fiscal challenges will only become more difficult the longer we wait to do anything,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the CRFB. “In just five years, the national debt will surpass its record as a share of the economy – set just after World...

The federal government is closing in on the $31.4 trillion borrowing limit, meaning a high-stakes fight over raising the debt ceiling is fast approaching. An estimate from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation places the nation’s debt at $31.39 trillion and counting on Wednesday, just a hair below the limit set more than a year ago. That doesn’t mean the debt ceiling will have to be lifted this week — or even this month. The Treasury Department can generally use what are known as extraordinary measures to put off an actual debt crisis. But it’s clear the fight is edging closer,...

A new poll finds more Americans are borrowing money from family and friends than they were a year ago. According to Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, 25.6 million people, or more than 10 percent of U.S. adults, had to rely on their support network for financial backing, up from 19.1 million a year Fourteen percent of respondents who identify as millennials said in the survey that they borrowed money from their family members and friends, a 3 percent increase from April 2021.

American consumers are spending more, getting less, and borrowing more to fund this involuntary spending spree. Retail sales in March were 7% higher than they were in the stimulus-fueled March of 2021, but thanks to inflation, they didn’t get as much bang for their buck. Seasonally adjusted, retail sales were up 0.5% month-on-month in March at $677 billion.As WolfStreet put it, “Stimulus Miracle March 2021 was a very tough month to beat. But Americans did blow by it. What they didn’t do is blow by the now raging inflation.” Unsurprisingly, higher gasoline prices accounted for the bulk of that increase...

Pelosi, blaming Trump for debt, vows to raise borrowing limit © Getty/Bonnie Cash Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) vowed Wednesday that Democrats will stave off a government default by raising the debt ceiling in the coming weeks. The Speaker did not specify what larger legislative vehicle, if any, Democratic leaders will tap to move the controversial measure amid threats of non-cooperation from Republican leaders. But she was terse in ruling out one potential avenue: "We won't be putting it in reconciliation," Pelosi told reporters in the Capitol. That redline is significant, since the Democrats' nascent $3.5 trillion reconciliation package is the...

Royal Caribbean Group today announced that it has commenced a private offering of $1.25 billion aggregate principal amount of senior unsecured notes due 2028 to be issued by the company as it continues its ongoing fundraising. The company intends to use the proceeds from the sale of the Notes to repay principal payments on debt maturing or required to be paid in 2021 and 2022, and the remaining for general corporate purposes (including to pay fees and expenses in connection with such repayments), according to a press release.

Shares of cruise line operators are sailing higher on hopes a COVID-19 vaccine will allow a return to normalcy and send their cruise ships heading back out to sea. Carnival (NYSE:CCL)(NYSE:CUK), Norwegian Cruise Lines (NYSE:NCLH), and Royal Caribbean (NYSE:RCL) have all rearranged their finances to allow them to ride out the storm, even as they extend suspensions of any voyages further into the year. Depending on the operator, the earliest passengers will be embarking in May or June. Yet even if the cruise lines do manage to meet their current sailing schedules, investors should still use caution. Voyages won't be...

Transportation Minister Lloyd Hines says 2021-22 will likely be another record year for road building in Nova Scotia. The annual government highways plan is usually out by December, but the document has been delayed by the pandemic, said Hines. "We are anticipating that we will match or eclipse the number from last year, which will be a cumulative amount of over $1 billion spent on improving our highway system in Nova Scotia in the last two fiscal years," the minister told reporters following a cabinet meeting on Thursday. Hines said the budget right now for roads and highways for the...

It is that time again when liberals, sensing the possibility of being in control, are revving up the debt engines. So many things need to be done in a post-COVID world, and there is so little revenue to pay for it. Debt is the way out, they claim.Now is the time to borrow a way out of the crisis. Congress has not even waited for the New Year. Bipartisan efforts are currently underway to negotiate a quick fix for the bargain price of just under a trillion dollars.Debt Addiction Affects EveryoneUnfortunately, debt addiction affects both political parties. Every administration this...

To those who see no link between Lent and our failing economy, it might be the case to look again. Economics is about people. It cannot be reduced to numbers, formulae and analyses. “The subject matter of economics,” observes economic historian Odd Langholm, “is properly the habits, customs, and ways of thinking of producers, consumers, buyers, sellers, borrowers, lenders, and all who engage in economic transactions.” That means our moral habits can have a definite effect on determining if our economy grows — or fails. In my new book, Return to Order: From a Frenzied Economy to an Organic Christian...

In late April, President Trump and Democratic congressional leaders finally found something they agreed on: infrastructure. Outside the White House after a meeting with the president, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat, issued the pronouncement, “Big and bold.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the Democrat from New York, echoed the takeaway: “We agreed on a number, which was very, very good, $2 trillion.” Trump himself has been publicly quiet but didn’t dispute that he told the Democrats he “like[s] the number.” By May, this renewed spirit of cooperation had fallen apart, at least temporarily, with a second meeting collapsing...

More than 300 bridges in Connecticut — carrying 4.3 million vehicles daily — are considered structurally deficient. Highways in the Bridgeport-Stamford area are so congested motorists waste 49 hours a year in bumper-to-bumper traffic. And 62 percent of Connecticut’s major roads are in such poor condition they cost motorists $681 annually in vehicle repairs, according to TRIP, a national transportation think tank. Given those challenges, the three men seeking to replace Gov. Dannel P. Malloy could be making transportation the centerpiece of their campaigns. But instead, these candidates for governor are offering mostly modest plans to fix the state’s infrastructure...

Imagine you open the faucet of your kitchen sink expecting water and instead out comes cash. Now imagine that it comes out at the rate of $1 million a minute. You call your plumber, who thinks you’re crazy. To get you off the phone, he opines that it is your sink and therefore must be your money. So you spend it wildly. Then you realize that the money wasn’t yours and you owe it back. Now imagine that this happens every minute of every day for the next three years. At the end of the three years, you owe back...

Ever since the financial crisis, many outside the wealthy elite (sometimes referred to as populists) have argued that the largest banks are too big and too risky. Minneapolis Federal Reserve president Neel Kashkari recently echoed those beliefs.Yet if a new Federal Reserve proposal goes through, Wells Fargo and other large banks might get even bigger and riskier, adding billions to their balance sheets that could increase the banks’ risk profiles.The Federal Reserve says the proposal, which specifies the amount and kind of debt that systemically important large banks must hold, could help make sure that those banks can be wound...

That didn’t take long. Earlier this month, in reference to the Department of Education’s $3.5 billion bailout for Corinthian College students, I observed at NRO, “What’s especially worrisome here is the frontal attack the administration is mounting on notions of students’ responsibility.” The fear was that sensible attention to student debt would change into an excuse for borrowers to default and stick taxpayers with the tab. That moment has already arrived. Just last week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a report that found that co-signers have a rough time getting released from their promises to repay private student loans....

It seemed to be a classic case of “firemen first,” a theory first put forth in 1976 by legendary Washington, D.C., journalist Charles Peters. Any bureaucrat, when asked to list what services or jobs would be cut because of a looming budget crisis, identifies the most painful losses in public services – firemen, police officers, EMTs, workers who fill potholes, etc. Bureaucrats use it to try and pressure elected officials, afraid of voter backlash, to soften the budget cuts. It played out in the Capitol on March 3, when state Transportation Secretary Mark Gottlieb was asked what major state highways...

Lisa Mason had taken out close to $100,000 in student loans in order to pay for nursing school, and was making payments on the debt when she died. Steve Mason said he and his wife, who had co-signed the loans, were contacted immediately after his daughter’s death and were told they must start making payments. “We knew if she didn’t pay her debt we would be responsible by co-signing, but we didn’t know that if she died the debt would fall to us,” he said. Mason said his daughter’s debt has ballooned to $200,000 and the payments exceed $2,000 a...

Twelve weeks from today, the US government will hit its borrowing limit. When Congress lifted the debt ceiling last month, for the first time ever, it pegged the increase to a specific date, rather than a dollar amount. The current borrowing authority expires in just 84 days, on February 7th.