Free Republic

(ref: How Banks Bought the Tea Party) Seriously folks. The 15 freshmen Republican representatives in the House Tea Party Caucus each ran in 2010 on a populist anti-Wall Street message, highlighting their opposition to bank bailouts like the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and criticizing Washington for enabling the banking sector as it became “Too Big to Fail.” After winning, all fifteen received significant PAC contributions from the banking industry — and have become a reliable vote and mouthpiece for the financial industry, a ThinkProgress analysis of campaign contributions, voting records and public statements reveals. It would be nice...

3/1/2011 WASHINGTON - Today, Mary Miller, Assistant Secretary for Financial Markets at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, issued the following update regarding the projected dates by which the United States will reach the statutory debt limit: “The Treasury Department now estimates that the United States will reach the debt limit between April 15, 2011 and May 31, 2011. As announced at the February Quarterly Refunding, Treasury will update this projection at the beginning of each month.”​

After in the past week, the blogosphere had been hobbled by one after another mindless oped claiming that the US can easily avoid default by just paying the interest on its obligations, and thus does not have to worry about the debt ceiling, we decided to put some sense to this debate when we pointed out that the "US Debt-to-Deficit Difference Hits Fresh Record, As Treasury Continues To Issue 50% More Debt Than Needed To Fund Deficit" meaning that i) it is not a debt ceiling, it is a debt target (© Lizzie363), and ii) the hundreds of billions of...

Well, folks, it's official - mark November 22, 2010 in your calendars - today is the day the Ponzi starts in earnest. With today's $8.3 billion POMO monetization, the Fed's official holdings of US Treasury securities now amount to $891.3 billion, which is higher than the second largest holder of US debt: China, which as of September 30 held $884 billion, and Japan, with $864 billion. The purists will claim that the TIC data is as of September 30, and that as the weekly custodial account shows UST buying continues the data is likely not correct. They will be wrong:...

Confirming once again that the clueless government would rather risk a populist backlash than actually cutting costs (recall that federal worker compensation has surged in the past 5 years), it appears that the long-stirring debate over a value added tax may be about to materialize into something tangible. Per Bloomberg, "Alice Rivlin, a member of President Barack Obama’s deficit-reduction commission (and former Fed vice chairwoman), is trying to stir a debate over imposing a national sales tax to reduce the deficit. Rivlin, as part of a separate 19-member group sponsored by the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, offered a plan...

... My perspective, as with those of all other members of the FOMC, was given a thoughtful and fair hearing at the table. After deliberation, the majority of the committee concluded that under current and foreseeable conditions, the better approach was to purchase $600 billion in Treasuries between now and the end of the second quarter of next year, on top of the amount projected to replace the paydown in mortgage backed-securities. The math of this new exercise is readily transparent: The Federal Reserve will buy $110 billion a month in Treasuries, an amount that, annualized, represents the projected deficit...

In the latest amusing discrepancy to come out of the BLS, today's reported unemployment data by state indicated that at the end of September, there was a total of 129,699,600 people employed across the various states. Not very surprisingly, the biggest deterioration occurred in California which lost 63.5 K jobs, followed by New York at 37.6K (Wall Street layoffs?) and Massachusetts at 20.9K. The total change from August's 129,923,400 employed was a drop of 223,800. Well, this is a little confusing as the NFP number for September indicated that total jobs lost were 95,000, a slightly more than 50% improvement...

Democrats in the Senate on Thursday held a recess hearing covering a taxpayer bailout of union pensions and a plan to seize private 401(k) plans to more "fairly" distribute taxpayer-funded pensions to everyone. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee heard from hand-picked witnesses advocating the infamous "Guaranteed Retirement Account" (GRA) authored by Theresa Guilarducci. In a nutshell, under the GRA system government would seize private 401(k) accounts, setting up an additional 5% mandatory payroll tax to dole out a "fair" pension to everyone using that confiscated money coupled with the mandated contributions....

By now everyone 'knows' that the US consumer is hunkering down, paying down debt and performing other mythological tasks. Alas, as the WSJ points out today, this is not exactly true... In fact not true one bit. The reality is that over the past two years, US consumers have not been deleveraging as a voluntary act of eliminating debt, but have been actually aggressively leveraging more and more until the bank providing them credit puts them into involuntary bankruptcy, cutting off the money spigot. This is a startling realization, confirming that the average American is actually hyperleveraging to the point...

■ Unfunded pension liabilities are approximately $2.5 trillion, compared to the reported amount of $493 billion. ■ Unfunded liabilities for health and other benefits are $558 billion, compared to the reported $537 billion. ■ Thus, total unfunded liabilities for all benefit plans are an estimated $3.1 trillion — nearly three times higher than the plans report. To put these liabilities in context, state and local governments’ reported unfunded obligations under pension and other benefit plans amounting to 7.1 percent of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) in 2008. When adjusted using a more appropriate discount rate, however, states’ unfunded obligations were...

Stock prices stabilized on Friday, but it felt like the selling ended more because of exhaustion than because of some return of optimism. Since early May, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has lost almost 10% of its value — officially known as a market correction. But the big question on everyone's mind: Is this just a correction or the start of something worse, a new bear market? Despite Friday's rally, the Dow ended the week down 4% and firmly in the red for the year. The results were just as bad for the Nasdaq Composite (down 5% for the week)...

Well, if nothing else, we now know officially just how great those tax receipts were, and yes. We were right. April's tax deficit of $83 billion was the highest April deficit on record. America is now more bankrupt than ever. Income was $245.3 billion, 8% below the total recorded last April. Spending was $328.0 billion, up 14% year-over-year. A year ago in April the deficit was $20.9 billion. And here is the data: tax receipts down 7.9% YoY, Individual Income Tax down 21.5% YoY, and more importantly, spending: Total spending up 14.2%, National defense up 17%, Medicare up 39.4%, Social...

You have to love it.... U.S. posts record $82.69 billion deficit in April, 19th straight month of budget shortfalls - Reuters Nonsense. Here's the REAL table of numbers from Treasury itself, including the theft from the FICA and Medicare accounts: (click for the larger copy) If I did accounting like this I'd go to prison. $82 billion my butt. The real number is $175.6 billion, more than double the reported amount, and the cumulative year-to-date (calendar years) is $637.4 billion, or a run rate (annualized) of $1.912 trillion. If you're wondering why the "stock market" has been generally supported (even...

First, just in case you were wondering, today's melt up episode #xyz is being orchestrated by the HFTs on no volume as per the norm. There is no volume period. The volume only appears when the Dow is down 1000 points. At that point everyone tries to front run everyone else as we saw last Thursday. It happened then, it will happen again. In the meantime nothing will change, except the launching station for the 30% drop straight down will be marginally higher (one would hope). And as for the fundamentals justifying the market going right back up to 2010...

And.... Here.... We..... Go! Two state representatives called on Gov. Pat Quinn Sunday to deploy the Illinois National Guard to safeguard Chicago's streets. Chicago Democrats John Fritchey and LaShawn Ford said they want Quinn, Mayor Richard Daley and Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis to allow guardsmen to patrol streets and help quell violence. Weis said he did not support the idea because the military and police operate under different rules. "Is this a drastic call to action? Of course it is," Fritchey said. "Is it warranted when we are losing residents to gun violence at such an alarming rate? Without...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Existing home sales jumped 6.8% in March, with home buyers racing to get a tax credit that expires in April, according to a real estate industry report released Thursday. The National Association of Realtors reported that existing home sales rose last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.35 million units, up from the revised rate of 5.01 million in February. Sales year-over-year were up 16.1%.

<p>WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- As economic worries persist, U.S. consumer sentiment dropped in early April, according to media reports on Friday of the Reuters/University of Michigan index.</p>

IMF Prepares For Global Cataclysm, Expands Backup Rescue Facility By Half A Trillion For "Contribution To Global Financial Stability" And all the pundits thought that the IMF would be on the hook for just €10 billion... The IMF has just announced that it is expanding its New Arrangement to Borrow (NAB) multilateral facility from its existing $50 billion by a whopping $500 billion (SDR333.5 billion), to $550 billion. The current lending participant group of 26 entities will be increased by 13 new members all of whom will contribute token amount of capital to the NAB. The one country most on...

No, not just Greece - all of Europe. Without Congressional authorization or notice, of course. Hattip to a nice emailer.... Or if you prefer it on a one-year time scale... That nice little vertical line is a gain of $421.8 billion dollars of outstanding loans and leases in one week's time. WHERE THE HELL DID THAT MONEY GO AND WHAT COLLATERAL WAS TAKEN AGAINST A FOUR HUNDRED BILLION DOLLAR INCREASE IN OUTSTANDING LOANS? You won't find anything like that in the records - because it's never happened before. That's beyond unprecedented, it's ridiculous, and assuming it's also accurate, someone has...

It's one thing to hear fringe bloggers raving breathlessly against the collision course that the US economy is on. It is something else to see the Bank of International Settlements call for the baseline projection for US debt/GDP to hit over 400% by 2040. And this excludes the bankrupt GSEs, bankrupt Social Security, and the soon to be bankrupt Medicare. In a must read report, the BIS (of the central bankers' central bank) provides the much needed segue to the work of Reinhart and Rogoff, and in not so many words confirms that the entire developed world is now bankrupt...

For all who doubt the Obama administration will raise tax rates into the stratosphere in the very near future, here is a chart created by dshort.com which compares the total level of debt to GDP with Federal tax brackets over the past century. The correlation between the two is unmistakable . Unless the administration promptly finds a way to reduce the massive amount of debt that it continues to issue (in March alone the US Treasury issued a massive $333 billion in net debt), tax rates will have no option but to spike to levels not seen since the 50's....

As I pointed out on March 17th, the housing "tax credit" has run out of gas - and today's existing home sales numbers prove it: Sales of existing homes have thus fallen three consecutive months, a reversal after having risen steadily through the fall in response to a federal subsidy for first-time home buyers. The tax credit has been restored and expanded to repeat buyers, but there has been no increase in sales yet. Notice the "yet" - despite the fact that you must have a signed contract by April 30th to get the credit. Let's cut the crap -...

50% of the federal budget right now goes to entitlements. This last month we posted a record $220.9 billion budget deficit. We took in $107 billion but spent $328 billion. Isn't that special. We only funded 32% of expenditures? Remember - entitlements were half of that $328 billion. So let's see if we can do the math here. Entitlements were about $164 billion last month in spending. The rest was, of course, the rest. But we only took in $107 billion. So even if we eliminated all entitlement spending we still did not have enough money to cover the rest....

*CBO SAYS DEFICIT THIS YEAR TO AMOUNT TO $1.5 TRILLION *CBO SAYS PUBLICLY HELD DEBT TO GROW TO 90% OF GDP BY 2020 *CBO SAYS OBAMA BUDGET WOULD PRODUCE $9.76 TRILLION IN DEFICITS Not a snowball's chance in hell we get to 2020 doing this. Oh, that's $1.4 trillion more than their last guess, mostly on lower tax collections (no really?) Here's the problem with this new CBO number - it more than doubles the public Treasury debt float over the next nine years. It also "predicts" that China and other investors will increase their holdings of US Government debt...

Now this is a guaranteed rape job. In a short conversation this noontime that CNBC apparently has omitted from their archives (Why's that folks?) Rick Santelli was talking about a potential to effectively force money into the Treasury market. Where would they get this? From your 401k and IRA accounts! From Businessweek: The U.S. Treasury and Labor Departments will ask for public comment as soon as next week on ways to promote the conversion of 401(k) savings and Individual Retirement Accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams, according to Assistant Labor Secretary Phyllis C. Borzi and Deputy Assistant Treasury...

All we need is for The Fed to encourage and promote the dollar carry trade, and we can pump the stock market to the moon - even though unemployment continues to skyrocket and consumer confidence, a leading indicator of consumer spending and activity, was in the tank this morning. You need no further proof that the stock market has exactly nothing to do with the consumer or the broader economy - that it has become nothing more or less than a raw casino that responds to one and only one thing - the Federal Reserve and Federal Government's encouragement of...

<p>Thousands of borrowers on the verge of foreclosure will soon have the option of renting their homes from Fannie Mae, under a policy announced Thursday.</p> <p>The government-controlled company, through its new "Deed for Lease" program, will allow borrowers to transfer ownership to Fannie Mae and sign a one-year lease, with month-to-month extensions after that.</p>

In the news today The Federal Reserve announced that due to the continued lying by banks about asset valuations, a practice that has resulted in ABS and CMBS markets remaining locked up, they are continuing to sponsor and support accounting and control fraud, acts that should be treated as felonies and result in prison sentences: Nonetheless, the markets for asset-backed securities (ABS) backed by consumer and business loans and for commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) are still impaired and seem likely to remain so for some time. To promote the flow of credit to businesses and households and to facilitate the...

Props to Zerohedge for having the nads to run this unconfirmed: Which is why we were greatly troubled when we learned recently on good authority that Federal representatives may have opened multiple undisclosed-type accounts with none other than State Street Global Advisors over the past few months. All of these accounts are allegedly handled by one single trader, who is cocooned and isolated from interaction with other partners. Zero Hedge can, as of yet, not vouch for this being 100% factual and is asking readers who may have additional knowledge of the situtation to please come forward and share their...

Oh do come on: Some banks are prodding the government to let them use public money to help buy troubled assets from the banks themselves. Banking trade groups are lobbying the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for permission to bid on the same assets that the banks would put up for sale as part of the government's Public Private Investment Program. I predicted this a couple of months ago, if you remember. I was too optimistic - I figured they'd try to hide it through some "side deal" with some company they funded: I have already covered how you can get...

Enough? Time For Options http://anti-federalist.org 'Nuff said. There will be more - much more - very soon there.

Here we go again! Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in April (-539,000), and the unemployment rate rose from 8.5 to 8.9 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Since the recession began in December 2007, 5.7 million jobs have been lost. In April, job losses were large and widespread across nearly all major private-sector industries. Overall, private-sector employment fell by 611,000. The total number of unemployed rose to the highest recorded since the BLS began producing these figures - more than 40 years ago - surpassing all previous post-WWII recessions. The only...

It's a train. The "rumor" floated over the weekend and this morning was that some of the banks might need $10 billion under the "stress" scenarios. That they might be able to raise, and it has been part and parcel of fueling the rally. Not so fast, grasshopper. S&P yesterday afternoon stuck virtually the entire sector on Credit Watch Negative and that was just the start. There are now some independent analysts out there with their own numbers on "required capital", and they're ugly. Friedman Billing Ramsey came out and said they believed that Bank of America needs $60 billion...

Obama Proposes Signing Treaty To Ban Reloading -- Even BB guns could be on the chopping block Gun Owners of America Fact Sheet 8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151 Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408 When President Obama went to Mexico in April, he proposed that the United States sign the Inter-American Convention Against Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and Other Related Materials. Despite the fact that it purportedly deals with “illicit manufacturing and trafficking,” GOA is convinced that this convention defines these terms much more broadly and potentially presents serious dangers to Americans lawfully...

Should Obama make banning assault weapons a top priority?

<p>WASHINGTON--Sales at U.S. retailers unexpectedly fell in March, snapping two months of increases, as motor vehicle and electronic good purchases declined, according to a government report on Tuesday that indicated subdued consumer spending amid rising unemployment.</p> <p>The Commerce Department said total retail sales dropped 1.1% after rising by a revised 0.3% in February, previously reported as a 0.1% fall.</p>

Denninger has two fantastic exposes on the outright theft and extortion that is being perpetrated upon us by our government, via the AIG criminal enterprise: The Scamming Continues (AIG, Fan/Fred, PPIP, etc) FLASH: AIG CALLED CRIMINAL SCAM! His summary says it all: Your money is being stolen at gunpoint via future taxation not only from you but also from your children and grandchildren, yet not one penny has been clawed back from these bankers and other executives who continue to enjoy lifestyles powered by the fruits of imprudent and fraudulent lending - lifestyles that, absent our government stealing from you,...

It would appear that our fine "politicians" have no intention of removing (or even tempering) any part of The Bezzle in our financial system. As a consequence, the market will do it for us. The bad news is that we've chained our ship to Europe, and they're in bigger trouble in this regard than we are: "European banks face a US dollar “funding gap” of almost $2 trillion as a result of aggressive expansion around the world and may have difficulties rolling over debts, according to a report by the Bank for International Settlements. " Bernanke, without the consent of...

Boston Fed President Rosengren: "Rosengren suggested that governments are not the best managers of bad assets. Rather, he urged removing the assets and selling banks to new owners. "When a bank is closed with FDIC support, this is relatively straightforward. The bad assets are removed from the bank and quickly disposed of by the FDIC, and the good assets are sold to an acquirer," he said. "The new acquirer does not spend time focused on the problems of the past, but rather, focuses on maximizing future profitability," Rosengren added. "This is a reason for moving to resolve, as quickly as...

This is exactly what I've been talking about. First, from Reuters this morning on European indices: ""We're near the cliff's edge, very close to capitulation, the mood is very gloomy," said Jean-Claude Petit, head of equities at Barclays Wealth Managers France. "I not sure that governments and central banks are realising what's really going on," he said. What's "really going on" is that our entire financial system has turned into a gigantic clown car. There hasn't been any recognition that the fundamental problem over the last two decades has been fraudulent lending - giving money to people on loan that...

Well, here's what The Market thought of Tim Geithner, Bernanke and Obama Tuesday: That, however, is not the chart that ought to cause President Obama to loose sleep. This one is: The Triangle on that chart has a target ~3700 points lower, or if we were to break it tomorrow, approximately DOW 4200. And that's the most bullish of the primary indices, all of which are sporting similar formations, and all of which closed right on the bottom boundary. Those of you who read The Ticker regularly know what my target is on the downside for the S&P 500 if...

Put the kids away - this is not going to be pleasant. I'm done Mr. President. You stood in front of the American Public and lied through your damn teeth. You claim that America faces a "catastrophe" if we don't pass your bill - but its not YOUR BILL, its Pelosi's and Reid's bill - a bill full of PORK and BS. I'm tired of the lies, America is tired of the lies, and we the people are not going to sit still for it any longer. You promised us change. This is what we got for "change": Your Treasury...

Patrick weighs 27 cent gas tax hike BOSTON -- Gov. Deval Patrick is considering asking the Legislature to raise the Massachusetts gasoline tax by 27 cents per gallon as part of a comprehensive package aimed at solving lingering state transportation problems, The Associated Press learned Monday. Such an increase would stave off a doubling of Massachusetts Turnpike tolls planned for this spring, and finance a wholesale change in the way state runs its transporation system, but leave it with the highest gasoline tax in the nation at 50.5 cents. And the plan calls for increasing that tax annually, based on...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. senators began debate on a massive economic-recovery package Friday evening, after a working coalition of Democrats and some Republicans reached a compromise that trimmed billions in spending from an earlier version. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is hoping for a vote on the $827 billion bill on Tuesday. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is hoping for a vote on the $827 billion bill on Tuesday. Shortly before 11:30 p.m., Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told his colleagues that debate on the plan would continue on Saturday from noon to 3 p.m. Reid said a vote could...

There is a story out now on a website which cannot be posted here, but it's pretty important because it has the current liberal economic holy man Paul Krugman openly stating that any further bank bailouts undertaken by Obama should require bank nationalization. If you search for "Obama Should Nationalize U.S. Banks, Krugman Says", you'll find it.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -- California will not pay tax refunds for individuals and business that overpaid 2008 taxes, in order to conserve dwindling cash for priority payments including school spending and debt repayment required by state law, the state's controller office said Friday. Other state checks to be postponed for 30 days include payments for vendors who provide services and products to the state government and state checks to a million aged, blind and disabled Californians to cover rent and utilities bills, State Controller John Chiang's office said in a statement.

Just heard on FNC an update on the Chicago plant closing where union workers are protesting. The main complaint is that the plant's bank, Bank of America, received federal bailout money but did not extend the company's credit line, resulting in the plant closing. Now we have the Governor of Illinois saying that the State is going to suspend all business with BoA, essentially blackmailing the bank into lending to the company with the expectation that the plant will reopen and reemploy the protestors. My question is this: do we know that BoA did not have a legitimate financial reason...

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I'm from MA, but considering going to Sunday's Town Hall with John McCain. Does anyone have a sense of what the crowd will be like, and what the chances are of actually getting in since it's open seating with no tickets? How big is the Town Hall? How early are folks planning on getting there to wait?

We've all seen the blogs claiming how Obama's website does not use any name or address verification to validate credit card charges, opening the door to fraudulent donations. Well fellow freepers, I just confirmed this myself. Last night I made a donation on Obama's website using my own credit card, but a totally bogus name, address, zipcode, and telephone number. His site did not challenge this information, and the transaction went through immediately and it posted today. His site also does not use the 3-digit security code on the back of the card, opening the door to more fraud from...