Free Republic

It’s an ill financial wind that blows no one some good. A very nice and very rich old lady once explained to me that, in her view, the golden age of the American economy happened in the first years of the Reagan administration. This puzzled me: The United States had dipped into recession in 1980, and Paul Volcker was standing on the economic brakes to wring the Carter-era inflation out of the economy, jacking the federal-funds target rate up to damned near 20 percent. People were paying 18.5 percent on their mortgages. But, of course, usurious interest rates are pretty...

San Jose, in the heart of Silicon Valley, is home to eBay, PayPal and Cisco. Yet despite its enormous wealth, a San Jose house right across from a fire station burned down in 2013 because the station lacked fire trucks. This year, police staffing is down in San Jose. Its roads are pocked with potholes. And again, fire engines are mothballed. How is all this possible? The answer is that nearly 25 percent of San Jose’s budget pays for generous pensions — called “defined-benefit” plans — that guarantee retired city workers as much as 90 percent of their former salaries...

The debt ceiling issue is returning to the forefront in American politics, again threatening a government shutdown. Last time, the shutdown resulting in sequester for many agencies that suspended work for many government employees; a great deal of political theater dominated the news cycle; but ultimately, things returned to a basic normalcy. This time may be different, as a number of critical factors face Americans in 2015. Last week, Congress passed “procedural martial law” to address stop-gap spending as it faces the debt ceiling crisis again. Meanwhile, this quietly announced martial law forced a vote on bills the same day,...

Central banks around the world are selling U.S. government bonds at the fastest pace on record, the most dramatic shift in the $12.8 trillion Treasury market since the financial crisis. Sales by China, Russia, Brazil and Taiwan are the latest sign of an emerging-markets slowdown that is threatening to spill over into the U.S. economy. Previously, all four were large purchasers of U.S. debt. Few analysts expect much higher yields in the Treasury market as a result. Foreign private purchases of U.S. debt have increased amid pessimism about the world economic outlook. U.S. firms and financial institutions continue to buy...

On July 7, 2015, at 9:07AM(PDT) I recorded the National Debt (from the US National Debt Clock) at $18,321,893,100,000.00 (Approx., as it goes up so fast it is difficult to get a completely accurate number). Right now, as I write this, the Clock says (approx.)$18,398,400,100,000.00.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has issued a double warning over higher US interest rates, which it said could trigger a wave of emerging market corporate defaults and panic in financial markets as liquidity evaporates. The IMF said corporate debts in emerging markets ballooned to $18 trillion (£12 trillion) last year, from $4 trillion in 2004 as companies gorged themselves on cheap debt. It said the quadrupling in debt had been accompanied by weaker balance sheets, making companies more vulnerable to US rate rises. "As advanced economies normalise monetary policy, emerging markets should prepare for an increase in corporate failures,"...

LARES, Puerto Rico – Ismael Rodriguez looked out on a nearly empty plaza from the clothing store he opened in 1960, now hemmed in by padlocked businesses in this mountain town in northwestern Puerto Rico... experiencing the deepest malaise of just about any community on this island in the depths of an economic crisis. "I have seen the destruction of a town," Rodriguez, 67, said as he gestured toward the plaza. "Look at all the shuttered stores." Lares has become emblematic of the economic stagnation that is overwhelming Puerto Rico, and those who live here believe it is a warning...

I like Jake Tapper, but I already was ready to punch him in the ear over the “let’s you and him fight” structure of the debate questions last week when he abandoned all pretense of adulthood and asked the candidates what they’d like their Secret Service code names to be. It was a low, cringe-inducing moment, and the candidates made it lower and cringier with their answers. (“Trueheart”? “Justice Never Sleeps”? Ergh.) Marco Rubio just barely acquitted himself with “Gator,” but the correct answer was: “That’s a dumb question, Jake, and I am not going to answer it. Now, back...

As a socialist, Senator Bernie Sanders is bubbling over with ideas on how to spend your money – as well as money the government has to print.  So what would it cost to turn America into a workers' paradise? The Wall Street Journal figures about $18 trillion. In all, he backs at least $18 trillion in new spending over a decade, according to a tally by The Wall Street Journal, a sum that alarms conservatives and gives even many Democrats pause. Mr. Sanders sees the money as going to essential government services at a time of increasing strain on...

A growing number of investors believe that US stocks are overvalued, creating the risk of a significant bear market, according to research by Yale University market scholar Robert Shiller. The Nobel economics laureate told the Financial Times that his valuation confidence indices, based on investor surveys, showed greater fear that the market was overvalued than at any time since the peak of the dotcom bubble in 2000. Nobel economics laureate Robert Shiller “It looks to me a bit like a bubble again with essentially a tripling of stock prices since 2009 in just six years and at the same time...

Jonathan GarberSeptember 9, 2015CardHub, a financial website that monitors credit card debt, says credit card debt levels in the US are on pace to increase by another $60 billion by the end of 2015. According to CardHub, such an increase would bring total US credit card debt to just shy of $900 billion, which is the level that at which it becomes unsustainable. CardHub told Financial Advisor, "We erased almost all of our first-quarter pay down, racking up a whopping $32.1 billion in new balances from April through June, the largest second quarter binge since we began conducting the Credit...

A welcome alternative to the U.S. News college rankings. If you’re looking for an alternative to the U. S. News rankings of colleges, the Washington Monthly offers one. texas a&m students The U. S. News rankings generally focus on how much money goes into colleges, which mostly benefits administrators. Conversely, the Washington Monthly also looked at what students get out of college. Thus, the Washington Monthly guide gives higher marks to lesser-known schools which those who look at the U. S. News rankings might normally not encounter. The Washington Monthly guide rated schools on, among other things: ~ Student loan...

Source: Source information located at the bottom of column. First the good news. The federal governmentÂ’s tax receipts are coming in at a rate somewhat higher than what was expected a few months ago. That means a shut-down-the-government debt limit stalemate will be pushed back until November or December. It also means that the federal debt will actually decline a bit this year. Now for the bad news. We are experiencing the calm before the storm. The Congressional Budget Office reported Tuesday that although our fiscal situation is improving, by 2018 we will snap back to swelling deficits and unsustainable...

One recent college graduate is so frustrated with her lack of job prospects that she's attempting to sell off her college degree - for $50,000. Stephanie Ritter, a 26-year-old Florida State University alum, has listed her diploma on eBay for the staggering sum to cover the 'actual cost' of attending the school. Now $40,000 in debt and living in Southern California, Stephanie is fed up with being unable to find a job in her field, despite having a Bachelor's degree - so she's come up with a drastic solution to pay off her loans and 'validate my use of time...

There have been many news stories in recent days about Donald Trump's proposed policy on H1-B visas and how that would be bad for India. Trump has advocated raising the minimum wage for H1-B visas, lowering the H1-B visa cap and generally making H1-B visas more difficult to obtain. Trump points out that his competitor Florida Senator Marco Rubio has introduced a bill to triple the H-1B visas and Trump contends that this would lower the average wage because the H1-B workers are willing to work harder for a lower wage because they want to get a green card. News...

I hate to kick a lady when she is down, but once again Hillary has forced me to respond to her. This time it is her recent nonsense which she refers to as “The New College Compact” and the rest of us can refer to as Hillary’s “Get Out Of College for Free Card.” There is definitely a problem with the cost of college today. The massive debt is inhibiting recent graduates from buying their own homes and starting their own businesses. That there is a problem is agreed to universally except for all the freeloaders at universities sucking up...

Nearly 7 million Americans have gone at least a year without making a payment on their federal student loans, a high level of default that suggests a widening swath of households are unable or unwilling to pay back their school debt. As of July, 6.9 million Americans with student loans hadn’t sent a payment to the government in at least 60 days, quarterly data from the Education Department shows.

This was written by a Nobel prize winning economist without a trace or sarcasm, irony or humor. It is excerpted, and presented without commentary.From the New York Times:Debt Is Good... the point simply that public debt isn’t as bad as legend has it? Or can government debt actually be a good thing?Believe it or not, many economists argue that the economy needs a sufficient amount of public debt out there to function well. And how much is sufficient? Maybe more than we currently have. That is, there’s a reasonable argument to be made that part of what ails the...

If nature abhors a vacuum, investors aren’t so crazy about them either. It’s hard to avoid all the voids right now. The August Wall Street vacation evacuation is well underway, markets are facing an absence of inflation, huge air pockets underneath commodities and emerging-market currencies – and a vexing lack of clarity about what the Fed might do in less than a month’s time. The collective response to this environment devoid of strong conviction has been to pull cash out of riskier markets and wait. Barclays Capital says more than $90 billion has sought the shelter of money-market funds in...