Free Republic

whom to blame for the student loan crisis; it’s big banks, big government and big corporations ... But if we are really honest, it is us, the citizens, who are to blame. We let our government enter into a crazy scheme of financing America’s colleges with debt. As a taxpayer, you had the right to protest. At any time over the past 50 years, you could have elected leaders who would have replaced the federal student loan program. But you looked away. You accepted the indebted fate of your children. ... Colleges responded by gulping up all the money they...

Donald Trump appeared to change his stance on the federal debt Thursday, saying that, with interest rates low, the U.S. should borrow money to spend on infrastructure rather than lowering the $14 trillion federal debt. "This is the time to borrow," the Republican candidate said in an interview on CNBC Thursday morning. "Normally, you would say you want to reduce your debt, and I would like to reduce debt too," Trump said, before explaining that "the problem is you have a military problem, you have an infrastructure problem — a tremendous infrastructure problem, and you have other problems. And also,...

“So simple. So simple.” Those were the key words that Donald Trump used Monday in his most detailed and important speech of the election so far. The economy, he said, “won’t even be that hard to fix.” That’s when Donald Trump finally became a real politician. Congratulations to him! There are two things that voters like to hear. One is that a person running for the highest public office in the nation has a plan. And, two, that he thinks the plan can not only be enacted but that it can be easily enacted. Trump likes to make things look...

The federal government has sunk deeper into the red than analysts projected just five months ago, and is now poised to post a $590 billion shortfall this fiscal year, the Congressional Budget Office said Friday. That’s some $56 billion worse than the CBO had projected in March, and it comes as new spending far outpaces revenues. Both individual and corporate income tax revenue is down so far this year — though the reasons are not fully clear yet, analysts said. What is clear, though, is that government spending continues to rise, and when adjusted for the timing of payments is...

This has been on my mind and chest for a long time and basically I want to get your views on this topic. Everyone says we need to save/rescue the mainstream middle class from oblivion and basically do what we can to bring jobs. To be honest, I'm all for letting the mainstream middle class sink or swim. I don't like how the mainstream whine about people on welfare being dependent on the government, but want the government to create laws and policies to protect their interests. They want student loans forgiven, but keep taking out massive loans for prestigious...

The U.S. national debt has increased every year this century and is approaching $20 trillion, nearly four times what it was in 2000. It has also grown relative to the national economy. While it was an amount equal to 55 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product in 2000, it reached 101 percent of GDP in 2015. While most Americans are unaware of the escalating debt, some economists warn that citizens will eventually feel the consequences. According to U.S. Debt Clock, the U.S. national debt stands at $19.4 trillion as of July 26. It was $5.7 trillion in 2000 and...

Know this: Sedition has infested our government and a diabolical scheme to commandeer America has been exposed. Our citizen-driven Republic is being turned into a totalitarian state right under our nose! What the Global Elitists can’t have they now seek to destroy. Think I’m kidding? Keep reading! BREXIT was the UK’s Tea Party. The UK figured out the Global Elitist’s secret weapon. They discovered that the use of uncontrolled migration was the kingpin to commandeer any nation… leaving it helpless in the face of the advancing hordes. Watch out! Just like the Global Elitists tightened their grip on the throats...

The American debt problem was almost entirely ignored at the Republican National Convention last week, and we can expect nothing more when the Democrats gather this week. Both parties support the entitlement spending system and the decrepit tax system that fails to support it. They compete on the fiscal side of politics with impossible promises to spend more and tax less. Imagine the U.S. Treasury as an airplane beginning to roll down the runway to take off. For a mile or so, the plane gains no altitude, then the wings start to generate lift. The wheels leave the ground and...

The Congressional Budget Office recently released its long-term budget outlook. There isn't much new there; we are still in the red, and it will only continue to get worse. Considering the extent of the problem, you would think someone on the campaign trail would pay attention. Yet no presidential candidate really is. First, CBO projects that the federal public debt-to-GDP ratio will go from its current 75 percent (up from 39 percent in 2008) to 86 percent in 2026 and 141 percent in 2046. On the deficit side, CBO projects that by 2020, our deficit level will reach $1 trillion,...

The White House just released a big report on student debt that contains all the familiar horrors about for-profit schools, indebted dropouts and students defaulting on their loans. But it has an interesting conclusion: That growing stack of $1.3 trillion in student debt is helping, not hurting, the U.S. economy. That conclusion is sure to rankle the many student advocates and special-interest groups—from real-estate agents to employers seeking new tax breaks for their young workers—that argue student debt is a big “drag” on the economy. (Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have each decried the rise in student debt.) But the...

The report, "Stagnation Generation", calls for the social contract between young and old generations to be renewed, as millennials are at risk of becoming the first generation to earn less over their lifetime than earlier generations. According to the report, in the U.K. today's 27 year olds are earning the same amount as a 27 year old would have 25 years ago. "A typical millennial has actually earned £8,000 ($10,587) less during their twenties than those in the preceding generation – generation X," the report claims. ... Meanwhile, young people are failing to get onto the property ladder. The report...

...as a family grows wealthier, it is less likely to fall into deep debt, default and bankruptcy... ...the opposite is often true for the finances of individual countries -- wealthier nations may pile up proportionately more debt than poorer nations! Amid the onslaught of the Great Recession in 2010, developing countries like Mexico and Russia had smaller debt burdens than the United States, Japan and the eurozone. While the United States stacked up debt equal to about 75% of its annual output, Russia owed only 10%. When the U.S. annual budget deficit soared to over 10% of GDP, Russia's deficit...

The nation's long-term fiscal picture has grown considerably more dire over the past year, according to the latest forecast from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, driven mainly by out-of-control spending. The CBO now expects federal debt held by the public to reach 141% of the nation's GDP by 2046, assuming that current policies remain in place. That's up sharply from last year's forecast of 111%, and would be the highest level of debt in the nation's history.

Retailers have blamed the weather, slow job growth and millennials for their poor results this past year, but a new study claims that more than 20 percent of Americans are simply too poor to shop. These 26 million Americans are juggling two to three jobs, earning just around $27,000 a year and supporting two to four children — and exist largely under the radar, according to America’s Research Group, which has been tracking consumer shopping trends since 1979.

Madison— Faced with delays and inflation over the past five years, four major state highway projects — including a Madison artery — have accumulated overruns in excess of $700 million. While some of these increases come from faulty cost estimates or unavoidable inflation, the new figures underline the obvious: Delays can be costly for Wisconsin taxpayers. When projects are paused because of financial challenges in the state's road fund, the price of materials, labor and real estate can rise. The numbers compiled by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel underline the urgency of a divisive issue for Wisconsin's Republican leaders: finding a...

Nigel Farage has told Sky News it "looks like Remain will edge it" as votes are counted in the EU referendum. The UKIP leader said it had been an "extraordinary" campaign and it looked like turnout had been "exceptionally high". He also insisted UKIP were "going nowhere" and predicted the party would "continue to grow stronger in the future". Although a long time campaigner for the UK to split from Brussels, Mr Farage is not the official leader of the Leave camp.

Madrid (AFP) - Spain's public debt rose above 100 percent in the first quarter to its highest level in 20 years, the central bank said Wednesday as Madrid faces an EU sanctions threat for public overspending. Debt as a proportion of economic output hit 100.5 percent in the first quarter up from 99.2 percent at the end of 2015, the bank said in a statement.

One of the biggest threats to our economic outlook.” Endless discussions of how important inflation is to the US economy, and how there hasn’t been enough of it in recent years, and how more inflation would be a godsend, has become the standard. The threat of lethal deflation is being brandished to rationalize all kinds of absurd monetary policies. And we know why: inflation is good only for debtors, in an over-indebted country. But that’s not true either. Because a lot of debtors, particularly those who funded their education with loans, are being strangled by … inflation. “College Tuition and...

As we reach the middle of the 21st century, half the population of the world will lose their job to a machine. The latest comes from Moshe Vardi, professor at Rice University , Houston, who delivered a talk to the American Association for the Advancement of Science , exploring the question: "If machines are capable of doing almost any work humans can do, what will humans do?" Vardi reckons that half of workers across the globe will be replaced by machines within the next 30 years, wiping out middle-class jobs and "exacerbating inequality". He noted that robots would take over...

How online auctioneer EnergyNet helps bring liquidity, and recovery, to America’s busted oil patch. In the first 18 months of the oil bust, 70 companies have gone bankrupt, defaulting on $40 billion in debt. A trillion dollars of oil company equity has been wiped out. Layoffs top 200,000. With oil holding at around $45 a barrel, more liquidations are on the way. Already the old guys swear this bust is worse than in 1986, when oil dropped below $25 in today’s dollars. At least one thing is better now: Thanks to the magic of the Internet, it’s easier for cash-strapped...