Free Republic

Twelve years after finishing Harvard’s graduate theater program, Katierose Donohue still pays almost as much in student loans each month — about $650 — as for her share of the rent in Los Angeles. She recently stopped hosting her monthly sketch comedy show, “Ma’am,” because she didn’t always break even on her $200 budget. She’s now working side jobs as a dog walker and a social media copywriter, after past gigs serving at Starbucks and handing out free cigarettes for Camel. She’s never missed a loan payment, but there’s no end in sight: She borrowed nearly $75,000 to attend the...

China’s debt surpasses 300 percent of GDP, IIF says, raising doubts over Yellen’s crisis remarks Silvia Amaro Wednesday, 28 Jun 2017 Global debt has hit a record level in the first quarter of this year, mainly driven by emerging markets, raising questions of whether there will be another financial crisis in the near future. Data from the Institute of International Finance showed that global debt reached $217 trillion in the first quarter of this year, or 327 percent of gross domestic product. "The debt burden is not distributed evenly. Some countries/sectors have seen deleveraging while others have built up very...

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says federal borrowing limit must increase by Sept. 29, giving lawmakers little time after recess to act Republicans are leaving town for an August recess after a failed attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act. When they return in September, they’ll have just 12 working days to avert another big problem. In a letter to lawmakers Friday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the federal borrowing limit, or debt ceiling, needed to be raised by Sept. 29 or the government risked running out of money to pay its bills.

Illinois is broke and continues to flirt with junk bond status. But the state’s financial woes aren’t stopping 63,000 government employees from bringing home six-figure salaries and higher. Whenever we open the books, Illinois is consistently one of the worst offenders. Recently, we found auto pound supervisors in Chicago making $144,453; nurses at state corrections earning up to $254,781; junior college presidents making $465,420; university doctors earning $1.6 million; and 84 small-town “managers” out-earning every U.S. governor. Using our interactive mapping tool, quickly review (by ZIP code) the 63,000 Illinois public employees who earn more than $100,000 and cost taxpayers...

"Fed Chair Janet Yellen says that in looking at asset prices and valuations, the central bank is 'not trying to opine on whether they're correct'; instead, policy makers are assessing the risk of potential spillovers. As asset prices rise, there hasn't been a substantial increase in borrowing, Yellen said. [The] financial system is strong and resilient." I assume chair Yellen is referring to U.S. non-financial and non-government borrowings. Clearly, central bank Credit and government borrowings have expanded spectacularly around the globe. I suspect as well there has been a major expansion in speculative leveraging and securities Credit at home and...

Under the leadership of former Obama official Tom Perez, a new FEC report reveals the DNC finished the month of June $3.3 million in debt. They’re broke. Just like their policies. Per the FEC: FILING FEC-1174219 1. DNC Services Corp./Dem. Nat’l Committee 430 South Capitol Street, SE Washington, DC 20003 2. FEC Committee ID #: C00010603 3. This committee HAS qualified as a multicandidate committee (see FEC Form 1M) 4. Report Type = JUL MONTHLY Filed: 07/20/2017 5. Covering Period 06/01/2017 Through 06/30/2017

Billions of dollars in student loans may be wiped out for tens of thousands of borrowers in the US because a lender didn't keep track of the paperwork verifying ownership of the loans, according to The New York Times. The National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts, which holds 800,000 private loans and is one of the country's largest owners of private student loans, is at the center of the legal dispute, the Times reported. Borrowers are failing to repay more than $5 billion of the $12 billion in private student loans held by National Collegiate, sending the loans into default. The...

Tens of thousands of people who took out private loans to pay for college but have not been able to keep up payments may get their debts wiped away because critical paperwork is missing. The troubled loans, which total at least $5 billion, are at the center of a protracted legal dispute between the student borrowers and a group of creditors who have aggressively pursued them in court after they fell behind on payments. Judges have already dismissed dozens of lawsuits against former students, essentially wiping out their debt, because documents proving who owns the loans are missing. A review...

Our columnist Jazz Shaw wrote earlier in the week about the dreadful financial crisis in the state of Illinois. The deadline for a budget deal is July 1st which makes tomorrow the last day for lawmakers to try to arrive at the state’s first budget agreement in three years. From CNN Money: After decades of historic mismanagement, Illinois is now grappling with $15 billion of unpaid bills and an unthinkable quarter-trillion dollars owed to public employees when they retire.The budget crisis has forced Illinois to jack up property taxes so high that people are leaving in droves. Illinois may...

The amount of money the government spends on programs and the amount it collects in taxes could change from the budget office projections, so the office warns that the Treasury could run out of funds even earlier. Currently, the federal deficit stands at $693 billion, which is an increase of $134 billion than what it projected in January. The federal government has an outstanding debt of $19.8 trillion, which includes $14.3 trillion in public debt and $5.5 trillion held by government accounts. Spending on major government programs such as Social Security and Medicare causes the amount of borrowing to increase....

If Gov. Bruce Rauner and his legislature in Springfield do not put a budget together by Friday, the Land of Lincoln will be the first state in the Union to see its debt plunge into junk-bond status. Illinois has $14.5 billion in overdue bills, $130 billion in unfunded pension obligations, and no budget. "We can't manage our money," says Rauner. "We're like a banana republic." Speaking of banana republics, Puerto Rico, which owes $74 billion to creditors who hold its tax-exempt bonds, and $40 billion in unfunded pension liabilities, has already entered bankruptcy proceedings. The island's imaginative 38-year-old governor, Ricardo...

LONDON — The rest of the planet bears a warning for President Trump’s plan to lean heavily on private business in conjuring a trillion dollars’ worth of American infrastructure: Handing profit-making companies responsibility for public works can produce trouble. In India, politically connected firms have captured contracts on the strength of relationships with officialdom, yielding defective engineering at bloated prices. When Britain handed control to private companies to upgrade London’s subway system more than a decade ago, the result was substandard, budget-busting work, prompting the government to step back in. Canada has suffered a string of excessive costs on public...

Illinois is the reason people hate government. The state is in the middle of a terrible financial crisis and two political titans are battling over bragging rights to the political carnage. Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, who is likely to spend more than $100 million on his political campaign if he runs for re-election next year, claims to be on the side of reform. Rauner wants to freeze property taxes, cut worker’s compensation and undermine collective bargaining rights. He would also like term limits for state officials and reduce the gerrymandering of legislative districts. On the other side there is Michael...

Americans are justifiably frustrated regarding what is going on in Washington, D.C. But let's not forget that we elect these folks. We may have a mess, but we can at least be proud that it's our mess. There is one unique problem. Unlike business, where change can be made quickly, government programs are so hard to change that it is almost a one-way street. It's not so easy to pass new programs, but once they're passed, we're stuck with them, generally, forever. Sure, technically they can be changed. But when is the last time we saw a major government program...

LEE COUNTY, Fla. - The entire westbound span of the Cape Coral Bridge will be replaced in about 11 years. That overhaul will be an expensive project costing $88 million. At the rate you're paying the $2 toll right now, the money could be saved and ready to pay for it in half that time. However, that’s not happening, and NBC2 investigated to find out why. More than 20,000 vehicles pass over the Cape Coral Bridge in a single day. Drivers headed to the Cape from Fort Myers have to pay $2 before jumping on the westbound span. "Living on...

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Now that the long Memorial Day holiday is over and legislators and the governor have returned from their road trips, we hope they have a better sense of the condition of highways around the state and a renewed sense of urgency on the need for upgrades and repairs. The first order of business, it would seem to us, is to come to some agreement on a state transportation budget for the next two years. Hopefully, hopefully, when that is done they will also take a longer-term view of Wisconsin’s highway construction needs and how best they should be met —...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Repairing the nation's crumbling roads and bridges was supposed to be an area ripe for bipartisan compromise between congressional Democrats and President Donald Trump. Instead, Democrats are panning Trump's proposed $1 trillion overhaul and even Republicans are balking at some aspects of the emerging plan. The White House's self-proclaimed "Infrastructure Week" began with Trump appearing Monday with aviation officials and some prominent GOP lawmakers to announce plans to privatize the nation's air traffic control system and separate operations from the Federal Aviation Administration.

HOUSTON - The teachers at Spring Forest Middle School asked KHOU 11's Verify team whether Beltway 8 has been paid off and if the tolls will ever go away in the foreseeable future. "Why do we still pay for toll roads?" wondered 7th grade teacher Rebecca Mustachio. "To be honest, I thought we would be done paying for toll roads." We are not even close to paying the bill for those roads, according to Roxana Sibrian of the Harris County Toll Road Authority. In a statement emailed to KHOU, the authority says it will be paying off construction debt until...

Puerto Rico's governor announced that the U.S. territory has overwhelmingly chosen statehood in a nonbinding referendum Sunday held amid a deep economic crisis that has sparked an exodus of islanders to the U.S. mainland. Nearly half a million votes were cast for statehood, more than 7,600 for free association/independence and nearly 6,700 for the current territorial status, according to preliminary results. The participation rate was just 23 percent with roughly 2.26 million registered voters, leading opponents to question the validity of a vote that several parties had boycotted. Gov. Ricardo Rossello shows his ballot at the San Jose Academy during...