Free Republic

U.S. GDP Miss Far Bigger Than Announced, Real GDP Is 0% Housing-Market / US Economy Apr 29, 2012 - 10:21 AM By: Mike Shedlock The Advance Estimate for Q1 GDP came in at 2.2%, down from 3.0% in the previous quarter, and below most mainstream media estimates of 2.5%. However, my friend BC notes .... The GDP deflator is reported to have averaged 1.2% annualized in the past 2 qtrs. Had the trend rate from '11 persisted, the deflator would have subtracted 2.6% annualized from real GDP, resulting in a 2-qtr. growth of real GDP of 0%. ECRI's Achuthan would...

Economic Nostradamus: We Are Literally Witnessing a Collapse Mac Slavo April 27th, 2012 With the Presidential election cycle in full swing our incumbent administration, the media, and their financial pundits continue to maintain that the US economy’s green shoots have blossomed into fields of golden sunflowers. Despite what we’re being told, however, the actual data tells a stunningly different story. Richard Yamarone, a senior economist for Bloomberg Brief, has been called an economic Nostradamus for his prescient forecasting of the 2008 financial crisis, and now he’s warning that the worst is not over. In a recent interview with King World...

The Incredible UK Economic Catastrophe Chart That Everyone Is Talking About Joe Weisenthal Apr. 25, 2012, 10:25 AM Well, everyone is dumping on the UK today after that dismal Q1 GDP number, which confirms that the country has gone into double dip. David Cameron is taking a lot of heat for two reasons: The GDP stallout occurred right after he took office. He continues to be in denial, and so he's bragging a ton about low interest rates. Now here's another chart that everyone is tweeting, and which Paul Krugman has just posted. The UK recovery is now doing WORSE...

Did Bernanke Prevent Another Great Depression? Politics / US Economy April 22, 2012 - 07:02 AM By: Frank Shostak In a lecture given at George Washington University on March 27, 2012, the chairman of the Fed said that the US central bank's aggressive response to the 2007–2009 financial crisis and recession helped prevent a worldwide catastrophe. Various economic indicators were showing ominous signs at the time. After closing at 3.1 percent in September 2007, the yearly rate of growth of industrial production fell to minus 14.8 percent by June 2009. The yearly rate of growth of housing starts fell from...

The Anatomy Of Sovereign Debt Default Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis 2012 Apr 17, 2012 - 12:47 PM By: Michael Pento The three primary factors that determine the interest rate level a nation must pay to service its debt in the long term are; the currency, inflation and credit risks of holding the sovereign debt. All three of those factors are very closely interrelated. Even though the central bank can exercise tremendous influence in the short run, the free market ultimately decides whether or not the nation has the ability to adequately finance its obligations and how high interest rates...

A note to readers. This 2000-word commentary is a longer-term view; think in terms of years, not months or days. The essay is not in conflict with the fully invested position currently held at Cumberland. The words reflect my personal thinking only. Some of my colleagues disagree. In my personal view, the future is uncertain (of course) and may be unattractive for the longer-term outlook. In my view, our American political system is failing us. In my view, we are joining the list of declining world powers. The framework to support that argument follows. "The external menace ‘You'll end up...

. . . of online media manipulation isn’t exactly new. In fact, it goes back well before Romney’s 2008 campaign got underway in earnest. It seems to date back to sometime in 2005, when RNC operatives arranged a meeting between Matt Drudge and Matt Rhodes — a highly placed operative in the Romney organization. Last year, a delegation of RNC officials flew to Miami Beach, where Drudge lives, for a dinner at the Forge steakhouse to introduce the Internet maven to Matt Rhodes, the party’s new opposition research director. Due to Drudge’s now-close friendship with Romney’s chief aide and longtime...

Ronnie Montrose’s Death Caused By Self-Inflicted Gunshot by: Dave Swanson 5 hours ago Ronnie Montrose Mark Bowman It has been confirmed that Ronnie Montrose’s death last month was not directly due to his long battle with cancer. The San Mateo County Coroner’s Office reports the guitarist instead died from suicide in the form of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. According to family friend Michael Molenda, in a sad and touching article on GuitarPlayer.com, the Montrose family knew the findings would be made public soon. So they posted a statement on the guitarist’s website and official Facebook page, which reads in part:...

http://www.businessinsider.com/study-company-us-2012-4 NIALL FERGUSON: This Is The Study That Shows Why The US Economy Is Doomed Rob Wile | Apr. 5, 2012, 2:02 PM | 17,651 | 67 A Harvard Business School study that Niall Ferguson pointed us to today shows the U.S. has fallen severely behind in terms of international competitiveness. The study, from January, found that for Harvard alums personally involved in a company relocation decision, 57 percent said the decision "involved the possibility of moving existing activities out of the U.S." Meanwhile, only 9 percent considered moving existing activities from another country into the U.S. "A U.S.-based respondent...

Retail gasoline deliveries, already well below 1980 levels, have absolutely fallen off a cliff. .... Deliveries in November 2011 were 30.9 MGD, a staggering 47% decline. ..... What other plausible explanation is there for the decline from 42.4 MGD in July 2011 to 30.9 MGD in November 2011 other than a dramatic decline in discretionary driving? That 27% drop in a few months in unprecedented, except in times of war or sharp economic contraction, i.e. recession.

Marc Faber Predicts 'Massive Wealth Destruction' Through Hyperinflation, Social Unrest, Credit Collapse, Or War April 2, 2012Joe Weisenthal Marc Faber was on CNBC this morning, peddling his standard doom He had two good lines: The first was that the #1 question investors should ask themselves is not 'where can I make the most money' but rather 'where can I avoid losing the most money'? He then predicted that the endgame of all this easing will be "massive wealth destruction" through some combination of hyperinflation, credit collapse, social unrest, and WAR! Doom, boom, and gloom indeed. For what it's worth, he...

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U.S. Economy Dead Man Walking, The Crash Of 2012 Economics / US Economy Mar 23, 2012 - 03:32 PM By: Casey Research Doug Casey, Casey Research writes: In an interview with Louis James, the inimitable Doug Casey throws cold water on those celebrating the economic recovery. [Skype rings: It's Doug Casey, calling from Cafayate, Argentina. He sounds tired, but pleased with himself.]Doug: Lobo, get out your mower; it's time to cut down some green shoots again, and debunk a bit of the so-called recovery. Louis: Ah. I have to say, Doug, the so-called recovery is looking more than "so-called" to...

The labor market is in full-blown recovery mode right now, with the economy adding more than 200,000 net new workers each month for the past three months. At this rate, we'll close the jobs gap in roughly ... eight years.Eight years!?Yep, that is the conclusion from Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney at the Hamilton Project. Today the country faces a 11 million-person jobs gap. This "jobs gap" represents the number of jobs that the U.S. economy needs to return to pre-recession employment rates while also (this part is key!) absorbing everybody joining the labor force.It's not just enough to make...

Two years ago, I started reading about vitamin D deficiency. In articles by Dr. Frank Lipkin and on Natural News, they explained the symptoms of vitamin D deficiency. Guess what? To my surprise and curiosity, a lot of the symptoms were like fibromyalgia. I went back through my paperwork and saw that the nurse had indeed told me to take vitamin D.

No Matter How Much Food You’ve Got Stored, It Will Eventually Run Out in a Full-Blown Collapse Joe Alton, M.D.,aka Dr. Bones March 1st, 2012 The following article has been generously contributed by Joe Alton, M.D., aka Dr. Bones, of Doom and Bloom Nation where you can find strategies to stay healthy that include traditional medicine, alternative remedies, and medicinal/survival gardening. For the best in emergency and long-term disaster medical preparedness we encourage you to check out The Doom and Bloom Survival Medicine Handbook and follow Dr. Bones and Nurse Amy on their weekly podcast. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To Survive, How Much...

As a citizen of this country, I feel it is my duty to keep informed and not be ignorant of what's going on around me. Anyone who calls themselves a conservative (I believe) should stay informed as to what's going on around them. 'Situational awareness' is important. With that being said...how in the hell do you keep up with the news and not get totally and completely depressed? I see the insane policies of the current administration, the overwhelming ignorance of the electorate who put them there, and the generally deteriorating state of the world. Closer to home, I see...

(CBS News) Do antidepressants work? Since the introduction of Prozac in the 1980s, prescriptions for antidepressants have soared 400 percent, with 17 million Americans currently taking some form of the drug. But how much good is the medication itself doing? "The difference between the effect of a placebo and the effect of an antidepressant is minimal for most people," says Harvard scientist Irving Kirsch. Will Kirsch's research, and the work of others, change the $11.3 billion antidepressant industry? Lesley Stahl investigates.

The most brilliant man in the universe said in 2008: "We are in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression..." "The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression."Sure sounds like he meant "the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression."Now he says he had no idea how bad it was. "So, the die had been cast, but a lot of us didn't understand at that point how bad it was going to get. That increases the deficit because less tax revenues come in, and it means that more people are getting unemployment insurance, we're helping states more so they...

LONDON — The brains of people tripping on magic mushrooms have given the best picture yet of how psychedelic drugs work and British scientists say the findings suggest such drugs could be used to treat depression. Two separate studies into the effects of psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, showed that contrary to scientists' expectations, it does not increase but rather suppresses activity in areas of the brain that are also dampened with other anti-depressant treatments. "Psychedelics are thought of as 'mind-expanding' drugs so it has commonly been assumed that they work by increasing brain activity," said David Nutt...