Free Republic

INDIANAPOLIS -- Indiana University economists presenting their annual forecast today (Nov. 5) are confident that 2010 is going to be better than this year. Unfortunately, 2009 was "really, really awful." "Better is not necessarily good," said Bill Witte, associate professor emeritus of economics at IU and a member of the Kelley School of Business' annual Business Outlook Panel. "2010 is going to be acceptable, except for the fact that we're starting from extremely low levels. Things will be getting better, but they still won't be really good."

Listened to an interesting talk today by Jared Bernstein, chief economist to Vice President Joe Biden, at a New America think-tank conference on job creation. A few observations: 1) If Bernstein’s talk was any indication, don’t look for much public celebration by the White House if we get some good 3Q and 4Q GDP numbers. As he put it, “Absent robust job growth, it is not a true economic recovery.” He stressed this point several times. I don’t even think you will hear an administration official use the word “recovery” in 2009. 2) Bernstein trotted out several interesting slides —...

Introduction Over the past decade and a half, Americans have been presented with two radically different visions of the role of government. The first vision, articulated and implemented by President Reagan in the 1980s, declares that government taxation and burdensome regulations are harmful to the natural market forces that generate economic growth. Since economic growth is the only way to truly create jobs and raise incomes, policies that reduce taxes and government intervention are the keys to higher living standards for all Americans. President Clinton espouses the second vision, which maintains that the expansion of government does not have harmful...

"I'm working closely with my economic advisors to explore any and all additional options and measures that we might take to promote job creation," Obama said after the Labor Department reported that 263,000 Americans lost jobs in September and the unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent. Embedded in those numbers was this sobering statistic. The number of Americans unemployed for 27 weeks increased by 450,000 and now totals 5.4 million. The White House may soon ask Congress to extend three parts of the original $787 billion stimulus law signed in mid-February. * Extend the current $8,000 first-time home buyer tax...

If the academic year gets pushed deeper into summer, as President Obama is advocating, the grumbling will not be limited just to students and teachers who will be forced to spend more days in school. Critics say the president's call for a longer academic calendar and a shorter summer vacation will bring on a host of unintended consequences -- including increased costs for school systems, major cuts to the nation's hotel and tourism industries, and a serious blow to summer camp operators. Obama says kids in the U.S. spend too little time in the classroom, putting them at a disadvantage...

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - American's economic recovery "is very near," a report by a private research organization concluded Monday. The assertion by the Conference Board was based on improvements in 10 leading economic indicators measured by the group. Five of the indicators improved in August, while two had no change. The indicators are used to forecast economic fortunes up to nine months into the future. An index that measures current activity, the coincident index, was unchanged for the month after being revised to show a 0.1 percent increase in July. The indicators have been rising since April after being in...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States will urge world leaders this week to launch a new push in November to rebalance the world economy, but there are doubts national governments will bow to external advice. A document outlining the U.S. position ahead of the September 24-25 Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh said exporters, which include China, Germany and Japan, should consume more, while debtors like the United States ought to boost savings. "The world will face anemic growth if adjustments in one part of the global economy are not matched by offsetting adjustments in other parts," said the document,...

Obama noted several steps have been taken to spur the U.S. economy, pointing to the stimulus package, efforts to unlock frozen credit markets and free more loans for people investing in homes, cars, education or financing small businesses. And he said other nations have been challenged to address underlying problems that caused a deep global recession. But Obama said his administration knows that "stopping the bleeding isn't nearly enough. We know we still have a lot to do here at home to build an economy that is producing good jobs for all those who are looking for work today. "And...

I always wondered how the people survived in Argentina's currency melt down. Here is a video with the answer. It is very interesting and inspiring.

Here’s a thought to ponder. Let’s think of a community of families that each agree to put aside a minimum of $100 CASH a month. They agree that this cash will henceforth ONLY be spent within the community – and physical cash will be the only currency accepted. Any purchases not made in the community will be made with other resources. There would be no “central bank” within the community. There would be no central figure to “trust”. The only requirement is a verbal agreement to use that money within the community by buying and selling with other members, or...

Here we are again approaching another 10-year cycle peak. The last such peak was in 1999 while the most recent 10-year cycle bottom was in 2004. We wrote extensively on both episodes at the time and the 10-year cycle is one of our favorites. It's what I like to call the "slam dunk" cycle since among all the yearly Kress cycles, the 10-year cycle at its peak and bottom phase can almost always be used for profitable trading/investing almost by itself. It will be sad to wave goodbye to our friend, the 10-year cycle, in a few weeks. After the...

We estimate fiscal 2009 to have a deficit of more than $2 trillion and incoming revenues will only make up less than half of that. In spite of the protestations of our Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner that the deficit will be reduced, our president guarantees $1 trillion annual deficits as far as the eye can see. Cuts will never come and the dollar will fall because that is the way the elitists want it to be. Only from the ashes of economic and financial collapse can the new world order rise. Our government says one thing and does another. They...

Geithner is expected to repeat assurances that the government's soaring budget deficits will not trigger a devastating bout of inflation that sinks the value of the dollar and foreigners' holdings. High-level meetings Geithner is scheduled to hold high-level meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday with top government officials and leading business executives in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. "We have a fiscal policy that will ultimately undermine the value of their holdings and that has got foreign investors nervous," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. On Monday, the government is expected to announce that the deficit through the first...

Housing has led us out of every economic slump for the past 50 years, which is why this recession could go on for a long time...

During his NAACP speech earlier this month, Sen. Obama repeated the term at least four times. "I've been working my entire adult life to help build an America where economic justice is being served," he said at the group's 99th annual convention in Cincinnati. And as president, "we'll ensure that economic justice is served," he asserted. "That's what this election is about." Obama never spelled out the meaning of the term, but he didn't have to. His audience knew what he meant, judging from its thumping approval. A careful reading of Obama's first memoir, "Dreams From My Father," reveals that...

no link, just headline

A corrupt parliament; an unprincipled government; an economy sinking under a mountain of debt - and a people enraged. Not a bad description of Britain in 2009. Also not a bad description of Britain nearly two centuries ago, in the dismal decade of distress and discontent that followed the Napoleonic Wars. Yes, we've been in this mess before. The question is: How did we get out of it? And can we do it again? In his Rural Rides, which he began writing in 1822 and published in 1830, the radical journalist William Cobbett portrayed a country groaning under the twin...

As bad as California's budget crisis is for the state's $1.8-trillion economy, just wait. It could get worse. The spectacle that played out in the national media this week of a state unable to get its fiscal act together is reinforcing the notion that the Golden State is a rotten place to do business, experts say. Corporate leaders and Wall Street investors, watching the daily festival of seeming incompetence, political partisanship and governmental dysfunction, could be persuaded to limit or eliminate their investments here. ... The budget crisis threatens to further weaken the state's job market, which lost 63,700 more...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – From legalizing marijuana and then taxing it, to increasing death certificate fees and charging gentlemen's club patrons an extra $5 at the door, cash-strapped U.S. states and cities are rooting around for revenue in some unconventional places. But even those able to scrounge up funds from untapped sources will likely still need federal help or traditional tax increases to recover from a 17-month recession that has dried up revenue, drained spending capabilities and nearly obliterated the usual last resort of borrowing. Sin seems most ripe for the taxing in a list of proposed revenue moves compiled by...

(IsraelNN.com) A survey conducted by the Boston Review in its May/June issue shows that nearly 25% of American non-Jews blame “the Jews” a moderate amount or more for the financial crisis. Furthermore, a total of 38.4% of the non-Jews in the U.S. attribute at least some level of blame to the group. Possibly most significant of all were the subconscious anti-Semitic tendencies revealed based on the way the questions were phrased to different groups.

President Obama voted against the last two conservative justices to join the Supreme Court. He once said that, if he were president at the time, he would not have nominated the court's other two conservatives. Obama has described his ideal Supreme Court as being a "refuge of the powerless" -- a populist attitude toward the nation's highest court that suggests the sort of person he will nominate to replace Justice David Souter, who is expected to resign this summer. For now, the White House is staying mum on news of Souter's impending retirement. The administration is giving Souter a chance...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama sought to reassure Americans on Wednesday he was making progress tackling the economic crisis and in fixing the U.S. image abroad, but urged patience. "We are off to a good start. But it is just a start," Obama told a White House news conference as he assessed his first 100 days in office and promised to keep up the whirlwind pace. "I am pleased with our progress, but I am not satisfied." Buoyed by high public approval ratings, Obama focused on the jam-packed policy agenda he has pursued since his January 20 inauguration, topped...

Many of the sneering comments about the participants in last week’s hundreds of tea parties across the nation were premised on the idea that these people didn’t know much about public policy. The hostile CNN reporter (Rush Limbaugh might call her an infobabe) who told tea party attendants that they were going to get tax rebates was an example of that. It was also an example of the condescension of so many in the media: ordinary people should be satisfied with getting a few extra bucks now and shouldn’t worry about the long-term effects of huge increases in government spending...

China's economy slowed in the first quarter to its weakest pace on record, but an improvement in data for March offers tentative signs that the worst may be over for the world's third-largest economy. Annual gross domestic product growth fell to 6.1%, down from 6.8% in the fourth quarter of 2008 and slightly below economists' forecasts of a 6.3% rise. That marks the weakest growth since quarterly records began in 1992. Growth was dragged down largely by a sharp fall in exports in the first three months, but was offset somewhat by the implementation of the government's 4 trillion yuan...

The tiny desert town of Abeche, in eastern Chad, offers a curious sight: Sandwiched between the mud huts that most people call home and the compounds belonging to international aid workers is a humble Chinese restaurant catering to Chad's growing population of Chinese engineers and managers. Significantly, no equivalent American-style restaurant is to be found. The same holds true across the resource-rich, institution-poor developing world, in countries as remote as East Timor and as dangerous as Somalia. While much of the military establishment in Washington continues to plan for a possible conventional war with China, Beijing is studiously avoiding a...

4/7/2009 - PANJSHIR, Afghanistan (AFNS) -- For more than eight years, the government of Afghanistan has been building from the ground up, using millions of dollars in aid from foreign governments and private organizations. These funds impact both the central government in Kabul and the country's 34 provinces. Due to the unique relationships between American servicemembers of the Panjshir Provincial Reconstruction Team have with the people of the Panjshir province and the region's local government, progress is not measured merely in dollar signs and projects completed but by how well the Panjshir people can care for themselves. The PRT's commander...

The real tragedy behind the $165 million dollars in AIG retention bonuses is that our political leaders have used it to take more of our rights away. Last week, the House, voted 328-93, to approve a bill they didn’t read, that would impose a 90% surtax on bonuses given to employees with household incomes of $250,000 or more at companies that have received at least $5 billion from the government's financial rescue program. This legislation was derived from the tremendous outrage & media sensationalism created by Congress and the Obama Administration. In other words, they justified ignoring the 16th amendment...

The Great Depression, the Carter Stagflation, and the Bush-Obama Downturn all follow a pattern that is striking: The economic peaks are separated by almost exactly 35 years. There are also suggestive patterns in politics, military affairs, and technology, all of which are tied into the repeating pattern. Perhaps we can use this to see where we are and where we will go financially, politically, and technologically.

Strasbourg, France - The United States' decision to pump ever-larger sums into its economy is the "road to hell," the holder of the European Union's rotating presidency said Wednesday, just a week before he was set to meet the US president in London. The US is repeating the mistakes of the 1930s and has chosen the "road to hell" in the process, said the Czech Republic's fallen prime minister, Mirek Topolanek, the morning after his government failed a vote of no confidence by the narrowest of margins. The vote throws into question not just the Czech presidency of the EU,...

Here it is. It's long for you small minded, entertainment needy, slow witted folks, but really a concise, entertaining 1 hour 16 minute explanation of how we got here, who's responsible, and what to expect. If you listen, you will find out what YOU and WE THE PEOPLE, need to do in the next 6-10 years so the country doesn't go bankrupt. I challenge you to listen first, then comment. link is http://blog.mises.org/archives/009620.asp

I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about ten - fifteen years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two. We demand and then codify into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people we know they can never pay back. Why? We learn just days ago that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has 'loaned' two trillion dollars (that is...

What stands out most clearly, amidst all the panic inducing talk and extravagant promises, lately spewing from the mouths of Federal office holders & Central Bankers, is of a desperate need to keep America dependent upon credit--easy credit;--that what is most feared, in the seats of economic power in contemporary America, is a period in which people restrain expenditures for new goods and services, pay down debt and actually try to provide for the cyclical, as well as disaster driven, downturns that have always been part of the economic history of human nations. The boom can last only as long...

Great video of speech by Karl Denninger at the Accuracy in Media awards 26th of February 2009. The video isn't that great but the speech is! ;-)

The nation’s largest banks are so close to collapse and the world economy is coming unglued so rapidly, a major Wall Street meltdown is now imminent.

See Link for Youtube Video. His name is Mike. Good information on latest UK and other countries economic problems.

CEOs, Bankers Used Corporate Credit Cards for Sex, Says New York Madam Wall Street Exposed as Convicted Escort Boss Reveals Client List of 9,800 By ANNA SCHECTER, RHONDA SCHWARTZ and BRIAN ROSS February 6, 2009 SHARE Wall street lawyers, investment bankers, CEOs and media executives often used corporate credit cards to pay for $2,000 an hour prostitutes, according to the madam who ran one of New York's biggest and most expensive escort services until it was busted last year. Brian Ross reports on the woman speaking out about the business of pleasure. More PhotosBut prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney's...

WASHINGTON – The House has passed a $787 billion plan to resuscitate the economy, handing President Barack Obama a big victory. The measure was passed on a 246-183, with no Republican "yes" votes. It will now go to the Senate, where a vote is expected later Friday. The eight-inch thick measure combines tax cuts for individuals and businesses with a half-trillion dollars in government spending for infrastructure, health care and help for cash-starved state governments. Seniors would get a $250 bonus Social Security check. Eight Democrats voted against the bill.

This bubble of government makes all other economic bubbles that have come before seem puny by comparison. Furthermore, this bubble is uniquely world wide. As liquidity is running out and credit is drying up, many nations are in a chain reaction realizing the hot air on which their financial and political systems stand. In any case the dreams of Obama, the RINOs, and the Democrats will become painfully deflated as the era of big government comes to a close. All bubbles come to an end when the liquidity is no longer available. After a certain point the bubble cannot be...

Congress is currently debating an economic stimulus package that would spend nearly a trillion dollars on measures of doubtful timeliness and efficacy. Here are three ideas on how to really hit the target much quicker, harder and for a lot less. 1. To resolve the credit crisis, make all down payments on house purchases tax-deductible. The credit crisis has been caused by a collapse of the housing market, which has made trillions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities held by major financial institutions worthless. This can be rapidly remedied by reboosting the housing market, which a tax deduction on all (not...

Kearns: “The current world trading system is a Ponzi scheme dwarfing Bernie Madoff’s” Washington, January 9 – The U.S. Business and Industry Council today decried the soaring unemployment rate revealed by this morning’s December government jobs report, and argued that job destruction’s heavy concentration in manufacturing means that economic recovery will be impossible without a major trade policy overhaul. Manufacturing’s 149,000 lost jobs not only represented 28.44 percent of the 524,000 total non-farm jobs eliminated in December. The sector’s total 2008 job loss of 791,000 represented an even higher 30.54 percent of the 2.59 million non-farm total for the year....

Because of Bloomberg's restrictions, we cannot excerpt their articles -- only post links to articles like this one. However, the article's title pretty much says it all. Housing sales shot up 6.5 percent and the leading economic indicators expanded at an annual rate of 3.6 percent. Of course, Barry and Nancy and Harry and Barney and the rest of the RAT idiots can and will turn things around.

On stimulating the economy:“The government can’t stimulate the economy. In the short run they can stimulate consumption. Consumption is the opposite of what we need and extra consumption will stifle the economy and the rebalancing that we need to have a viable recovery. We need consumers to spend less so they can save more”. “The only stimulus would be less government, understand that government is in the way, government is a burden on the economy. The lighter the government the easier it is going to be for the market to correct for these imbalances. What we really want is more...

"Obama is merely a fop for the global elite" Have you ever wondered how capitalism was pushed over the edge of the cliff just six weeks before the American presidential election? According to financial experts, the world, as we know it will change dramatically by the year 2012. People, who provided for their families only three years ago, will be desperately searching for food. The story of the economic meltdown of 2008 begins and ends with the United Nations and its carefully managed One World Order. Behind the curtain of this dark chapter in human misery are ogres Maurice Strong...

WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan won't include money for politicians' pet projects and will include provisions aimed at ensuring his administration is open and accountable to taxpayers and Congress, a transition official said Tuesday. As part of the package likely to cost as much as $775 billion, Obama plans to establish an oversight body to meet publicly and issue reports to Congress on how the money is being spent. The president-elect also plans to create a user-friendly Internet site to allow people to track the flow of dollars.

WASHINGTON – Washington bureaucrats have a reputation for being able to spend taxpayer money real fast. But, believe it or not, spending it fast enough is one of the biggest tasks President-elect Barack Obama's economic team faces in putting together an economic recovery measure. Obama's economic recovery plan depends on swiftly pumping hundreds of billions of federal dollars into the economy to create jobs. The focus is on tax cuts and government spending that can provide an immediate lift to the economy. However, the $675 billion-$775 billion plan emerging in talks between Obama's team and Democratic allies in Congress also...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US president-elect Barack Obama Saturday unveiled a broad proposal to boost job growth and the troubled American economy, a top priority for the incoming administration. "Economists from across the political spectrum agree that if we don't act swiftly and boldly, we could see a much deeper economic downturn that could lead to double digit unemployment and the American Dream slipping further and further out of reach," Obama said in his weekly radio address "That's why we need an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan that not only creates jobs in the short-term but spurs economic growth and competitiveness...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republicans in Congress could stand in the way of Democratic President-elect Barack Obama's hopes of signing a massive economic stimulus plan into law right after he takes office on January 20. The plan, aimed at easing the financial crisis, tops the agenda of the newly elected Congress due to be sworn in on Tuesday -- two weeks before Obama. Hearings in the new Congress could push a final package well into February. Democrats who control Congress predict the plan -- including tax relief for the middle class and spending on schools, roads and other infrastructure -- will...

Many have decried the various bailouts as leading us down the path to socialism. They are wrong. We aren't heading for socialism, we are headed for fascism. Italy and Germany developed a distinct economic model. The means of production were privately held, but controlled by the government. Facists were neither capitalist or communist. The fascist economic model believes that profit is private, but loss is public. In other words, if you are making a profit you can keep it. If you have a loss the state will bail you out. In return for this protection, businesses had to allow themselves...

AugustReview.com [Editor's note: members of the Trilateral Commission and companies with Commission representation appear in bold type.] Since 1973, this writer has made inquiry as to the location and ownership of the vast stores of monetary gold (400 oz., .999 pure bars) in the world. There has not been a formal audit on Fort Knox, for instance, since the Eisenhower administration. Official statistics on gold holdings are often contradictory. Getting plain answers from any Central Bank in the world, including the Fed, is virtually impossible. This paper points out a pattern of manipulation that has been clearly observed by many...