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The laundry room of Tamara Huffman’s split-level here in the Shenandoah Valley is filling up with cheese powder and freeze-dried ham, at the ready should her husband, Brian, lose his job anytime in the next 25 years. She carves a little bit out of their already tight budget every month to buy some more. This sort of stockpiling was once the purview of survivalists preparing for Armageddon. But Huffman’s fear isn’t the end of the world so much as the $5 basket of grape tomatoes she bypassed the other day at her local supermarket.

While we learned yesterday that the U.S. is preparing its domestic response to a potential economic collapse, the bigger story might be that the U.S. has been playing such “war games” for almost two years. “The Pentagon sponsored a first-of-its-kind war game last month focused not on bullets and bombs — but on how hostile nations might seek to cripple the U.S. economy, a scenario made all the more real by the global financial crisis.” That’s how Politico reporter Eamon Javers (now with CNBC and who brought us Monday’s report) began an article dated April 9, 2009. In that article,...

Economic lunacy abounds, and often the most learned, including Nobel Laureates, are its primary victims. The most recent example of economic lunacy is found in a Huffington Post article titled "The Silver Lining of Japan's Quake" written by Nathan Gardels, editor of New Perspectives Quarterly, who has also written articles for The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, New York Times and Washington Post. Mr. Gardels says, "No one -- least of all someone like myself who has experienced the existential terror of California's regular tremors and knows the big one is coming here next -- would minimize the grief,...

March 22nd, 2011 (1 of 5)

Revealed The Left’s Economic Terrorism Playbook: The Chase Campaign for a Coalition of Unions, Community Groups, Lawmakers and Students to Take Down US Capitalism and Redistribute Wealth & Power

At the start of the 112th Congress, my fellow Republicans and I made a commitment to turn the country’s economy around and get Americans back to work. Over the past two years in the minority, we could do little as the Obama Administration’s and Nancy Pelosi’s reckless spending increased our already massive debt by $3.5 trillion and our unemployment rate surged to ten percent. Republicans hit the ground running in January, voting to cut spending by $2.6 trillion by repealing the onerous ObamaCare law. In February, while the Obama administration reported a record-breaking monthly deficit of $223 billion, we simultaneously...

 In Japan today the news is dire on every front. It is important to note that only 15% of Japan’s land is suitable for cultivation, meaning they have to import about 50% of their requirements for grain and fodder crops and rely on imports for most of their supply of meat. Japan is the world’s 2nd largest fishing nation having over 2,000 fishing ports and one of the most advanced aquaculture (sea farming) industries on the planet."For Japan, a nation that lives by the sea, food comes in by the sea, energy comes in by the sea and exports...

Everyone is talking about the Pentagon-sponsored study which concludes that the 2008 economic meltdown may have been deliberately triggered. Oh wait − not everyone is talking about it. In fact, few people have even heard of it. I didn’t learn of the study from ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, or liberal newspapers. I learned of it only by surfing conservative websites that reference the Washington Times. The study was prepared in 2009, but it was just made public. The study does not say that the economic meltdown was the result of deliberate action − that is, economic terrorism − but...

RUSH: By the way, do you remember that big, big report, economic growth, fourth quarter of last year, 3.2%, remember that? What did we tell you? We told you to hang on, sit tight, be patient for the revised number. It won't be that good. And it wasn't. "The U.S. economy grew at a 2.8 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter, slower than previously calculated and less than forecast as state and local governments made deeper cuts in spending." Once again, economic growth revised downward, not 3.2%, but rather 2.8% in the fourth quarter. I'd like to hearken back...

Global Economy? 23 Facts Which Prove That Globalism Is Pushing The Standard Of Living Of The Middle Class Down To Third World Levels From now on, whenever you hear the term "the global economy" you should immediately equate it with the destruction of the U.S. middle class. Over the past several decades, the American economy has been slowly but surely merged into the emerging one world economic system. Unfortunately for the middle class, much of the rest of the world does not have the same minimum wage laws and worker protections that we do. Therefore, the massive global corporations that...

In 2006, I examined a series of surveys we conducted nationwide and then predicted a collapse of the housing market. Plenty others followed with similar forecasts and postmortems over the following months and years. But my column was among the first. I've made predictions about other slowdowns in the American economy. I've been mostly correct, although in 2010, I suggested that the stock market ultimately would plunge. Turned out that it climbed instead of descending. The fact is that it's easier to predict the weather next month than to get an accurate read on the future of the stock market....

The Mexican economy recovered from a sharp contraction in 2009 to grow by 5.5% last year, its fastest annual rate in 10 years, official figures show. The National Statistics Institute said that the agriculture, manufacturing and services sectors all made a strong improvement over the year. The manufacturing sector was one of the key drivers with a growth rate of 6.1% in 2010. "Growth is now more balanced," said Finance Minister Ernesto Cordero. "Manufacturing was stronger but most importantly the services sector grew significantly," said Gabriel Casillas at JP Morgan.

"Despite today's nearly double-digit unemployment rate, 4 in 10 unemployed Americans expect to get a job in the next four weeks and one in three underemployed have the same expectations with respect to obtaining a full-time job." That's the finding of a new Gallup poll released yesterday. I guess it's nice that so many Americans remain upbeat in the face of our economic challenges. But this goes beyond upbeat into pure delusion. As Mish points out, there are around 14.5 million unemployed people. In order to employ 40% of them, businesses would have to create 5.95 million jobs. In December...

Good current information for investors and Marc's take on Obama and the near future.

For years, Democrats and their media minions have maintained that the economic boom of the '90s was caused by the fiscal policies of President Bill Clinton, in particular his 1993 income tax hike. Appearing on ABC's "This Week" Sunday, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman shockingly said what conservatives have been claiming all along (video follows with transcript and commentary): PAUL KRUGMAN: I think the model is something like Clinton who, in fact, mostly was just riding on a successful economy that was successful mostly for reasons that had nothing much to do with him. But he was able to,...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama wants to cast some light on economic success stories in the shadows of a slow recovery. And he is looking to find some more. On Friday, the president travels to Schenectady, N.Y., birthplace of the General Electric Co., to showcase a new GE deal with India and announce a restructured presidential advisory board to focus on increasing employment and competitiveness. Obama is naming GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt as the head of a Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. The panel replaces Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, which had been chaired by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul...

On Monday, the Obama administration announced it had hired an environmental economist from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to join the National Economic Council. Replacing member Joe Aldy, Nat Keohane, a long-time advocate of cap and trade, will now be advising President Obama on the economics of energy and environmental issues. With Keohane’s addition, it now looks like the Obama administration is preparing to go to battle against congressional Republicans who balk at the prospect of any environmental legislation. But Keohane’s hire also represents something else – the continuation of Obama placing global warming alarmists

Four Texas metropolitan areas — Austin, Dallas, San Antonio and Houston - dominate the top 15 U.S. cities in a global study to determine the level of cities' recovery from the recession. The Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program report ranks 150 cities: 50 in the United States, 50 in Europe and 50 in the rest of the world. Austin was the highest-ranked U.S. city and No. 26 in the world. Dallas ranks as the No. 4 U.S. city and No. 39 in the world. San Antonio ranks No. 11 in the U.S. and No. 51 in the world. Houston is

Is this the last gasp from America’s liberal elites before the November mid-terms on Tuesday? This is what economist Paul Krugman has to say in The New York Times today, predicting “political chaos”, with the hysterical warning – “if the elections go as expected next week, here’s my advice: Be afraid. Be very afraid.” This is going to be terrible. In fact, future historians will probably look back at the 2010 election as a catastrophe for America, one that condemned the nation to years of political chaos and economic weakness. Krugman then goes on to blame George W. Bush for...

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France plans to propose a new security and economic relationship between Europe and Russia when he meets with President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany this month in Deauville, senior French officials said Friday.