Free Republic

An astonishing 2.2 million more Americans were working in October than in December, and 1.5 million fewer were unemployed.Good news about the economy continued to pour in during Election Week. Predictably, the nation’s establishment press, obsessed with its self-appointed insistence that Joe Biden is the nation’s president-elect, virtually ignored it.On Nov. 6, the government’s October jobs report revealed that the nation’s unemployment rate dropped a full point to a seasonally adjusted 6.9 percent, while nonfarm payroll employment increased by 638,000. The reported unemployment rate smashed expectations that it would only drop to 7.6 percent, while the employment increase beat expectations...

The nation’s corporate media have mostly downplayed or ignored the U.S. economy’s remarkable performance following the COVID-19 lockdowns earlier this year. The nation’s corporate media have mostly downplayed or ignored the U.S. economy’s remarkable performance following the COVID-19 lockdowns earlier this year. They have completely ignored how pandemic-related economic restrictions in many states have prevented the ongoing recovery from being even stronger.In just five months, the unemployment rate has fallen by 45 percent from its April peak of 14.7 percent, and the economy has also regained just over half of the 22.2 million jobs lost in March and April. This...

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby determine and authorize as follows:Section 1.  Purpose.  The 2019 novel coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing outbreaks of the disease COVID-19, has significantly disrupted the lives of Americans.  In Proclamation 9994 of March 13, 2020 (Declaring a National Emergency Concerning the Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Outbreak), I declared, pursuant to the National Emergencies Act, 50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq., that the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States constituted a national emergency that posed a threat to our national...

It's one thing for Joe Scarborough to criticize President Trump regarding various controversies. But when Scarborough brazenly boasts about the "Obama recovery," and thanks President Obama for it, you know that the former Republican has gone all-in with the Democrats. Playing off the recent drop on Wall Street, Morning Joe opened today by mocking Trump for his positive comments on the market back in August. Fine. But Scarborough then took things a servile step further, declaring: "This tax cut that was passed, was promised, actually, pump the prime [sic] and, you know, we're going to put another $1 trillion or...

Comprehensive tax reform is nearly impossible with Obamacare in place For the last seven-plus years, Republicans ran on repealing and replacing Obamacare. It was a winning platform, demonstrated by their gaining seats in Congress in almost every election since Obama was elected in 2008—achieving a majority in the House in 2010, a majority in the Senate in 2014, and finally the White House in 2016. And with President Trump stating that he is anxious to sign a “repeal” or a “repeal and replace” bill into law, passage seemed like a sure thing. Yet so far the Senate has failed to...

In the history of data from The Fed, this has never happened before... Aggregate Auto Loan volume actually fell last week... And less loans means one simple thing... less sales (because prices have never been higher and no one is paying cash)... Which is a major problem since motor vehicle production continues to rise as management is blindly belieiving the Hillbama narrative that everything is (and will be) awesome. The problem is... inventories are already at near record highs relative to sales (which are anything but plateauing)... In fact, the last time inventories were this high relative to sales, GM...

Unemployment hit 5 percent in October and the economy added 270,000 jobs in an unexpectedly strong showing that is good news for the White House. But wages are stagnant, more than 95 million Americans are not working, and the federal debt is soaring. President Barack Obama recently boasted he and his Democrat allies have “pulled the United States and the world out of an economic crisis” and “stabilized the financial system” since he took office, when unemployment was in double digits and the economy was tanking. That may be true, but these nine charts inspired by a recent Zero Hedge...

The Deloitte University Press has a very interesting, and comprehensive study on job gains and losses, by type of job, and state by state. The biggest winners are states involved in energy production, finance, or healthcare. The biggest losers are states that did not recover from the real estate bust, or lost population due to emigration. With that overview, let's dive deeper into the Geography of Jobs. Only now, as we reach the fifth anniversary of the end of the recession, has employment in the United States finally regained its pre-recession peak. The national story of slow recovery obscures the...

The recession has been over for four years, but the birth rate in the U.S. continues to fall as many people struggle with a sluggish economy and financial uncertainty. According to a recent analysis by the Pew Institute, since 2007 when there were a record 4,316,233 births, the number of births has been steadily declining, with 4,007,000 births in 2012 - the lowest number since 1998. Analysts say that the birthrate is dictated by the economy.

Barack Obama wants to ask for a second term as President on the message that “America is back,” claiming that he has pulled the nation into a path for prosperity and job creation. That will come as a big surprise to American workers, who have not seen any improvement in their job situation or economic position, warns Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg: Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg is out with a must-read polling memo this morning, which offers some eye-opening advice to President Obama and his re-election team. After testing several of the president’s economic messages, he finds the argument that the...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Stan Greenberg, pollster extraordinaire. He's got this polling company with Carville. Stan Greenberg is married to Rosa DeLauro, a congresswoman from Connecticut. Enough said. National Journal: "Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg is out with a must-read polling memo this morning, which offers some eye-opening advice to President Obama and his re-election team. After testing several of the president's economic messages, he finds the argument that the economy is back on the right track polls miserably -- and 'produces disastrous results.'" I'll read that to you again, folks. Look at me when I say this to you. Greenberg, Democrat...

Speaking to a Cary rotary club today, N.C. Gov. Bev Perdue suggested suspending Congressional elections for two years so that Congress can focus on economic recovery and not the next election. "I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover."

For three long years, the U.S. has been undertaking an experiment in economic policy. Could record levels of government spending, waves of new regulation and political credit allocation, and unprecedented monetary stimulus re-ignite growth? The results have been rolling in, and they represent what increasingly looks like an historic mistake that deserves to be called the Keynesian growth discount. The latest evidence is yesterday's disappointing report of 1.8% in first quarter GDP. At this stage of recovery after a deep recession, the economy is typically growing by 4% or more as consumer confidence returns and businesses accelerate investment as their...

For those legislating and regulating industry out of the country and reducing our living standard back to maybe 1800 to call themselves Progressives requires a sense of humor, but in a way, they're right. Closing Post-Classical civilization to move into a new era can be called progress, at least by some. Most in the newborn Western Christian era during its early Dark Ages might not have seen it as progress but we at the intended end of its flowering of wealth and technology certainly think of it that way. History leaves no doubt that civilizations rise and fall; the fall...

On June 17, the Obama administration proclaimed "Recovery Summer." This was done with considerable fanfare, including the announcement that President Obama and Vice President Biden would tour Recovery Act sites—ones funded by the $814 billion "stimulus"—in full expectation the projects would contribute mightily to accelerated economic growth and job creation. At the time, I was in Missouri, reporting on the campaign for the state's open Senate seat. As luck would have it, the candidate I was traveling with, Republican Roy Blunt, met at various stops with corporate executives, small businessmen, bankers and entrepreneurs. They were talkative. Some were Republicans, some...

Washington — Private employers added a smaller-than-expected 83,000 jobs in June, but the unemployment rate edged down to 9.5% as many workers dropped out of a labor market that remains very sluggish. The Labor Department reported Friday that total payroll employment, including government workers, was down 125,000 in June, reflecting the loss of 225,000 census workers who finished their assignments. The decrease in Census Bureau staffing was expected, but most analysts were looking for stronger job growth in the private sector, which has yet to generate momentum and looms as a major threat to the overall economic recovery. In May,...

On June 17, Vice President Joe Biden crashed the daily White House press briefing to kick off the Obama administration’s “Recovery Summer,” a six-week-long campaign to promote the belief that “the Recovery Act is working.” VP Biden claimed: “We knew that the hole dug by the recession that was created by the policies of the last administration resulted in a loss, a real loss of somewhere between $2 trillion and $3 trillion in the economy. We never thought that $787 billion was going to fill those holes — that hole.” There are so many things wrong with this statement, but...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The pace of the U.S. economic rebound may be slowing, manufacturing data and retailers results hinted on Monday, at the same time as concerns grow about the impact of Europe's debt crisis on global growth. A gauge of manufacturing in New York State showed the sector continued to grow in May but at a slower pace, although the jobs gauge reached its highest level in about six years, the New York Federal Reserve said in a report on Monday. "This is just confirmation that the recovery is not exactly robust. Yes we have a recovery but...

Not even the NYT can avoid reporting that on the last trading day in October, the Dow Jones dropped like it was pole-axed, completely erasing yesterday's 2% gain, while other financial indexes posted a monthly loss for the first time in 7 months. Consumers still seem skittish despite news the Economy grew by 3.5% in the 3rd quarter. How can we grow like that and still have major issues with the Economy?

Consumer Spending is Down Proving my Point on the Elusive Recovery http://www.wiseandfrugalgovernment.blogspot.com/ “Nothing sways the stupid more than arguments they can't understand” Cardinal de Retz Yesterday, the politicians were falling all over themselves to claim credit for the third quarter GDP growth of 3.5%, claiming the growth was proof the Administration's stimulus plan had worked. The President claimed,“the steps we’ve taken have made a difference.” Whoa there Big Fella. As I reminded yesterday, the GDP growth was fueled by the Cash for Clunkers program which was borrowing demand from the future as consumers scrambled to make auto purchases before the...