Free Republic

The Winter of 2015-2016, which came to an end a few weeks ago, has been officially designated as the mildest in the U.S. in 121 years according to NOAA. While this fact will certainly add a major talking point in the global warming debate, it should also be front and center in the current economic discussion. The fact that it isn't is testament to the blatantly self-serving manner in which economic cheerleaders blame the weather when it's convenient, but ignore it when it's not. If economists were consistent (and that's a colossal "if"), the good weather would be taken as...

In 1980, Ronald Reagan campaigned on a four point economic recovery plan. First, reduce tax rates, to increase incentives for job creation, investment, business start-ups and expansion, and wage growth due to the resulting increased demand for labor and increased productivity. Even liberal Keynesian economics holds that tax cuts are pro-growth. Two, reduce regulatory costs and barriers to business, which can act as further tax cuts. Three, reduce federal spending, to reduce the government’s drain on the private sector. And four, restrain monetary policy to restore a stable value for the dollar. After Reagan led adoption of those policies in...

Back in July of 2014, we reported that in an attempt to obtain if not compensation, then at least confirmation of bank manipulation in the precious metals industry, a group of silver bullion banks including Deutsche Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia and HSBC (later UBS was also added to the defendants) were accused of manipulating prices in the multi-billion dollar market.

The concept of negative interest rates — in which lenders have to pay to lend money or to invest — has gotten a big boost from the International Monetary Fund. The IMF stated this week that world central banks should move to negative interest rates because the extra monetary stimulus would ease lending conditions. Or so they claim. José Viñals, the chief financial counselor and director of monetary and capital markets for the IMF, argued for negative interest rates in a research paper, stating, “Although the experience with negative interest rates is limited, we tentatively conclude that overall, they help...

Bowie Resources Partners’ purchase of Peabody Energy Corp.‘s Twentymile Mine in Routt County has fallen through, and Peabody has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. Peabody, the world’s largest privately owned producer of coal, joins other major coal companies including Arch Coal, owner of the West Elk Mine in the North Fork Valley, in going bankrupt. Arch Coal also is in Chapter 11 reorganization. Bowie, owner of the Bowie No. 2 Mine near Paonia, had agreed to buy Twentymile and two mine properties in New Mexico for $358 million. But Peabody previously had said Bowie was still trying to find...

On the surface, Wall Street is in the midst of an uneasy standoff. After a historic nine-week rebound rally, the Dow Jones Industrial Average now trades near levels first reached in late 2014, just below massive resistance around 18,000. The trading range between 17,800 and 17,500 has contained trading since the middle of March. Yet a new long-term bear market seems to have started last May, based on the pattern of lower highs and lower lows on the NYSE Composite and the Russell 2000 Small-Cap Index, both of which are trading at levels first reached in late 2013. U.S. investors...

<p>The world is sleepwalking into a fresh crisis as investors start to lose faith in policymakers’ ability to revive the global economy, according to the International Monetary Fund.</p> <p>In its bluntest warning to date on the costs of policy inaction, the IMF said “financial and economic stagnation" could take hold unless governments prevented a "pernicious feedback loop of fragile confidence, weaker growth, low inflation and rising debt burdens" from forming.</p>

U.S. retail sales unexpectedly fell in March as households cut back on purchases of automobiles, further evidence that economic growth stumbled in the first quarter.The Commerce Department said on Wednesday that retail sales declined 0.3 percent last month after being unchanged in February. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast retail sales edging up 0.1 percent last month. Retail sales excluding automobiles, gasoline, building materials and food services ticked up 0.1 percent last month after an upwardly revised 0.1 percent gain in February. These so-called core retail sales correspond most closely with the consumer spending component of gross domestic product. Economists...

Economists since Adam Smith have insisted that the ultimate goal of economic activity is consumption, not production. Production is a means to consumption. Consumption is the goal. Identifying something as a means rather than as an ultimate goal is not to diminish the importance of that something. The ultimate goal of the mother of starving children is to feed her family. Her hunting for food is the means of fulfilling that goal. But this fact does not imply that her efforts to secure food are unimportant. Yet when we ask “Why did this woman hunt for food?” the answer is...

There is a story the media likes to tell about American economic and cultural history. It goes something like this: Once upon a time, decades ago, working-class Americans enjoyed a glide path to prosperity. Fathers and sons worked side-by-side at the mill or the plant or the quarry. They could expect high wages and lifetime employment. They could build and support families. Then, the mill closed. Jobs fled to China or automation rendered them superfluous. Families were cast upon a safety net shredded by heartless politicians, and with few prospects and no financial security, despair settled in... ...The Post’s piece...

Deutsche Bank on Tuesday announced that it will freeze plans to create 250 jobs at its Cary location due to North Carolina's new discrimination law, House Bill 2. The announcement on the company's website said the statewide legislation "invalidated existing protections of the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender fellow citizens in some municipalities and prevents municipalities from adopting such protections in the future." [snip] In September 2015, the bank announced its plan to add the 250 jobs through 2017 and invest $9 million there through the end of this year. North Carolina agreed to provide about $3.3 million...

Many analysts had anticipated that a dramatic drop in oil prices such as we’ve seen since the summer of 2014 could provide a big stimulus to the economy of a net oil importer like the United States. That doesn’t seem to be what we’ve observed in the data. There is no question that lower oil prices have been a big windfall for consumers. Americans today are spending $180 B less each year on energy goods and services than we were in July of 2014, which corresponds to about 1 percent of GDP. A year and a half ago, energy expenses...

For poor Americans, the place they call home can be a matter of life or death. The poor in some cities — big ones like New York and Los Angeles, and also quite a few smaller ones like Birmingham, Ala. — live nearly as long as their middle-class neighbors or have seen rising life expectancy in the 21st century. But in some other parts of the country, adults with the lowest incomes die on average as young as people in much poorer nations like Rwanda, and their life spans are getting shorter. In those differences, documented in sweeping new research,...

Investors are nervously awaiting the start of the first-quarter earnings season today when Alcoa (AA) reports after the close. Stocks and the economy are looking vulnerable, and hopes for corporate profits are not high. The first three months of the year look likely to be the worst quarter for earnings since 2009, with a 10.1 percent drop in S&P 500 profits expected, down from the 0.7 percent growth that was expected for the quarter back in December. The early optimism has since faded, driven largely by declines in energy sector estimates. Analysts are now bracing for the fourth consecutive quarter...

Donald Trump played up his plans to tax companies that move jobs out of the United States as he tried to appeal to blue collar workers in a New York rally Sunday. Speaking for about an hour Sunday in Rochester, N.Y., Trump recited statistics about the area's loss of manufacturing jobs and economic hardship in recent years. He reiterated his desire to tax goods sold by companies once based in the United States that moved away to find cheaper labor. The plan has been widely panned by economic experts. But the Rochester crowd ate it up. "I'm the only one...

I was bored the other day. In my boredom I made the choice to watch Obama’s latest televised offering of lies and deceit as sent to us by the supine media. The lies reminded me of the sanguine presentations which invariably accompanied the “5 year plans” of the old Communist regime. That is, everything is sweetness and light; we have “turned the corner” to a better life. But then, numbers don’t lie and no matter what our Messiah-in-chief says, the people on the ground and in the streets know that he is lying. Obama spent the better part of this...

Since the end of World War II, a broad consensus in support of global economic integration as a force for peace and prosperity has been a pillar of the international order. From global trade agreements to the European Union project; from the work of the Bretton Woods institutions to the removal of pervasive capital controls; from the vast expansion in foreign direct investment to major increases in the flow of people across borders, the overall direction has been ... ...more successful than could reasonably have been hoped. We have not had a war between major powers. Global standards of living...

Donald Trump managed to shove his way into the spotlight again last week, claiming the US is heading for “a massive recession.” Unsurprisingly, the mainstream media scoffed at Trump’s assertion, pointing to the “great jobs report” that came out Friday. The report did show the US economy added some 215,000 jobs, slightly more than expected. But once again, the headlines only tell a little piece of the story. And once again, most mainstream media and financial analysts are ignoring the bigger picture. In fact, all of the positive spin about a great employment outlook is nothing more than an April...

Men lost 2 times more jobs than women from the Great Recession and have gained half as many jobs since late 2007.___ It should be clear that the Great Recession took a toll on most people. This is reflected in household incomes and savings. But one thing that is abundantly clear is that the Great Recession took a massive toll on male employment at a rate twice that of females. We’ll get into the charts and figures later in the article but suffice it to say that the recession didn’t hurt people equally. Some took on the brunt of the...

--snip-- This was the first official proposed "Bail-In" of creditors, one that took place before similar ad hoc balance sheet restructuring would take place in Greece and Portugal in the coming months. Or rather, it wasn't a fully executed "Bail-In" for the reason that creditors fought it tooth and nail. And then today, following a decision by the Austrian Banking Regulator, the Finanzmarktaufsicht or Financial Market Authority, Austria officially became the first European country to use a new law under the framework imposed by Bank the European Recovery and Resolution Directive to share losses of a failed bank with senior...