Free Republic

was talking about the bond bubble earlier this week. Seems I’m not the only one who’s a bit worried. Bill Gross, founder of Pimco (now at Janus Capital), tweeted “Global yields lowest in 500 years of recorded history… This is a supernova that will explode one day.” Aside from making the pedantic point that a supernova is itself an explosion (according to my limited knowledge of astronomy at least), I find little to disagree with here. The big question is – when will the bubble burst? We discussed that on Monday. But in the meantime, it’s worth asking – what...

The average man with a full-time job in 2014 earned less than the average man in 1973 ... shedding additional light on the perceived economic stagnation and frustration among middle-income Americans in recent years. ... the median earnings of a man working full-time in 1973 was $53,294 — measured in 2014 dollars — while the median income for a man working full-time in 2014 was $50,383. “This one fact, tucked in Table A-4 of the Census Bureau’s annual report on income, is both a symptom of an economy that isn’t delivering for many ordinary Americans and at least one reason...

In an annual ritual that takes place every May, the AFL-CIO releases its “Executive Paywatch” report to publicize what it considers to be the excessive compensation of the CEOs of America’s biggest multinational firms. The nation’s largest labor federation reports this year that the typical CEO running an S & P 500 firm received total compensation of $12.4 million in 2015 while the average rank-and-file worker was paid just $36,875 — a pay gap of 335-to-1. But the AFL-CIO can only get such an inflated pay ratio by applying a series of statistical sleights... ...the AFL-CIO only considers a very...

Businesspeople often say political uncertainty put a brake on expansion. This year it may be true. In election years, it’s common to hear businesspeople talk about political uncertainty acting as a brake on expansion and a stiff headwind. I’m generally a little suspicious of such claims. Entrepreneurs decide whether to open another restaurant, or a furniture store, or a hedge fund, based on whether they see demand or market opportunity – not on who they think might control Congress next year, or whether a presidential candidate might propose raising the tax rate on capital gains. But this year might actually...

“Don’t be afraid to say to anything because no matter what you say, no matter how idiotic it is, it has already been said by some eminent economist.” – Ludwig von Mises... ...the first laser printer (Xerox Star 8010) set consumers back $17,000 in 1981... ...the norm in a free economy... ...the very rich serve as “venture buyers” since only they have the means to purchase what is both expensive and unproven... ...luxury items down to prices that we can all afford. The first ball-point pen cost over $12, the first mobile phone nearly $4,000, while the first... ...logical and...

Review by Steve Parkhurst: Who Needs The Fed?: What Taylor Swift, Uber, and Robots Tell Us About Money, Credit, and Why We Should Abolish America’s Central Bank, is not a dense economics book like the macro or micro economics of our youth. This book is written much more clearly than those old textbooks, and is actually interesting. The many rather short chapters make their case and then move along to the next. Tamny’s utter disdain for the Fed is both evident, and humorous along the way. But his book is not an angry diatribe, instead it is a fact-filled, example-laden...

LIBERTYVILLE, Ill. — American corporations are under new scrutiny from federal lawmakers after well-publicized episodes in which the companies laid off American workers and gave the jobs to foreigners on temporary visas. But while corporate executives have been outspoken in defending their labor practices before Congress and the public, the American workers who lost jobs to global outsourcing companies have been largely silent. Until recently. Now some of the workers who were displaced are starting to speak out, despite severance agreements prohibiting them from criticizing their former employers. Mr. Peña said he had been told at first that he would...

Generalizing from the particular is one of the biggest — and most common — mistakes analysts make. There’s a natural tendency for people to extrapolate from their own personal experience and conclude that the results are the norm. But that’s a poor analytical frame. If the main stock you chose for your portfolio is off 30 percent, it doesn’t mean the entire stock market is down 30 percent. If home prices on your street are booming, it doesn’t mean that prices in your town, or the country at large, are soaring ahead.We can see this dynamic playing out in some...

Building a wall is one of Donald Trump's big applause lines. But why? Some research surveys suggest that many Trump followers aren’t so much anti-Hispanic as they are worried about the perceived effect of immigration on their culture and pocketbooks. Donald Trump’s supporters have negative views about immigrants, particularly those who entered the United States illegally. That’s not a news flash. Mr. Trump’s vow to build a wall along the southern border – financed by Mexico – remains one of his biggest rally applause lines. But what, specifically, is behind this anger? Is there anything about undocumented immigration that even...

The Obama administration's proposed $10.25 tax on each barrel of crude oil produced in the United States would be one of the biggest tax increases on gasoline in history, a report released Thursday showed. Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, chairwoman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, released a Congressional Research Service report showing historical increases in the federal gasoline tax in an attempt to put the oil tax in perspective. While the tax would be levied on oil companies, economists assume that oil companies would pass on the tax to consumers. The tax could add between 20-25 cents...

I have concluded that not doing fairly unto others ultimately could bring about another U.S. civil war. Please hear me out. See if you don’t agree it could happen unless the growing unfair political financial tide is corrected. The growing spread of wealth inequality has been underway for many years. It has come to pass even in a democracy and a so-called exceptional nation. I’m not a history major, but in my serious interpretation, another civil war appears to be a distinct possibility. Doing great and greater for the financially elite and less and less for others has come to...

A very happy and uncertain morning to all!!  Yesterday stock indexes went up slightly in mixed volume while gold/silver continued basing, and today futures seem mixed but this morning's before hours trade on the S&P had it knocked back down past yesterday's gains.Maybe these will help: 8:30 AM Initial Claims 8:30 AM Continuing Claims 10:00 AM Wholesale Inventories 10:30 AM Natural Gas Inventories --or possibly: Fintech Is Ending Money Management As We Know It - Barry Ritholtz, BV An Ambitious and Distinctive Anti-Poverty Agenda - Scott Winship, Forbes After 350K Layoffs, Worker Shortages in Oil - Nick Cunningham, OilPrice Has...

A friend once told a story involving German visitors who were staying at his house. One morning, he said, the Germans asked if they could take a day trip to the Grand Canyon. Bear in mind, they were in Michigan. “I don’t think you realize just how big America is,” the friend told his guests. The opposite is also true. Americans don’t realize how little the rest of the world is — at least economically — compared to the U.S.

We suspect Lloyd Blankfein will be receiving a call from The White House (or Treasury) very soon as Goldman Sachs' economists did the unthinkable in the age of political correctness - while investigating the state of under-employment in America, the smartest people in the room found that ObamaCare has led to a rise in involuntary part-time employment, estimating that "a few hundred thousand workers" have been forced to cut hours and has "created disincentives for full-time employment."Goldman's Jan Hatzius explains that they find mixed evidence to support the theory that the employer mandate under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has...

Americans today say they are generally optimistic about their futures, according to Gallup polling. But one group in particular -- poor white Americans -- has a shockingly dismal view of what the future holds for them. And this pessimism among poor whites goes a long way toward explaining the strange political moment we find ourselves in, one in which Donald Trump surged to the top of the Republican primary ticket by tapping into a deep vein of racial anxiety among the nation's working class. Carol Graham, a happiness researcher at the Brookings Institution, recently analyzed Gallup's data on life satisfaction...

f Donald Trump's presidential campaign were functional, this would be Economy Week for Team Trump. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee and his surrogates would be wielding the disappointing May jobs report as a cudgel to bash the lackluster "Obama-Clinton" recovery. After all, polls say jobs and the economy remain voters' biggest concern. And it's an issue in which Trump has a big lead over Clinton. A new Gallup poll gives the famed businessman a 10-point edge on "the economy" and a seven-point lead on "employment and jobs." But Trump isn't talking about the economy. Instead, he's attacking the Mexican heritage...

Egged on by anti-trade Presidential candidates Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, primary election voters across the U.S. have been in an ugly mood toward global trade and particularly the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). At the same time, employers and business associations in Washington state, as elsewhere across the U.S., have voiced strong support for TPP. A recent Washington state poll for the Washington Council on International Trade (WCIT) by Elway Research showed majority support.   The future belongs to workers who develop higher-level, specialized skills. Here, NASA Community College Aerospace Scholars engage in a three-day workshop. Photo: NASA...

No one will remember 2006 as one of our nation's greatest years. But how are we doing now compared to then? By many measures, not nearly so well. The economy grew faster in 2006 than it has in any year since. That year, real gross domestic product increased by a modest 2.7 percent, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. That was down from the 3.8 percent growth of 2004 and the 3.3 percent growth of 2005. But real GDP has not grown by more than 2.5 percent in any year since 2006. The last recession began in December 2007...

Late last week the markets were shocked by a surprisingly bad May jobs report - the worst monthly report in nearly six years. The experts expected the U.S. economy to add 160,000 jobs in May, but it turns out only 38,000 jobs were added. And to make matters worse, 13,000 of those 38,000 were government jobs! Adding more government employees is a drain on the economy, not a measure of economic growth. Incredibly, there are more than 102 million people who are either unemployed or are no longer looking for work. Gold reacted to the report quickly and decisively, gaining...

A basic economic premise holds that when the price of something rises, people seek to economize on its use. They seek substitutes for that which has risen in price. Recent years have seen proposals for an increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. Some states and localities, such as Seattle, have already legislated a minimum wage of $15 an hour. Nobody should be surprised that fast-food companies such as Wendy's, Panera Bread, McDonald's and others are seeking substitutes for employees who are becoming costlier. One substitute that has emerged for cashiers is automated kiosks where, instead of...