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HBO’s “Real Time” host Bill Maher admitted that he hopes the American economy will crash so that President Donald Trump will be voted out of office. Maher, along with his panel, discussed the success of the Trump administration’s growing economy, but remained skeptical about how long the prosperity will last. “I feel like the bottom has to fall out at some point, and by the way, I’m hoping for it because I think one way you get rid of Trump is a crashing economy,” Maher said during the June 8 show. “So please, bring on the recession. Sorry if that...

HBO host Bill Maher said Friday that he is "hoping for" an economic collapse because that is the only way the president's opponents can "get rid of Trump." Maher first asked guest Shermichael Singleton to asses the current economy under President Trump. "It is going well," Singleton answered. "For now." "Thank you, that’s my question,” Maher added. “I feel like the bottom has to fall out at some point, and by the way, I’m hoping for it." "I think one way you get rid of Trump is a crashing economy. So please, bring on the recession. Sorry if that hurts...

U.S. Steel Corp. says it will restart the second of two shuttered blast furnaces at its Granite City mill and hire 300 employees. The decision by the Pittsburgh-based company follows a March announcement that it would restart the other blast furnace at the Granite City Works in the Metro East and recall 500 workers. U.S. Steel laid off hundreds of workers when it idled the furnaces in late 2015, with employment at the nearly 2,000 worker plant dipping as low as 100 in the ensuing two years. The company says the restart of the first furnace is in progress and...

Everybody has the right to a living wage. It's the responsibility of employers to pay their workers enough to live on comfortably, no matter what sort of work they do. No matter what it costs. No matter how much or how little value an individual employee provides. A job is a human right, and if you pay your employees anything less than a designated amount -- an amount that is not, and will never be, designated by you -- then you're a fascist and you'll be shamed and slandered and picketed until you comply. F*** your laws of economics, you...

Last year was the year of cryptocurrency in South Korea. Bitcoin, ethereum and other digital currencies took the country by storm, some nine years after the world's first bitcoin was mined. When we compiled our list of South Korea's richest last spring, cryptocurrency holdings were not on our radar. But in researching our new list, it turns out that seven members have been busy investing in crypto. In February Forbes ranked another Korean, Song Chi-Hyung, at No. 19 among the world's biggest fortunes based entirely on crypto, but he fell short in making the country's top 50 in overall wealth....

Aging population is boosting the costs of Social Security and Medicare as growth projections ease The Social Security program’s costs will exceed its income this year for the first time since 1982, forcing the program to dip into its nearly $3 trillion trust fund to cover benefits. This is three years sooner than expected a year ago, partly due to lower economic growth projections, according to the latest annual report the trustees of Social Security and Medicare released Tuesday. The program’s income comes from tax revenue and interest from its trust fund. The trust fund will be depleted in 2034...

U.S. job openings rose to 6.7 million at the end of April, compared with the 6.3 million Americans who were unemployedThe U.S. had more job openings this spring than unemployed Americans. For the first time since such record-keeping began in 2000, the number of available positions exceeded the number of job seekers, the Labor Department said Tuesday, a shift that is rippling across the economy and affecting the behavior of employers and workers. U.S. job openings rose to a seasonally adjusted 6.7 million at the end of April, a record high, and more than the 6.3 million Americans who were...

South Korea has offered $1bn in official development assistance (ODA) to the Philippines to help boost the Duterte administration’s infrastructure programme, Malacanang said yesterday. In a news conference in South Korea, Palace spokesman Harry Roque said the commitment was made during a bilateral meeting on Monday between President Rodrigo Duterte and his South Korean counterpart, Moon Jae-in, at the Blue House in Seoul. “On the economic co-operation aspect, South Korea has doubled its overseas development assistance for our infrastructure projects, to support our Build, Build Build programme,” Roque told reporters. “In previous years, they provide us $500mn in ODA. And...

US voters will differ sharply on whether President Trump has 'made America great again,' but the economy over which he's presiding is undeniably on the upswing -- with several of his key policies playing essential roles in that comeback. The latest piece of data that fortifies America's renewed economic vigor is a surge in international competitiveness, as measured by a closely-watched annual ranking from a Switzerland-based think tank. Following tax reform's burst of hiring and growth, the United States has 'leapfrogged' back into the top slot (via Bloomberg): The U.S. dethroned Hong Kong to retake first place among the world’s...

GENEVA (Reuters) - Poverty in the United States is extensive and deepening under the Trump administration whose policies seem aimed at removing the safety net from millions of poor people, while rewarding the rich, a U.N. human rights investigator has found. Philip Alston, U.N. special rapporteur on extreme poverty, called on U.S. authorities to provide solid social protection and address underlying problems, rather than "punishing and imprisoning the poor". In a report, Alston said that as welfare benefits and access to health insurance were being slashed, President Donald Trump's tax reform awarded "financial windfalls" to the mega-rich and large companies,...

HDP co-chair said Erdogan has entered a dead end street. HDP co-chair Sezai Temelli, dedicated some time to the press on Sunday and answered some questions to ANF. Temelli commented on the situation of the political prisoners , AKP’ stance on Kurds and the HDP in this election campaign, Kurdistan economic reality and the political genocide attacks against the parties. Pointing out at the high number of political people in prison, Temelli emphasized that they were all charged with meaningless and false accusations for actually carrying out democratic politics.  Reforming the judiciary system “If you are looking for democracy in...

The U.S. Labor Department released another strong employment report today. It showed that non-farm payrolls expanded by 223,000, far exceeding expectations of most economists. The unemployment rate dropped to 3.8%, the lowest since April of 2000. For African Americans, the unemployment rate was the lowest on record, at 5.9%. After many years of losses, manufacturing jobs have made a comeback under President Trump. This trend continued in May with 18,000 new manufacturing jobs reported. There were also solid gains in healthcare with over 31,000 new jobs and in the construction sector, which added 25,000 new jobs in May. Because of...

The New York Times headline reporting on the May jobs numbers that came out yesterday might go down in history: "We ran out of words to describe how good the jobs numbers are." The real question in analyzing the May jobs numbers released Friday is whether there are enough synonyms for "good" in an online thesaurus to describe them adequately. So, for example, "splendid" and "excellent" fit the bill. Those are the kinds of terms that are appropriate when the United States economy adds 223,000 jobs in a month, despite being nine years into an expansion, and when the unemployment rate falls...

TRUMP ECONOMY ON FIRE: Unemployment now 3.8% (Jobless rate at 18 year low!), and so much more of that 3 letter word: JOBS! JOBS! JOBS! (h/t Joe Biden). Everything Beating Expectations! Naturally, Barry takes credit: “I've got the economy set up well for him,” Obama said, according to Ben Rhodes upcoming book. The Lightbringer, setting up the economy for Trump, one subsidized lightbulb at a timeFunny, I don’t recall the Obama economic plan implementing any de-regulation initiatives. Or championing and passing a yuge income tax reduction  – both of which actually stimulated an economy that had languished for the previous...

Payroll employment registered a robust 223,000 gain, well ahead of expectations, on top of a small upward revision to prior months. More importantly, the jobs gain came across virtually every sector of the economy. The only industry that posted a clearly unsustainable rise was retail, which added 31,000 jobs. Otherwise, the impressive overall advance was generated by unspectacular increases across virtually every part of the economy (the only noteworthy category to post a decline was temp agency employees, which is probably yet another confirmation of tightness in labor markets, as firms are converting their temp workers to permanent positions so...

T.S. Eliot famously wrote that April is the cruelest month, but when it comes to America's fiscal picture, nothing could be further from the truth about this April. The latest government numbers confirm that last month was a blockbuster for growth, federal revenues and deficit reduction. One of the key principles of Trumponomics is that faster economic growth can help solve a multitude of other social and economic problems, from poverty to inner-city decline to lowering the national debt. We're not quite at a sustained elevated growth rate of 3 percent yet, but the latest economy snapshot tells us...

One of the best-known slogans in recent political history is: "It's the economy, stupid." This simple message helped propel Bill Clinton to the White House in 1992 and later sustained his popularity when he faced impeachment. Candidates over the past quarter century have harkened back to this catchphrase – as incumbents running when the economy is strong or as challengers when the economy is weak. This year, Donald Trump and congressional Republicans are banking on the strength of the U.S. economy to defy the history of big midterm losses for the president's party. But what if "It's the economy, stupid"...

A video of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un crying about his country's terrible economy is reportedly circulating in the country. •The video, which was described by a defector, would mark a very strange development and possibly signal big changes coming to the country. •If Kim is crying about North Korea's bad economy, then he's effectively crying about President Donald Trump's successful sanctions regime....

U.S. economic growth slowed slightly more than initially thought in the first quarter amid downward revisions to inventory investment and consumer spending, but income tax cuts are likely to boost activity this year. Gross domestic product increased at a 2.2 percent annual rate, the Commerce Department said in its second estimate of first-quarter GDP on Wednesday, instead of the previously reported 2.3 percent pace. The economy grew at a 2.9 percent rate in the fourth quarter. There are signs GDP growth gathered momentum early in the second quarter, with solid consumer spending, business investment on equipment and industrial production in...

President Donald J. Trump is Confronting China’s Unfair Trade Policies FOREIGN POLICY Issued on: May 29, 2018 From now on, we expect trading relationships to be fair and to be reciprocal. President Donald J. Trump YEARS OF UNFAIR TRADE PRACTICES: China has consistently taken advantage of the American economy with practices that undermine fair and reciprocal trade. For many years, China has pursued industrial policies and unfair trade practices—including dumping, discriminatory non-tariff barriers, forced technology transfer, over capacity, and industrial subsidies—that champion Chinese firms and make it impossible for many United States firms to compete on a level playing field....