Free Republic

Ten years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the official economic statistics — the ones that fill news stories, television shows and presidential tweets — say that the American economy is fully recovered. The unemployment rate is lower than it was before the financial crisis began. The stock market has soared. The total combined output of the American economy, also known as gross domestic product, has risen 20 percent since Lehman collapsed. The crisis is over. But, of course, it isn’t over. The financial crisis remains the most influential event of the 21st century. It left millions of people —...

The numbers: The confidence of Americans in the U.S. economy and their own well-being rose toward the end of summer and stood near a 14-year high, according to a survey of consumer sentiment. The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index rose to 100.8 in September from 96.2, based on a preliminary reading. It’s the second highest mark since 2004, trailing only the results in March. What happened: Consumers were more optimistic about getting a job or keeping the one they have. They even think they’ll earn more pay and were less worried about inflation.

American homeowners have amassed a record $6 trillion in equity in their properties, a figure boosted by surging home prices and a trend of owners staying put longer. But rising interest rates and caution resulting from the housing troubles of a decade ago are limiting how much of that equity is getting tapped.

Did you ever make $10 million? Have you ever lost all $10 million? Could you point directly to the fingerprints of one president who caused you to lose it all? Well then I have one heck of a story for you! Former President Obama is so green with envy at Trump’s economic success, it’s funny to watch! I’ll tell you my personal story in a minute that explainseverything. First, a look at the remarkable success of President Trump. Trump did something even my hero President Ronald Reagan never did. I wrote a column weeks ago reporting that President Trump had...

Newly released federal estimates show California’s poverty rate remained the highest in the nation, despite a modest fall, and the state’s falling uninsured rate slowed for the first time since before Medicaid expansion.

Barack Obama is trying to take credit for the booming economy under President Trump. “When you hear how great the economy is doing right now,” Obama said on the campaign trail for Democratic candidates a few days ago, “let’s just remember when this recovery started.” By this logic, the Kingston Trio laid the groundwork for the Beatles. But the contrast in economic performance between the two presidents is undeniable. Obama’s multitrillion-dollar spend-and-borrow policies produced 2 percent growth. In his final year, Obama handed off to Trump an economy that was limping at 1.6 percent. After only 18 months in office,...

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept 12 (Reuters) - St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard on Wednesday credited U.S. President Donald Trump with boosting U.S. economic growth in a way that may prove to be sustainable by lifting productivity. "I definitely think that the political change had an influence; I think that this is a pro-business administration that wanted to pursue strategies that were focused on economic growth," he told reporters after speaking at CFA Society Chicago, pointing to the reduction in corporate tax rates and improvements in business sentiment under Trump. Bullard said he currently estimates the economy is capable...

President Donald Trump’s trade war may soon escalate if the U.S. slaps more tariffs on import goods from China. Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser at the Allianz Group and former CEO of PIMCO, assuaged U.S. investors by noting that the chance of the U.S. getting a better deal from the trade war is 3-in-4. “I think it’s really important to make a distinction between the journey and the destination,” El-Erian said on Yahoo Finance’s The Final Round on Tuesday. “The journey will involve lots of noise, lots of rhetoric about trade wars, and the technically vulnerable asset classes, such as...

Monday afternoon. in lieu of a normal White House press briefing, we were greeted with the odd spectacle of Council of Economic Advisers Chair Kevin Hassett greeting the press corps with charts and graphs designed to make it clear that Donald Trump’s election is responsible for 2018’s rosy economic conditions. The lecture he prepared was fairly unpersuasive on a number of levels, starting with the extent to which Hassett found himself trying to back-date the inflection point to Election Day 2016, well before any actual Trump policies had taken effect. But in an administration whose messaging is normally nonstop risible...

Stock indices are hitting new highs as the economy keeps producing good numbers. New heights of small business optimism contradicts the convential storyline that the recovery is losing stream, that we should prepare ourselves for the downturn. Worriers focus on the role of FAANG stocks driving the market higher. But recently, the Russell 2000, a “small company” stock index began posting record gains as well, based on very favorable profit reports for small businesses. The “small cap” companies in the Index are much larger than NFIB members, but their experience mirrors the record reports of rising profits among NFIB members....

After disappearing from the spotlight for well over a year, former President Obama resurfaced at the University of Illinois on Friday just in time to take credit for the booming economy we’ve seen under President Trump. This comes ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. Trump has systematically dismantled Obama’s legacy via deregulation, tax cuts and by eliminating the individual mandate in Obamacare, so it’s understandable why Obama is desperate for accolades.Obama spoke before a receptive audience on Friday where he claimed that his administration reversed 40 years of bad economic trends during his eight years in office. He decried “when...

Is the current economic growth is due to the Obama administration? Dan Wolf's research based upon data and analysis from the US Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statics, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, and others,are truly revealing what the left will not want us to know. I wasn’t sure if this was the right time for this article. But after the left’s reporting and antics over the last couple of weeks about all that is supposedly wrong, I think we deserve a little reality. Liberals have proudly announced this last years economic growth is due to the Obama administration, and...

**SNIP** What keeps the city afloat, and allows it to maintain a robust jobs-based economy, is the ability to borrow money and deliver services. Only cities that manage their finances responsibly can hope to woo the bond market, and that’s what Emanuel has done. In municipal bond circles, he’s seen as a trusted partner whose departure is unsettling. “I’ve been pretty impressed with the mayor,” Howard Cure of Evercore Wealth Management told The Bond Buyer, an industry publication. “He inherited a very structurally weak budget and I think he’s made a lot of improvements and is striving to achieve structural...

If ever a politician needed to go away it was Barack Obama. Yet, somehow I knew he wasn’t going anywhere. They used to call Ronald Reagan the “teflon” President, because supposedly nothing ever “stuck” to him. So maybe we should call Barack Obama the eel, because he’s so slippery. He was always more dangerous to American than Hillary Clinton because he’s actually likeable to a suprisingly large segment of the population. So now he’s back, as expected, telling lie after lie about how our supercharged economy is somehow thanks to him. The audience didn’t quite buy it. Here’s their reaction...

While the immediate reaction on CNN’s Wolf Friday afternoon to former President Barack Obama’s angry, bitter speech against President Trump was more timid than expected in avoiding an Obama lovefest, CNN Newsroom afternoon host Brooke Baldwin and her experts came through in reminding us that this is a network of The Resistance. Baldwin first went to CNN weekend host and former Obama official Van Jones, telling him that Obama definitely had “been sitting on” his critiques of Trump for sometime but “today, he did not hold back.”CNN Newsroom Waves Pom-Poms for Obama’s ‘Extraordinary Rebuke’; So ‘Arresting’With that, Jones was off...

Barack and Michelle Obama are jumping back in the fray to whip up Democrats — with the former president previewing his stump speech Friday at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Obama will roll out his mid-term message when he receives the Institute of Government and Public Affairs Paul H. Douglas Award for Ethics in Government at UIUC at 11 a.m. A point this ethics award makes as Trump’s administration grapples with an avalanche of scandals and Robert Mueller’s Russia probe: Obama’s two terms were relatively scandal free.

• President Donald Trump presides over an administration that has seen an enormous level of controversy that could overshadow a burgeoning economy. • He has delivered on promises to cut taxes and regulations and promote activity through more aggressive government spending. • Critics believe that it won't last because the fiscal stimulus is aimed only at near-term growth. • The results, though, have been impressive: a surge in company profits and near-record levels of optimism from consumers and businesses....

iring picked up in August and so did worker pay -- registering the fastest wage growth since 2009 in an encouraging sign that wages may finally be moving higher after years of sluggish gains. August was the 95th straight month the U.S. economy added jobs, with a robust 201,000 job gains, the Labor Department reported Friday, while wages for U.S. workers grew at 2.9 percent in the past year. The national unemployment rate remained at 3.9 percent, one of the lowest levels in half a century. The higher pay is a sign that businesses are having to compete hard for...

Former President Obama criticized President Trump and Republicans for taking credit for the growing economy, arguing the economic recovery began during his presidency. Obama also mocked Republicans for praising monthly jobs report that he suggested they undersold, at best, when he was president. "When you hear how great the economy is doing right now, let's just remember when this recovery started," Obama said in remarks at the University of Illinois. "When the monthly job numbers come out suddenly Republicans are saying its a miracle," he added. Obama said his presidency saw similar numbers, after the recovery from the Great Recession...

COSHOCTON, Ohio — These days, three souls bring Sam Bennett hope — his wife, Debbie; God, and President Trump. Like most of his neighbors in Coshocton — population 11,000 — Mr. Bennett hasn’t once looked back since voting for Mr. Trump in 2016. Mr. Bennett is a soft-spoken man of 60 with close-set eyes and an easy smile, devoted to Christ and the collection of mining artifacts in his kitchen. The support he showed Mr. Trump at the voting booth remained unshaken through the Stormy Daniels fiasco and the recent outcry over family separations — two moments when, Mr. Bennett...