Free Republic

A new generation of activists skips school, flocks to Wall Street to join May Day Occupy protests. On their minds? student loans, reining in corporations, and being part of something that could matter. April showers didn’t bring May flowers this year – they bloomed early – but May Day did bring some new people into the Occupy Wall Street movement. The Occupy movement's May Day marches and demonstrations across the country were intended in part to revive the movement, which had lost some momentum over the winter months, and gain new support. "What they need to do is showcase the...

Can The US Skirt A Global Recession? By Dwaine van Vuuren May 2, 2012 With many parts of the Euro-zone entering or already in recession, and the OECD recently putting Australia, Germany and Italy into recession, one has to wonder if the feeble U.S recovery can skirt a global recession. Many mainstream pundits have been pointing to countries around the globe slipping into recession as a reason why a U.S recession in the near future is a done deal. But this is not necessarily the case. The chart below shows which percentage of the 39 OECD countries across the world...

JIM ROGERS: The Next Economic Slowdown Is Coming And It's Going To Be Much Worse Henry Blodget May 2, 2012, 11:27 AM After a few months of decent data, most people suddenly think the U.S. economy is finally headed towards a recovery. Not Jim Rogers. Rogers, who stopped by our offices the other day, thinks another economic slowdown is coming and that it will be much worse than what we've just experienced. Rogers says the good news we're hearing about the economy is basically just propaganda from a government hoping to be re-elected this fall.(Click to the site to view...

How The World Economy Changed In One Month Eric Platt May 2, 2012Global manufacturing was deeply depressed in Europe while North America showed continued strength this April, new data out of Markit Economics shows. The firm released PMI readings for more than a dozen countries over the past twelve hours, with large declines across the euro area, as powerhouses like Germany succumbed to regional weakness. Notable readings: U.S.: 54.8 in April, up from 53.4 Canada: 53.3 in April, up from 52.4 U.K.: 50.5 in April, down from a revised reading of 51.9 Eurozone: 45.9 in April, down from 47.7 Spain:...

In a wide ranging interview with Milwaukee Story, Eric Hovde answered a variety of questions primarily regarding the US and world economies.

Last night’s vandalism in the Mission District of San Francisco has drawn some criticism from Occupy activists—for its violent tactics and also for its direction against local businesses. But while many Occupiers would like to limit their focus to big banks and other entities they perceive as getting unwarranted special treatment in the economy, others are just opposed to capitalism altogether. For these protesters, small businesses are fair game. Though last night’s vandalism was in San Francisco, the event that sparked it was organized by Occupy Oakland. And OO describes today’s general strike as an “anti-capitalist” action that also sees...

Citi: The Fiscal Cliff Is 'SO RIDICULOUSLY LARGE' Joe Weisenthal May 1, 2012A quick paragraph from Citi's Steven Wieting which we found amusing, the gist of which is basically: The fiscal cliff coming in 2012 is so big, it's good, because it will have to get fixed.The size of the so-called fiscal cliff at year end, which would unwind a decade’s worth of tax cuts and temporary income supports, is so “ridiculously” large relative to near- term growth prospects that markets may take some comfort in its scale. As Fed Chairman Bernanke warned Congress, the Fed would have “no chance”...

What Is The Consequence Of Printing Money That Nobody Wants? (Lock Your Door) by Simon Black April 30, 2012 London, England [Editor's note: Tim Price, a frequent Sovereign Man contributor and Director of Investment at PFP Wealth Management in London, is filling in for Simon today.] In a week that saw Britain slide into its first double-dip recession since 1975, we quite fittingly also saw evidence of the sort of insular bigotry and protectionist narrow-mindedness that one associates with that same ugly, painful decade, when Barry Sheerman, Member of Parliament, said: “I’m getting increasingly worried about the free movement of...

(CNNMoney) -- Spain has fallen into its second recession since 2009 as its economy shrank for the second consecutive quarter, according to a government report Monday. There are now a dozen European nations that have had their economies shrink for two consecutive quarters, a condition that generally equates to a recession. The Spanish economy, struggling with the aftermath of the bursting of a housing bubble, has been particularly hard hit by the economic turmoil rolling across Europe. On Friday, the government reported that Spain's unemployment rate hit record high of 24.4%.

Goldman Sachs is out with a depressing way to start the week: Bearish commentary on the state of the economy and a negative call on this Friday's big jobs report. There are two key points: The first is that Goldman's own proprietary economic indicator shows a clearly decelerating US economy. Ths economic deceleration you can see here. Goldman Sachs Then Hatzius says that this Friday's jobs report will be weaker than the 165K new new jobs created that analysts expected. Hatzius sees just 125K. WHy? Basically because we still have a lot of winter payback. Most of the job surge...

U.S. Rep. Connie Mack, running in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate, has been urging the public to sign his petition calling for the Keystone XL Pipeline as part of his efforts to promote more domestic drilling. "I have always said that I would be for drilling," Mack said at an event this month promoting the petition. "But I think that's an issue the state should have a say in — in determining how far it's going to be off the coast of Florida. We ought to allow the state to have a say in that decision." [SNIP] Mack campaign...

If you enjoy watching financial doom, then you are quite likely to really enjoy the rest of 2012. Right now, red flags are popping up all over the place. Corporate insiders are selling off stock like there is no tomorrow, major economies all over Europe continue to implode, the IMF is warning that the eurozone could actually break up and there are signs of trouble at major banks all over the planet. Unfortunately, it looks like the period of relative stability that global financial markets have been enjoying is about to come to an end. A whole host of...

HUGH HENDRY: It Looks Like America Is 'Creating Yet Another Historic Turning Point' Joe Weisenthal April 29, 2012 We wrote yesterday about how how Hugh Hendry is back... The gist is that Hendry is more bearish than ever on China, and that his favorite way to play it remains credit default swaps on China-exposed Japanese corporate names, which are still up to their necks in debt. He doesn't write much about the US, but we wanted to highlight his bullish commentary... This might be the year everyone else notices this; the year panic over Chinese economic growth comes to replace...

This may not come as a sur­prise, but we're still not see­ing it. We're not see­ing a US recovery. Here we are, well into 2012, and the fact remains that the US hous­ing sit­u­a­tion is still a bust. There is sim­ply no hous­ing recov­ery hap­pen­ing in the United States. US New Home Sales fell for the fourth time in a row month-overmonth in March, rep­re­sent­ing a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 328,000, down from 353,000 in Feb­ru­ary.1 Do you know what the annual rate of New Home Sales was back in 2006? About 1.21 mil­lion.2 No recov­ery there. Same goes for...

MERCED, Calif.—Dollar General Inc., whose discount stores have stolen bargain-seeking shoppers from Wal-Mart Stores Inc., is trying to grab a share of the grocery business. The idea behind entering the notoriously low margin business? That stocking fresh food and more refrigerated products in midsize stores will drive shoppers to visit more frequently—and increase how much they spend on standard dollar-store fare, from corn chips to children's clothing. So far, Dollar General Market stores aren't nearly as profitable as the company's traditional dollar stores, which now number 10,000, though the company says the profit gap is narrowing. Competition is heating up...

I'mmmmm BAAAAAAAACK!!! I had a new cast put on my hand last week that allowed three free fingers on my right hand. After a few days of getting used to it, I can now do a sort of Django Rhinehart method of typing. Complete cast comes off on June 4 and hopefully my pinkie won't be sticking out at an odd angle.Anyway, the DUmmies do not disappoint in their idiocy. Right now they are gripping about the lousy economy as you can see in this THREAD, "I realized tonight that America's 99% are f*cked for years to come." Excuse...

U.S. GDP Miss Far Bigger Than Announced, Real GDP Is 0% Housing-Market / US Economy Apr 29, 2012 - 10:21 AM By: Mike Shedlock The Advance Estimate for Q1 GDP came in at 2.2%, down from 3.0% in the previous quarter, and below most mainstream media estimates of 2.5%. However, my friend BC notes .... The GDP deflator is reported to have averaged 1.2% annualized in the past 2 qtrs. Had the trend rate from '11 persisted, the deflator would have subtracted 2.6% annualized from real GDP, resulting in a 2-qtr. growth of real GDP of 0%. ECRI's Achuthan would...

Niall Ferguson, economic and financial historian, sees parallels between the U.S. now and the mid-20th-century U.K. In his latest book, Civilization, The West and the Rest, the economic and financial historian Niall Ferguson argues that Western civilization's rise to global dominance over the past 500 years was due mainly to six killer apps, as he calls them: competition, science, rule of law, modern medicine, consumerism, and the work ethic. While "the Rest" lacked these concepts, they might not for much longer, as emerging markets are quickly catching up. Someday, they could even surpass the West. (On May 22 and 29,...

President Obama's Huey Long-style government spending has showered benefits on illegals. That's ironic, because for the first time since the 1930s they would now rather live in Mexico. Maybe jobs matter after all. At a Hispanic Community Action Summit led by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa this month, 39 federal officials from agencies ranging from ICE to the EPA courted hundreds of Hispanic activists with one message: Claim your government benefits. They offered up goodies from food aid to educational benefits to help in fighting deportation. The outreach, said a conference organizer, was based on...

The stunned Iran cannot believe it’s happening: The worst nightmare for the Ayatollah regime is taking shape right before its eyes, in the form of a complete chokehold on Iran’s economy within a few months. Iran’s soft underbelly is in the sights – oil and gas. The arrogant Ahmadinejad thought this day shall never come, yet the “higher power” that guides him, in his view, apparently no longer works. The US and Europe have decided to suffocate Iran’s economy, no less. This is no longer about playing games here and there or about lukewarm sanctions against Iranian companies here and...