Free Republic

Since the election there has been this perception among the American public that the economy is improving, but that has not been the case at all. U.S. GDP growth for the first quarter was just revised up to 1.2 percent, but that is even lower than the average growth of just 1.33 percent that we saw over the previous ten years. But when you look even deeper into the numbers a much more alarming picture emerges. Commercial and industrial loan growth is declining, auto loan defaults are rising, bankruptcies are absolutely surging and we are on pace to break the...

Dec 07, 2015 Raul_I_Meijer As yet another day of headlines shows, see the links and details in today’s Debt Rattle at the Automatic Earth, deflation is visible everywhere, from a 98% drop in EM debt issuance to junk bonds reporting the first loss since 2008 to corporate bonds downgrades to plummeting cattle prices in Kansas to China’s falling demand for iron ore and a whole list of other commodities. The list is endless. It is absolutely everywhere. And it’s there every single day. But how would we know? After all, we’re being told incessantly that deflation equals falling consumer prices....

EcoMatters February 26, 2015 CPI Core Shows Inflation The drop in energy prices, had the knee jerk reaction that we were in a deflationary spiral, again markets get many things wrong on first blush. The drop in energy prices is inflationary in the overall economy, and today`s CPI report showed what a sophisticated analysis would forecast regarding inflation and the role that low energy prices play in the overall inflation equation. We are going to have a transfer from the food and energy components which rely heavily on energy costs into the core inflation reading as consumers have more money...

Jason Lange and Howard Schneider, Reuters Feburary 2, 2015WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Beneath President Barack Obama's plan to fight income inequality lies a gloomy view of an economy that is growing slower and creating fewer rewards for its workers than it did in much of the last century. In a budget proposal unveiled on Monday, the White House cut forecasts for an array of economic variables, depicting less growth, weaker inflation and lower interest rates than officials expected only a year ago. This comes despite an unemployment rate that the Obama administration expects to hit the 5.2 percent level considered to...

Tyler Durden 11/10/2014 When it comes to inflation data, there are two parallel sources: the BLS, and ShadowStats' John Williams, who continues to plough through the underlying "data" using pre-pre-pre-revision protocols, and every month reveals a parallel universe in which something shocking is revealed: the truth. Here is his take on the October "weaker but really stronger than expected" jobs numbers. Here is what really happened. From ShadowStats Never Recovered, the Economy Remains in Terrible Shape. The large number of opening headlines in today’s (November 9th) missive reflects various stories, ranging from twisted unemployment data, to an election dominated by...

Paul Joseph Watson November 7th, 2014 Economist Martin Armstrong is predicting that rising resentment against the status quo as a result of economic inequality is likely to cause a serious political uprising before 2016. “It looks more and more like a serious political uprising will erupt by 2016 once the economy turns down. That is the magic ingredient. Turn the economy down and you get civil unrest and revolution,” writes Armstrong. In making the forecast, the economist cites the case of 90-year-old World War 2 veteran Arnold Abbott, who is being targeted by authorities in Fort Lauderdale for defying a...

Ron Bousso and Joshua Schneyer, Reuters October 13, 2014LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia is quietly telling oil market participants that Riyadh is comfortable with markedly lower oil prices for an extended period, a sharp shift in policy that may be aimed at slowing the expansion of rival producers including those in the U.S. shale patch. Some OPEC members including Venezuela are clamoring for urgent production cuts to push global oil prices back up above $100 a barrel. But Saudi officials have telegraphed a different message in private meetings with oil market investors and analysts recently: the kingdom, OPEC’s largest...

Mamta BadkarMay 27, 2014 We just got March S&P Case-Shiller home prices that beat expectations. The numbers showed home prices were cooling, but they nevertheless reflected increases on month-over-month and year-over-year bases. However, Ian Shepherdson chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics says "this report makes no sense." This is because "every indicator" of the house market he watches is slowing or falling. "We don't know if the March problem is Easter seasonal adjustments or the long-standing issue of fully adjusting for changes in the proportion of foreclosure sales in the sample, but we think the real trend in existing home prices...

Tyler Durden 05/26/2014 For the last several years, nobody has been more outspokenly bearish on Japan than Kyle Bass. In a recent talk, Bass reiterated his doubts about Japan’s chances of averting a debt crisis. What’s more, he also said China’s economy will fall below expectations. Bass changed one aspect of his outlook on Japan. Instead of predicting a collapse of the Japanese bond market, he focused on a severe weakening of the yen – without predicting when that might happen. His predictions for China were equally distressing. He said that its banks will be saddled with non-performing loans and...

ALBERT EDWARDS: 'One Of The Biggest Economic Bubbles Is About To Go Into The Minsky Masher' Mamta Badkar June 12, 2013, 11:44 AM Australia's GDP growth expanded merely 0.6% in the first quarter. This was after a 0.6% rise in Q4 2012. Meanwhile, there are a lot of people shorting the Australian dollar. Minus export growth however, Societe Generale's Albert Edwards writes that gross national expenditure (GNE) has fallen for two straight quarters. "One of the biggest economic bubbles in history is now about to go into the Minsky masher," writes Edwards. This refers to periods of speculation that lead...

U.S. Economy Drowning In A Liquidity Trap? Economics / US Economy May 26, 2013 - 06:33 PM GMT By: Frank Shostak Bruce Bartlett recently lamented in The New York Times that given the current state of economic affairs we need more Keynesian medicine to fix the US economy. According to Bartlett, the core insight of Keynesian economics is that there are very special economic circumstances in which the general rules of economics don’t apply and are in fact counterproductive. This happens when interest rates and inflation rates are so low that monetary policy becomes impotent; an increase in the money...

Inflation Is The Lifeblood Of A Healthy Economy Stock-Markets / Inflation May 21, 2013 - 08:41 AM GMT By: I M Vronsky Inflation Is To An Economy What Blood Pressure Is To The Human Body It is a well-known medical fact that more people die from LOW BLOOD PRESSURE then from high blood pressure. Therefore, if one accepts the premise that Inflation is to an Economy what Blood Pressure is to the Human Body, it then logically follows that low inflation rate over a protracted period will eventually and inevitably destroy a heretofore healthy economy. The best, most effective 'medicine'...

The ninth chairman and CEO of General Electric, Jeffrey Immelt , has upended the traditional innovation model. Among his radical ideas to fire up the $183-billion conglomerate are putting India and China at the centre of a management model that talks of developing products in emerging markets and distributing them globally. In an e-mail interview with ET , Immelt discusses the idea and GE’s India plans. Excerpts: You are expected to make some announcements regarding investments and joint ventures in India. Can you give us some details? India represents one of the significant growth markets for GE globally and we...

Hardly a day goes by now without some Elite somewhere calling for a "New World Order" a new world currency just the other day we saw Goldman Sachs sticking their nose where it does not belong... We have Gore saying crap and tax will bring about global governance and we know he has already lined his own pockets but who else stands to gain you may wonder? Goldman Sachs has recently bought pieces of two carbon-offset companies, in the latest sign of investment banks’ interest in the area. And who do the democrats want to be the carbon regulators? None...

Obama: You Need To Fire Everyone The Market Ticker Saturday, January 10. 2009 Posted by Karl Denninger at 11:57 Obama: You Need To Fire Everyone ..... involved in producing your "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan".Why? In "Appendix 1" We considered multipliers for the case where the federal funds rate remains constant, rather than the usual case where the Federal Reserve raises the funds rate in response to fiscal expansion, on the grounds that the funds rate is likely to be at or near its lower bound of zero for the foreseeable future. Please tell me this is a joke....

The U.S. Federal Reserve is considering issuing its own debt for the first time, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Fed officials have approached Congress about the concept, which could include issuing bills or some other form of debt, it said.

Fed Orders Emergency Rate Cut to 1.5 Percent; Futures Soar

Stocks fell on Monday after CNBC's Maria Bartiromo revealed on air that Ben Bernanke felt his testimony last week had been "misunderstood." The anchor said Mr Bernanke had told her at the White House Correspondents' dinner in Washington on Saturday that he had not intended the markets to infer that the Fed was nearly done raising interest rates.

The almost two-month stock market rally hit a speed-bump. For the week, the Dow and S&P500 dropped about 3%. The Transports actually added 1%, while the Utilities dipped 2%. The Morgan Stanley Consumer index declined 1%, while the Morgan Stanley Cyclical index was hit for 4%. The broader market generally outperformed the major indices, with the small cap Russell 2000 and S&P400 Mid-Cap indices dipping 2%. The fledgling technology recovery backtracked, with the NASDAQ100 declining 4%. The Morgan Stanley High Tech index dropped 7% and The Street.com Internet index 6%. The wild and speculative Semiconductors sank 11%. The NASDAQ...