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Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on March 23, 2018 in New York City. Stocks plunge more than 500 points 47 Mins Ago | 02:18 Stocks fell sharply on Friday as worries of a trade war brewing between the U.S. and China grew. Wall Street also digested disappointing employment data. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 740 points, with Boeing and Caterpillar as the biggest decliners in the index. The S&P 500 declined more than 2.5 percent, with industrials as the worst-performing sector. The Nasdaq composite dropped 2.7 percent. The sell-off accelerated in the...

WOW! How to start? Let me try this: I once heard a presentation by a man who'd spent 20 years in the visual media business. I was shocked to learn that his experience with the Generation Xers and Millennials is as follows: * Most of them DO NOT READ BOOKS but get their information from their electronic devices (smart phones, tablets, computers). * If something they “click” on doesn't grab their attention in the first 8 seconds, THEY'RE GONE! * Even if they're “hooked” in those first 8 seconds, most of them will TUNE OUT if it runs much over...

Join us for all the news and analysis of the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate decision and economic projections Wednesday, along with Jerome Powell’s first press conference as chairman.

This thread is a friendly collaborative place for FReepers to analyze information and share opinons. FReepers have a wide variety of reasons for investigating Q Anon content; this is not the appropriate place to criticize or badger those who choose to use some of their time in this manner. This thread is a continuation of the prior Q Anon thread located here: http://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3636549/posts I plan to post one thread at a time and ping new drops posted to it. The current schedule is to post new threads Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. When I post each (new) thread, the prior thread...

Jerry Powell apparently doesn’t get it. The new head of the Federal Reserve isn’t supposed to imply that he doesn’t work for Wall Street. And he’s not supposed to say, as he did the other day in front of Congress, that “we don’t manage the stock market — we manage stable prices and maximum employment.” That’s not what Wall Street and the stock market want to hear. And that was proven by the fact that the stock market dropped sharply on Tuesday when Powell was speaking. And Powell’s comments were one of the reasons Wall Street’s pros couldn’t get a...

Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell moved markets on Tuesday in his first appearance before lawmakers on Capitol Hill since his confirmation. In response to questions from Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Powell hinted that more aggressive action on raising interest rates from the Fed could be warranted this year. “At the December meeting, the median [FOMC] participant called for three rate increases in 2018,” Powell said. “Now since then, what we’ve seen is incoming data that suggests a strengthening in the economy.” Following this comment, stocks — which had been higher as Powell began speaking and answering questions — moved lower...

The pullback in stocks the past two trading days is both long overdue and healthful. But after nearly a decade of easy money engineered by the Fed and other central banks, is the sell-off in the bond market simply a short-term tantrum? Or is it the start of a secular bear market in bonds, due to higher inflation, that can only end in tears? If one thinks about interest rates as simply the price of money, one could argue that the correction in stock prices would be more worrisome if accompanied by significantly lower bond yields than higher ones. In...

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn spoke to CNBC via telephone this morning and had some very ominous warnings after what he has seen in the last few days. Reflecting on the market’s moves recently, Icahn shocked the anchors by saying: “This is something we’ve never seen before… I don’t remember ever seeing a market with this kind of volatility over two weeks.“ “The market has become a much more dangerous place [due to index funds and ETFs]… it’s like 2008 where everyone was buying mortgages and CDS.” Concluding that: “Passive investing is the bubble right now.” “There is going to be...

* The Atlanta Fed's GDPNow model forecasts 5.4% gross domestic product-growth in the first quarter. * That's much higher than what even the most bullish economists expect, but is based on only one month's worth of data for the quarter. * Many economists expect the economy to grow closer to 2.5% through 2019. One model that forecasts the US economy's performance could shock even President Donald Trump if it ends up being accurate. The Atlanta Federal Reserve's GDPNow model projects that gross domestic product would increase at a 5.4% annualized rate in the first quarter. The last time the economy...

Dow took a dive on Tuesday, plunging 400 points, thus marking its biggest point drop since 2016, when it fell 610 points in June. Due to investors’ fears of higher than expected inflation, the 10 year Treasury yield traded near levels not since since 2014. On Tuesday, the S&P 500 fell 1.2%, the Dow Industrial Average pulled back 400 points, while the NASDAQ composite lost 1.1%. This is the second day in a row US stocks traded significantly lower than expected, marking the first big selloff of 2018. On Monday, the DOW lost 177 points due to the rise in...

How much inflation are we really seeing today, and is it likely to rise further as the Fed “unwinds” its Quantitative Easing securities purchases, and a more active economy pushes up wages and prices? Free Market Central put these questions to economist John Williams, whose ShadowStats alternative economic indicators are featured on our home page. Williams has long insisted that federal economic statistics do not tell the whole story. For years, he explains, the government has been gaming the numbers. Not only is inflation understated; given current trends, it’s only going to get worse.

Remember the case of the Census worker who was found hanging from a tree with the word ‘fed' scrawled across his chest? You remember - he died at the hands of right-wing commentators and anti-government tea partiers. He was killed because of an overwhelming case of right-wing paranoia. He was murdered by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Bachmann, and Fox News. Keep this quiet though... While the death of Bill Sparkman was a media sensation for pushing anti-conservative sentiments just a couple of months ago, it is receiving little to no coverage currently. Why? Because, as investigators have recently speculated,...

In 2009, the federal government decided to take property from Kevin Brott and other landowners in Michigan for a recreational trail. That was done under the Trails Act, which allows the government to turn abandoned railroad lines into hiking trails. There is nothing inherently wrong in that, but under the Fifth Amendment, whenever government takes private property for public use, it is required to pay the owners just compensation. The problem is that under federal statute (the Tucker Act), property owners are only allowed to submit their claims for compensation to the Court of Federal Claims (CFC) if the amount...

With Congress wrestling over a tax reform plan that critics say would explode the government budget deficit, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said she also is concerned over the surging level of public debt. A Senate committee passed the GOP-sponsored proposal, which would slash the corporate tax rate and lower individual income rates for many Americans.However, the price tag of the plan is in the area of $1.5 trillion at a time when the Congressional Budget Official already is projecting a deficit of more than $1 trillion in the years ahead and with the total debt level at $20.6 trillion...

Jerome Powell's Fed could be very different than Janet Yellen's, but the Fed governor is expected to steer monetary policy much as she did but jump into deregulation in a way she would not. Powell is expected to be nominated to head the Federal Reserve by President Donald Trump on Thursday as the successor to Yellen when her term ends in February. A lawyer and former undersecretary of the Treasury, he is considered a solid choice, and while not an economist, he is experienced at the Fed, having been appointed a governor in 2012. Powell is also a Republican and...

President Donald Trump looks set to appoint Jerome Powell, a former private-equity executive at Carlyle Group who now sits on the Federal Reserve board, as the next Fed chair. While the official announcement is not expected until Thursday, several news outlets starting with Politico have reported that he is the likely nominee, citing White House sources. The choice of Powell would be a departure in a long tradition of reappointing Fed chairs to a second term, regardless of party affiliation. Janet Yellen, a Democrat, actively interviewed for the job. Powell, a 64-year-old Republican, was appointed to the Fed's powerful Washington-based...

David Stockman is warning about the Trump administration's tax overhaul plan, Federal Reserve policy, saying they could play into a severe stock market sell-off. Stockman, the Reagan administration's director of the Office of Management and Budget, isn't stepping away from his thesis that the 8½-year-old rally is in serious danger. "There is a correction every seven to eight years, and they tend to be anywhere from 40 to 70 percent," Stockman said recently on CNBC's "Futures Now." "If you have to work for a living, get out of the casino because it's a dangerous place." He's made similar calls, but...

The U.S. Federal Reserve will not only issue its own cryptocurrency but will also make sure Americans use it, according to Doug Casey. “To start with, I suspect it’s going to be a parallel currency. Perhaps usable just within the U.S. which, in effect, would be a form of foreign exchange controls even more effective than the inability of Americans to open up foreign bank and brokerage accounts today [due to monetary control through FATCA]…I think it’s a near certainty that they’re going to do something like this and soon.” They will call it Fedcoin. David Andolfatto, vice president at...

I recently had the opportunity to read "The Creature from Jekyll Island" by G. Edward Griffin, a prodigious tome dealing with the circumstances surrounding the creation of the U.S. Federal Reserve System. I was taken aback by some of its provocative assertions. America joined World War I largely to help a few bankers profit off the war (despite a long-standing Monroe doctrine that prohibited our involvement in European affairs) The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 was supported by international financial interests in order to destabilize Russia and steal the wealth of the Russian people; and So-called "foreign aid" is merely a...

Posting this for LucyT: Ivanka Trump had breakfast with Federal Reserve Chair Janet YellenIvanka Trump had breakfast with Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen this summer, according to logs of Yellen's public schedule. The two met on July 17 for a one-hour breakfast, according to the recently released logs. No details were given about what was discussed. With her term ending in February, Yellen is being considered for renomination by President Donald Trump. A White House official said Ivanka's breakfast with Yellen had nothing to do with President Trump's decision on the next Fed Chair, which is expected to come this...