Free Republic

America’s consciousness has shifted.  We live in a predominantly unstable and unpredictable world, a situation long accepted as the norm, however,  we also live during the first period of history in which America's prominence in the world and its own vision and notion of itself, has been blurred.  A majority of Americans have adopted self doubt and the confidence America has held through much of its story has been dissipated. Through the fog of apprehension Americans plucked an unknown to take the helm of their governance.  The fog did not lift, and in fact with the unknown’s propagation of envy, the...

Mark Carney, the head of the Bank of England, and other officials from the BOE were put through a five hour marathon of questioning yesterday by Parliament’s Treasury Select Committee covering everything from how long the BOE plans to continue Quantitative Easing (QE), to the potential for Scotland to vote for its independence, to what it knew and when it knew it about the rigging of the Foreign Exchange market by colluding global banks. The bombshell of the day, however, did not occur during the session on the Foreign Exchange scandal, which is stacking up to be a more serious...

The Federal Reserve’s seemingly endless program of quantitative easing (QE) begun under Ben Bernanke, and continuing at a slightly slower pace under Janet Yellen, has some of the punditry and much of the electorate up in arms. With good reason. Implicit in quantitative easing is the horribly obtuse notion that central banks can produce real economic growth through their monetary machinations. If only life were so simple. Back in the world of the reasonable, the sole purpose of money is as a stable measure of value that facilitates the exchange of goods and investment. Quantitative easing, by its very name,...

Article based on excerpts from Baupost Group's Seth Klarman letter. "there is a growing gap between the financial markets and the real economy...and the overall picture is one of growing risk and inadequate potential return almost everywhere one looks..."

Like John Stossel and Thomas Sowell, I’m not a big fan of the Federal Reserve. It’s not just that I’m a libertarian who fantasizes about the denationalization of money. I also think the Fed hasn’t done a good job, even by its own metrics. There’s very little doubt, for instance, that easy-money policies last decade played a major role in creating the housing bubble and causing the financial crisis. Yes, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac played a big role, but it was the Fed that provided the excess liquidity that the GSEs used to subsidize the subprime lending orgy. But...

Unusually harsh winter weather appears to be behind recent signs of weakness in the U.S. economy, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said on Thursday, suggesting the central bank was poised to press forward in ratcheting back its stimulus. Testifying to the Senate Banking Committee, Yellen said the Fed would watch carefully to ensure weather was indeed the culprit, but she reiterated that it would take a "significant change" to the economy's prospects for the Fed to put plans to wind down its bond-buying program on hold.

When US money supply measured by M2 stood at $11 trillion in December 2013, I calculate that total broad money of the next largest 50 countries ranked by GDP amounted to the equivalent of a further US$67 trillion at current exchange rates. And that’s only on-balance sheet: we must add in global shadow banking, estimated by the Financial Stability Board to have been an extra $67 trillion in 2011, probably about $75 trillion today, given its recent rapid growth in China. So when we look at US broad money supply, we should be aware there is a further mountain of...

There wasn't a lot of volume, but the market shrugged off an early indecision and rallied higher. The bias is to the upside, and despite a shaky start to the year, the long-term trend remains intact, which is very encouraging. Also encouraging is that the market is moving higher, even as the dollar edged higher as conventional wisdom shifts towards the belief; that it's going to take a universally acknowledged disaster or hiccup in the economy, for the Fed to divert from its unofficial goal of monthly tapering. The market moving higher on less Fed accommodation has been the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. central bankers thought they should get more regulatory powers in return for providing cheap cash to Wall Street banks during the 2008 credit crisis, according to Federal Reserve transcripts released on Friday. Powerful investment banks such as Goldman Sachs (NYS:GS - News) and Morgan Stanley (NYS:MS - News) had access to a raft of measures to prop up markets during the 2008 credit meltdown, but the Federal Reserve had little say over them. "I am just a little worried about being taken advantage of here," Richard Fisher, head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said...

On Tuesday, new Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen went before Congress and confidently declared that "the economic recovery gained greater traction in the second half of last year" and that "substantial progress has been made in restoring the economy to health". This resulted in glowing headlines throughout the mainstream media such as this one from USA Today: "Yellen: Economy is improving at moderate pace". Sadly, tens of millions of Americans are going to believe what the mainstream media is telling them. But it isn't the truth. As you will see below, there are all sorts of signs that the economy...

In her first testimony before Congress as Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen pledged to continue on the path set by her predecessor Ben Bernanke. “His leadership helped make our economy and financial system stronger and ensured that the Federal Reserve is transparent and accountable,” said Yellen in a remarks delivered before the House Committee of Financial Services Tuesday morning.Speaking about the economic recovery, monetary policy and the financial systems Yellen expressed optimism about developments in recent months, but also made it clear work must be done to meet the Federal Open Market Committee’s objectives for the economy.In a note following...

The Federal Reserve (or Fed) has assumed sweeping new powers in the last year. In an unprecedented move in March 2008, the New York Fed advanced the funds for JPMorgan Chase Bank to buy investment bank Bear Stearns for pennies on the dollar. The deal was particularly controversial because Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, sits on the board of the New York Fed and participated in the secret weekend negotiations.1 In September 2008, the Federal Reserve did something even more unprecedented, when it bought the world’s largest insurance company. The Fed announced on September 16 that it was giving an...

<p>U.S. equity markets zipped higher Friday after a round of weak jobs data inspired hopes the Fed may take more time to boost rates and cut its bond-purchasing program.</p> <p>As of 9:32 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 53.3 points, or 0.35%, to 15675, the S&P 500 gained 8.5 points, or 0.48%, to 1783 and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 28.4 points, or 0.69%, to 4084.</p>

Stocks were battered on Monday, with investors fleeing equities after factory data cast a negative light on the economy. Article Link: Stocks unravel after factory report

After a blistering four-month rally that took stocks to record highs last year, January could not have been more different, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) fell more than 5%. In the first month of the year, traders worried the financial health of both the U.S. and smaller nations meant stocks were too dangerous to continue owning for the time being, especially after a nearly uninterrupted rise that began in early 2009. Those jitters continued on the first trading day in February, driven by weakness in a manufacturing index from the Institute for Supply Management. By the close of...

The gap between the rich and poor continues to grow. The wealthiest 1 percent held 8 percent of the economic pie in 1975 but now hold over 20 percent. This is a striking change from the 1950s and 1960s when their share of all incomes was slightly over 10 percent. A study by Emmanuel Saez found that between 2009 and 2012 the real incomes of the top 1 percent jumped 31.4 percent. The richest 10 percent now receive 50.5 percent of all incomes, the largest share since data was first recorded in 1917. The wealthiest are becoming disproportionally wealthier at...

This is a very educational show put on by Kin Greenhouse of "It's Rainmaking Time". She is one of the very few who eschew the soundbite driven media economy and chooses the long format, deep dive approach. While it may be too long for ADD crowd, it digs deep into a not so simple subject to foster understanding and comprehension. This was a pretty good show with an interesting cast of guests:

Ben S. Bernanke ascended to the chairmanship of the Federal Reserve eight years ago as a little-known — albeit distinguished — Princeton economics professor who had notched just three years of federal public service. When he takes his leave this week, having presided over his final meeting of the Fed’s policy-making committee, he will depart as one of the finest chairmen in the institution’s hundred year history, having played a central role in averting a financial meltdown and lifting the nation out of recession.

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday another $10 billion cut in its monthly bond purchases in a statement that attributed the decision to “growing underlying strength in the broader economy.” The statement, published after a two-day meeting of the Fed’s policy-making committee, reflected the optimism of Fed officials that the economy is finally poised for faster growth after years of false starts and setbacks. It was the committee’s first unanimous decision since 2011. The Fed said it would expand its holdings of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities by $65 billion in February, down from $75 billion in January and $85...

The United States has become more and more defensive against China because of its rapid development and the change of the comparison of strength between the two countries. "China Threat" theory increasingly attracts much more attention from the US media. Chinese political and economics author Lei Sihai believes that the United States is actively pursuing a "currency war" against China through a puppetry of elaborate political, military and media maneuvering. Using financial instruments as "direct weapons," Lei claims that the United States is gearing up to engage China in a currency battle come 2015 in his new book The Decisive...