Free Republic

A notorious al Qaeda magazine is encouraging lone-wolf terrorist attacks on U.S. economic leaders, including Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg and Warren Buffett. The list in Inspire magazine also included industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch, internet entrepreneur Larry Ellison, and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. A prominent economist was also on the list but asked that his name be withheld. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke was named, though not Janet Yellen, who succeeded him. Also pictured was Jim Walton, one of the heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune, although he was misidentified in the caption as his late father, Sam Walton. Several...

The European Central Bank is ready to give the eurozone economy a bigger dose of stimulus if turmoil in China and weaker global growth hurt its modest recovery, President Mario Draghi said Thursday. Market volatility, concern over the effects of a looming interest rate increase in the U.S. and a drop oil prices have spawned uncertainty over the global economy, leading the ECB to cut its inflation and growth forecasts for the eurozone. Draghi said the ECB can add to its €1.1 trillion ($1.2 trillion) program if needed to raise inflation or support growth. […] The stimulus is intended to...

After a tumultuous week on the world’s stock markets, investors will be focused on Wall Street Monday ahead of another set of economic reports likely to steer the Federal Reserve’s decision on whether to raise interest rates for the first time in almost a decade. The markets open Monday as investors digest news that the Fed is still actively considering a September rate hike. In a speech on Saturday, Stanley Fischer, the vice-chair of the Fed’s Board of Governors, suggested inflationary pressures could soon lead to an increase. His comments are likely to add to the volatility of already skittish...

On Friday morning at the Jackson Hole Summit, Judy Shelton of the Sound Money Project and Atlas Network spoke on the subject of the gold standard and addressed the perception that people who even dare to mention it are lunatics or, as The American Spectator noted earlier today, Quixotic. Shelton's presentation focused in the main on the numbers and the policies. Dr. Shelton pointed out that the Fed can't seem to face up to a simple, apparent, easily understood fact: Their policies aren't working. "The difference between our summit, and the one the Feds are holding up the road, is...

To wit, artificial suppression of free market interest rates by the central bank is designed to cause households to borrow more money than they otherwise would in order to spend more than they earn, pure and simple. Its nothing more than a modernized version of the original, crude Keynesian pump-priming theory—–except it dispenses with the inconvenience of getting politicians to approve spending increases and tax cuts in favor of the writ of a small posse of unelected monetary mandarins who run the FOMC and peg money market interest rates at will. But the whole enterprise is a crock. The consumer...

Submitted by SouthBay Research Hookernomices: In less than 10 years, the Federal Reserve Has Driven Millions of American Women into ProstitutionMainstreaming Prostitution: Beginning last year, the Bank of England included prostitution in GDP measurements.  According to the Office of National Statistics, prostitution generated $9B a year, adding 0.7% to the UK GDP.  They aren't alone: Sweden, Norway and a few other European countries already include it.  And if you can measure it, you can tax it.  And legalization is necessary for measurement.Prostitution is legal in most of the developed world.  In fact, of the G20 countries, prostitution is illegal...

All one needs to do is turn to the financial shows and get a litany of “financial experts” blaming the Federal Reserve and its coming rate hike for the recent market break. They are incorrect. The recent break in equity prices is not about a proposed and measly ¼ point rise in rates off of zero. Short term rates were between 4% and 5% in 2007 when the stock market made a then all time high of 14,000. Hand wringing over a ¼ pt raise is curious. The Federal Reserve’s mere hinting of a meager raise didn’t roll the Chinese...

If nature abhors a vacuum, investors aren’t so crazy about them either. It’s hard to avoid all the voids right now. The August Wall Street vacation evacuation is well underway, markets are facing an absence of inflation, huge air pockets underneath commodities and emerging-market currencies – and a vexing lack of clarity about what the Fed might do in less than a month’s time. The collective response to this environment devoid of strong conviction has been to pull cash out of riskier markets and wait. Barclays Capital says more than $90 billion has sought the shelter of money-market funds in...

Is the collapse imminent, and our very way of life under threat of total global meltdown? Perhaps the signs and warnings are there, at every level, for those who want to see it. An outright panic has taken hold over many who see September 2015 as a convergence of ominous events – including the Pope’s visit to America, the United Nations summit on Agenda 21-like development, expectations for a stunning policy change at the Federal Reserve, unprecedented experiments at CERN and the end of the seven year business cycle, a date that has already seen the tragic events of 9/11...

I sure am glad there's no inflation, because these "stable prices" the Federal Reserve keeps jaw-jacking about are putting us in a world of hurt. Those of us outside the inner circles of power are glad there's no inflation, because we'd rather get more for our money (deflation) rather than less for our money (inflation). You know what I mean: the package that once held 16 ounces now only holds 13 ounces. A medication that once cost $79 now costs $79,000. (This is a much slighter exaggeration than you might imagine.) Despite all these widely known examples of rampant inflation,...

I'm working on a settlement with a Federal government agency (not IRS). The settlement agreement calls for payment to be wired to an account at the NY Fed. We all know that the Fed is a privately held central bank and not owned by U.S. Does the U.S. Gov have accounts there and why? It seems that money should be sent to US treasury. BTW, they insisted on a wire and not a check. Anyone with legal/financial knowledge would be helpful.

financial reform increases staffing costs. Small banks are struggling to comply with the Dodd-Frank Act, which was passed to regulate the financial industry in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, said Rep. Scott Tipton. The Republican from Cortez received some national attention this week for challenging Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen to support his plan to ease the burden of Dodd-Frank on small banks. ... Mike Burns, president of Alpine Bank for the Southwest region, said in a phone interview that Dodd-Frank is creating head winds. “We really want to focus our time and energy in supporting the communities...

American teen employment has dropped 20 percent from the late 1980s, in part because more and more immigrants have flooded into the market to displace native-born kids from jobs in percentages far higher than on adults, according to the Federal Reserve. "The displacement effect of immigration on the employment of younger persons is much larger than on the employment of prime-age adults," said the September 2014 report, "Labor Force Participation: Recent Developments and Future Prospects."

The State of Texas is setting up a gold-backed bank that will allow depositors to bypass the controversial Federal Reserve System and its fiat currency in banking and commerce, according to the state representative who authored the recently enacted law. Under the measure, passed overwhelmingly by lawmakers and signed in mid-June by Republican Governor Greg Abbott, Lone Star State officials will establish and operate the Texas Bullion Depository for anyone who would like to deposit and trade in precious metals. The implications are as big as Texas.While some analysts have said the move may be another sign heralding Texas’ eventual...

Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Says Economy Is Nearing “Full Unemployment” …Real Unemployment Closer to 42.9% Jim Hoft Jun 30th, 2015 5:42 pm 19 Comments According to the Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis the labor participation rate is at its lowest point since the Carter years. fred labor part rate Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer told a an audience at England’s Oxford University this week that the US economy is nearing “full unemployment.” Reuters reported: The U.S. economy probably bounced back to an annual growth rate of around 2.5 percent in the second quarter, and the labor market is...

A woman will be on the new $10 bill, bumping Alexander Hamilton aside. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew says he will choose the woman by year's end, based on "input from the public." In one survey of the "public," the first female chief of the Cherokee Nation, Wilma Mankiller, placed fourth. I understand the wish to counter sexism prevalent in early America, but "Mankiller?" The name alone probably reveals something about the attitude of some of those voters. Fortunately, more voted for Harriet Tubman. Tubman escaped slavery to become a leader of the Underground Railroad, then repeatedly returned to slave territory...

An injunction issued against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) by federal judge Leigh Martin May could spell the beginning of the end for Administrative Law Courts and with them, 80 years of unconstitutional abuse of power by the Executive branch. Administrative Law “…allows for the creation of public regulatory agencies and contains all of the statutes, judicial decisions, and regulations that govern them.” These regulatory bodies include the EPA and the SEC. Many came into being during the reign of Franklin Roosevelt, the one president more arrogant and power hungry than Barack Obama. The law itself “…is created by...

A court ruled Monday that the federal government was “unduly harsh” in its takeover of AIG during the financial crisis, but refused to award the company’s former head any damages. The ruling draws to a close the high-profile lawsuit against the federal government, brought by Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, the former head of the insurance giant, and other AIG shareholders under the umbrella of Starr International. In his ruling, Judge Thomas Wheeler determined the federal government violated the Constitution by stepping in and effectively seizing the insurance company during the crisis, even if the takeover was intended to save the company...

Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, said a Social Security Trust Fund does not exist and that the U.S. is “way underestimating” the size of its national debt. “The notion that we have a trust fund is nonsense – that trust fund has no meaning whatsoever except for the fact as an all private fund to benefit programs, if it runs out of money, you can only pay out in cash flows that come in but the probability that will happen is not particularly high,” Greenspan recently told the Fiscal Summit held by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation,...

Dear American Consumer, This is The Wall Street Journal. We’re writing to ask if something is bothering you. The sun shined in April and you didn’t spend much money. The Commerce Department here in Washington says your spending didn’t increase at all adjusted for inflation last month compared to March. You appear to have mostly stayed home and watched television in December, January and February as well. We thought you would be out of your winter doldrums by now, but we don’t see much evidence that this is the case. You have been saving more too. You socked away 5.6%...