Free Republic

Hillary Clinton has claimed from the very beginning of the email scandal that nothing she sent or received was marked classified at the time. *snip* Unfortunately for Hillary, the State Department today released an email from 2012 that totally contradicts her "fact." According to Catherine Herridge at Fox News, the email carries "a classified code known as a 'portion marking' - and that marking was on the email when it was sent directly to Clinton’s account." (Not retroactively, as the Clinton camp likes to claim.)

Joyce Banda, Malawi's new president, has announced the presidential jet and fleet of 60 Mercedes limousines would be sold in a move applauded by a British cabinet minister as an example to other African leaders. Mrs Banda said she was happy to "offload" the presidential perks, adding: "I can well use private airlines. I am already used to hitchhiking." It means that the 62-year-old head of state – the second woman to hold the position in Africa – will fly to the Queen's Jubilee celebrations in London this weekend with British Airways. Andrew Mitchell, the UK International Development Secretary who...

In a stunning reversal for an organization that rests at the bedrock of the modern "neoliberal" (a term the IMF itself uses generously), aka capitalist system, overnight IMF authors Jonathan D. Ostry, Prakash Loungani, and Davide Furceri issued a research paper titled "Neoliberalism: Oversold?" whose theme is a stunning one: it accuses neoliberalism, and its immediate offshoot, globalization and "financial openness", for causing not only inequality, but also making capital markets unstable. To wit: There are aspects of the neoliberal agenda that have not delivered as expected. Our assessment of the agenda is confined to the effects of two policies:...

The International Monetary Fund on Friday boosted its flexible credit line with Mexico to $88 billion in a bid to support Latin America's No. 2 economy, whose currency has been battered by global volatility. The fund said it canceled a previous flexible credit line, which was for $67 billion and approved on November 26, 2014. The new credit line will last for two years, the fund said. Mexico's macroeconomic policies "remain very strong," but there are risks given global market volatility, David Lipton, IMF first deputy managing director and acting chair, said in a statement. Mexico's peso was little changed...

--The International Monetary Fund is pressing the eurozone to let Greece skip paying interest or principal on bailout loans until 2040, say officials familiar with the talks. The IMF wants the loans to Greece to fall due gradually in the following decades, and as late as 2080, according to the IMF's proposal. The IMF's proposal, presented to eurozone governments late last week, would keep Greece's annual debt-service needs below 15% of its gross domestic product, under the IMF's relatively pessimistic forecast for Greece's long-term economic trajectory. The IMF's demands go far beyond what Greece's eurozone creditors have said they are...

Less than a year after the country's third international bailout, Greek lawmakers on Sunday approved another round of painful tax hikes and spending cuts in hopes of securing more cash from its skeptical European neighbors. The infusion is needed to help Greece make good on bond payments due in July. The measures approved over the weekend include tax hikes on consumer goods like fuel, alcohol and tobacco -- to 24 percent -- and a provision that will force further spending cuts if the government fails to meet budget targets... Less than a year implementing after a package of reforms and...

Greece’s predicament is simple. It has debt repayments to make this summer and it doesn’t have the money to pay the bills. The European Union can solve this acute cashflow problem by unlocking the funds pledged to Greece under the terms of last summer’s bailout agreement, but it will only do so if Athens demonstrates that it is serious about sorting out its budget. Austerity today will lead to generosity from EU finance ministers when they meet on Tuesday. Here’s where things get interesting. The difference between this Sunday and all the other tension-packed Sundays that have studded the Greek...

Irreconcilable Positions Greece owes the Troika over €11 billion in bailout repayments through the end of July. Greece is unable make those payments unless the Troika releases the funds. Position 1: “We need a big debt restructuring, no more kicking the can,” says Greece’s Minister of State. Position 2: Germany offers a possibility of unspecified debt relief, at a future point in time, only if necessary. First, Greece must make another round of budget cuts on top of the pension cuts its just made. Greece has caved in every time, and in the most humiliating ways. Greece even caved in...

The Washington Post reported Wednesday night that a former Hillary Clinton State Department staffer who reportedly set up her home brew server will invoke his Fifth Amendment rights and refuse to testify to Congressional committees investigating Clinton’s home email system. Bryan Pagliano, though his attorney, informed the House Benghazi Select Committee which had subpoenaed him to testify on September 10, that he was declining to testify. The Post reported the letter cited the FBI investigation in to Clinton’s email system. Senate committees seeking Pagliano’s testimony were also informed he would be taking the Fifth. ““While we understand that Mr. Pagliano’s...

Some 95 percent of the 220 billion euros disbursed to Greece since the start of the financial crisis as loans from the bailout mechanism has been directed toward saving the European banks. That means about 210 billion euros was eventually channeled to the eurozone credit sector while just 5 percent ended up in state coffers, according to a study by the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT) in Berlin. “Europe and the International Monetary Fund have in previous years mainly saved the banks and other private creditors,” concluded the report, published yesterday in German newspaper Handelsblatt. ESMT director Jorg...

Greece is running out of money. The government in Athens is raiding the budgets of the health service and public utilities to pay salaries and pensions. Without fresh financial support it will struggle to make a debt payment due in July. No, this is not a piece from the summer of 2015 reprinted by mistake. Greece, after a spell out of the limelight, is back. Another summer of threats, brinkmanship and all-night summits looms. The problem is a relatively simple one. Greece is bridling at the unrealistic demands of the European commission and the International Monetary Fund to agree to...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has projected a whopping $500 billion loss in revenue for the Gulf nations in 2016, which is 30 percent more than the $390 billion lost in 2015. The massive shortfall has crippled the gulf economies, which are facing record budget deficits and seeking external funding to overcome it. Many experts believe that $100 per barrel oil prices are history, and we might not revisit those prices for more than a decade. It implies that the recent crisis will not end as quickly as the downturn in 2007-2009. The oil-dependent nations will have to figure out...

In a shocking move likely to crush the US economy overnight, China is refusing to make its new gold-backed Yuan, convertible from or to US Dollars. The new Yuan will be introduced next Tuesday, April 19. When the International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreed to add the Yuan to the basket of world currencies used for Global Reserves and International Trade, they wanted China to make the Yuan more reliable as a currency. Since then, China has almost un-pegged its Yuan from the Dollar, allowing its value to fluctuate on world markets. But for years, China has been amassing huge amounts...

Chief editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer debunks negative interest rates, banning cash, and helicopter money. ... Epoch Times spoke to Mr. Grant about the spotty track record of central bankers, deflation, gold and the gold standard, as well as negative interest rates and a ban on cash. A negative interest rate is not only a tax on saving, it is the destruction of saving. ... Negative interest rates are an attempt to tax thrift. The idea of earning dollar bills and putting those dollar bills in a bank and having them accumulate over time, the accumulation of which is...

<p>The world is sleepwalking into a fresh crisis as investors start to lose faith in policymakers’ ability to revive the global economy, according to the International Monetary Fund.</p> <p>In its bluntest warning to date on the costs of policy inaction, the IMF said “financial and economic stagnation" could take hold unless governments prevented a "pernicious feedback loop of fragile confidence, weaker growth, low inflation and rising debt burdens" from forming.</p>

The feud between the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European side of Greece's troika of creditors is old news. However, Wikileaks' publication of a dialogue between key IMF players suggests that we are approaching something of a hazardous endgame. Ever since the first Greek 'bailout' program was signed, in May 2010, the IMF has been violating its own "primary directive": the obligation not to fund insolvent governments. As a result, the IMF's leadership has been facing a revolt from its staff members who demand an exit strategy arguing that, if the EU continues to obstruct the debt relief necessary...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is preparing for its spring meeting which gathers the leading economic voices across the globe to discuss the issues and policies impacting the world's financial markets. It's a critical time as we watch a continued struggle for the global economy. I spoke with managing director Christine Lagarde to get a sense of where things stand.

We live in strange economic times, stranger perhaps than at any other point in history. Since 2007-2008, the globally intertwined and dependent fiscal system has suffered considerable declines in every conceivable area. Manufacturing around the world is in a slump, from Japan to China to Europe, with the minimal manufacturing accomplished in the U.S. also fading. Consumption is falling, most notably in petroleum and raw materials. Employment is truly dismal, with the U.S. posting over 94 million people as “non-participants” in the national work force. High paying jobs are disappearing, and the only jobs replacing them are in the...

The International Monetary Fund is considering forcing Germany’s leadership to quickly grant wide-ranging debt relief for Greece or allow the Fund to exit Athens’ bailout programme after six years, according to a transcript of an internal IMF teleconference published by WikiLeaks. The teleconference, between the head of the IMF’s European operations and its top Greek bailout monitor, is the clearest sign to date that the Fund wants to leave Greece’s €86 billion ($97 billion) rescue to the European Union alone and wash its hands of a programme that has led to a torrent of criticism. During the call, which occurred...

The world economy would be worse off without negative interest rates, according to International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde. Negative rates in Europe and Japan have helped support global growth and price gains, she said in an interview in Ho Chi Minh City on Friday. The finance sector may need to implement new business models as a result, she said. “If we had not had those negative rates, we would be in a much worse place today, with inflation probably lower than where it is, with growth probably lower than where we have it,” Lagarde said. “It was a...