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Millennials, who first arrived in 1980, are the largest generational group in American history. As such, they tend to have a deep-seated, some would say exaggerated, sense of their own importance. Now that the last of the millennials, those born in the late 1990s, have reached voting age, the millennial generation is exerting ever greater influence on presidential politics. The campaign of Bernie Sanders, one of the most radical leftists ever to run for the presidency, is almost their exclusive preserve. Sanders's platform is well targeted to the idealism of most millennials. It offers free universal health care ("Medicare for...

A U.S. Federal Reserve Bank president said Monday the global markets seem to be poised for an interest rate hike this summer. James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Saint Louis, said his outlook was not "too surprising" since signs are pointing to a second quarter rebound in the U.S. gross domestic product, the value of all goods and services produced in the U.S. Bullard's remarks, made at an international conference in Seoul, South Korea, follow revised data Friday from the U.S. Commerce Department that the economy expanded faster than previously thought in the first three months of...

<p>It's official: years of warnings that Obamacare will lead to dramatic increases in healthcare premiums are about to be validated.</p> <p>As the WSJ writes, big health plans stung by losses in the first few years of the U.S. health law’s implementation are seeking hefty premium increases for individual plans sold through insurance exchanges in more than a dozen states.</p>

Venezuelans on Tuesday woke up to discover that the government-controlled price of corn flour -- used to make corn patty arepas, a staple of local cuisine -- has risen 900 percent. The socialist government of President Nicolas Maduro had kept the price of corn flour frozen for 15 months at 19 bolivares a kilogram (two pounds).

May 23 (Reuters) - The Venezuelan bottler of Coca-Cola has halted production of sugar-sweetened beverage due to a lack of sugar, a Coca-Cola Co spokeswoman said on Monday. Venezuela is in the midst of a deep recession, and spontaneous demonstrations and looting have become more common amid worsening food shortages, frequent power cuts and the world's highest inflation.

As for March, there was an increase in yearly prices due to inflation — a 582.9 percent increase for food,

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Over the past decade, we've been told that inflation has been tame -- actually below the target the Federal Reserve would like to see. But if that's true, then why does the average household find it harder and harder to get by? The ugly reality is that the true annual cost of living is far outpacing the government's reported inflation rate. By nearly 10x in many parts of the country. This week, we welcome Ed Butowsky, developer of the Chapwood Index, to the program. His index is a 'real world' measure of how prices are increasing much faster than the...

Here is a thought experiment that illuminates the challenges facing macroeconomic policymakers in the United States and the rest of the industrial world. Imagine that in a brief period, inflation expectations around the industrial world, as inferred from the indexed bond market or the inflation swaps market, rose by nearly 50 basis points to a level well above the 2 percent target, with larger increases foreseen at longer horizons. Imagine that at the same time, survey measures of inflation expectations such as those calculated by the University of Michigan and New York Fed in the United States were rising sharply....

GAINING ATTENTION these days is the idea of abolishing high denominations of the dollar and the euro. This concept graphically displays the astonishing stupidity-and intellectual bankruptcy-of today's liberal economic policymakers and the economics profession. Larry Summers, a former Treasury Secretary and Harvard president, is pushing the U.S. to ban $50 and $100 bills. There's a lot of chatter, too, about prohibiting the €500 note. The ostensible reason is to help in the fight against terrorists, bribers, drug dealers and tax evaders by making it more inconvenient for these bad guys to move around and store their ill-gotten cash........ If the...

Saudis, Russia Agree to Freeze Oil Output; Iran Still Resists by Reuters Feb 16 2016, 9:34 am ET Top oil exporters Russia and Saudi Arabia agreed on Tuesday to freeze output levels but said the deal was contingent on other producers joining in - a major sticking point with Iran absent from the talks and determined to raise production. The Saudi, Russian, Qatari and Venezuelan oil ministers announced the proposal after a previously undisclosed meeting in Doha. It could become the first joint OPEC and non-OPEC deal in 15 years, aimed at tackling a growing oversupply of crude and helping...

The stock market is having a horrible time so far in 2016, with the S&P 500 down more than 9%. Gold, on the other hand, is up nearly 10% year-to-date and hit a four-month high of just under $1200 per ounce on Monday before dipping 0.7% Tuesday to $1189.30. It's a bit of a cliche to say that people turn to gold in times of uncertainty: Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. Gold did phenomenally well from 2000-2011 but really suffered after hitting nearly $2000 per ounce in 2011. From 2011 to 2015, the yellow metal pretty much fell in...

On Monday the U.S. national debt hit a new record: $19,012,827,698,418. This is the first time the national debt has ever exceeded $19 trillion. That's more than $58,000 for each person who lives in the U.S. today (including children). The main culprit behind the rising deficits and debt is growing federal spending--especially among Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare. Traditionally, Congress has set a limit for how much debt the U.S. may take on, known simply as the debt limit. But rather than put a higher limit on the debt, lawmakers and the president have repeatedly suspended the debt limit,...

We need an estimated $1tn per year to stay below a global temperature rise of 2C. Creating new money might be the only way to meet this financial challenge. The international community has agreed on an ambitious agenda to curb climate change. Some 195 countries have decided to try and cut greenhouse gas emissions to a level that will limit the rise in average global temperatures to well below 2C. The question we now face is: how are we going to finance the changes needed to reach this goal? Quantitative easing - creating new money - might just be the...

With Citi's chief economist proclaiming "only helicopter money can save the world now," and the Bank of England pre-empting paradropping money concerns, it appears that Australia's largest investment bank's forecast that money-drops were 12-18 months away was too conservative. While The Finns consider a "basic monthly income" for the entire population, Swiss residents are to vote on a countrywide referendum about a radical plan to pay every single adult a guaranteed income of around $2500 per month, with authorities insisting that people will still want to find a job.

New figures from the state statistics office show inflation in Ukraine reached a 20-year high of 43.3% in 2015. That represents an increase of nearly 20% on 2014's figure of 24.9%. Items which saw the biggest jumps include gas, which rose in price nearly four times, hot water and heating, whose prices increased by nearly 80% and vegetables, which were almost 70% more expensive in 2015 than they were in 2014. In annual terms, no goods saw price falls between the two years.

As food prices balloon across Canada, grocers say they are coping with a reported increase in meat product thefts. According to figures released by Statistics Canada in November, numerous types and cuts of meat have seen significant cost increases since 2014. The cost of beef is also predicted to rise another four per cent this year.

Some 63% of people can't deal with a $500 emergency. Americans are starting 2016 with more job security, but most are still theoretically only one paycheck away from the street. Approximately 63% of Americans have no emergency savings for things such as a $1,000 emergency room visit or a $500 car repair, according to a survey released Wednesday of 1,000 adults by personal finance website Bankrate.com, up slightly from 62% last year. Faced with an emergency, they say they would raise the money by reducing spending elsewhere (23%), borrowing from family and/or friends (15%) or using credit cards to bridge...

A Fight for the Soul of Science String theory, the multiverse and other ideas of modern physics are potentially untestable. At a historic meeting in Munich, scientists and philosophers asked: should we trust them anyway? Laetitia Vancon for Quanta MagazinePhysicists George Ellis (center) and Joe Silk (right) at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich on Dec. 7. By: Natalie WolchoverDecember 16, 2015 Comments (17) Share this: facebooktwitterredditmail PDF Print Physicists typically think they “need philosophers and historians of science like birds need ornithologists,” the Nobel laureate David Gross told a roomful of philosophers, historians and physicists last week in Munich, Germany,...

The Federal Reserve has kept interest rates at near zero since the 2008 financial crisis. To raise them, it has come up with a new set of tools. Produced by Katy Burne, Christopher Kaeser, Arielle Ray and Mark Scheffler. But Fed officials face a troubling question: Jobs are on track, but inflation isn't... ...well below the Fed's 2% target. [snip] Low inflation-and low prices-sound beneficial but can stall growth in wages and profits. Debts are harder to pay off without inflation shrinking their burden. [snip] Former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, in an interview, pointed to Congress as one culprit for...