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New York Times economics columnist Paul Krugman just stepped on another rake by likening President Joe Biden’s insane $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act to Christmas. Biden signed his eco-utopia bill into law yesterday, which allocates $369 billion in taxpayer dollars to new climate spending. Right on cue, Krugman released a new op-ed slobbering how he “wrote back in that 2019 thread, ‘If we’re going to pass anything that helps avert [climate] catastrophe, it will have to be a Christmas tree.’” Krugman’s arbitrary usage of “Christmas tree” was in reference to a “bill that offers a lot of specific payoffs to...

The Democrats named their tax and spending bill the Inflation Reduction Act, but Americans are not buying it. The law was hastily thrown together after Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) struck a deal with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to vote for a bill that would increase spending by hundreds of billions of dollars and increase taxes by even more. Although both the Congressional Budget Office and the Penn-Wharton Budget Model say the bill will do next to nothing for inflation, Democrats have been bragging that the bill is already working.

Key members of President Biden’s cabinet are going on tour in a bid to promote the $737 billion energy, climate and health care legislation passed by Congress last week. As part of the “Building a Better America Tour,” Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland will travel across the country to tout the inappropriately named Inflation Reduction Act, according to an internal memo obtained by Politico.

The $369 billion investment, Gates said, will "spark innovation, drive job creation, and reduce energy prices and emissions." "It sets a clear example of what serious climate action looks like," the billionaire said.

Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert had her mic cut on the House floor Friday as she blasted the Democrats' Inflation Reduction Act. 'You are sacrificing American families at the altar of climate change. You're using the power of the federal government for armed robbery,' Boebert insisted. The $370 billion bill is expected to pass the House with only Democratic votes later Friday afternoon. It includes a number of green energy and healthcare provisions and provides funding to bolster the workforce at the Internal Revenue Service. The Colorado Republican argued that encouraging inflation data was evidence that the bill didn't need to...

After years of Russiagate conspiracy theories about how the Russians had somehow rigged the 2016 presidential election using Facebook ads, the Senate Intelligence report awkwardly revealed that the Russian operation had focused most of its attention on black nationalists. The Senate report revealed that "most of the videos" put out by the Russian IRA troll factory on YouTube "pertained to police brutality and the activist efforts of the Black Lives Matter organization" and found that "no single group of Americans was targeted... more than African-Americans" around "race and related issues". But that was an understatement. The Russians had created their...

How anyone believed hundreds of billions in new spending was going to lower inflation is beyond me—but they’re not called ‘useful idiots’ for nothing. On Sunday, the United States Senate passed what was imprudently named the Inflation Reduction Act—with Kamala Harris breaking the tie, literally snickering as she condemned America to further economic carnage, and working-class citizens to utter financial strangulation. SNIP Interesting to note is that the mockingbird media—nothing more than a propaganda machine at the behest of the Democrat-Marxists driving the country into the ground—referred to the bill as the Inflation Reduction Act, but only until it passed....

Article Dig In The Senate on Sunday passed the $740 billion "Inflation Reduction Act" by a 51 to 50 vote, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the decisive, tie-breaker for Democrats. The bill has the support of the Biden administration, which claimed it would "lower healthcare, prescription drug, and energy costs," along with reforming the tax code and investing in "energy security" while reducing the deficit. It now headed to the Democrat-controlled House where it is also expected to pass – in a vote scheduled for later this week, before going to the White House for President Biden's signature. Senate...

It should come as no surprise that the $739 billion “Inflation Reduction Act” doesn’t reduce inflation much at all. Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi says that, over a ten-year period, the bill would reduce inflation by all of one-third of a percentage point. “Through the middle of this decade the impact of the legislation on inflation is marginal, but it becomes more meaningful later in the decade,” Zandi wrote. As Politico reports, “That assessment lands on the heels of another report from the Penn Wharton Budget Model — whose research is said to be favored by Manchin (D-W.Va.) —...

If the Dow finishes down for the week, which it is solidly on pace to do, it would be its eighth-straight weekly loss. That would be the longest weekly losing streak since 1923, according to FactSet data reviewed by LPL Financial.The long stretch of losses underscores the negative mood on Wall Street as investors grow nervous about high inflation – and what the Federal Reserve will have to do to get prices under control.

A century after its fraught foundation, Northern Ireland looks set for a constitutional earthquake this week with the pro-Irish party Sinn Fein on course to win regional elections. Apart from periods of direct rule by London, pro-UK unionists have monopolised power ever since Britain carved out a Protestant-majority statelet in 1921, when the rest of Ireland achieved self-rule. But pollsters expect victory on Thursday for Sinn Fein, which was once the political arm of the paramilitary IRA, in polls for the devolved assembly in Belfast. The party took the deputy leadership in a power-sharing deal with unionists when Northern Ireland...

Days after Donald Trump won the presidential election in November 2016, thousands flocked to the streets of New York City to demonstrate against the president elect in a protest organized by a Kremlin-connected Facebook page called BlackMattersUS, The Hill reports. Between 5,000 and 10,000 people attended the protest organized by the Facebook page, which, according to an archived screen grab, had more than 99,000 likes.“Join us in the streets! Stop Trump and his bigoted agenda!” the Facebook event page reads for the protest, which was called “Trump is NOT my President. March against Trump.” “Divided is the reason we just fell,” it reads. “We must...

According to the decision, the couple in 2015 began moving nearly $750,000 of existing retirement-plan funds, including from a MetLife annuity and 401(k), into self-directed IRAs. Then they had the IRAs purchase shares in limited-liability companies that in turn invested about $730,000 in a condominium plus gold and silver American Eagle coins. ...That left two issues for Tax Court Judge Joseph Robert Goeke to decide: whether Donna McNulty’s storage of about $411,000 of gold and silver American Eagle coins in a safe at her home was permitted under the law, and whether the couple owed stiff penalties for understating their...

A lawsuit filed this week in Washington, D.C., alleges that some of the world's largest technology firms knowingly engaged in the usage of child labor in Africa's cobalt mines. The suit was filed by nongovernmental organization International Rights Advocates and mentions Apple, Dell, Microsoft, Tesla and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, USA Today reports. Cobalt is an essential part of rechargeable lithium batteries that power many of the electronic devices that the listed companies sell. According to the suit, two mining companies — British company Glencore and Chinese company Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt — supplied cobalt to all of the...

There is a certain investment firm that has assets under management valued at nearly half the gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States. If you placed it on a list of the largest economies in the world, it would be number three, behind China and ahead of Japan. A significant portion of the funds managed by the firm belong to pension funds and other retirement plans. If you have a 401K, there is a big chance it has some of your money.The firm is called BlackRock, and every pay period when your monthly contribution goes into your retirement plan,...

Asset managers like BlackRock are pushing to create ESG 401(k) funds in part because they can charge higher fees. According to Morningstar, the asset-weighted average expense ratio of U.S. "sustainable" funds was 0.61% in 2020 compared to 0.41% for all open-ended mutual and exchange-traded funds and 0.12% for passive funds. This difference can reduce retirement savings by tens of thousands of dollars over a few decades. (snip) All of this amounts to a backdoor rewrite of Erisa, one of the better laws of the last 50 years. Progressives are moving across the Biden administration to steer private capital to implement...

New tax laws by Democrats are on deck and in the books. And if you have an IRA or will inherit one, these changes may impact you in a huge way.Proposed Tax LawThe Responsibly Funding Our Priorities Act as proposed by the Democrats Ways and Means Committee in the House will kill private placements in IRAs. Section 138312Sec. 138312. Prohibition of IRA Investments Conditioned on Account Holder’s Status. The bill prohibits an IRA from holding any security if the issuer of the security requires the IRA owner to have certain minimum level of assets or income, or have completed a...

Social Security’s latest report on the status of the trust funds on which it relies to pay benefits has both good and bad news. The good news is that the funds have not been as hard hit by the Covid-19 as was initially feared, due the economic recovery that has taken place. The bad news is that the funds’ depletion dates have moved up sooner, prompting a chorus of calls for Congress to act swiftly to correct the problem. “If this report does not trigger a pretty serious and swift discussion on Capitol Hill among lawmakers about what needs to...

A few years ago, my father passed away… He was a brilliant physician… but unlike most surgeons, he didn’t have a lucrative private practice to support him in retirement. He was a professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill… a state employee. And his wife, my stepmother – whom I’ve known and loved for more than 30 years – depends on the survivorship benefits from his pension. The problem was, that pension was hanging by a thread. I’ve seen headlines for years about a “pension crisis” (as I’m sure you have too) and read occasional notes about small towns...

Many Americans don’t save enough for retirement, but it’s entirely possible to save too much — at least according to the IRS. Tax laws limit how much you’re allowed to contribute to retirement accounts, and excess contributions can be penalized. Uncle Sam doesn’t want you to leave the money in the account too long, either. Those who fail to take enough out of their retirement accounts also face heavy penalties. Here’s what you need to know to stay on the right side of the IRS’ rules. Overstuffing your retirement accounts Not everyone is allowed to contribute to retirement accounts. Contributions...