Free Republic

After Joe Biden’s first year in office, NOT ONE participant in Face the Nation’s focus group believes America is in a better place. CBS host Margaret Brennan was stunned when the entire panel of six participants, including Biden voters, said America is on the wrong path. “During the course of the pandemic, “Face the Nation” has been listening to Americans, through Zoom, to get their thoughts on COVID, the economy and how the government is handling it all. On Friday, we checked back in with six of them,” host Margaret Brennan said. “Who feels like we are in a better...

Despite recent hedge fund disasters and almost every economic indicator pointing to a potential stock crash, Biden’s administration has completely ignored a potential equities bubble.Since March 2020, $5.9 trillion in so-called relief spending authorized by Congress, as well as $3.3 trillion in quantitative easing from the Federal Reserve, has been pumped into the U.S. economy. America’s pandemic response resulted in 22 million jobs lost in a matter of months, and we still have 10 million fewer jobs than before March of last year. The fiscal and economic repercussions of going from stronger than expected job and wage growth in January...

China's May factory gate prices rose at their fastest annual pace in over 12 years due to surging commodity prices, highlighting global inflation pressures at a time when policymakers are trying to revitalise COVID-hit growth. Investors are increasingly worried pandemic-driven stimulus measures could supercharge global inflation and force central banks to tighten policy, potentially curbing the recovery. China's producer price index (PPI) increased 9.0%, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Wednesday, as prices bounced back from last year's pandemic lows. The PPI rise in May - the fastest on-year gain for any month since September 2008 - was...

At a time the wealthiest Americans have gotten even richer due to booming times on Wall Street, pernicious inflation would give working families a crushing blow.resident Biden claims he won’t raise taxes on families making less than $400,000 per year. But given Biden’s twists and turns on taxes—he now wants to eliminate a loophole he and his wife exploited to avoid more than $500,000 in taxes the past four years—Americans have reason to take his campaign promises with a grain of salt.Even if he does not levy taxes on middle-class families directly, Biden’s free-money policies are beginning to impose a...

House Financial Services Chair Maxine Waters and Senator Elizabeth Warren have introduced the Federal Reserve Racial and Economic Equity Act. This legislation directs the Federal Reserve to eliminate racial disparities in income, employment, wealth, and access to credit. Eliminating racial disparities in access to credit is code for forcing banks and other financial institutions to approve loans based on the applicants’ race, instead of based on their income and credit history. Overlooking poor credit history or income below what would normally be required to qualify for a loan results in individuals ending up with ruinous debt. These individuals will end...

ThereÂ’s a sense that the bureaucrats who command the federal leviathan work for themselves, not for the country at large. That wasnÂ’t true of Paul Volcker. Since his death last week, Paul Volcker has been heavily eulogized. ThatÂ’s not the purpose here. In these trying times, AmericansÂ’ faith in our nationÂ’s institutions is at historic lows. Once-vaunted organizations like the FBI now struggle to command a majority of AmericansÂ’ support.The causes for this are legion. But there is a general sense that the vast federal appendages created in the last 100 years have little connection to the interests of...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The U.S. central bank signaled on Friday it may be getting ready to join international peers in incorporating climate change risk into its assessments of financial stability, and may even take it into account when setting monetary policy. "To fulfill our core responsibilities, it will be important for the Federal Reserve to study the implications of climate change for the economy and the financial system and to adapt our work accordingly," Fed Governor Lael Brainard said in remarks released at the start of the Fed's first-ever conference on climate change and economics. The Fed, she said,...

In the Middle Ages, guilds held a monopoly on who could work in a whole range of trades, from blacksmith to brewer. The guilds set high hurdles for new entrants, or blocked them entirely, in order to limit competition. France’s minister of finances Jean-Baptiste Colbert once ordered all French crafts to form guilds “so as to compose by this means a group and organization of capable persons, and close the doors to the ignorant.” But the great free-market economist Adam Smith held a different view of guilds: He called them “a conspiracy against the public.” The Washington policy guild often...

I recently had the opportunity to read "The Creature from Jekyll Island" by G. Edward Griffin, a prodigious tome dealing with the circumstances surrounding the creation of the U.S. Federal Reserve System. I was taken aback by some of its provocative assertions. America joined World War I largely to help a few bankers profit off the war (despite a long-standing Monroe doctrine that prohibited our involvement in European affairs) The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 was supported by international financial interests in order to destabilize Russia and steal the wealth of the Russian people; and So-called "foreign aid" is merely a...

President Donald Trump appears ready to remake the Federal Reserve in an image that will be considerably different than what investors have known for many years. The president is prepared to nominate Randal Quarles and Marvin Goodfriend to two of three vacancies at the central bank, according to multiple press accounts that have not been disputed by the administration. Quarles likely would assume the role vacated by Daniel Tarullo to oversee the nation's banking system. White House officials did not respond to a CNBC request for comment. Should Trump nominate the two men and they receive confirmation, it will represent...

Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Neel Kashkari on Wednesday said he sees continued sluggish growth ahead for the U.S. economy, unless lawmakers and the president “get going” on policies to boost productivity and population. Kashkari, who was a senior Treasury official under George W. Bush during the financial crisis, avoided direct comment on the policies or person of newly elected U.S. President Donald Trump, a Republican who campaigned on the promise of cutting taxes and lifting economic growth, or the Republican-controlled Congress. “The Congress has said to the Fed we are going to leave you alone to set monetary policy...

The New York Sun announced it is endorsing Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)97% in the Republican primary Tuesday. According to the Sun: It hasn’t been our normal practice to endorse in the primaries, but this year the vote, set for Tuesday, will take on outsized importance as we career toward a contested convention. The junior senator from Texas has emerged from a crowded field by dint of his fidelity to principles — limited, constitutional government, sound money, free markets, and a strong foreign policy — that couldn’t be at higher premium. They are the true New York Values. Regardless of the...

Yellen has inherited a complete nightmare. Thursday’s decision to delay yet again the long-awaited liftoff from zero interest rates is illustrating that the world economy is totally screwed. There is a lot of speculation about why the Fed seems so reluctant to “normalize monetary policy”. There are of course the typical domestic issues that there is low inflation, weak wage gains in the face of strong job growth, a hike will increase the Federal deficit and then there is the argument that corporations that now have $12.5 trillion in debt. All that is nice, but with corporate debt, our clients...

NEW YORK, August 24, 2015 — Global Finance magazine has named the heads of the Central Banks of the Czech Republic, the European Union, India, Israel, Malaysia, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, and Taiwan as the World’s Best Central Bankers over the past year, in recognition of their achievement of a prestigious “A” grade on Global Finance’s Central Banker Report Cards. August 24, 2015 In addition, the Central Bankers of Colombia, Saudi Arabia and the United States earned “A-” grades. The Central Banker Report Cards, published annually by Global Finance since 1994, grade the central bank governors of nearly 75 key...

America’s government has gradually watered down its economic data over time, thereby painting a rosier picture of conditions on the ground than actually exists. Consulting economist John Williams has dedicated his life in fact to exposing its manipulation of economic data and backing into the real numbers. But you will know when America has really hit full on panic mode when the feds stop printing figures altogether, and the only way to measure price inflation is through tracking the daily price increase of say, cronuts, or some other confection. This is the position sadly but all-too-predictably in which Venezuela finds...

On Tuesday, August 11, China began devaluing its currency unit, the yuan against the U.S. dollar. Later that day, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump denounced China, saying: "I think you have to do something to rein in China. They devalued their currency today. They're making it absolutely impossible for the United States to compete, and nobody does anything." For a candidate whose pitch is based upon being smarter than everyone else, Trump has taken a spectacularly stupid position with respect to China-not just economically, but politically. After all, it was less than three years ago that Mitt Romney threw away...

According to last Saturday's Wall Street Journal, "North Korea is making time for itself - literally." Apparently the country's leadership has decided that clocks will be moved back 30 minutes to reflect "Pyongyang time." Let the laughter from the developed parts of the world begin as this most backwards of nations attempts to redefine time; the sun and planet earth be damned. But is our smirking countenance truly warranted? Please read on. As is well known now, China's monetary authorities announced a planned 1.9% reduction in the value of the yuan on Tuesday. Some see the latter as big news,...

When we look back from 2025, it will be painfully obvious that central bank policies exacerbated the systemic crises that brought down the global financialization machine. What with all the praise being heaped on central banks for "saving" the world from economic doomsday in 2008, it's only natural to ask which structural problems their unprecedented policies solved in the past 6 years. After all, "saving" the world from financial collapse was relatively quick work; so what problems beyond imminent implosion did the central banks policies solve in the past 6 years? Answer: none. zip, zero, nada. The truth is central bank policies...

Sen. Rand Paul isn't happy that the Federal Reserve is mobilizing against his legislation that would subject the central bank's monetary policy decisions to an audit. "It is alarming that the Federal Reserve, which was granted Monopoly money-making power, is now specifically trying to stop my legislation," the Kentucky Republican wrote in a column published by the conservative publication Breitbart Tuesday. "The Fed, with unlimited ability to print money, now prints that money to lobby against congressional oversight," Paul added. "It is a disgrace and every citizen in the land should rise up and say: We the people are in...

Last Friday, the latest consumer credit results for December were released showing an overall increase of $14.7 billion against the consensus estimate of $15 billion. While non-revolving credit, which consist mostly of student and auto loan debt, came in at $8.98 billion, the pace of growth slowed considerably. Overall, the fourth quarter 5.4% increase was the slowest pace since Q4-2013.It’s backwards looking, but points to sentiment shifts for this year. The $5.8 billion increases in credit card debt were the largest since April, underscoring what we heard from credit card companies. The idea that consumers are spending again is critical...