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On Monday, Bret Stephens wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal called “Doomed to Stagnate.” The article was predicated on a little-known annual survey by the World Bank known as “Doing Business,” a document that ranks the business climate of nearly every nation around the world. Most Americans might expect the largest capitalist economy in the world, the United States, to lead the pack — but they’d be wrong. In fact, most Americans might be surprised to learn that not only are we not on top, but we have become less economically competitive in the world since Obama took...

No fiction peddling will be allowed at Obama's speech taking place in Elkhart right now, where the president is delivering his well-oiled sermon on how "the economy is better off now than at the start" of his presidency.... Just ignore the facts.

Initial estimates of positive economic growth in the first quarter of 2015 have now turned negative. The U.S. economy actually shrank in the first quarter of 2015 as real gross domestic product (GDP) declined at an annual rate of 0.7 percent, according to the Obama administration’s second look at the numbers. The 0.7 percent decline in first-quarter real GDP was revised from the previously reported gain of 0.2 percent, which was the advance estimate put out at the end of April by the Commerce Department and the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Real GDP is adjusted for inflation and represents...

We're about to get some terrible news about the US economy. Sort of. On Friday morning at 8:30 a.m. ET, the Bureau of Economic Analysis will release its second estimate of first quarter GDP, which is expected to show the economy contracted 0.8% in the first quarter. The initial reading on first quarter GDP, released on April 29, showed the economy grew just 0.2%. Ahead of that report, Wall Street expected the economy grew 1% to start 2015. Subsequent data, however, showed that the economy was likely even weaker than first estimated to start the year. Some economists, however, either...

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Frank Walsh still pays dues to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, but more than four years have passed since his name was called at the union hall where the few available jobs are distributed. Mr. Walsh, his wife and two children live on her part-time income and a small inheritance from his mother, which is running out. Sitting in the food court at a mall near his Maryland home, he sees some of the restaurants are hiring. He says he can’t wait much longer to find a job. But he’s not ready yet. “I’d work for...

In a conference call today, President Barack Obama endorsed Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) in her bid to win her Senate seat, which she has held for more than a decade, against Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-LA). The endorsement will most likely serve as a burden for Landrieu, rather than an asset, as a majority of Louisiana voters do not approve of Obama’s agenda and the way he has handled Obamacare or the economy. Landrieu has spent her entire re-election avoiding Obama and his policies, which she has largely supported. Exit polling in the November Senate race, showed that there are 5...

Speaking to a mostly white college audience: "“This progress has been hard but it has been steady and it has been real,” Obama said at Northwestern University on Oct. 2. “And it’s the direct result of the American people’s drive and their determination and their resilience, and it’s also the result of sound decisions made by my administration. So it is indisputable that our economy is stronger today than when I took office.” Obama griped to party donors several days later that his accomplishments are a mystery even to his most loyal supporters. “Most of you don’t know the statistics...

America is so over Obama. In 2008, the media and a majority of the voters were head-over-heels in love with the man who told them that “yes, we can” overcome war and recession.

Dressing up like Wolverine or Cersei Lannister is probably more fun than scouring the classifieds for menial jobs. Imagine you're a college graduate stuck in a perpetually lousy economy. That's a problem Japanese twenty-somethings have faced for more than 20 years. Two decades of stagnation after the collapse of the 1980s real-estate and stock bubbles — combined with labor laws making it tough to fire older workers — have relegated vast numbers of Japanese young adults to low-paying, temporary contract jobs. Many find themselves living with their parents well into their twenties and beyond, unmarried and childless. Then again, they...

Count yourself fortunate, or something, if you’re among the 48 percent of Americans who can cough up a spare $400 in emergency cash without having to beg, borrow or steal. According to a Federal Reserve report on American households’ “economic well-being” in 2013, fewer than half of all Americans said they’d be able to come up with four Benjamins on short notice to deal with an unexpected expense. The report, released last week by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, indicates a disparity between how Americans view their financial situation and the reality of where their finances actually...

(CNSNews.com) – The average price for all types of ground beef per pound hit its all-time high -- $3.884 per pound -- in the United States in July, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). That was up from $3.880 per pound in June. A year ago, in July 2013, the average price for a pound of ground beef was $3.459 per pound. Since then, the average price for a pound of ground beef has gone up 42.1 cents--or about 12 percent. Five years ago, in July 2009, the average price for a pound of...

On the Wednesday conference call [1] following the release of the ADP’s December National Employment Report [2] on private-sector hiring, Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, the firm primarily responsible for the report’s preparation, told attendees: “It feels like the job market has kicked into a higher gear.”It’s hard to blame Zandi for wanting this to happen. After what he described as a lot of “false starts” in the past four and a half years since the recession officially ended, who doesn’t want to see some better employment news?ADP’s report showed that private firms added 238,000 jobs. Though...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sat in an elegant room in the Capitol on Monday afternoon, knowing that the body he leads was in imminent danger of a partisan meltdown. A bitter dispute was still raging over a seemingly simple task—the confirmation of presidential nominees. The crisis led him to muse about the broader consequences of what sometimes appears to be permanent congressional dysfunction. "When I ran the first time, the approval rating of Congress was at 45%," said Sen. Reid, who came to Washington from his home state of Nevada three decades ago. "Now it's at 10%. In all...

Did you know that U.S. banks have more than 1.8 trillion dollars parked at the Federal Reserve and that the Fed is actually paying them not to lend that money to us? We were always told that the goal of quantitative easing was to "help the economy", but the truth is that the vast majority of the money that the Fed has created through quantitative easing has not even gotten into the system. Instead, most of it is sitting at the Fed slowly earning interest for the bankers. Back in October 2008, just as the last financial crisis was starting,...

A lot of things that have not happened since the last recession are starting to happen again. As you read the list below, you will notice that the year "2009" comes up again and again. There is a reason for that. Many of the same patterns that we witnessed during the last major economic downturn are starting to repeat themselves. In fact, many of the things that are happening right now have not happened in quite a few years. For example, manufacturing activity in the U.S. has contracted for the first time in four years. The inventory to sales ratio...

Republicans accused the White House of having selective amnesia Wednesday after President Obama's top spokesman blamed Republicans for an unexpectedly dismal GDP report that showed the economy contracting in the fourth quarter. The White House had suggested GOP willingness to let sweeping defense cuts take effect was the culprit -- but an aide to House Speaker John Boehner quickly reminded Democrats that Republicans have tried to stop those cuts. "These arbitrary, automatic cuts were a creation and demand of the White House in 2011," Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said. "Twice the House has passed legislation to replace them with common...

A new study from the Congressional Budget Office starts with the scariest graph you’ll see today. Source: Congressional Budget Office In other words, you’re not imagining it: This economic recovery has been a big disappointment relative to what the United States has usually experienced after a recession. Growth has been 9 percent below what was seen in past recoveries on average in its first three years. The CBO report tries to disentangle where that underperformance is coming from and its answer is deeply unsettling: The U.S. economy just isn’t as good at growing as it used to be. The new...

FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) -- President Barack Obama has a diagnosis for what he considers rival Mitt Romney's shifting positions: Call it a case of "Romnesia." Making a direct gender-pitch in hotly contested Virginia, Obama tells a college crowd that when it comes to issues important to women's health and jobs, Romney has conveniently overlooked his past stands.

Carter had the Misery Index... Hoover had Hooverville's I am officially coining the term OBAMALAISE! If it already exists, my apologies, but haven't heard it before so have at it social media.. lets tweet Vote for Romney and get out of the #Obamalaise. "Big Bird and Binders won't get us out of the Obamalaise we are in."

To give you an idea how bad the jobs report released on Friday is, consider this fact: The employment situation in the country is so bad that economists can’t accurately measure it with the existing tools they use to measure jobs. In other words, we have entered a period in our country not contemplated by economists. They simply don’t have the tools to measure what’s actually occurring in the jobs market. Modern economists never imagined a scenario in which a country with as much wealth, power and innovation as United States could stretch out a jobs recession as long as...