Free Republic

There's a lot of economic anxiety in America today, so it's no surprise that the Federal Reserve has discovered substantial pessimism about Americans' own personal financial situation. The Feds most recent survey shows that 1/3 of Americans believe themselves to be worse off 5 years after the recession ended.Wall Street Journal: More American households say they are worse off  rather than better five years after the recession, a new Federal Reserve survey found. The report, released for the first time on Thursday, found 34% of households said they were “somewhat worse” or “much worse” financially in 2013 compared to 2008....

German investors are feeling the pain of escalating tensions with Russia that may have already pushed Europe's largest economy into reverse... ....Europe, the U.S. and other Western nations have issued increasingly tough sanctions against Russia over its role in destabilizing parts of Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin responded this week by banning various food imports from the U.S., Europe, Australia, Canada and Norway. Several companies have already warned of damage to come, and economic data have soured as businesses postpone big spending decisions. Germany is Russia's biggest trading partner in Europe and thus has most to lose. Now Russian leaders...

Since the media has spent the last six years ignoring the decline of the American workforce, and writing comically lunkheaded propaganda stories about how the unemployment picture “improved” when it was actually people giving up altogether and dropping out of the game, it seems appropriate to switch gears and applaud the small signs of life.... it has absolutely nothing to do with some mythical “recovery” finally chugging to life as Obamanomics suddenly starts working, after six years of failure and trillions of dollars spent. It’s because extended unemployment benefits were not renewed.

<p>Not only is the American population aging, businesses in the U.S. also are growing older.</p> <p>Older firms are increasingly controlling the largest market share in different sectors of the economy, according to a paper by the Brooking Institution’s Robert E. Litan and Ennsyte Economics’s Ian Hathaway. By 2011, the portion of U.S. businesses aged at least 16 years reached 34%, compared to 23% in 1992. Moreover, those mature companies went from employing only 60% of private-sector workers in 1992 to employing nearly three quarters of the private-sector labor force in 2011.</p>

The high-rise at 500 N. Lake Shore Drive is the second-most expensive in the city, with rents for a one-bedroom apartment approaching $3,000 a month, well beyond the reach of most Chicago residents. But that's not too much for the Chicago Housing Authority, which has used federal tax dollars to pick up most of the tab for four lucky residents in the year-old building, with its sweeping views of Lake Michigan, a concierge and a dog-grooming center. The tenants moved in over the past two years as part of a push by the CHA to expand its housing voucher program...

On July 3, 2008, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama infamously called President George W. Bush “unpatriotic,” and his polices “irresponsible” for adding $4 Trillion to the country's "credit card." This was almost more than all other US presidents combined, he argued, and therefore was putting America on a dangerous path to fiscal insolvency. Less than six years into his own administration, however, the president has failed to reverse the untenable course set by his predecessor; and, indeed, is making America's heavy debt burden even worse. CNS News reports: The total federal debt of the U.S. government has now increased more than...

For the first time ever, the average price for a kilowatthour (KWH) of electricity in the United States has broken through the 14-cent mark, climbing to a record 14.3 cents in June. ... Back in June 1984, the seasonally adjusted price index for electricity was 103.9—less than half what it was in June 2014. Electricity prices have not always risen in the United States. The BLS has published an annual electricity price index dating back to 1913. It shows that from that year through 1947, the price of electricity in the United States generally trended down, with the index dropping...

The job market is still not the greatest, but we just got one hopeful sign that it might be improving a bit. The economy added 209,000 jobs in July, and the unemployment rate ticked up to 6.2 percent from 6.1 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday. Believe it or not, both of those numbers are encouraging. The reason the first number is encouraging is because, duh, jobs. The encouraging part of the second number, the unemployment rate, is less obvious. Normally, higher unemployment is bad news, and people seeing HIGHER UNEMPLOYMENT on the evening news tonight will naturally...

One week after falling to a 14-year low, the number of people who applied for U.S. unemployment benefits rose sharply last week but remained near a postrecession bottom. Initial jobless claims climbed by 23,000 to 302,000 in the seven days ended July 26, retracing the entire decline in prior week, according to Labor Department data . The level of claims was in line with Wall Street expectations.

In the early-1990s, political Washington moved to change the nature of the CPI. The contention was that the CPI overstated inflation (it did not allow substitution of less-expensive hamburger for more-expensive steak). Both sides of the aisle and the financial media touted the benefits of a “more-accurate” CPI, one that would allow the substitution of goods and services. The plan was to reduce cost of living adjustments for government payments to Social Security recipients, etc. The cuts in reported inflation were an effort to reduce the federal deficit without anyone in Congress having to do the politically impossible: to vote...

US home construction fell 9.3 per cent in June, a surprising sign of weakness for a sector that has struggled to maintain momentum over the past year. Housing starts sank last month to a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 893,000, the weakest showing since September 2013, the Commerce Department said Thursday. It was the second-straight monthly drop....

Picture of graph only.

(Reuters) - The U.S. economy contracted at a much steeper pace in the first quarter than previously estimated, turning in one of its worst-ever non-recession performances, but growth already appears to have rebounded strongly. The economy was held back by an unusually cold winter, the expiration of long-term unemployment benefits and cuts to food stamps, which curbed consumer spending. It was also weighed down by a slowdown in the pace of restocking by businesses. All these temporary factors have since faded, lifting growth early in the second quarter.

Now that the third revision to gross domestic product is in, we can make a back-of-the-envelope calculation of just how much the unusually cold winter cost the U.S. economy. But obviously, the contraction wasn’t all weather. So, how much? MarketWatch put that question to Gus Faucher-Wanker, senior economist at PNC. “My sense is that, in terms of contraction, more than half was due to the weather. I don’t think it had much of an impact on trade, didn’t have much to do with government, but I do think [the weather impacted] the weaker consumer spending, the drag from inventories, and...

Today, at a White House roundtable on impact investing, senior Administration officials met with more than 20 private-sector investors answering the President’s call to action. President Obama has described this as an “all hands on deck” moment that requires all of us to pull together to create the change we seek. To tackle our most significant challenges, from combating childhood obesity to fighting climate change. Building on President Obama’s year of action using his pen and phone, the Administration will take a number of significant steps to encourage even more investors, foundations, businesses, and entrepreneurs to embrace this model. This...

The U.S. economy shrank in the first quarter of the year, and new revisions by the Bureau of Economic Analysis show the decline was even deeper than reported. Gross domestic product contracted at a 2.9% annual. That's the weakest quarter for the U.S. economy since the first quarter of 2009, amid the Great Recession. But economists aren't too worried, for three key reasons. 1) They blame the weather. 2) It's not a final number. 3) Last, but certainly not least, other data show the economy is improving.

Have you noticed that prices are going up rapidly? If so, you are certainly not alone. But Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, the Obama administration and the mainstream media would have us believe that inflation is completely under control and exactly where it should be. Perhaps if the highly manipulated numbers that they quote us were real, everything would be fine. But of course the way that the inflation rate is calculated has been changed more than 20 times since the 1970s, and at this point it bears so little relation to reality that it is essentially meaningless. Anyone that...

The electricity price index and the average price for a kilowatthour (KWH) of electricity both hit records for May, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average price for a KWH hit 13.6 cents during the month, up about 3.8 percent from 13.1 cents in May 2013. The seasonally adjusted electricity price index rose from 201.431 in May 2013 to 208.655 in May 2014—an increase of about 3.6 percent. ... Per capita production of electricity in the United States peaked in 2007. Since then it has generally been on downward trend. In 2013, the U.S....

The seasonally-adjusted price index for meats, poultry, fish, and eggs hit an all-time high in May, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). In January 1967, when the BLS started tracking this measure, the index for meats, poultry, fish, and eggs was 38.1. As of last May, it was 234.572. By this January, it hit 240.006. By April, it hit 249.362. And, in May, it climbed to a record 252.832.

Hey, young adults, living at home with Mom and Dad isn’t the end of the world — if you follow the right advice. As it goes, reports the U.K.’s Daily Mail, nearly 30 percent of adults under age 35 are living at home with their parents. Why? Well, the economy continues to sputter along, producing few entry-level jobs that allow young college graduates to get their careers underway. And thanks to soaring tuition costs, there is the record amount of college-loan debt that young people are carrying. Nearly 37 million young Americans owe more than $1 trillion in student-loan debt...