Free Republic

Pittsburgh (CNN)Vice President Joe Biden warned on Monday that "something is wrong" with the American economy as he launched a Labor Day march here with speculation swirling that he may run for President. In a highly populist speech that could foreshadow the themes he would highlight on the campaign trail, Biden said workers have been "clobbered" in the modern economy. "It used to be when productivity went up in America, everybody got to share. The people who caused the productivity increase, they got to share. They got a piece of the action," Biden said before leading a march of an...

On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 588 points. It was the 8th worst single day stock market crash in U.S. history, and it was the first time that the Dow has ever fallen by more than 500 points on two consecutive days. But the amazing thing is that the Dow actually performed better than almost every other major global stock market on Monday. In the U.S., the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq both did worse than the Dow. In Europe, almost every major index performed significantly worse than the Dow. Over in Asia, Japanese stocks were down...

The public has been seemingly desperate for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates. "Savers are getting creamed here," has been a common refrain. "Banks are getting crushed." "Zero percent sends a bad message, it undermines confidence." Even the experts seem upset by the inertia: "It's simply time," has become another popular phrase. Imagine what would happen, then, if the Fed raised rates—and they dropped even lower, instead. That's effectively what's happening today. Even if the Fed hasn't raised interest rates, it has stopped lowering them, and it has stopped the balance-sheet expansion that replaced rate cuts once its target...

The U.S. manufacturing sector is once again under pressure as it continues to hover just above contraction level, according to the latest flash Purchasing Managers Index data. Friday, private research firm Markit said its August PMI estimate fell to a level of 52.9, compared to July’s final reading of 53.8. According to consensus reports, economists were expecting to see a reading at 53.9. According to the report, this is the lowest manufacturing reading since October 2013. ““With the headline PMI swiftly losing ground after a modest rebound during July, the latest figure now points to the weakest overall pace of...

Credit rating agency Standard & Poor's on Friday downgraded the credit rating of the United States, stripping the world's largest economy of its prized AAA status. In July, S&P placed the United States' rating on "CreditWatch with negative implications" as the debt ceiling debate devolved into partisan bickering. To avoid a downgrade, S&P said the United States needed to not only raise the debt ceiling, but also develop a "credible" plan to tackle the nation's long-term debt.

The Institute for Supply Management said its national factory activity index fell to 52.7 last month from a reading of 53.5 in June. A reading above 50 indicates expansion in the manufacturing sector. A gauge of new orders received by factories rose to a seven-month high, while inventories continued to decline. There was growth in 11 of the 18 manufacturing industries, including furniture, fabricated metal products, electrical equipment, appliances and components, and transportation equipment. Five industries including machinery reported that production had contracted in July. Manufacturing has been hobbled by a strong dollar, which has pressured the profits of multinational...

It began quietly enough. A talking head on television would say it’s unfair to expect the robust economic boom of the 90s again; we had the “peace dividend” to thank for it, and it’s not like the Soviet Union is going to fall again. Or a columnist reminds us of the invention of the modern computer in the early 80s, and then the arrival of the internet age in the 90s; such technological breakthroughs were a once-in-history occurrence; they’re responsible for the booms we remember, nothing else. Or some caller on the radio, aged and experienced, with opinions fortified by...

.S. Stocks declined mainly due to disappointing second results by many companies and negative news from markets overseas. The bleak future outlook from some of the companies also led to selloff in the markets. The turmoil in the Chinese market was also noted as an issue by many stock market analysts. Many companies performed better than Wall Street expectations including Google and Amazon. Investors were concerned about bleak outlook for future quarters by some of the companies. .. For S&P 500, healthcare stocks faced the tough time during the week. Nine out of ten major sectors on S&P 500 ended...

Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx on Friday said the government is investigating whether four airlines engaged in price gouging after a deadly Amtrak crash in Philadelphia in May disrupted rail service in the Northeast. The Transportation Department sent letters on Friday to Delta, American, Southwest and JetBlue requesting information. Prices on round-trip airline tickets between major cities such as New York City and Washington, D.C., skyrocketed in the wake of the deadly Amtrak derailment, which closed a major stretch of rail line and disrupted travel in one of....

since President Obama took office, the poverty rate among children has soared to 22 percent, with three million more children living in poor conditions, according to an authoritative new report released Tuesday. The 2015 "KIDS COUNT" report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation said that the percentage of children living in poverty jumped from 18 percent in 2008, the year Obama was elected, to 22 percent in 2013....

TIAA-CREF, a Fortune 100 financial-services organization that employs 12,500 workers in more than 100 local offices, announced a "special, one-time Voluntary Retirement Program" on Tuesday in a memo to its employees. The company is offering this "opportunity" to people age 50 and older who have at least 10 years' tenure at the company, or at least five years' tenure for those 55 and up. Eligible employees who choose to participate will receive unspecified financial incentives. We received a copy of the memo from an anonymous tip. TIAA-CREF confirmed the existence of the program and declined to comment further, emphasizing that...

The Supreme Court issued an important ruling last month when it reminded state and local governments that the Fair Housing Act of 1968 bars them from spending federal housing money in a manner that perpetuates racial segregation. Last week, the Obama administration took an even more important step — one that has already changed the decades-long discussion about how to combat residential segregation. It rewrote the rules under the provision of the act that requires state and local governments to “affirmatively further” housing goals by making real efforts to cope with the cumulative results of the discrimination that confined black...

The American Dream of a home is slipping out of reach for millions of Americans, especially African Americans, as house sales hit a 20-year low, according to a new Harvard University study of the U.S. housing market. Instead, house-poor Americans are shifting to rentals with such speed that many areas can barely keep up with demand. Overall, home ownership, the cornerstone of the American Dream, is down to 63 percent, a far cry from the 69 percent registered in 2004. The Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University's annual "State of the Nation's Housing" report said current home ownership...

Whether by economic necessity or by choice, as many as one-third of American workers now find themselves piecing together two, three or more on- demand opportunities to make a living. It's called The Gig Economy, or the Sharing Economy. Yet Washington mostly has remained on the sidelines as the U.S. economy, its workforce and the work place, have undergone perhaps the most dramatic transformation in decades. Senator Warner, a former business executive, is committed to bringing this conversation to Washington, working with his colleagues, stakeholders, and the growing “gig economy” workforce, to put forward practical solutions to keep up with...

President Obama's weekly remarks Hi, everybody. My top priority as President is to grow the economy and help more hardworking Americans get ahead. And after the worst economic crisis in our lifetimes, our businesses have now created 12.6 million new jobs over the past 63 months.

The economic recovery is really coming along great. For the third time since the expansion began in June 2009, the U.S. economy suffered a setback. Don’t call it a setback. It’s a strategic retreat. Those ‘optimistic’ estimates keep being revised. Such declines in GDP are rare in economic expansions, pointing to the fragile nature of the current rebound. The economy hasn’t contracted in three different quarters during good times since the 1950s. It’s the fault of the GOP. Also the weather. That’s the weakest reading since frigid winter temperatures derailed growth at the start of 2014. We can’t have an...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. economy went into reverse in the first three months of this year as a severe winter and a widening trade deficit took a harsher toll than initially estimated. The Commerce Department says the overall economy as measured by the gross domestic product contracted at an annual rate of 0.7 percent in the January-March period. The revised figure, even weaker than the government's initial estimate of a 0.2 percent growth rate, reflects a bigger trade gap and slower consumer spending. It marked the first decline since a 2.1 percent contraction in the first three months of...

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...

Yes, capitalism is working ... for the Forbes Global Billionaires whose ranks swelled from 322 in 2000 to 1,826 in 2015. Billionaires control the vast majority of the world’s wealth, 67 billionaires already own half the world’s assets; by 2100 we’ll have 11 trillionaires, while American worker income has stagnated for a generation. But for the vast majority of the world, capitalism is a failure. Over a billion live on less than two dollars a day. In his “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” economist Thomas Piketty warns the inequality gap is toxic, dangerous. As global population explodes from 7 billion...

According to the results, 60 percent of Americans believe the nation is on the wrong path. The Princeton Survey Research Associates International underlined that 52 percent of those who identified as Democrats, said they had a favorable view of socialism. 33 percent of Independents shared the view. Among other highlights of the survey, Obama's foreign policy is approved by only 37 percent of Americans and not even one in five like the job Congress is doing. Noteworthy, that fifty percent of Americans say they're open to allowing states to repeal federal laws if half or more of the states, representing...