Free Republic

U.S. orders for long-lasting goods such as heavy machinery or airplanes fell in September for the second month in a row, offering little evidence that manufacturers are ready to rebound after a prolonged bout of softness. Durable-goods orders fell a fell a seasonally adjusted 1.2% in September following an even sharper 3% decline in the prior month, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. Previously the government had said orders dropped 2.3% in August.

As this is championship season in sports (yes, it’s always championship season for some sport), let’s begin our discussion with a sports analogy. Over the course of a game, we have seen our beloved Home team riddled with injuries. Our star players have been physically and emotionally clobbered, as the Visitors have used every tool at their disposal against us, regardless of the rule book. They tripped and tackled our starters, given us two broken legs and three broken arms, driving five of our best out of the game. Kicking our boys during time outs, shooting darts from dart guns,...

During HSBC's Global Investment Seminar in New York this week, Harvard professor and economist Larry Summers brought up secular stagnation. In 2013, Summers revived the phrase, which, over time, has come to mean all sorts of things to different people. But at its core, secular stagnation refers to a global economy growing at a slow rate because there is too much saving and not enough investment. And right now, a lot of savings (and other monies) are heading out of emerging markets and into the developed world. "I would suggest that the defining financial development of the last year is...

When the global economy is doing well, the amount of stuff that is imported and exported around the world goes up, and when the global economy is in recession, the amount of stuff that is imported and exported around the world goes down. It is just basic economics. Governments around the world have become very adept at manipulating other measures of economic activity such as GDP, but the trade numbers are more difficult to fudge. Today, China accounts for more global trade than anyone else on the entire planet, and we have just learned that Chinese exports and Chinese imports...

The biggest bank in the western world has just come out and declared that the global economy is “already in a recession”. According to British banking giant HSBC, global trade is down 8.4 percent so far this year, and global GDP expressed in U.S. dollars is down 3.4 percent. So those that are waiting for the next worldwide economic recession to begin can stop waiting. It is officially here. As you will see below, money is fleeing emerging markets at a blistering pace, major global banks are stuck with huge loans that will never be repaid, and it looks like...

Everybody knows that “greedy bankers” were to blame for the Crash of 2008. The Democrats and their willing accomplices told us that years ago and they are sticking to their story. But there is another suspect that ought to be right in the dock along with the bankers. Its mild-mannered name is “agency debt.” It’s the debt of federal agencies and government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that is not included in the National Debt. In other words, when you go to the U.S. Treasury’s Debt to the Penny page, and find that on September 27, 2015 the debt was $18,151,073,031,331.50 you...

THE PHILIPPINES appears least vulnerable to major risks that could darken the economic growth outlook and affect the sovereign credit scores of emerging markets, debt watcher Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services said in a new report. In a Sept. 29 report, titled: “Who’s at Risk? Emerging Market Sovereigns are Facing Adverse Global Trends,” S&P cited three risks on the growth prospects of 22 emerging economies: capital outflows from developing to advanced markets once the Federal Reserve hikes interest rates, unwinding of domestic credit built up in recent years and China’s economic growth slowdown. Among 22 markets it assessed, the Philippines...

You would think that the simultaneous crashing of all of the largest stock markets around the world would be very big news. But so far, mainstream media in the United States are treating it like it isn't really a big deal.Over the last 60 days, we have witnessed the most significant global stock market decline since fall 2008, and yet most people still seem to think that this is just a temporary "bump in the road" and that the bull market will soon resume. Hopefully they are right.When the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 777 points on Sept. 29, 2008,...

Marc Ambinder, writing at The Week, seems to have taken the next leap in the evolution of American politics this season and – at least as an exercise in theory – asked us to consider what a Trump presidency would look like. While the primary could still play out in any number of interesting ways, it seems well past the point where such a future can be entirely written off so Marc isn’t submitting this to some science fiction outlet. It’s true that supporters of the more “conventional” candidates could all coalesce around one Anti-Trump over the fall and winter...

My 22-year-old son lives at home and still depends on his old man for spending money. My profoundest fear is that like Will Ferrell's character in "Wedding Crashers," he will never leave the nest. I'm not alone. There are some 20 million college grads living at home. A 2014 study reported by CNNMoney found that half of kids who are two years out of college rely on their parents to pay some or all of their bills. It's the new normal for 20-somethings. Gee, parents sure are getting a great financial return on the $150,000 they've shelled out for...

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Having staked his reputation on strong economic management, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has decided that the best way to win re-election when the headlines say recession is to convince the country it is no longer in one. Tuesday brought the worst kind of news for a prime minister campaigning for a rare fourth term in office: government data that confirmed Canada's economy contracted for the second quarter in a row, the technical definition of recession. But Harper shrugged off the data from the first half of the year, saying Canada had a "couple of weak months,"...

What is the topic that dominates today conversations in financial circles? “It isn’t Greece, or the U.S. economy, or China…It is the lack of liquidity in the markets and what this might mean for the world economy—and their businesses. Market veterans say they have never experienced anything like it.

Did you see what just happened? The devaluation of the yuan by China triggered the largest one day drop for that currency in the modern era. This caused other global currencies to crash relative to the U.S. dollar, the price of oil hit a six year low, and stock markets all over the world were rattled. The Dow fell 212 points on Tuesday, and Apple stock plummeted another 5 percent. As we hurtle toward the absolutely critical months of September and October, the unraveling of the global financial system is beginning to accelerate. At this point, it is not...

Democrats and the media insist the Community Reinvestment Act, the anti-redlining law beefed up by President Clinton, had nothing to do with the subprime mortgage crisis and recession. But a new study by the respected National Bureau of Economic Research finds, "Yes, it did. We find that adherence to that act led to riskier lending by banks." Added NBER: "There is a clear pattern of increased defaults for loans made by these banks in quarters around the (CRA) exam. Moreover, the effects are larger for loans made within CRA tracts," or predominantly low-income and minority areas. To satisfy CRA examiners,...

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...

Canada is in recession. Canadian GDP unexpectedly fell 0.2% in May. This was worse than the 0.0% expected by economists. "The economy has contracted in 6 out of the last 7 months," BNP's Derek Lindsay noted. The resource rich economy has felt the crushing pain of falling commodity prices as global demand for raw materials has decelerated. And relief doesn't seem to be coming any time soon. "We continue to see falling commodities prices weighing heavily on the economy, with mining, utilities, and manufacturing presenting biggest drags on the goods side," Lindsay said. And this probably means more easy monetary...

(Reuters) - Procter & Gamble Co (PG.N) reported its sixth straight quarter of falling sales, hurt mainly by the stronger dollar. Even after stripping out the impact of the dollar and acquisitions, sales rose just 1 percent, raising concerns about the slow pace at which P&G is turning around its business. The company's shares fell as much as 4.3 percent in morning trading on Thursday, after it said sales would fall by a low-to-mid single-digit percentage in the year ending June 2016.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. economy grew more slowly over the past three years than the government had previously estimated, held back by more frugal consumers and steeper spending cuts by state and local governments. Related Stories 1. US economy likely rebounded to solid growth rate in spring Associated Press 2. China’s Stocks Drop for Second Day Before Economic Growth Data Bloomberg 3. Services, Finance and Oil Drive U.K. Growth to 0.7% Bloomberg 4. China June exports up 2.8 percent, imports down 6.1 percent Associated Press 5. Singapore Economy Contracts Most Since 2012 on Manufacturing Bloomberg The economy expanded at...

With the rise of flexible working schedules, the freelance economy, and video conferencing, more Americans are getting their jobs done without ever heading into an office, according to new data from the American Time Use Survey released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Among all workers, 23% report spending all or part of their day working from home. That’s up from less than 19% in 2003, the first year for which there’s comparable data.

China's central bank cut lending rates for the fourth time since November and trimmed the amount of cash that some banks must hold as reserves, stepping up efforts to support an economy that is headed for its poorest performance in a quarter century. Saturday's combined easing highlights Beijing's concerns that money isn't flowing to some of the most-needed sectors in the economy and that stubbornly high borrowing costs that could fuel bankruptcies and job losses. The last time the central bank simultaneously cut interest rates and reserve requirements was at the height of the global financial crisis in late 2008....