Free Republic

Currently economists and market watchers roughly fall into two camps: Those who believe that the Federal Reserve must begin raising interest rates now so that it will have enough rate cutting firepower to fight the next recession, and those who believe that raising rates now will simply precipitate an immediate recession and force the Fed into battle without the tools it has traditionally used to stimulate growth. Both camps are delusional, but for different reasons. Most mainstream analysts believe that the current economy can survive with more normalized rates and that the Fed's timidity is unwarranted. These people just haven't...

<p>Bank of America has a recession warning that's downright 'scary'</p> <p>There's a chilling trend in the market, and it could wreak havoc on your portfolio, a top market watcher said.</p> <p>"We are seven years into a full-fledged, all out, central bankers doing everything they can to stimulate demand," Bank of America-Merrill Lynch's head of U.S. equity and quantitative strategy Savita Subramanian recently warned on CNBC's " Fast Money ."</p>

The U.S. economy didn’t pick up much speed in the third quarter. The U.S. economy got off to a roaring start in the third quarter, statistically speaking, but the glow has clearly faded. The Atlanta Federal Reserve’s GDPNow chopped its forecast for U.S. growth to 2.2%... ...source of the reduced performance? Retail sales, consumer spending, manufacturing and construction were all weaker than expected toward the end of the quarter. Now, 2.2% growth isn’t terrible... ...Still, such a modest growth rate assures the U.S. economy will fail to reach the 3% mark for an unprecedented 11th straight year. The last time...

Julian Robertson, the legendary hedge fund manager behind Tiger Management, thinks central banks are fueling bubbles throughout financial markets. "We don't have negative rates here in the States yet, but I think it's tragic that we've taken rates down this far," Robertson said this week at Bloomberg's Surveillance Primetime event. "I know the Federal Reserves all over the world are trying to ensure prosperity, but in doing so I think they are ensuring a huge bubble, which will be pricked, and we will all be hurt by it." Negative and near-zero interest rates from central banks have allowed increased borrowing......

On the debate stage Monday night, Hillary Clinton smugly repeated the big lie that Democrats have been telling with something close to impunity since 2008. “We had the worst financial crisis, the Great Recession, the worst since the 1930s,” said Hillary. “That was in large part because of tax policies that slashed taxes on the wealthy, failed to invest in the middle class, took their eyes off of Wall Street, and created a perfect storm.”

Debt terrifies people but the paradox of macro-economics is that sometimes borrowing even more is the best way out Credit: Jon Elswick An ominous paper by the US Federal Reserve has become the hottest document in high finance. It was intended to reassure us that the world's hegemonic central bank still has ample firepower to overcome the next downturn. But the author was too honest. He has instead set off an agitated debate, and rattled a lot of nerves. ... ...federal debt is already 105pc of GDP - up from 54pc... ...nagging question is what happens at the onset of...

The number of announced layoffs by U.S.-based companies fell in August to the lowest level since May, global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported Thursday. U.S. employers announced they planned to hand out 32,188 pink slips last month, a 29 percent decline from July. The August total was also 22 percent below the number of job cuts at this time last year. The computer sector was the biggest job-cutter, with Cisco Systems accounting for most of its 6,103 payroll reductions. The maker of networking equipment announced it would let go 5,500 employees last month.

If Republican nominee and real estate billionaire mogul Donald Trump pulls out an impossible victory against Hillary Clinton in November then prepare yourself for a global recession. This is the latest warning from Citigroup. The financial institution believes that markets would enter into chaos and the global economy would collapse because of policy uncertainty. Here is what Citi Chief Economist Willem Buiter opines (courtesy of Bloomberg): “A Trump victory in particular could prolong and perhaps exacerbate policy uncertainty and deliver a shock (though perhaps short-lived) to financial markets. Tightening financial conditions and further rises in uncertainty could trigger a significant...

1. The economy is merely “trudging along” at stall speed, so stocks are vulnerable This misperception is forgivable, given that U.S. GDP growth came in at around 1% for the first and second quarters. But to really understand the economy, you have to drill down on a lot more numbers than just GDP. And when you do so, the weak GDP numbers seem fishy. They just don’t jibe... * Employment growth is strong ... * Loan growth is robust... * Wage growth is solid. * Consumer spending is strong... The upshot? “Concern over the economy’s performance is running high, but...

Should we be worried if the stock market doesn’t seem to be? We get the oddest mixed signals from the economy sometimes, don’t we? In recent months, we have learned of 95 Ruby Tuesday restaurants that will be shutting their doors… and that Macy’s will be closing a hundred department stores… and that 255 Hancock Fabric stores will be closing… and that Sports Authority will close virtually all 450 of its locations… the list goes on and on. Every week, there’s another such announcement, and yet the Dow Jones Industrial Average keeps setting record highs. And so, some of us...

Poor Hillary Clinton. She's trying so fervently to come up with at least one new and inspiring idea to jump-start a moribund economy and help the financially stressed middle class. But the left's idea cupboard is empty. They have nothing to offer except: tax; spend; spin; hit the button again. So in her speech on Thursday on the economy, she proposed last week's leftover cold porridge. And it doesn't taste any better today than when President Obama first served it up. Clinton touted her proposed jobs program, which she has said she will launch "in (her) first 100 days (in...

DOUBLING DOWN ON RECESSION The United States economy had its last severe turn for the worse in November of 2006, when Nancy Pelosi’s Democrats won their majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. The country immediately dipped into recession, which Barack Obama’s election two years later locked in for good. Historically, recessions are followed by economic growth, including heavy GDP increases and sufficient job creation to rehire people who lost their jobs in the last recession. The Obama administration expected the same to happen this time, apparently not realizing that their policies made it impossible. We have therefore seen an...

Jul 29, 2016 John Mauldin The next recession is coming, and it will be severe. My friend Ed Easterling of Crestmont Research just updated his Economic Cycle Dashboard and sent me a personal email with some of his thoughts. Here is his chart (click on it to see a larger version). The current expansion is the fourth longest since 1954… but also the weakest. Since 1950, average annual GDP growth in recovery periods has been 4.3%. This time, average GDP growth has been only 2.1% for the seven years following the Great Recession. That means the economy has grown a...

Hillary Clinton has made clear she intends to dramatically raise taxes on the American people if elected. She has proposed an income tax increase, a business tax increase, a death tax increase, a capital gains tax increase, a tax on stock trading, and an Exit Tax, and more (see below). Her planned net tax increase on the American people is at least $1 trillion over ten years, based on her campaign’s own figures. Hillary has endorsed many tax increases on that would hit middle income Americans, despite her pledge not to raise taxes on any American making less than $250,000....

Most people are convinced that the government is a drag on the economy, that it should not be allowed to spend any more money. They believe that we’ve spent far too much as it is. Therefore, they believe we must pay for our sins and spend less. It’ll be tough for a few years, they admit. But soon we’ll be back in the laissez-faire garden of Eden. That argument is dangerously wrong. It’s like someone taking a hot air balloon high up in the sky, then suddenly panicking because he’s too high. So he decides to turn off the hot...

Michael Snyder June 23rd, 2016 When less stuff is being bought, sold and shipped around the country with each passing month, how in the world can the U.S. economy be in “good shape”? Unlike official government statistics which are often based largely on projections, assumptions and numbers seemingly made up out of thin air, the Cass Freight index is based on real transactions conducted by real shipping companies. And what the Cass Freight Index is telling us about the state of the U.S. economy in 2016 lines up perfectly with all of the other statistics that are clearly indicating that...

Jun 21, 2016 Harry_Dent We all know the situation in the markets is dire. Like, really, everyone knows. There’s an old phrase from Margaret Thatcher’s day (and mine, I suppose) that has recently come back into use: There is no alternative. There’s even an acronym: TINA. There is no alternative example of a campaign advertising material of the CDU for the 1994 election for the Landtag of Thuringia. That’s quaint, and all, but this meatily numbered piece shows the heart of what that phrase means. There is no alternative, the markets will correct. They have to, regardless of how hard...

Like a crazed serial killer, the liberal green groups are celebrating their “victory” of putting America’s major coal producers out of business — to say nothing of the tens of thousands of miners placed in unemployment lines. Several thousand more mining jobs were lost last month. Now to get their next homicidal high, the leftists have turned their ambitions on the oil and natural gas industries. Here is how the Sierra Club spokeswoman, Lena Moffit, explains the grand, green vision: “We have moved to a very clear and firm and vehement position of opposing gas. We oppose any new gas-fired...

<p>Suppose you are advising Hillary Clinton, now the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. What worries you? Well, probably the stubbornness of Bernie Sanders, who won’t admit he’s lost. And, of course, the unpredictability of Donald Trump, whose outlandish pronouncements defy conventional political wisdom.</p>

f Donald Trump's presidential campaign were functional, this would be Economy Week for Team Trump. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee and his surrogates would be wielding the disappointing May jobs report as a cudgel to bash the lackluster "Obama-Clinton" recovery. After all, polls say jobs and the economy remain voters' biggest concern. And it's an issue in which Trump has a big lead over Clinton. A new Gallup poll gives the famed businessman a 10-point edge on "the economy" and a seven-point lead on "employment and jobs." But Trump isn't talking about the economy. Instead, he's attacking the Mexican heritage...