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President Barack Obama is heading to Florida to tout the benefits of the massive economic stimulus bill he signed shortly after taking office seven years ago. Obama pumped more than $760 billion into a then-slumping economy beginning in early 2009 in a frantic effort to halt the worst economic downturn in generations. It was an unsettling period for many Americans as hundreds of thousands of jobs disappeared, unemployment climbed into double digits and home values plummeted. Obama will argue during a stop in Jacksonville on Friday that the country is on a more solid footing because of this and other...

The Bank of Japan is stepping up its efforts to kick-start the country's struggling economy by taking interest rates into negative territory. The central bank announced Friday that it will introduce an interest rate of minus 0.1% and will go even lower if needed. In theory, negative rates encourage consumers to save less and spend more. They can also weaken a country's currency, helping exporters. ...

Navy jet takes off from U.S.S. Ronald Reagan. (U.S. Navy photo) (CNSNews.com) – The Obama administration’s deal to buy 450,000 gallons of biofuel for Navy jets comes at a cost of up to nine times higher than regular fuel, a spokesman for Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said, coming at a time when the U.S. military is already facing deep budget cuts. Inhofe, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and former chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has supported biofuel projects in the past, but has problems with a program the U.S. Department of Agriculture...

There has been a big question mark about the sincerity of Donald Trump's views, given that he has spent 99% of his adult life supporting liberal positions, including amnesty for illegal aliens,and saying at one point that Hillary Clinton was a really good secretary of state.But he was said to be changed when he ran for president earlier this year. He spoke rousingly against illegal aliens and against Muslim immigration.But all of a sudden he has taken a leftward tack,perhaps figuring, erroneously,that this is the best way to outflank Ted Cruz. Trump has actually criticized Ted Cruz for failing to...

The European Union on Thursday predicted the region's economy will grow at "a modest pace" next year thanks to cheap energy and central bank stimulus, but remains hampered by low investment and high debt. In an official forecast, European Commissioner Pierre Moscovici warned of uneven improvements across the 28 member states but said that for 2016, the EU economies will "see growth rising and unemployment and fiscal deficits falling." ...

The European Central Bank is ready to give the eurozone economy a bigger dose of stimulus if turmoil in China and weaker global growth hurt its modest recovery, President Mario Draghi said Thursday. Market volatility, concern over the effects of a looming interest rate increase in the U.S. and a drop oil prices have spawned uncertainty over the global economy, leading the ECB to cut its inflation and growth forecasts for the eurozone. Draghi said the ECB can add to its €1.1 trillion ($1.2 trillion) program if needed to raise inflation or support growth. […] The stimulus is intended to...

At least Campbell Brown of CNN (http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/campbell.brown/) has mentioned it today. A.I.G. Reveals Biggest Beneficiaries of Its Rescue March 15, 2009, 5:16 pm E-mail This Update | 8:49 p.m. The American International Group on Sunday released the names of financial institutions that benefited last fall when the Federal Reserve saved it from collapse with an $85 billion rescue loan and then three subsequent bailouts. The disclosure included counterparties to both its credit default swap operations and its securities lending businesses, both of which contributed heavily to A.I.G.’s troubles, as well as to muncipalities who participated in certain investment programs. All...

A four-year investigation has concluded that officials of the solar company Solyndra misrepresented facts and omitted key information in their efforts to get a $535 million loan guarantee from the federal government. The company's collapse soon after getting federal backing provided ammunition to lawmakers and other critics who portrayed President Barack Obama's economic stimulus program as wasteful government spending. The company's failure likely will cost taxpayers more than $500 million. "In our view, the investigative record suggests that the actions of certain Solyndra officials were, at best, reckless and irresponsible or, at worst, an orchestrated effort to knowingly and intentionally...

On Tuesday, President Obama signed an agreement that equates to a $1,300 impact on every family in America — one of the largest stimulus packages in history. The only problem is that this money is not going to help put food on the table of struggling Americans. In fact, quite the opposite. This money is the $150 billion signing bonus that the Obama administration is giving Iran as part of the nuclear deal. And what is worse, National Security Adviser Susan Rice said on Wednesday’s Situation Room on CNN, “We should expect” that some of the money Iran gets as...

The federal government has been throwing taxpayer money at Baltimore for more than 60 years — ever since Nancy Pelosi’s father, Thomas D’Alesandro, Jr., was mayor of that troubled city (1947-59) — and what have been the results of that multi-billion-dollar federal investment in “Charm City?” You know the results as well as I do: widespread poverty and rampant violence. There were nine murders and more than 30 shootings in Baltimore over the Memorial Day weekend, bringing the city’s homicide toll to its highest point in more than 15 years. Baltimore had 41 murders in May, the most in a...

Towards the end of April, we discussed how QE has led to a global deflationary supply glut. This is a theme we’ve been building on for a while now and, as noted on Monday, it is perhaps nowhere more evident than among US oil producers. SNIP---- Sure enough, the semi-official helicopter cash drop call is here via Bloomberg View’s Clive Crook. Abandon all sound money faith ye who read on: But QE isn't unconventional any longer. It mostly worked, the evidence suggests. The world avoided another Great Depression. Yet even in the U.S., this is a seriously sub-par recovery; growth...

Last Tuesday, President Obama blamed the GOP-controlled Congress for its failure to fund the “massive investment in urban communities” that could “make a difference.” Well, how does $1.8 billion for the 622,000 people of Baltimore sound? Pretty massive – actually, just about $2900 for every man, woman, child, and baby of the entire City of Baltimore. But that’s the total amount of Obama Stimulus money sent to Charm City, according to an analysis by The Free Beacon:

Last Tuesday, President Obama blamed the GOP-controlled Congress for its failure to fund the “massive investment in urban communities” that could “make a difference.” Well, how does $1.8 billion for the 622,000 people of Baltimore sound? Pretty massive, actually just about $290 for every man, woman, child, and baby of the entire City of Baltimore. But that’s the total amount of Obama Stimulus money sent to Charm City, according to an analysis by The Free Beacon:  The city of Baltimore received over $1.8 billion from President Barack Obama’s stimulus law, including $467.1 million to invest in education and $26.5...

[1]WASHINGTON — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said at a town hall meeting the minimum wage should be raised to $15 per hour and advocated for expanding Social Security benefits.“If one person is making $18 million and another person is making $118,000 a year, who pays more into Social Security? Neither, they’re paying the same because there is a cap upon which after you, at a certain level, you don’t pay anything more and that level is about $118,000,” Sanders said at the meeting in Washington.“If you lift that cap, and you don’t have to start at $119,000, you can...

A few weeks ago, I had an appointment with my dermatologist–an old school guy, well-loved by his patients. He’s straightforward, no-nonsense, and has long office hours. You know the type: The one you hope will never retire. As I was led to the examining room, I noticed something not too common these days–shelf after shelf of medical records in manila folders. When the doc came into the room, I commented that he did not appear to be an early adaptor of electronic health records (EHRs). He replied that it was definitely worth the Medicare reimbursement penalty (starting in 2015) to...

President Barack Obama’s budget will propose an ambitious six-year, $478 billion public works program of highway, bridge and transit upgrades, half of it financed with a one-time mandatory tax on profits that U.S. companies have amassed overseas, White House officials said. The proposal, one of the main components of the $4 trillion spending plan for the 2016 budget year that Obama will send to Congress on Monday, attempts to tap into bipartisan support for spending on badly needed infrastructure repairs and construction. The tax on accumulated foreign profits would be set at 14 percent and due immediately. Under current law,...

The eurozone experienced negative inflation for the second month in a row, according to a flash estimate published today (30 January) by Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical office. Inflation is expected to be at −0.6%, with consumer prices falling further than economists had forecast. The fall represents the biggest decline in prices in the history of the euro. […] The drop was driven by the fall in energy prices (−8.9%, compared with −6.3% in December). […] The deflationary spiral comes as Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), is trying to tackle deflation with a policy of...

Declaring an end to “mindless austerity,” President Barack Obama called for a surge in government spending Thursday, and asked Congress to throw out the sweeping budget cuts both parties agreed to four years ago when deficits were spiraling out of control. Obama’s proposed $74 billion in added spending—about 7 percent—would be split about evenly between defense programs and the domestic side of the budget. Although he’s sought before to reverse the “sequester” spending cuts, Obama’s pitch in this year’s budget comes with the added oomph of an improving economy and big recent declines in federal deficits. Taking a defiant tone,...

ast year boasted the strongest job numbers since 1999, and as a result, many commentators have concluded that left-wing critics of austerity were wrong all along. The basic case — advanced by Jeff Sachs, Scott Sumner, and others — is that the surge in growth and jobs proves that austerity is not the poison its detractors claimed it would be. These commentators make some good points. But they are wrong about austerity. A close examination of the counterfactuals shows that austerity almost certainly held back the recovery — and without it, we might have had 2014's strong numbers in 2011....

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) - The global economic outlook just got brighter after this week's big stimulus from the European Central Bank, leading policymakers from around the world said Saturday. In a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, they said a perkier Europe, coupled with a prolonged period of low oil prices, could help shore up the global economy following a period of underperformance that has prompted many forecasters to reduce their growth forecasts. "Lower oil prices and the big decision by ECB could further improve world economic outlook," said Haruhiko Kuroda, governor of the Bank of Japan.