Free Republic

I remember about 8½ years ago that Rush Limbaugh questioned obama's economy stimulus scheme to fund shovel-ready projects. I believe the amount under discussion was a bit more than $700 Billion. Rush hypothesized that giving the money back to the American people would have a much greater effect on the economy than obama's plan. He said to test his hypothesis, give half back to Americans and fund shovel-ready projects with the other half. We saw then that shovel-ready wasn't prime time-ready and we all suffered greatly for it. I believe that the overall reaction to this week's tax cut bill...

Racing to reverse the country's economic spiral, President Barack Obama signed the mammoth stimulus package into law Tuesday and readied a new $50 billion foreclosure rescue for legions of Americans who are in danger of losing their homes. There was no recovery yet for beleaguered automakers, who were back in Washington for more bailout billions. General Motors Corp. said it was closing plants, Chrysler LLC said it was cutting vehicle models and both said they were getting rid of thousands more jobs as they made their restructuring cases for $5 billion more for Chrysler and as much as $16.6 billion...

It’s not healthy to dwell on the past. But, for the taxpayers across the country, it is important to learn from past mistakes. The continued problems with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), aka Stimulus Plan, is a good lesson as to what not to do. The nearly trillion-dollar spending package, passed on a party-line vote in 2009, was supposed to rocket the economy out of the recession. The law funded absurd projects such as a snowmaking facility in Duluth, Minn., math and literacy coaches for North Carolina’s public school teachers, and a $3 million tunnel for turtles in...

I’ve noticed that a number of FReepers are having conniptions over the possibility that legislation reducing federal income tax rates will also ELIMINATE ITEMIZED DEDUCTION OF STATE & LOCAL INCOME TAXES (SALT). I have a proposal for the new legislation. Have it give tax payers the CHOICE of 1) still deducting SALT but STILL ALSO using the current (i.e., unreduced) tax rate tables or 2) not deducting SALT but having their taxes computed using the new reduced rates. Having worked in systems development for a number of years, automating that feature could be relatively simple for Intuit (maker of Turbo...

In the first decade of the 21st century Western economic growth entered the doldrums. The question was why. Former Harvard president Larry Summers noticed that something changed after the 2008 financial meltdown. The economic spring which had always bounced back had lost its elasticity. He diagnosed it as secular stagnation. .... Most observers expected the unusually deep recession to be followed by an unusually rapid recovery .... Had the American economy performed as the Congressional Budget Office fore­cast in August 2009—after the stimulus had been passed and the recovery had started—U.S. GDP today would be about $1.3 trillion higher than...

Can we finally admit that eight years of following the Keynesian coloring-book have not just failed, but failed spectacularly? ___ What do we call a status quo in which "emergency measures" have become permanent props? A failure. The "emergency" responses to the Global Financial Meltdown of 2008-09 are, eight years on, permanent fixtures. Everyone knows what would happen if the deficit spending, money-printing, zero interest rates, shadow banking, asset purchases by central banks and all the rest of the Keynesian Cult's program stopped: the status quo falls apart. Keynesianism Vs The Real World Let’s start by reviewing the core contexts...

A leading researcher on a ridiculed taxpayer-funded study of duck penises is now using her expertise on orca whales and is going to the "March for Science" to protest budget cuts. Patricia Brennan, a visiting lecturer at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, worked on the duck penis study that received $384,949 from the National Science Foundation, a grant that was funded through the 2009 stimulus package. The study looked at the differences in the corkscrew-shaped penises of ducks.

Speaking at “CEO town hall” event Tuesday, President Trump said his infrastructure revitalization plan would cost a trillion dollars or possibly a bit more. “We have to build roads. We have to build highways. We’re talking about a very major infrastructure bill of a trillion dollars, perhaps even more,” Trump said. The president made the comments in the context of talking about efforts to reduce the long delays in construction imposed by federal regulations. He said it could take 10-20 years to get a road permitted and his administration hoped to bring that down to a year.Trump was also critical...

Events are moving so fast in Europe these days, it’s almost impossible to keep up. While much of the attention is being hogged by political developments, including the election in the Netherlands, Reuters published a report warning that the European banking sector may face even higher bad loan risks if the ECB begins to scale back its monetary stimulus programs, something it has already begun, albeit extremely tentatively. The total stock of non-performing loans (NPL) in the EU is estimated at over €1 trillion, or 5.4% of total loans, a ratio three times higher than in other major regions of...

The Federal Reserve gives us the freedom to buy things now that we would otherwise have to wait for.In looking at the Federal Reserve, it is important to note that this is a money system, not just a group of people sitting in a conference room controlling everything having to do with the US dollar. The Fed is a system just like the government of the US is a system. What that means is that no one controls it, and that it is much bigger than any one person or group of people could ever control. They can guide it,...

Here's something really laughable. At the top of the hour I'm sitting here and I'm looking at the television. I was in Snerdley's office looking at television and I was watching MSNBC, and they're talking to the governor who was the architect of the highest unemployment rate in the country: Jennifer Granholm in Michigan. The Michigan unemployment rate is 15.1% (probably a little higher than that, even, if you count the U6, people that have given up looking). Now, what is the architect of the largest, highest unemployment state in the country doing at that jobs summit? What in the...

The European Central Bank should begin winding down its expansive monetary policy in 2017 as inflation returns in the eurozone, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said in an interview on Friday. “It would probably be right if the ECB starts daring to head for the exit this year,” Schäuble told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper — although he acknowledged it would be a “difficult task”. The ECB has fixed interest rates at record lows in the 19-nation single currency area, as well as offering cheap loans to banks and buying up tens of billions of euros per month of government and...

Donald Trump's $1 trillion infrastructure plan sounds good to Chuck Schumer, the incoming Senate minority leader said Tuesday. The president-elect has called for a $1 trillion investment into upgrading the nation’s roads, bridges, tunnels and airports. “We think it should be large,” Schumer told ABC News’ Jon Karl and Rick Klein during their “Powerhouse Politics” podcast. “He’s mentioned a trillion dollars. I told him that sounded good to me.” Schumer has highlighted infrastructure as one issue that Democrats can work with Trump on, casting some of the billionaire’s positions as “surprisingly” progressive and populist. And the New York Democrat has...

New Word: “Trumpenstroke“. – The act of eliminating dictatorial fiat with the counter stroke of a President Trump pen. It is actually easier to write about the simplicity of eliminating almost all of President Obama’s accomplishments specifically because of the way Team Obama went about constructing them, dictatorial fiat.

A FRiend recently pointed out that the opposite of 'trickle down' economics is 'trickle up'. How true! In any banana republic [such as the 'U' SA] the tyrant tops the economic food chain -- that's where the economy trickles up. And sometimes the minions are even more dangerous, such as Obama's 'subordinate', Hillary. View what she achieved already and then imagine her in the Oval Office [with her husband's experience to guide her] ... 1. Watered down AIDS medication [*a*] which should come as no surprise after their ... 2. Tainted prison blood scandal. [*b*] Anyone greedy enough to infect...

The European Central Bank left its stimulus measures on hold Thursday and warned governments in the 19 country euro currency union that they need to do more to help the economy grow and push up inflation to healthier levels. The bank kept its key interest rates unchanged and decided against extending the duration of its existing bond-buying stimulus program. Bank President Mario Draghi seemed relatively confident about the economy and less inclined to hint at more stimulus than some analysts had expected. Instead, he used his news conference to urge governments to do their part. He said that implementation of...

The 19-country eurozone lost some economic momentum in August, largely because of a slowdown in Germany, a closely watched survey showed Monday, days ahead of another possible stimulus package from the European Central Bank. Financial information company IHS Markit said its purchasing managers’ index — a broad gauge of economic activity — for the eurozone fell to a 19-month low of 52.9 points in August from 53.2 the previous month. The fall was unexpected as the initial estimate for August was 53.3. In spite of the fall, the eurozone is still growing, albeit sluggishly as anything above 50 indicates expansion....

The last federal budget was signed into law September of 2007 for fiscal year 2008. Almost a decade has passed without a federal budget. The 2009 ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act), otherwise known as “The $1,000,000,000,000 ’09 Stimulus Bill”, has been spent every year for the past 7 fiscal years. That’s correct. Due to no budget, and base-line budgeting continuous resolutions, aka “omnibus bills”, we’ve spent the 2009 “Stimulus Bill” seven more times. Each year, for seven consecutive years. Ask yourself: Where did it go?

Fresh after Congress and the White House scored the largest transportation spending package in a decade, both presidential candidates this year are proposing billions in funding to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure. While both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump—and the parties they represent—agree the nation’s roads, bridges, airports, rail system, and ports are in need of repair, the new proposals invite familiar questions over how the spending would be paid for, and whether the federal government is the best provider to pay for it. Those questions, and the lack of a must-pass infrastructure initiative requiring Congress’ attention in 2017, mean that...

It seems that the strong start to the year was another false dawn for the eurozone economy and that the European Central Bank will have more to do in the months ahead to shore up growth. New figures released Friday confirmed that the eurozone, which is made up of 19 countries from Ireland to the west to Cyprus in the east, suffered a sizable slowdown in the second quarter of the year despite a number of stimulus measures that the European Central Bank has thrown at it. In its first estimate for the April to June period, Eurostat, the EU’s...