Free Republic

The federal government ran another big deficit in June, as the national debt inches closer to $35 trillion.$35 trillion USD.Trillion with a 'T.' That's an unfathomable number. It's meaningless to most people. We simply can't comprehend a number that big.Let's try to put the $34.9 trillion national debt into perspective.According to the National Debt Clock, every American citizen would have to write a check for $103,565 to pay off the national debt. Of course, a lot of people don't pay taxes. That means the taxpayer burden is much higher. Every U.S. taxpayer would have to write a check for $266,953...

The national office vacancy rate hit a record 19.8% in the first quarter of 2024, according to a preliminary report from Moody’s Analytics. And it could get worse, as companies continue to lease substantial space despite a decline in the in-office footprint. The 'urban doom loop' cycleWhile the shift to remote work in recent years offers plenty of flexibility to employees, some experts have concerns the decline in office building usage could spell a more sinister problem for big cities. “Everybody’s affected by this issue,” Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, a professor of real estate at Columbia Business School, told CNN. Van...

Bankruptcy courts are working overtime this year, with corporate America seeing the highest monthly bankruptcy count since 2020. According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, the US recorded 75 new bankruptcies filed by mid-size and large corporations in June. Given ongoing economic pressures, this trend could continue.So far, in 2024, there have been 346 bankruptcy filings, including 17 cases with liabilities exceeding ~$1B — outstripping any comparable figure from the last 13 years.The consumer discretionary sector accounted for 55 of these filings — while the healthcare and industrial sectors each had 40.‘Til debt do us part: S&P Global blames high interest...

A growing number of companies are filing for bankruptcy, according to S&P There is a "historic surge" of corporate bankruptcies underway in the U.S., as debt-saddled companies struggle to adjust to the new era of high interest rates. New figures published by S&P Global Intelligence show that 75 companies filed for bankruptcy in June, the highest number recorded in a single month since early 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. That pushed this year's total number of bankruptcies so far to 346, which is notably higher than comparable levels seen in the past 13 years. Before this, the...

Hot ‘Lanta! Or perhaps COLD ‘Lanta! And despite what Biden says, thiere isn’t an economic revival. Yes. everyone can see the mental decline in President Biden and he should be in a nursing home. While he vows to run for President against Donald Trump, can you imagine what he will be like in 2 years? Let alone another 4 years?? Speaking of decline, GDP growth estimates are plummeting: The most recent Atlanta Fed estimate for real US GDP quarterly growth in Q2 2024 is down to 1.7%. This estimate is down from 4.2% seen in mid-May and from 2.2% seen...

Even though most Americans have been struggling financially over the past few years, not everyone has been doing badly during the current economic turmoil. In fact, there are some households that are doing exceptionally well. Some articles point out that companies that cater to average Americans are doing quite poorly right now while companies that market luxury goods and services are reporting massive profits. However, overall consumer spending has been slowing down. It looks like the majority of U.S. workers either can’t spend a lot of money right now or are very hesitant to. At the same time, there is...

According to Federal Reserve data, for the first time in its history, the Fed has been losing money on a consistent monthly basis since September 28, 2022. As of the last reporting date of June 19, 2024, those losses add up to a cumulative $176 billion. As the chart above using Fed data shows, the losses thus far in 2024 have ranged from a monthly high of $11.076 billion in February to a low of $5.674 billion in May.

In the coming years, the retirement-age population will balloon to its largest size yet, drawing down Social Security funds, overwhelming retirement homes, and leaving a labor shortage in its wake. Larry Fink, the 71-year-old CEO of the asset-management behemoth BlackRock, offered a two-part solution to the looming retirement crisis in his annual March letter to shareholders. In order to avoid economic catastrophe, he argued, people should save more money and work longer. "What if the government and the private sector treated 60-plus year-olds as late-career workers with much to offer rather than people who should retire?" Fink wrote. The current...

Unrealized losses in the US banking system are once again on the rise, according to new numbers from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). In its Quarterly Banking Profile report, the FDIC says banks are now saddled with more than half a trillion dollars in paper losses on their balance sheets, due largely to exposure to the residential real estate market. Unrealized losses represent the difference between the price banks paid for securities and the current market value of those assets. Although banks can hold securities until they mature without marking them to market on their balance sheets, unrealized losses...

Call it Washington DC soullessness. Back in 2023, Socialist Paul Krugman declared that “the war on inflation is over!!! “We” won, at very little cost.” I love when elitists claim “We won!” since clearly 99% of Americans lost since food, housing and car prices up are double digits under Biden. The problem is that food, energy, shelter, and used cars/trucks are a huge part of Americans consumption basket. Under Biden, food CPI id up 23%. Home prices are up 34% and used cars/truck prices are up 17.7%. A note to Paul Krugman, YOU may have won, but the rest of...

You can get a really good idea how the U.S. economy is doing by watching restaurants in your area. When the economy is booming, restaurant parking lots are full and chains are feverishly establishing new locations. But when the economy is struggling, restaurants get a lot less traffic and poor performing locations get shut down. Sadly, in 2024 it appears that a “restaurant apocalypse” has started to sweep across America. Most people have very little discretionary income to spend as a result of our cost of living crisis, and that is particularly true for our young adults. Americans under the...

The U.S. economy grew less than previously thought in the first three months of the year, expanding at an annual pace of just 1.3 percent, revised government data showed Thursday. The downward revision was primarily driven by data showing that consumer spending grew by significantly less than previously estimated. This was the smallest expansion in gross domestic product in almost two years. The prior estimate had the economy growing at a 1.6 percent pace in the first quarter. Consumer spending grew an an annualized pace of two percent in the first quarter, the new figures show, down from the previous...

Is the economy booming or busting? Depends on whom you ask. The official data is buoyant — economic growth is solid, the job market is strong, and stocks keep hitting record highs. Yet many Americans think the economy stinks. The latest gloomy indicator is a Guardian-Harris survey in which 55% of respondents said they think the economy is shrinking and 56% think we’re in the midst of a recession. Economic output, adjusted for inflation, grew by a solid 3% during the most recent 12-month period. The unemployment rate is 3.9%. And the US economy created over 3.5 million jobs in...

I never imagined that we would ever see a time when it takes $177,798 for a family of four to live comfortably in the United States. Unfortunately, that day has arrived. Our leaders have been pursuing highly inflationary policies for many years, and now we have reached a point where inflation is wildly out of control. In fact, the latest wholesale inflation figure that was released on Tuesday came in much higher than expected. Sadly, this is just the beginning and we are in far more trouble than most people realize.According to an incredibly shocking new study, most Americans do...

The Federal Reserve is stuck between a rock and a hard place. If the Fed pushes rates higher, interest payments on our 34 trillion dollar national debt could spin wildly out of control and bank balance sheets will be in even worse condition than they are now. First Republic just bit the dust, and literally thousands of other small and mid-size banks and in serious jeopardy. So it would be suicidal to hike rates at this point. But if the Fed were to reduce rates, that would be like injecting jet fuel into a raging fire. Our ongoing inflation crisis...

The Biden administration has saddled the U.S. economy with more than $1 trillion worth of final rules and regulations thus far in 2024, according to analysis conducted by the American Action Forum (AAF).The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) final emissions regulations for light- and medium-duty vehicles, which some have characterized as an electric vehicle (EV) mandate, pushed the costs of the Biden administration’s regulatory agenda over the $1 trillion threshold for 2024, alone, according to AAF’s analysis. Across all agencies and regulatory actions last week, the federal government published regulations imposing $103 billion worth of total costs and 11.6 million annual...

Biden is again on a tax-raising rampage. He proposes to increase income taxes by nearly $5 trillion for corporations. Increasing the corporate income tax rate to 28% (from 21%) will be a great driver of negative effects on the U.S. economy, reducing long-run GDP by 0.9%, the capital stock by 1.7%, wages by 0.8%, and full-time jobs by 192,000. Additionally, Biden's new tax proposals include increasing the recently enacted corporate alternative minimum tax rate from 15% to 21% and denying business deductions for employee compensation above $1 million.Biden proposes an increase of the corporate income tax that's a higher tax...

resident Biden's latest proposal to hike the top capital gains tax rate to its highest level in more than a century is facing heavy criticism from experts who warn such an action could significantly harm the U.S. economy. According to a report issued by the Treasury Department, led by Secretary Janet Yellen, the president's proposed fiscal year 2025 budget would increase the top marginal rate on long-term capital gains and qualified dividends to a staggering 44.6%. A capital gains tax hike of that magnitude would take the rate to its highest level since it was first introduced in the early...

President Joe Biden has made student loan forgiveness a top priority after young voters elected him by large margins in 2020. Ahead of another matchup with former President Donald Trump, the voting bloc might just abandon him, anyway. Despite Biden’s continued efforts to cancel massive amounts of student loans for millions of Americans, along with various other left-wing policy achievements, polling indicates his lead among young voters has dropped significantly since last cycle. The loss in support is partially attributable to Biden’s support of Israel following the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack, as young individuals largely express support for Palestinians...

Nathan Frederiksen is doing pretty well for himself. He turns 40 this year and is on track to retire by 60. It takes some sacrifice — he drives the “unsexiest car ever,” takes a DIY approach to home repairs and doesn’t eat out much — but he’s able to save 10% of his income for retirement and maintain an emergency savings fund while supporting his wife and four children in the suburbs of Boise, Idaho. “I understand that I’ve been lucky with some of my job prospects, but I don’t make a crazy amount of money,” he told CNN. “I...