Free Republic

ANALYST: 'There Are So Many Dominoes Just Waiting To Topple That We’re No Longer Sure What To Watch' Matthew BoeslerJune 12, 2013 The reverberations emanating from rising U.S. Treasury yields over the past several weeks are shaking financial markets around the world. Almost every government bond market – across both developed and emerging economies – is experiencing rising yields as U.S. Treasuries get cheaper, yield more, and thus become more attractive to global investors. At the same time, fears that the Federal Reserve may begin to taper back monetary stimulus – which have been driving the rise in Treasury yields...

ALBERT EDWARDS: 'One Of The Biggest Economic Bubbles Is About To Go Into The Minsky Masher' Mamta Badkar June 12, 2013, 11:44 AM Australia's GDP growth expanded merely 0.6% in the first quarter. This was after a 0.6% rise in Q4 2012. Meanwhile, there are a lot of people shorting the Australian dollar. Minus export growth however, Societe Generale's Albert Edwards writes that gross national expenditure (GNE) has fallen for two straight quarters. "One of the biggest economic bubbles in history is now about to go into the Minsky masher," writes Edwards. This refers to periods of speculation that lead...

Pennsylvania girl, 5, suspended for threatening to shoot girl with pink toy gun that blows soapy bubbles By Edmund DeMarche Published January 19, 2013 | FoxNews.com A 5-year-old Pennsylvania girl who told another girl she was going to shoot her with a pink Hello Kitty toy gun that blows soapy bubbles has been suspended from kindergarten. Her family has hired an attorney to fight the punishment, which initially was 10 days for issuing a 'terroristic threat.' But her punishment was reduced to two days after her mother met with school officials and had the incident dropped to 'threatening to harm...

"Gov. Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency Friday in Assumption Parish after officials ordered an immediate evacuation of the Bayou Corne area because a slurry area appeared to be expanding. "The fear of the unknown prompted the evacuation order," said John Boudreaux, director of the parish's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. "The fear of it possibly compromising either the nearby pipelines or cavern storage areas, that could cause a risk to the community." Boudreaux said about 150 homes are affected by the order. He was unsure how long it would remain in effect. The governor's emergency proclamation...

The global dominant narrative about China is wrong, claims Gordon Chang. Don't expect it to be the 'pocketbook of last resort' that will rescue world markets from their current malaise. And don't expect its remarkable economic growth to continue. In fact, expect a "hard landing" for China - and soon. Forbes.com columnist and international lawyer Gordon Chang has spent much of his time since the early 1980s working and living in China. His primary knowledge of the country and his relationships there give him a superior understanding to how its economy is actually faring than many analysts based in the...

The still-neutral Club for Growth weighs in on Herman Cain's polling surge, in a statement suggesting that Cain has a chance of winning over the powerful advocacy group: “Herman Cain is surging in the polls because his clear message of limited government and economic freedom is resonating,” said Club for Growth President Chris Chocola. “Cain has articulated a strong vision for putting America back on the path to prosperity. A clear message promoting economic growth, like the one Herman Cain is presenting, is essential to defeating Obama. Republican primary voters ought to give Herman Cain a close look. We are.”...

Texas congressman assesses damage in wake of market plunge Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas Acting as a "central economic planner," the Federal Reserve is moving the U.S. economy from one market bubble to another, and the next one will be a disaster, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, told Michael Savage on the "Savage Nation" national radio show. After the collapse of the tech, housing and financial bubbles, Paul said, the "dollar bubble" will be next. "That's going to be the big one," the Texas congressman said on the heels of yesterday's worldwide market plummet, which saw the Dow lose more than 500...

Like most Freepers, I like to get my news and information online. Also, I am (as I suspect many Freepers are) a confirmed coffeeholic. There are few things more pleasurable than sitting down with a tall coffee -- extra cream, and Splenda or Stevia, please, I'm doing the Atkins diet -- and surfing through the web for the latest news and commentary. Free Republic is only one of my favorite sites. Within the last couple of weeks, I have noticed a great deal of time and attention being given to the ongoing debt limit negotiations in DC. Apparently the problem...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A pair of NASA probes wandering in deep space discovered that the outer edge of the solar system contains curious magnetic bubbles and is not smooth as previously thought, astronomers said Thursday. The NASA Voyager twin spacecraft, which launched in 1977, are currently exploring the furthest outlays of the heliosphere, where solar wind is slowed and warped by pressure from other forces in the galaxy, the US space agency said. "Because the sun spins, its magnetic field becomes twisted and wrinkled, a bit like a ballerina's skirt," said astronomer Merav Opher of Boston University. "Far, far away...

The 2008 financial crash originated with a housing bubble. Not long ago, the cheap-money policies of the Federal Reserve, the infusion of trillions of dollars in new foreign investment, and the misguided policies of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae all conspired to extend to millions of Americans lots of easy credit for houses whose inflated prices they could hardly afford. Owning a house was seen as a “right” rather than the just rewards of household sacrifice, delayed gratification, and budgetary discipline. Builders, lenders, realtors, and bureaucrats all got in on the easy-money Ponzi scheme — until a few noticed that...

One week after moving into our new home, my wife became concerned with a new revelation. She had been out on our deck, enjoying a sunny spring day, when a pipe sticking three feet out of the ground began to spew bubbles. My reply? “Oh, it’s no big deal.”Ever notice, when folks have a problem on their hands, they often do not realize it? Or they minimize the problem, so they do not have to address it?Amo 4:10 I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt: your young men have I slain with the sword, and...

We have been alerting you to the breakdown in the US long bond over the last several weeks and have noted that its collapse in price has serious implications for all of us. Judging solely by the price action in both the Ten year and the long bond, the Fed’s QE program, which was designed to hold down long term interest rates and thus spur lending particularly in an attempt to generate activity in the real estate sector, has proven to be an abject failure. Rates have gone up, not down. Combine that with a surfeit of houses due to...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Two huge, unexplained gamma ray emitting bubbles have been discovered at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, US astronomers said Tuesday. Masked by a fog of gamma rays that appears throughout the sky, the bubbles form a feature spanning 50,000 light-years and could be the remnant of a supersized black hole eruption or the outflows from a burst of star formation, the astronomers said. The structure spans more than half of the visible sky, from the constellation Virgo to the constellation Grus, and it may be millions of years old, the astronomers said in a paper...

...Unfortunately, America is being brainwashed by the mainstream media into believing there is a gold bubble. The truth is... the public in 2010 has purchased $2.7 billion worth of gold and $155 billion worth of bonds. Which one do you think is a bubble?

RICHMOND, Va., May 6 (Reuters) -- Richmond Federal Reserve Bank President Jeffrey Lacker said on Thursday he was not presently seeing any signs of bubbles in financial markets, but would be vigilant about not waiting too long to tighten monetary policy. "Right now, I don't see bubbles forming," Lacker said. "Having said that, count on it that I'll be vigilant about avoiding the error of waiting too long." He added that policymakers cannot stamp out all asset bubbles, but can use regulation to curb excessive risk-taking.

Why The Housing Bust Aftermath Means A V-Shaped Recovery Is Impossible This Year Dean Baker Feb. 3, 2010, 9:40 AM From Caixin: The U.S. economy will continue to be weighed down in 2010 by the after-effects of the bubble collapse in residential and non-residential real estate. This collapse, not the financial crisis that was sparked by the collapse, is the cause of the recession and the main factor suppressing growth. The fallout from the collapse of these bubbles virtually guarantees that 2010 will be a year of slow, and possibly negative, growth with 2011 offering little better prospects. The impact...

Another Warning Sign: China-Based, Singapore-Listed Firms Rapidly Collapsing Amidst Debt And Fraud Joe Weisenthal Jan. 24, 2010, 7:47 PM Here's a fascinating, just-out artcile in Hong Kong's South China Morning Post (sub req'd) about the collapse of Singapore-listed, mainland China-based firms that have collapsed amidst an inability to repay debt and fraud. Since late 2007, a spate of so-called S-chips - mainland companies listed on the Singapore exchange - have borrowed money then failed to repay the debts, with some becoming mired in fraud scandals. Of the 11 S-chips that issued convertible bonds between 2005 and 2008, six have declared...

China And The U.S.: Dysfunctional Real Estate Bubble Twins Charles Hugh Smith Jan. 22, 2010, 5:38 PM China and the U.S. share two central traits: a financial-command-economy and an addiction to cheap, easy money to prop up bubbles that serve the status quo. Despite the many obvious differences between the Chinese and American systems of governance and "capitalism," there are two key similarities. We might phrase this thusly: China's leadership has empowered specific strains of capitalism to serve the party's socialist goals, while the American leadership has socialized the mortgage/housing/banking sectors to serve its predatory-capitalist Masters (the financial-rentier Power Elite)....

... and what's worse, makes clear they won't stop - and why. Indeed, what James Bullard has done with this speech is both destroy the claims of Bernanke that low interest rates didn't cause the bubble (remember, Mr. Bullard is a Fed President) but at the same time he pulls down the curtain on exactly why The Fed ignores bubbles! Specifically, Bullard said: He noted that monetary policy necessarily affects asset prices and interest rates. “Historically this did not appear to create prolonged run-ups in asset prices, but changes in the recovery of employment in the past two recessions led...

Markets Bubble warning Markets are too dependent on unsustainable government stimulus. Something’s got to give THE effect of free money is remarkable. A year ago investors were panicking and there was talk of another Depression. Now the MSCI world index of global share prices is more than 70% higher than its low in March 2009. That’s largely thanks to interest rates of 1% or less in America, Japan, Britain and the euro zone, which have persuaded investors to take their money out of cash and to buy risky assets. For all the panic last year, asset values never quite reached...