Free Republic

Patriots discuss the midterm elections. Keri Lake was on earlier. At time of posting, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung is speaking. Hosted by Juan O Savin. Featuring Brigadier General Blaine D. Holt, Loy Brunson and others.

Post up what you're seeing out there folks.

The national debt topped the entire gross domestic product (GDP) for fiscal 2026, according to new data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). From the fourth quarter of 2025 through the third quarter of this year, the country's economic output was more than $32.2 trillion, according to the BEA's non-seasonally adjusted statistics. As of Sept. 30, the final day of the third quarter, debt held by the public was more than $32.4 trillion, per the Treasury Department. Debt held by the public is what the federal government owes to outside entities, including banks, state and local governments and foreign...

As New Yorkers cast their ballots in Tuesday’s race for governor, the state’s economic health looms large: 34% of likely voters say taxes, jobs and inflation are the most important issues facing the Empire State, Emerson College pollsters found. Those voters should consider which candidate will stop piling up the government debt that will soon cripple budgets — and will stick our kids with a massive bill. For decades, New York’s leaders have been spending money on a credit card that nobody in power ever tries to pay off. But every dollar borrowed eventually comes back as higher taxes, service...

A 2026 survey from Accredited Debt Relief and Money.com found that 78% of Americans with debt blame inflation and rising prices for at least part of their financial difficulties. Meanwhile, 68% pointed to housing costs, and the same percentage acknowledged that their own spending or borrowing decisions contributed to their debt. The findings suggest that while Americans across generations are struggling with debt, their financial pressures differ considerably depending on their age. America’s Debt Problem Is GrowingAccording to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, total U.S. household debt reached $18.77 trillion in the second quarter of 2026, an increase...

The Treasury Department released its August statement of receipts and outlays with all the ceremony the occasion deserved: none. No press conference, no address, just a PDF on a government website, the way a man slips a foreclosure notice under the door. Buried in Table 3 sits a number that would have been a scandal in any saner era: of every dollar Washington expects to collect in income taxes this year, forty-three cents will go to interest on the national debt. Not to pay it down. Just to carry it. Run the arithmetic; Treasury prints it in plain sight. The...

The U.S. finished the 2026 fiscal year with a budget deficit of nearly $2 trillion, the latest measurement to underscore the extent of the country’s financial stress. The $1.992 trillion figure was about 12% higher than the $1.775 trillion deficit in the prior fiscal year, the Treasury Department reported Friday. It’s the third-highest annual deficit in U.S. history, behind only 2020 and 2021, when the federal government was doling out trillions of dollars in financial stimulus amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The 2026 fiscal year saw record sums for both receipts and outlays, according to a Treasury Department official. With Friday’s...

https://t.co/putg7THYdN— Henrikh (@henrikhinai) October 6, 2026SummaryI followed positions, not opinions: a bubble is the gap between money spent now and money earned now, bridged by belief later earnings arrive. Worldwide AI spending is $2.7 trillion against frontier-lab revenues still counted in tens of billions, and more than $800 billion moves in circular financing. Nvidia books $96.2 billion a quarter at 75% gross margin, while run rates flatter labs and 95% of pilots show no P&L impact. Bears risk hundreds of millions; bulls signed hundreds of billions, and the crowd prices collapse at 10% by New Year, 21% by mid-2027. My...

That spending increase was primarily driven by entitlement programs, the military, and interest payments on the national debt. The CBO notes that Social Security spending increased by 5 percent last year due to "increases in average benefits and in the number of beneficiaries." There was an 8 percent increase in spending on both Medicare and Medicaid, while military spending increased by 5 percent.

The ability of U.S. families to stay current on their debts worsened over the past three years, hitting levels not seen since the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the Federal Reserve reported Friday. In the central bank’s Survey of Consumer Finances, researchers found that while wealth disparities narrowed somewhat, the ability to meet debt payments deteriorated significantly. “Families were more likely to be behind on their financial obligations than at any point since the 2010 survey,” stated the survey, a data-rich document the Fed releases every three years to chronicle the nation’s financial health. The country in 2010 was...

France is on the precipice of a dangerous financial spiral. The global surge in interest rates has exposed the country, once considered an oasis of relative stability in Europe’s financial markets, as one of the continent’s weakest links. France now pays more to borrow than former crisis hot spots like Greece and Italy. Its government is running a budget deficit surpassed only by the United States among its peers. Last week, a slow-burning selloff in France’s government bond market took an alarming turn as it spread across the continent, reviving memories of the eurozone debt crisis last decade. France’s 10-year...

The US debt load crossed $40 trillion in August 2026. The Treasury publishes the number and updates it every business day. $32.4 trillion of it is borrowed from investors, pension funds, and foreign governments. Another $7.7 trillion is owed to the government's trust funds, including the funds that pay Social Security and Medicare. I spent two terms chairing the House Financial Institutions Committee, reading numbers like these, page after page. The pace worried me more than the total ever did. Everyone quotes the Congressional Budget Office’s baseline when they talk about where the debt is headed. CBO is the nonpartisan...

President Donald Trump is once again promising Americans $5,000 checks if Republicans retain control of Congress, repeating a pledge he first made last month as the midterm elections enter their final stretch. At the same time, the administration is already sending out much smaller federal payments, including $90 payments to millions of eligible Medicare beneficiaries and $500 refunds to certain Affordable Care Act customers. That has created an unusual mix of real payments, campaign promises and growing questions about what Americans could actually receive.The distinction matters. While the $90 and $500 programs are already funded and underway, the proposed $5,000...

Ten-year interest rates have vaulted from around 4.5 percent in July to nearly 5.3 percent this week. That may not seem like a lot, but in the history of the bond market, such a rapid rise in rates is almost without precedent. The last time it happened was in 1994, when the "bond vigilantes" relentlessly sold bonds in response to Hillary Clinton's vision of "managed competition" in healthcare. The person on the street knows much more about the stock market than the government bond market, but it is the bond market that has the ability to impose fiscal discipline on...

If you want to understand what’s shaping the midterm elections in November, start with voters age 50 and older. They are highly motivated, they make up a substantial share of the country’s swing vote, and they are focused on issues that affect their everyday lives, like affordability and Social Security. There’s no better state that exemplifies this than Alaska, where one of the most compelling Senate races is taking shape in the battle for control of the Senate. AARP’s new bipartisan poll of likely Alaska voters found that 87 percent of voters 50 and older rate themselves a “10” on...

Global debt surpassed $365 trillion in H1 2026, with emerging markets accounting for the bulk of the rise. Higher inflation has helped contain debt ratios, masking underlying vulnerabilities....

The 5 percent barrier has long since been left behind. This week, the yield on 30-year American government bonds hit 5.6 percent, its highest level since way back in 2002, while the cost of ten-year borrowing rose to its highest level in 20 years. However hard the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tries to control it, the interest rate the American government has to pay to finance its vast deficit keeps on rising relentlessly. As it climbs towards 6 percent and perhaps even higher, surely we must soon see a change in the political debate. Three decades of financial complacency will...

You don't have to work on Wall Street to care about Treasury yields. You don't have to own a farm to care about diesel prices. And you don't have to be shopping for a house to care about mortgage rates.Eventually, these numbers have a way of finding all of us.America is entering a period in which several economic warning signs are flashing at the same time. None of them, by itself, proves that a recession or financial crisis is around the corner. In fact, parts of the economy remain remarkably resilient.But taken together, they tell us something important: the financial...

Desperate Gen Zers and millennials are turning to online gambling and AI to claw their way out of crushing debt — in part because of the “approachability” and “judgement-free advice” from computers, according to a new survey. Sports betting, prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi, fantasy sports, day trading and even old fashioned casino gambling aren’t just hobbies — or addictions — anymore; they’re financial survival strategies for cash-strapped adults, according to a new poll from National Debt Relief and Wakefield Research. A whopping 65% of Gen Z and 49% of millennials who regularly gamble say they have done so...

Ever-higher costs to service mounting debt loads pose a major risk to governments around the world, economists have warned. Global debt rose by $10 trillion in the first half of the year to top $365 trillion, according to research published by the Institute of International Finance on Wednesday. State debts are rising as yields on medium- and long-term government bonds issued by a slew of the world’s biggest economies hit their highest levels in more than a decade — including in the U.S., Japan, France and the U.K. Rising yields reflect growing investor discomfort at rising interest rates, persistent energy...