Free Republic

I know many claim things are better but the there are 0.97 open jobs to every 1 unemployed...Businesses are closing right and left..Banks are in trouble, repos are at record levels, Credit Card defaults are at atmospheric levels. Beginning to look like 1929...the beginnings of it anyway...Let them eat cake I guess... October layoffs Amazon 30,000+ UPS 46,000 Target 1,800 Paramount 1,000 Applied Materials 1,400 Sika 1,800 And many more

Quote of the week: “Inflation is when you pay fifteen dollars for the ten-dollar haircut you used to get for five dollars when you had hair. “ - Sam EwingThe ‘debasement trade’ has been gathering momentum all year, but it's really gathered momentum in the financial media lately. And then just to keep everyone on their toes, the gold price took a tumble on Tuesday. So what is the debasement trade? Is it real, and should you be following it?In this piece, we’ll unpack what debasement really means, why it’s driving markets today, and how to think about real assets,...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is looking to provide an additional $20 billion in financing for Argentina through a mix of financing from sovereign funds and the private sector.That would come on top of the $20 billion credit swap line that the U.S. Treasury pledged to Argentine President Javier Milei and his government this month to bolster the South American nation's collapsing currency.“We are working on a $20 billion facility that would complement our swap line, with private banks and sovereign funds that, I believe, would be more focused on the debt market,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters...

Washington’s latest fiscal standoff isn’t just another round of partisan posturing—it’s a direct assault on the grocery budgets of 42 million Americans who rely on SNAP to keep food on the table. As November 1 looms, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued a stark memo: federal funds for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program will evaporate without a budget deal, leaving states scrambling and families exposed. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his Democratic allies bear the brunt of the blame here, having stonewalled a House-passed funding extension 12 times in the Senate, all to extract concessions on healthcare subsidies...

@RandPaul Like I told @cherylcasone on @MorningsMaria, Republicans ran against Biden’s reckless spending… then adopted his spending levels. I won’t. $38 trillion in debt isn’t sustainable. It’s a threat to our economy and our dollar. I’ll keep voting no until Washington gets serious about balancing the budget.

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the midst of a federal government shutdown, the U.S. government’s gross national debt surpassed $38 trillion Wednesday, a record number that highlights the accelerating accumulation of debt on America’s balance sheet. It’s also the fastest accumulation of a trillion dollars in debt outside of the COVID-19 pandemic — the U.S. hit $37 trillion in gross national debt in August this year. The $38 trillion update is found in the latest Treasury Department report, which logs the nation’s daily finances. The U.S. hit $34 trillion in debt in January 2024, $35 trillion in July 2024 and $36...

Senate Republicans are discussing voting on a bill that would prevent millions of low-income Americans from losing access to food aid on Nov. 1.The bill from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) would fund Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits for the duration of the shutdown, which on Wednesday entered its 22nd day. The Department of Agriculture warned earlier this month that if the government shutdown dragged on “there will be insufficient funds to pay full November SNAP benefits for approximately 42 million individuals across the Nation.”Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in a brief interview that senators were discussing “some options,” though...

One in three Americans now have more credit card debt than emergency savings, according to the latest survey by financial services company Bankrate.As Statista's Anna Flecks shows in the chart below, this is up ten percentage points from 2011, when the company first started polling the question.Meanwhile, around 53 percent of respondents said that their savings were currently exceeding their credit card debt.This is down two percentage points from the same time last year, but slightly up from 2011.Around one in ten Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck in 2025, not making any debt or saving up money.You will find more infographics...

The Federal Budget Balance, a key indicator of the health of the U.S. economy, has reported a significant swing into surplus territory. The actual figure for the month came in at $198.0 billion, a stark contrast to the previous month’s deficit of $345.0 billion. This substantial change in the budget balance has exceeded all expectations. Analysts had been forecasting a continued deficit, making this surplus a welcome surprise. The shift from a hefty deficit to a surplus indicates a robust increase in the federal government’s income relative to its expenditure for the reported month. The surplus of $198.0 billion not...

According to Kirill Dmitriev, the tunnel with a railroad and cargo link, will unlock joint resource explorationMOSCOW, October 17. /TASS/. A tunnel crossing the Bering Strait and connecting Russia and Alaska can take less than eight years to build, at the cost that does not exceed $8 billion, Special Presidential Envoy for economic cooperation with foreign countries and CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) Kirill Dmitriev said. "Imagine connecting the US and Russia, the Americas and the Afro-Eurasia with the Putin-Trump Tunnel - a 70-mile link symbolizing unity. Traditional costs are $65bln+, but the Boring Company [tunnel construction...

Just about everywhere you look in the rich world, government finances are in ruins. France, as its debt mounts, is getting through prime ministers faster than Versailles went through wigs; on October 14th Sébastien Lecornu, the latest, proposed delaying an increase to the retirement age that was meant to restore sanity to the budget. In Japan both rival candidates for prime minister want to splash out, despite their country’s vast debts. Britain faces big tax rises to plug a hole in its budget, after welfare reforms were mostly abandoned—and despite a supposed once-and-for-all tax rise last year. Looming over everything...

Central banks have crossed a symbolic line: their combined gold reserves now exceed their U.S. Treasury holdings for the first time in nearly three decades.The crossover underscores a gradual diversification away from dollar-denominated securities and toward hard assets.This visualization, via Visual Capitalist's Bruno Venditti, tracks how these shares have evolved from the 1970s to today.The data comes from Crescat Capital macro strategist Tavi Costa.From Petrodollars to De-DollarizationAfter the end of Bretton Woods, soaring real interest rates and the rise of the petrodollar steered reserve managers toward U.S. Treasuries through the 1980s and 1990s.In the 2000s, the dollar’s depth and liquidity...

“Mr. Trump has promised working-class tax cuts and protection for working-class social insurance, such as Medicaid,” Hawley wrote. “But now a noisy contingent of corporatist Republicans — call it the party’s Wall Street wing — is urging Congress to ignore all that and get back to the old-time religion: corporate giveaways, preferences for capital and deep cuts to social insurance.” Hawley has consistently spoken up about his opposition to the House plan to use Medicaid cuts to pay for the party-line megabill. The House Energy and Commerce Committee has been charged with finding at least $880 billion in federal spending...

Gold is in the middle of what looks like an unstoppable bull run. It has already punched through $4,000 an ounce. At the rate the price is rising, it may well go to $5,000 within a few weeks, and perhaps even $6,000 as the next year unfolds. There have been lots of different explanations for this, from the looming collapse of the dollar, to secret Chinese buying, to the conspiracy theories circulating on the wilder fringes of the internet, such a secret plot to re-establish the gold standard, or attempts to replace all the metal that is meant to be...

House Speaker Mike Johnson defended himself and fellow GOP leaders after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene criticized them for lacking a plan to deal with the expiring COVID expansion of Obamacare subsidies. “There’s a lot of work that’s been done on that,” Mr. Johnson, Louisiana Republican, said Tuesday. “It’s implied as if this has been some sort of ignored issue. It’s not that at all.”Ms. Greene, Georgia Republican, took to social media on Monday to announce her support for extending the enhanced Obamacare subsidies, which Democrats are demanding to reopen the government.It was a notable break from other right-wing lawmakers who...

Some estimates suggest that half of all white-collar jobs will disappear as artificial intelligence advances. How will older white-collar workers displaced in the AI revolution fare? Our recent book, “American Idle: Late-Career Job Loss in a Neoliberal Era,” summarizes interviews we conducted with 62 baby boomers who lost their white-collar jobs during another unemployment crisis: the 2008 Great Recession and its sluggish recovery. Statistics show that workers over age 50 experienced the highest rates of long-term joblessness. Their layoffs also coincided with a precarious stage of the life course: “too young to retire but too old to start all over,”...

Partisan bickering overshadows real questions about taxes and the size of America’s government.As the partial government shutdown enters its second week, neither party is leveling with the American people about the hard choices required to get federal spending off a fiscally ruinous trajectory.President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats used covid-19 to justify chasing the mirage of a European-style welfare state without raising the necessary taxes to pay for it. Now, prodded by the left, party leaders have shut down the government in a bid to permanently extend what was sold in 2021 as emergency subsidies to help people struggling during...

@SenRandPaul I joined @LlamasNBC on @NBCNews and made it clear: I refuse to add $2 trillion more to the debt, no matter which party demands it. Republicans and Democrats both flip-flop for politics. I won't back endless deficits or Biden-era spending levels.

Roughly 42% of younger working Americans — spanning Gen Z, millennials and Gen X — report having no spare savings after covering their basic living expenses, according to the analysis, which surveyed about 3,600 workers and 1,500 retirees. Among those just getting by, about three-quarters said they are struggling to save for retirement, the survey found. The share of U.S. workers in this precarious financial position has grown significantly since 1997, when 31% lived paycheck to paycheck, according to Goldman. The investment bank projects that figure could climb to well over half of Americans by 2033 as essentials like housing...

@RonPaul President Trump is considering "stimulus" checks (again). We should all remember the last time that President Trump sent out "stimulus" checks. It was the "CARES Act," which ignited the massive inflation that we're still suffering from today. How can a government that has no money, that racks up record deficits, be in a position to give out "rebates" anyway? They're not. Tariffs revenues (that Americans overwhelmingly pay) don't put the government into the black, and capable of giving "rebates." The government is way in the red. That means the "stimulus" checks will have to come from the Fed counterfeiting...