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Why U.S. might be ‘a nation of deadbeats’ Consumers have been paying down debt, but walking away from more By Brett Arends President Obama said on Monday that “we are not a nation of deadbeats,” but instead a people who “pay our bills.” Really? A close look at the data reveals a very different story — and one that gets far too little airing in public discourse. Far from paying our bills, the current generation of Americans — or some of them — have set records for default which probably have no parallel in the history of the human race....

GDP Growth Statistical Nonsense, The Unseen Hand Politics / Economic Statistics Aug 06, 2012 - 07:54 AM By: Alasdair Macleod The assessment of economic growth based on Gross Domestic Product is a fallacy, because GDP is merely a measure of the amount of money in an economy. The one thing it does not measure, which is central to economic progress (note progress, not growth), is the level of entrepreneurial activity. This has important implications for the efficacy of government interventions and solutions to the current economic crisis. I have written about GDP before, but to refresh the reader’s memory, GDP...

Economic Growth According to the World’s Leading Economists By Bill Bonner 10/05/11 Paris, France – We were on the edge of our chairs yesterday. We wanted to see if the Dow would crash through the 10,000 barrier. A break below 10,000 would probably hit the markets like a drone attack on a birthday party… …perhaps causing investors to panic…and the feds to do something really stupid. The feds are getting ready. They’re being egged-on by some of the world’s leading economists. Nobel prize winner, Peter Diamond, for example, urges the feds to spend more money on infrastructure projects. Richard Koo,...

Christina Romer exits the administration this month, and perhaps she felt compelled to engage in a little truth telling. If so, that may have been a little more truth than the people at the National Press Club, who had gathered to hear her valediction as chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, had prepared themselves to handle. Dana Milbank describes how depressing it was to the gathered media to have someone on the inside of the Obama administration tell them that the emperor and his staff have no clothes when it comes to the economy: She had no...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Vice President Joe Biden brushed aside suggestions on Sunday that Democrats will suffer big losses in November midterm elections, vowing that Barack Obama's governing party will "shock the heck out of everybody." Speaking on the ABC News program "This Week," Biden dismissed prevailing wisdom that Democrats, 17 months into Obama's transformative residency in the White House, would suffer a drubbing at the hands of salivating Republicans. "I don't think the losses are going to be bad at all," Biden said. "I think we're going to shock the heck out of everybody." Biden said he was "confident when...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama, with Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke at his side, insisted the US economy was "strengthening" Tuesday despite foreboding data and a fresh stock market slump. Obama admitted there was "great concern" about the recovery, amid increasing anxiety over indicators which may point to a slowing of the rebound, and with expectations low for the latest unemployment figures due out Friday.

Job outlook hits worst-ever level Employers' hiring plans at lowest point in Manpower survey's history Hiring plans for the upcoming fourth quarter dropped to their lowest level in the history of Manpower's Employment Outlook Survey, which started in 1962. A net -3% of employers said they'll hire in the fourth quarter, down from -2% in the third quarter, on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the Milwaukee-based firm's survey of more than 28,000 employers. Before this year, the survey's previous low point was a net 1% hiring outlook for the third quarter of 1982.

ATLANTIC CITY, June 14 - Senator John Kerry served notice Monday that he still considered the economy a central vulnerability for President Bush despite strong employment growth in recent months. Beginning a two-week focus on the economy, officials with the Democratic challenger's campaign argued that Mr. Bush's record should be judged on his entire tenure, not on the turnaround of the past few months. "If you get D-minuses for three and a half years in college, one semester of a B-minus does not get you on the honor roll," said Gene Sperling, who was a top economic adviser to President...