Free Republic

At our current rate of spending, the U.S. will be unable to confront major problems in the future because we’ve already stretched ourselves too thin.America’s debt and deficits usually are spoken of in terms of economics, but they have huge implications for national security. To see why, start with the economics angle. Famed investor Michael Burry — who foresaw the housing market bust and was played by Christian Bale in the hit film “The Big Short” — has just issued a warning. In a series of tweets, Burry said that the stock market could crash because of too much debt....

The Federal Reserve’s systems for electronic money transfers between banks suffered a widespread disruption Wednesday. The Fedwire Funds Service, Fedwire Securities Service, and National Settlement Service have resumed processing and are operating normally. The Federal Reserve Banks have taken steps to help ensure the resilience of the Fedwire and NSS applications, including recovery to the point of failure. Nevertheless, it is critical that you reconcile the messages you believe you had sent or received through the services after waiting several minutes for the backlog of messages to finish processing before you submit additional messages to the Fedwire Funds Service and...

President Biden on Thursday formally withdrew Judy Shelton's nomination to the Federal Reserve Board, closing the book on her quest to join the central bank. Shelton's nomination was withdrawn with more than two dozen other officials nominated by former President Trump in January shortly before he left office. The Democratic takeover of the Senate in January effectively ended Shelton's chances of confirmation, and Biden's withdrawal of her nomination does little more than clear the way for his eventual pick to fill the final vacant spot on the Fed board. Biden has not yet indicated who he would nominate in Shelton's...

In the past during normal times, to raise money for the federal government, the Treasury would sell government bonds. However, in recent years, they have abandoned any pretense of selling bonds and have instead just printed more money. Which raises the following question)s); 1. If the fedres is just printing money, is the US actually borrowing it? And can we just print more money to pay it back? And the scary thing is that once the government discovers that when it needs more money it can just print it, it eventually does. The problem is runaway inflation which will destroy...

The Federal Reserve’s point man on financial regulation said the Treasury market has grown so large that some level of central bank involvement may need to continue to ensure orderly trading conditions. Randal Quarles, the Fed’s vice chairman for supervision, was discussing the outlook for the central bank’s $120 billion-a-month in purchases of Treasury and mortgage debt. Those purchases ramped up in March as the central bank responded to market and economic stress caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The functioning of financial markets has improved since the tumult earlier in the year, raising questions about whether the Fed could pull...

House Financial Services Chair Maxine Waters and Senator Elizabeth Warren have introduced the Federal Reserve Racial and Economic Equity Act. This legislation directs the Federal Reserve to eliminate racial disparities in income, employment, wealth, and access to credit. Eliminating racial disparities in access to credit is code for forcing banks and other financial institutions to approve loans based on the applicants’ race, instead of based on their income and credit history. Overlooking poor credit history or income below what would normally be required to qualify for a loan results in individuals ending up with ruinous debt. These individuals will end...

The New York Times tried to shift goalposts to claim that the Federal Reserve was responsible for President Donald Trump’s roaring pre-pandemic economy. That’s wildly different from the “economic disaster” The Times speculated could happen under a Trump presidency in 2016.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell admitted last week at the “virtual” Jackson Hole symposium that the Fed has undershot its 2% annual inflation target consistently for the last several years. The Fed is tacitly admitting that its deflationary monetary policy has restrained growth and held down wages. Now the Fed is promising to aim higher in order to get more dollar liquidity into the economy.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell will speak Thursday during a virtual version of the Fed’s annual Jackson Hole, Wyoming, conference. He is expected to outline what could be the central bank’s most active efforts ever to spur inflation back to a healthy level. “Average inflation” targeting means the Fed will allow inflation to run higher than normal for a period of time. The effort will be the reverse of former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker’s rate hikes instituted to quash inflation in the 1980s. History will remember Paul Volcker and Jerome Powell as standing on the opposite ends of the inflation canyon,...

Used Vehicle Prices Explode To All Time Highs After Plunging Just Months Ago Tyler Durden Thu, 08/20/2020 - 22:05 When you have the Central Bank back-stopping every industry in the United States, it's incredible how quickly things can change over the course of less than a quarter. Less than two months ago we were talking about the unprecedented crash in used car prices that had taken place as a result of the coronavirus pandemic slowing the economy. "Where's the inflation?" everyone kept asking. We think we've found it. Today, according to new research from Manheim, those prices have exploded to...

MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi tried to twist Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s remarks to NBC’s Today in March to claim that conservatives have a “fetish” about debt. Huh? Filling in for the insufferable Chris Hayes on Monday’s edition of MSNBC’s All In, Velshi inundated viewers with propaganda. He spewed that GOP leaders were “pretending that there’s just not enough money to help Americans. They say we cannot afford another large relief bill.” Still, he later levied a bizarre accusation that the GOP was “deceiving Americans” and conforming to a “conservative fetish about poor people getting freebies and running up the...

America, the Central Bank is dead. There is ZERO chance $30+ trillion in fiat debt will ever be repaid with more fiat dollars. We’re in technical default. And President Trump knows this. The Solution? US Treasury Notes issued by our US Treasury will soon replace the fraudulent, 98% devalued Federal Reserve debt contracts (dollars). America’s soon to be, newly issued, asset back currency and our revitalized “America First” economy will reverse Bretton Woods and the Federal Reserve‘s death grip will officially be removed from America‘s throat. Every new US Treasury note will equate to an inflated number of current fiat...

"Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Randal Quarles, the Vice Chairman for Supervision at the Fed, have stated in testimony before Congress that they would be providing transaction level details of their Section 13(3) Emergency Lending Facilities on a regular, ongoing basis. But the three oldest of those facilities, the Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF), the Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF), and the Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility (MMLF), which were all created more than four months ago in mid-March, have yet to release any transaction level details to the public. The Fed is required to provide reports every...

The localized lockdowns weren’t bad enough. Fill-in host and former Face the Nation anchor John Dickerson failed to push back on Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Neel Kashkari’s proposal that the entire country go into a month-long national economic shutdown. GDP fell 9.5 percent in the second quarter, and at least “30 million” are unemployed, in-part due to the lockdowns and stay-at-home orders imposed by states. Apparently those factors weren’t significant enough for Dickerson to push back on a proposal for a national economic lockdown.

Powell to speak amid issues with QE acceleration, China, protests, riots & Twitter wars. On Friday, May 29, at 11:00 AM ET. Webcast.....

A seat on the U.S Federal Reserve Board, carries tremendous power. The seven members of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. A full term is fourteen years. During that time, a board member can influence the financial policies of the world's most powerful economy. In some ways the seven men and women, have more power than Congress or even the President himself. That's why appointments to the Federal Reserve Board deserve as much scrutiny as those to the Supreme Court. President Barack Obama recently made three nominations...

Like every Fed chief, President Trump's appointee to the slot, Jerome Powell, is studiously apolitical and circumspect. He often infuriates Trump, who then rage-tweets about him, but I've always been satisfied with him. Trump probably is, too, given that he hasn't told him 'You're fired." Powell did us a service on Sunday, however, speaking to widely watched 60 Minutes, SNIP Here's the part that makes the most sense, though, as an inadvertant endorsement for President Trump: PELLEY: 25% is the estimated height of unemployment during the Great Depression. Do you think history will look back on this time and call...

President Donald Trump on Tuesday again pushed the Federal Reserve to adopt negative interest rates, even as several members of the US central bank have said they do not see a need for rates - now near zero - to move into negative territory. "As long as other countries are receiving the benefits of Negative Rates, the USA should also accept the 'GIFT'. Big numbers!" he tweeted.

The latest jobs report revealing record U.S. unemployment highlights a growing rift investors are struggling to reconcile: a rallying stock market and stumbling economy. Gains in U.S. stocks accelerated Friday after April’s nonfarm payrolls report showed unemployment rose to 14.7%, the highest level on record. It was the latest head-scratching development for many market observers, who have been parsing a steady stream of abysmal economic data while watching the U.S. stock market stage a recovery. [SNIP] Many analysts are looking past the grim economic data, forecasting a speedy recovery as state economies open back up across the country. New York,...

“This is a huge, unprecedented, devastating hit,” Yellen said. “My hope is that we will get back to business as quickly as possible.” Former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen estimated Monday that the unemployment rate would probably be as high as 12 to 13 percent if we had a real-time gauge for joblessness. Yellen also said that the economy will probably contract around 30 percent because of the coronavirus and related measures that have shut down large segments of the economy in pursuit of social distancing the control the spread of the disease. Yellen described the recent reports of initial...