Free Republic

Hate to say bad news coming, but um ..... there's bad news coming. Getting inflation back to target ‘means crushing demand with a recession’ Federal Reserve policy makers are about to surprise themselves — and not in a good way when it comes to stocks and other assets perceived as risky, according to analysts at BlackRock Investment Institute. BlackRock has argued that investors are dealing with a “regime shift” as the COVID-19 pandemic upended an unusual period of mild volatility in output and inflation, heralding a more volatile market environment that carries echoes of the early 1980s. That’s an environment...

The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton is genuinely regarded as one of the finest business schools in the country — U.S. News & World Report ranks it second, behind only Stanford. But these aspiring giants of the business world could use an education in real-world economics. Nina Strohminger, a professor of legal studies and business ethics, tweeted that she had asked students what the average American makes. They did not do well. The tweet triggered a firestorm of responses, mostly along the lines that these students were out of touch. One Twitter user linked to New York Times data, showing the...

NEW DELHI, India (Project Syndicate)—As the world’s largest, strongest, and longest-surviving dictatorship, contemporary China lacks the rule of law. Yet it is increasingly using its rubber-stamp Parliament to enact domestic legislation asserting territorial claims and rights in international law. In fact, China has become quite adept at waging “lawfare”—the misuse and abuse of law for political and strategic ends. Under “commander-in-chief” Xi Jinping’s bullying leadership, lawfare has developed into a critical component of China’s broader approach to asymmetrical or hybrid warfare. The blurring of the line between war and peace is enshrined in the regime’s official strategy as the “Three...

The Confederate battle flag, which was crafted as a symbol of opposition to the abolishment of slavery, is just recently tired. We don’t see it much anymore. However, on the 6th, when the stormers rained on the nation’s most precious hut, waving Old Glory — the memo was received: the American flag is its replacement. President Biden, Madame Harris and members of Congress: the American flag has been hijacked as code for a specific belief. God bless those believers, they can have it. Like the Confederate, it is tattered, dated, divisive, and incorrect. It no longer represents democracy and freedom....

The doctor who developed a widely used test that screens for early signs of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease says that cognition is “a pertinent question” during a presidential election with presumptive candidates over age 70. Problem is, both sides of the political divide are interpreting this test incorrectly. Dr. Ziad Nasreddine in 1996 developed and copyrighted the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) test, which is a 10-minute examination usually performed with pen and paper that measures the strengths of different areas of the brain related to cognitive domains, such as short-term memory, spatial awareness and executive functioning. (Remote testing, including via...

Sometimes, the stuff that people say about early retirement (and early retirees) is terrible. It is assumed that early retirement is the end of productive life and that unless we’re swimming in millions in cold hard cash, early retirement will eat us alive. Today, it is my distinct honor and pleasure to debunk five of the most common of these myths, which also happen to be the ones that I hear most often. As I said in my one-year early retirement performance review, early retirement is all that it’s cracked up to be. It’s a remarkable feeling of control, each...

President Trump is clearly no fan of Fox News host Chris Wallace, having called him a “wannabe” who is “nasty and obnoxious” and “will never be his father.” This latest interview isn’t helping. The two went at it on Fox News Sunday over the recent surge in coronavirus cases, mask-wearing, tearing down statues, and, of course, Joe Biden. In one particularly odd moment, they tangled over the president’s cognitive tests. Trump recently boasted that he “aced” the test. “They said, ‘that’s an unbelievable thing. Rarely does anybody do what you just did,’ Trump said on Fox News last week. “But...

The numbers: Restaurants, dentists and other service-style companies that dominate the U.S. economy saw a surge in growth in June as businesses were allowed to reopen, pointing to a gradual recovery after extended coronavirus lockdowns. The Institute for Supply Management’s index of nonmanufacturing companies jumped to 57.1% in June from 45.4% in May, marking the single biggest increase since the survey was created in 1997. It was also the highest reading since February and easily topped the 51% forecast of economists polled by MarketWatch. Any number above 50% indicates more companies are expanding, but the big increase in June overstates...

Yesterday was April Fools’ Day. Looks like a prominent liberal business outlet did not get that memo and fell prey to a major climate change prank. MarketWatch ran a story on April Fools’ Day originally headlined “Google will no longer pay lobbyists that deny climate change, pledges zero emissions by 2025.” The problem? The source for that story came from a parody account, according to a MarketWatch update. MarketWatch had to eat crow and updated its headline to apparently divert blame away from themselves towards the parody account: “An April Fools climate hoax in the middle of a pandemic.”

The attendees' acceptance of Trump is all the more surprising given the theme of this year's annual WEF meeting: "Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World." Trump, after all, is a climate-change denier, although he seems to have kept his denial under wraps in his prepared address. He limited his barbs at environmentalists (https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-world-economic-forum-davos-switzerland/) to urging a rejection of "the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse," including "an overpopulation crisis in the 1960s, mass starvation in the '70s and an end of oil in the 1990s." The change of heart toward Trump may have something to...

Not only has the “Phase One” trade deal now been signed by the United States and China, but official texts have now been released. And my initial read indicates that the Trump administration just might have come up with an effective enforcement regime – though success here will depend on U.S. governments (including this one) displaying nerves of steel. At the same time, the enforcement terms raise the question of why the President felt the need to reach this point via a treaty, rather than simply punish China unilaterally for economic transgressions – as his tariffs on hundreds of...

Expect the president to ride an economic tailwind to victory, with the S&P topping 3400 by Election Day [SNIP] U.S. economy could accelerate in 2020 Keep in mind that in 2020 the U.S. will have an impeached president running for re-election, with a record number of people working and unemployment near 50-year lows (see chart). I know everything is not perfect, but historically, a good economy has been an electoral advantage for an incumbent. My job is not to make political statements but to interpret how policies affect markets and help clients to profit from those facts. So far, what...

There are three negative supply shocks that could trigger a global recession by 2020. All of them reflect political factors affecting international relations, two involve China, and the United States is at the center of each. Moreover, none of them is amenable to the traditional tools of countercyclical macroeconomic policy. The first potential shock stems from the Sino-American trade and currency war, which escalated earlier this month when President Donald Trump’s administration threatened additional tariffs on Chinese exports, and formally labeled China a currency manipulator. The second concerns the slow-brewing cold war between the U.S. and China over technology. In...

The superrich blueprint to navigating this hairy stock market: Tap the brakes and get ready to pounce when it all goes to hell. And by the looks of Monday’s action, hell might not be too far away. In the first quarter, Tiger 21, a coalition of 750 members worth in excess of $75 billion, raised cash to levels not seen since 2013. Not much changed in the second quarter in terms of keeping powder dry. The group’s holding 12% in cash. What has changed, however, is that these deep-pocketed investors, in the call of the day, are continuing to move...

Just hours after President Trump announced he will be imposing 5% tariffs on Mexican imports over illegal immigration, Mexico’s president Lopez Obrador sent Trump a letter begging for a meeting to work toward a solution. “Mexico’s President Lopez Obrador asks Trump to have U.S. officials meet with the Mexican foreign minister in Washington on Friday to seek a solution that benefits both nations,” Reuters reported.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Contentious supporters of the two rivals for the Democratic nomination turned the selection of Nevada’s national delegates this weekend into a virtual battlefield, with the chairman gaveling the proceeding to a peremptory close and fleeing the stage while armed guards cleared the meeting venue. The spectacle of Democratic Party officials railroading through a ruling favorable to Hillary Clinton while denying certification to some 58 Bernie Sanders delegates to the state convention comes on top of charges that caucuses and primary votes around the country have been manipulated to beef up Clinton’s much-touted lead in national delegates.

Yes, capitalism is working ... for the Forbes Global Billionaires whose ranks swelled from 322 in 2000 to 1,826 in 2015. Billionaires control the vast majority of the world’s wealth, 67 billionaires already own half the world’s assets; by 2100 we’ll have 11 trillionaires, while American worker income has stagnated for a generation. But for the vast majority of the world, capitalism is a failure. Over a billion live on less than two dollars a day. In his “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” economist Thomas Piketty warns the inequality gap is toxic, dangerous. As global population explodes from 7 billion...

Opinions about Obamacare are improving even in congressional districts held by Republicans, according to a new poll. But opponents of the Affordable Care Act in those districts still outnumber those in favor of the law. The poll may draw fire from Republicans since it was conducted by a Democratic firm, Democracy Corps. The firm did not comment about how Republicans might view the results, and a representative said there would be a call to discuss the poll Monday afternoon. But attitudes about President Barack Obama’s signature health law are changing, according to the poll, which was shared in advance with...

The Obama administration may give Americans extra time to sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, postponing when penalties for failing to buy coverage will go into effect, MarketWatch has learned. The health care law requires most people to have health insurance by Jan. 1, 2014, but allows for “short coverage gaps” of up to three months before imposing the penalty, which is $95 or 1% of an individual’s income (whichever is greater) next year. That means someone must be covered by March 31, an official with the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed, which is...

At MarketWatch this morning, Paul Farrell's hostility towards Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Milton Friedman and especially free-market capitalism boiled over. Farrell claims that capitalism “is destined to destroy the world, absent a historic paradigm shift.” The problem he describes really has nothing to do with properly practiced free-market capitalism, but is instead a combination of rampant cronyism and the abandonment of capitalism’s (and society’s) Judeo-Christian moral underpinnings. But that’s a long discussion outside the scope of this post. This post is about the opening claim Farrell makes: “Billionaires control the vast majority of the world’s wealth.” No they don’t. …...