Free Republic

I have no idea how well Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will perform as a member of Congress. But her election is already serving a valuable purpose. You see, the mere thought of having a young, articulate, telegenic nonwhite woman serve is driving many on the right mad — and in their madness they’re inadvertently revealing their true selves. […] The controversy of the moment involves AOC’s advocacy of a tax rate of 70-80 percent on very high incomes, which is obviously crazy, right? I mean, who thinks that makes sense? Only ignorant people like … um, Peter Diamond, Nobel laureate in economics...

White house economists overestimated annual economic growth by about 80 percent on average for a six year stretch during Barack Obama’s presidency, according to Freedom Works economic consultant Stephen Moore. Economists predicted growth between 3.2 to 4.6 percent for the years 2010 through 2015. Actual economic growth never hit above 2.6 percent. {..snip..}

It’s official. With Thursday’s final revision of fourth-quarter GDP growth to 2.1 percent from its previous 1.9 percent level, President Obama is the only president since Herbert Hoover to not have guided the US economy to 3 percent growth in any year he was in office. The US economy grew 1.6 percent in 2016 from the previous years, according to the Commerce Department, which tracks GDP.

In the past 10 years there have been only three Fed Funds rate increases. Two of those increases have occurred since President Trump won the election on November 8th, 2016. No Fed Funds Rate increases took place between June 2006 and December 2015. CNBC reported in December 2015 that President Obama oversaw “seven years of the most accommodative monetary policy in U.S. history” (from the Fed). Finally, in December 2015 after the Fed announced its first increase in the Fed Funds rate during the Obama Presidency, it was reported that: Given the economic outlook, and recognizing the time it takes...

The number of millennials who have not moved out of their parents or grandparents homes has climbed to a 75-year high of 40 percent. The high-water mark for young people “failing to launch” was set during the Great Depression. Its duplication after eight years of Obama Administration policies is seen by some as a poor legacy for the outgoing chief executive. One who doesn’t see it that way is President Obama. “The Republicans do a lot of talking about family values, but it has been my policies that have brought succeeding generations under the same roof,” he boasted. “The whole...

You’ve likely heard the spin lines and talking points from Obama loyalists claiming Barack Obama’s presidency netted the longest period of job growth in the last xyz years or maybe even “ever.” It’s a shame that people view things through shaded glasses and bias. In the case of this so-called “continued job growth,” we need to examine the claims and determine what has actually “grown.” At this point, we have more federal workers than ever before. More than 1.4 million people collecting government salaries according to the congressional budget. That’s a 10 percent jump from the time Obama took office....

Ok, one a week From:donna@brazileassociates.com To: john.podesta@gmail.com Date: 2016-02-13 22:52 Subject: Ok, one a week I think people are more in despair about how things are—yes new jobs but they are low wage jobs. HOUSING is a huge issue. Most people pay half of what they make to rent… Sent from Donna's I Pad. Follow me on twitter @donnabrazile

President Obama has implemented more costly rules and swamped America with more federal red tape than any other administration, and now he has set another regulatory record: his team has filled 70,000 pages in the Federal Register faster than any other president. Team Obama crossed the 70,000-page mark this week and is on schedule to print seven of the fattest eight Federal Registers in history, according to a new analysis from the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Vice President of Policy Clyde Wayne Crews. "Let's put this in some perspective," said Crews in the report provided to Secrets. "The day after Columbus...

As President Obama’s time in office winds down, the debate over the success of his economic policies has become more pronounced. This might seem difficult to objectively evaluate, given that every president inherits a unique economic situation. But there exists a fair way to judge the president: Compare the results of his policies with forecasts from his own administration. Mr. Obama’s various budgets, which included projections for how the economy would respond to his programs, provide an excellent test. And I will only consider postrecession budgets, so this is not about the Great Recession. Likewise, the president’s defenders cannot blame...

As the first one-on-one US presidential debate began, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump put forward competing visions for the US economy... Mrs Clinton said: "The central question in this election is really, what kind of country do we want to be and what kind of future we'll build together. "First, we have to build an economy that works for everyone, not just just those at the top. That means we need new jobs, good jobs with rising incomes.

In the history of data from The Fed, this has never happened before... Aggregate Auto Loan volume actually fell last week... And less loans means one simple thing... less sales (because prices have never been higher and no one is paying cash)... Which is a major problem since motor vehicle production continues to rise as management is blindly belieiving the Hillbama narrative that everything is (and will be) awesome. The problem is... inventories are already at near record highs relative to sales (which are anything but plateauing)... In fact, the last time inventories were this high relative to sales, GM...

<p>Nonfarm payrolls rose by a seasonally adjusted 151,000 last month, the Labor Department said Friday. Revisions showed U.S. employers added 1,000 fewer jobs in June and July than previously estimated.</p>

By popular measures, the U.S. economy is in the midst of one of the longest economic recoveries in its history. After all, the current economic expansion — now 85 months and counting — is the fourth-longest since 1857. As reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U3 unemployment rate was 4.9 percent in July, less than half the level seen during the depths of the Great Recession. Meanwhile, the housing market is booming and the stock markets are hovering near their all-time highs. So why does the Real Clear Politics “Direction of Country” polling average indicate that Americans believe...

Since 2014 The US Has Added Half A Million Waiters & Bartenders And No Manufacturing Workers: Here's Why by Tyler Durden Aug 5, 2016 12:43 PM 0 SHARES As part of our monthly tradition showing the gaping disparity in the quality of the US labor market, we present the breakdown between the lowest paid jobs available, those for workers in "food services and drinking places", also known as waiters and bartenders, and compare them to the number of workers in the traditionally best paid sector, manufacturing. Here is the bottom line: as the chart below shows, there have been half...

After rising just over a decade ago to its highest level ever, the nation's home ownership rate fell to match its all-time low and could drop even further in the months to come. In the second quarter of this year, the rate fell to 62.9 percent, not seasonally adjusted, which is the same as it was in 1965, when the U.S. Census started tracking the metric. During the epic housing boom in the mid-2000s, the rate soared as high as 69.2 percent. That was when politicians touted the so-called "ownership society."

The nation's jobless rate rose 0.2% in June to 4.9%, as another 347,000 people found themselves out of work, according to figures released by the Department of Labor (DOL). At the same time, the economy created another 287,000 jobs last month, mostly in leisure and hospitality, health care and social assistance, and financial activities. ...labor force participation rate, at 62.7%, and the employment-population ratio, at 59.6%, showed little change...

The US has been warned about its high poverty rate in the International Monetary Fund's annual assessment of the economy. The fund said about one in seven people were living in poverty and that it needed to be tackled urgently. It recommended raising the minimum wage and offering paid maternity leave to women to encourage them to work. The report also cut the country's growth forecast for 2016 to 2.2% from a previous prediction of 2.4%. Slower global growth and weaker consumer spending were blamed.

When the U.S. housing bubble peaked a decade ago, soon to burst with far-reaching consequences, the pain was particularly severe for black and Hispanic Americans. A disproportionate number of minorities succumbed to subprime mortgages and foreclosures and lost their homes. Their collective loss of home equity and shift toward rental housing could widen America's racial and ethnic divides well into the future, according to researchers and housing advocates. The drop in home ownership has grown so severe that it could impede wealth creation for generations of minority families, said Antoine Thompson, executive director of the National Association of Real Estate...

BE A MARTIAN! Mars needs YOU! In the future, Mars will need all kinds of explorers, farmers, surveyors, teachers . . . but most of all YOU! Join us on the Journey to Mars as we explore with robots and send humans there one day.

What’s the most important economic statistic to gauge a society’s prosperity? I often use per-capita economic output when comparing nations. But for ordinary people, what probably matters most is household income. And if you look at the median household income numbers for the United States, Obamanomics is a failure. According to the Census Bureau’s latest numbers, the average family today has less income (after adjusting for inflation) than when Obama took office. In an amazing feat of chutzpah, however, the President is actually arguing that he’s done a good job with the economy. His main talking point is that the...