Free Republic

Fear of inflation continues to weigh on the markets. In an ideal world, inflation protection can do two things: 1) preserve wealth and 2) enhance wealth.In the middle of the 1970s, during the worst bouts of inflation, many investors had no choice but to pay a high premium for inflation protection or wealth preservation, with no expectation of wealth enhancement.You don’t have to settle for that dreary trade-off. Below, I’ll steer you towards a method of inflation protection that also conveys growth. In the meantime, the U.S. equities markets finished last week in the red, with the S&P 500 down...

President Joe Biden on Tuesday will seek to reassure the American people that tackling the worst inflation the nation has seen in decades remains his “top priority” when he addresses the AFL-CIO convention in Philadelphia, a White House official tells CNN. The speech comes a day before the Federal Reserve could raise interest rates as much as three-quarters of a percentage point as it attempts to get inflation under control. The issue has been bedeviling Biden and his White House for months after they downplayed inflation concerns last year. But without many options to fight price hikes, the President is...

THE TELL The shocks aren’t over. Get ready. That’s the timely Friday advice of Bank of America, delivered hours before worse-than-expected U.S. inflation data knocked the wind out of Wall Street and left investors bracing for more aggressive central-bank action. Data showed the cost of living surged 1% in May amid higher rents and gas and food prices, keeping the rate of U.S. inflation at a 40-year high. Annual inflation now sits at 8.6%, up from 8.3% and a new cycle high, the most rapid increase since 1981. The S&P 500 index tumbled 2% early Friday. Taking a fresh look...

Geraldo Rivera joins the Brian Kilmeade Show to discuss Thursday night's January 6th hearings, what it means for the mid-terms and Donald Trump possibly running again in 2024. ...

Remember when The New York Times attempted to spin the 1970s stagflation crisis in order to protect former President Jimmy Carter’s political image before the 1980 elections? MRC Business does. The newspaper published a 1979 propaganda piece erroneously headlined, “The 70's: America Learns To Expect a Little Less,” The piece tried to paint lipstick on the pig of an economic disaster that Carter oversaw. Carter’s policies resulted in stagnant growth and a ridiculous annual inflation rate of 11.3 percent in 1979. “[D]espite the prospects of a recession next year, the economic reality is perhaps better than the psychology. Inflation in...

Countries around the world are facing recession as the Ukraine war hits economies already rocked by the Covid pandemic, the World Bank has warned. Less developed countries in Europe and east Asia face a "major recession", it said. The risk of high inflation and low growth - so-called "stagflation" - is also higher, World Bank President David Malpass said. Energy and food bills have been rising around the world. "The war in Ukraine, lockdowns in China, supply-chain disruptions, and the risk of stagflation are hammering growth. For many countries, recession will be hard to avoid," Mr Malpass said. He also...

The World Bank warned Tuesday that the global economy faces the risk of dreaded "stagflation," with this combination of high inflation and low growth tipping some countries into recession. “The war in Ukraine, lockdowns in China, supply-chain disruptions, and the risk of stagflation are hammering growth. For many countries, recession will be hard to avoid,” said World Bank President David Malpass. In its updated Global Economic Prospects report, the World Bank slashed its forecast for global growth this year to 2.9%, down from the 4.1% forecast it published in January. The World Bank said most of the downgrade is attributed...

If you thought that the economic news was crazy during the first half of 2022, just wait until we get to the second half. So many of the problems that we are experiencing now are going to continue to intensify, and Americans are becoming more pessimistic about economic conditions with each passing day. In fact, as you will see below, a whopping 85 percent of us believe that it is “very likely” or “somewhat likely” that the economy will go through a recession at some point during the next year. Of course the truth is that if all we have...

President Biden is behind the curve on everything, we need to take back the presidency, Arkansas Sen. Dan Sullivan told 'The Evening Edit.' ...

If an administration deliberately wished to cause havoc on the border, to ensure fuel was nearly unaffordable, to create a crime wave, to spark 1970s hyperinflation, and to rekindle racial tensions, what would it have done differently than what President Joe Biden has done? So is Biden malicious, incompetent, or a wannabe left-wing ideologue? When pressed about inflation and fuel price hikes, Biden either blames someone or something else, gets mad at the questioner, or claims former President Donald Trump did it. His administration apparently believes things are going well and according to plan. When polls disagree, his team either...

With inflation over 8% and the threat of a recession on the horizon, there are global concerns about stagflation, a combination of low economic growth and soaring prices. But is it something the average American needs to be concerned about? “At this point, we can’t say that we’re yet in a period of stagflation,” says Lindsey Piegza, chief economist at Stifel Financial, a financial investment firm. However, given the current economic situation, “it is a very real risk.” The Federal Reserve is in the process of raising interest rates to combat inflation that’s coming in at 40-year highs month after...

Ben Bernanke, who served as Federal Reserve Chairman under Presidents Bush and Obama, warns that the U.S. economy is headed for a repeat of 1970s “stagflation.” Economists refer to a period of low economic growth, high inflation, and rising unemployment as “stagflation.” “Even under the benign scenario,” the U.S. is likely to go through “a period in the next year or two where growth is low, unemployment is at least up a little bit, and inflation is still high,” Bernanke told the New York Times. “So you could call that stagflation.” That “benign scenario” is if current Fed chair Jerome...

The former head of the Federal Reserve says the US is heading toward a period of high inflation and low economic growth as the head of Goldman Sachs and other global banks warn that a recession is coming. Ben Bernake, who led the Fed through the 2008 financial crisis, says 'stagflation' may be on the horizon. The term, coined in the 1960s, refers to low economic growth combined with high unemployment and high prices.

A soft landing is better than a hard one, especially when it comes to the economy. It’s the difference between turning the booming Biden years—even with 40-year-high inflation—into a sustainable trend, instigating a mild recession, or something even worse. The Federal Reserve, the institution caught between a rock and a hard place, got even more bad news on Wednesday: inflation remains an issue. Although the Consumer Price Index saw a deceleration in April, consumer prices are still increasing at an 8.3% annual rate. The Fed famously has a dual mandate to promote price stability and maximum employment, and the central...

Economist Ezra Solomon once observed that the “only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.” Historically, economists have had a terrible track record when it comes to making growth forecasts. The Federal Reserve (Fed) during the 2007-2016 period had a tendency to persistently overestimate future GDP growth. After correcting for this tendency in the recent past, Fed officials found themselves making a new set of costly forecasting errors during the past year. They persistently underestimated inflation.

A tsunami of bankruptcies could batter Europe's largest manufacturing hub as stagflation risks mount due to the conflict in Ukraine and resulting Western sanctions on Russian fossil fuels. "The energy supply in Germany is at risk, supply chains are breaking down, we have high inflation," said Commerzbank Chief Executive Officer Manfred Knof, who German newspaper Handelsblatt recently quoted. The threat of stagflation in Germany is elevated as soaring energy prices increase inflation and wreak havoc on businesses. Germany could experience a downturn if an embargo on Russian fossil fuels, such as natural gas, crude, and coal, is enforced. Bundesbank warned...

The world’s largest ocean and inland freight transportation company warns about gathering storm clouds above the global economy as potential stagflation risks emerge and shuttering of China’s factories because of the COVID-19 outbreak even as it reported record profits for the first quarter. Maersk’s chief executive Søren Skou was quoted by Financial Times as saying the second quarter is expected to be in line with the first quarter, which allowed the shipper to record the highest profits in its 114-year history. However, Skou delivered this warning: “We are assuming a slowdown in the second half, a normalization. The visibility is...

The Federal Reserve is racing to get inflation under control and pull back stimulus for an overheated economy with a double dose of rate hikes expected on Wednesday. The Fed’s monetary policy panel is expected to announce a 0.5 percentage point rate hike Wednesday, twice the size of a typical interest rate increase, as the bank rushes to get in front of rising prices.

U.S. stocks sunk Friday with the Nasdaq Composite notching its worst month since 2008, as Amazon became the latest victim in April’s technology-led sell-off. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 4.2% to 12,334.64, weighed down by Amazon’s post-earnings plunge. The S&P 500 retreated by 3.6% to 4,131.93. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed about 940 points, or 2.8%, to 32,977.21.

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY (NYSE:SPY) traded higher by 0.9% on Tuesday morning after the Labor Department reported an 8.5% increase in the consumer price index in the month of March, the highest inflation growth since 1981. What Happened: The headline CPI rose 8.6% in March, above economist estimates of 8.4% and marking the highest growth rate since December 1981. The CPI was up 1.2% on a monthly basis. Related Link: Analyst Cuts S&P 500 Earnings Estimate, Says Recession Risk Rising Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, was up 6.5% in March, in-line with economist...