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The drumbeat quickens. Economic titans from Robert Zoellick, head of the World Bank, to George Soros….the beast that broke the Bank of England…..are saying the run through 2012 will be a repeat of 2008 only much worse. I won’t repeat what got us here. The history and the how are available on both this website and hundreds of others. Whether the working of a divine plan or the mere machinations of evil men, the world’s economic order is about to fold. We are in the mother of all bubbles. It is a toxic mix of fiat currency, inflated asset values,...

The global economy's foundations are weakening, one by one. Already hobbled by Europe's debt crisis, the world now risks being hurt by slowdowns in its economic powerhouses. The U.S. economy, the world's largest, had a third straight month of feeble job growth in May. High-flying economies in China, India and Brazil are slowing, too...

Obama adviser Axelrod: Romney not 'qualified to call himself a job-creator’By Kevin Bogardus - 06/03/12 11:15 AM ET David Axelrod, a senior adviser to President Obama’s reelection campaign, said Sunday that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney does not have a record of a “job-creator.” Speaking on CBS’s Face the Nation, Axelrod said the former Massachusetts governor shouldn’t be considered an expert on the economy. Romney’s record in government and in the private sector was not about creating jobs, according to the Obama adviser. “No one’s arguing whether Mitt Romney’s qualified to be president. What we’re arguing is whether he’s...

Monday’s trading will be the first opportunity stock investors in the U.S. will have to act on a major technical violation that occurred at Friday’s close: The breaking of the 200-day moving average. This could result in an avalanche of sell signals hitting the market at Monday’s open, since many technical analysts use the 200-day moving average as the dividing line between bull and bear markets. They consider the primary trend to be up so long as the market is trading above its 200-day moving average, and that this trend turns to bearish whenever the market closes below this average—and...

Layoffs will begin on Monday for workers at RG Steel in Warren. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week in Delaware. The financial problems will idle plants in Warren, West Virginia and Maryland. Over a thousand employees are effected. RG Steel said that despite cost reductions and improvements, it has been unable to succeed in the current market. The company is looking to sell its operations.

Alan Krueger, head of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, pointed out that the country has added jobs for 27 months in a row, including 4.3 million jobs in the private sector. The economy still has a few bright spots. Americans bought cars and trucks a strong pace last month, giving automakers their best May since 2008. Underscoring the challenge for Obama with five months to go in the campaign, a May poll by The Associated Press and GfK, a research company, showed that 52 percent disapproved of Obama's handling of the economy while 46 percent approved. Some financial analysts...

Time Bomb? Banks Pressured to Buy Government Debt CNBC, NETNET, NET NET, EUROPE DEBT, GREEK DEBT, EUROPEAN DEBT CRISIS, ECB, EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK Posted By: Jeff Cox | CNBC.com Senior Writer CNBC.com | 31 May 2012 | 02:42 PM ET US and European regulators are essentially forcing banks to buy up their own government's debt—a move that could end up making the debt crisis even worse, a Citigroup analysis says. Regulators are allowing banks to escape counting their country's debt against capital requirements and loosening other rules to create a steady market for government bonds, the study says. While that...

Actually, I know the answer to my own question. The answer is manyfold: Hussein has lifted the drilling moratorium; Hussein approved Keystone; Hussein has opened domestic exploration, drilling, and production; Hussein has opened the "strategic reserve"; Hussein didn't actually "invest" all those billions in Brazil's, etc. petroleum industries, he invested it our petroleum industry; Hussein Obama pees oil thereby increasing domestic supply driving the price down; isn't Obama wonderful? NOT I'm not an industry economist so what did I miss? Don't tell me it's all because of Memorial Day and summer's arrival, that doesn't make sense. This is not an...

‘Fear of the Future’ Keeps Lid on Economic Growth: Greenspan ECONOMY, INFLATION, EMPLOYMENT, UNEMPLOYMENT, MANUFACTURING, CPI, CONSUMER PRICE INDEX, JOBLESS CLAIMS Posted By: Jeff Cox | CNBC.com Senior Writer CNBC.com | 01 Jun 2012 | 07:39 AM ET Investors could revolt at a moment's notice against high government deficit levels, jeopardizing chances at a recovery and potentially sending interest rates soaring, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told CNBC. The former central bank leader — nicknamed "The Maestro" by his supporters — said he worries the current economy could be heading on a path similar to 1979, when the 10-year...

Even though unemployment rose to 9.1% for the month of May, the White House wants you to believe this is good news. According to Obama economic advisor Austan Goolsbee, the country’s job situation is actually getting better. Today’s employment report shows that private sector payrolls increased by 83,000 [54,000 net] in May and the unemployment rate ticked up to 9.1 percent. There are always bumps on the road to recovery, but the overall trajectory of the economy has improved dramatically over the past two years.The monthly employment and unemployment numbers are volatile and employment estimates are subject to substantial revision....

BANGKOK (AP) — World markets took a beating Monday as another setback for the U.S. economic recovery sent investors fleeing from stocks. A weak U.S. jobs report flustered investors and intensified fears that a global recession was in the making. The dismal report released Friday came on the heels of other data that showed weak economic conditions in Europe and Asia.

The Tokyo market slumped to a 28-year low on Monday as Asian shares dived on fears of a nightmare scenario of euro-zone breakup, U.S. economic relapse and a sharp slowdown in China. Investors hedged against global financial and economic crisis, heading for havens such as the benchmark 10-year Japanese government bond whose yield fell below 0.80 percent to its lowest since July 2003. Ten-year JGB futures prices jumped to a 19-month high.

Things are shaping up for another hot summer on Wall Street, and there is a long, long way to go yet. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will be back on Capitol Hill on Thursday to testify before a congressional committee about the state of the U.S. economy. He's not going to get an easy ride. The blue-chip Dow average of stocks is now negative for the year. Employment appears to be slowing to a snail's pace and Europe remains mired in crisis. "This puts the Fed firmly in play and they will likely feel compelled to respond," said Tom Porcelli,...

Recently, Barack Obama has refrained from mentioning Dodd-Frank as one of his big accomplishments as President. That's fortunate, because had Obama used that as a campaign claim this month, the huge loss taken by JP Morgan and one-time Obama ally Jamie Dimon would have done serious damage. As it is, Politico wonders whether Obama might have a big problem convincing voters that he's done anything significant to address the underlying issues that created the 2008 financial-system collapse: The giant $2 billion trading loss at JPMorgan Chase highlights a central problem in President Barack ObamaÂ’s case for a second term: Four...

I’ve been fighting for more than 10 years to stop an IRS regulation that would force American banks to put foreign tax law above US tax law. Sadly, I recently lost that battle when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner finalized the third version of the regulation (it was first proposed by Clinton, and then a second version was put forth by the Bush White House).In previous posts, I explained why this regulation represents bad tax policy and undermines the rule of law. I also have explained that it will hurt the American economy and why it endangers the human rights of...

Guy Benson calls this "the political quote of the year", but it may be more like the defining moment of Obamanomics and Barack Obama's fiscal policies. Paul Ryan destroyed interim OMB chief Jeffrey Zients in testimony before Congress this week already, deconstructing White House claims to have $2 trillion in deficit reduction over the next ten years when their contribution to that effort was only $400 billion, or roughly $40 billion a year. In this five-minute clip, Ryan points out that the budget he proposed last year actually eliminated deficit spending over the long term, while the budget Obama proposed...

"It's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we're talking with each other in a way that -- that heals, not in a way that wounds." -- President Obama, speech at Tuscon memorial service, January 12, 2011. "The [Suskind] book amounts to a drive-by shooting of a president and his key economic advisers who deserve encomiums, not unfounded second guessing and inaccurate revisionist history." -- Former Obama car czar Steve Rattner, writing at the Politico, October 2, 2011 [emphasis added]. So less than nine months after President Obama pronounces pious words about talking "in a...

The Obama White House is a “hostile” environment for women even though they occupy many of the senior positions in the West Wing, according to a new book. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind interviewed more than 200 people, including President Obama, for "Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and The Education of A President," which will be released Sept. 20. The book portrays a White House in which Obama struggled with a divided group of advisers, some of whom he didn't initially consider for their high-profile roles. And top female advisers said they felt left out of key meetings or overpowered...

As noted here yesterday, former Obama car czar Steve Rattner, in a Politico piece, lashed out at Ron Suskind, depicting Suskind's book on bad times in the Obama White House as a "drive-by shooting" of President Obama and his staff. That hardly seemed in the spirit of President Obama's pious call, in his much-touted Tucson memorial speech, for people to speak in a way "that heals, not wounds" . Joe Scarborough called Rattner out on the matter on today's Morning Joe. But Rattner blithely batted away Scarborough's depiction of "drive-by" as harsh and rhetorically inflammatory. View the video here.