Free Republic

“In December, 15.8 million persons reported that they had been unable to work because their employer closed or lost business due to the pandemic–that is, they did not work at all or worked fewer hours at some point in the last 4 weeks due to the pandemic. This measure is 1.0 million higher than in November.”

It would be a gross understatement to say that Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell faces a very difficult year ahead in meeting the Fed’s dual objective of low inflation and high employment. It is not only that the U.S. economic recovery is now stumbling during this darkest of Covid-19 winters at a time that unemployment remains troublingly high. Nor is it only that the recent Georgia Senate election has paved the way for another round of large-scale budget stimulus by the incoming Biden Administration at a time that of a record-high U.S. budget deficit. It is also that the Federal...

An astonishing 2.2 million more Americans were working in October than in December, and 1.5 million fewer were unemployed.Good news about the economy continued to pour in during Election Week. Predictably, the nation’s establishment press, obsessed with its self-appointed insistence that Joe Biden is the nation’s president-elect, virtually ignored it.On Nov. 6, the government’s October jobs report revealed that the nation’s unemployment rate dropped a full point to a seasonally adjusted 6.9 percent, while nonfarm payroll employment increased by 638,000. The reported unemployment rate smashed expectations that it would only drop to 7.6 percent, while the employment increase beat expectations...

The annual meetings of the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund (IMF) held Oct. 14–20 in Washington ended with increased pessimism about the global economic outlook. The U.S. economy, however, is “holding up relatively well,” despite rising trade worries and uncertainty across the globe. IMF last week warned about a “synchronized slowdown” in the world economy, with nearly 90 percent of the countries now experiencing slower growth. The fund slashed its global growth forecast for 2019 to 3 percent, the slowest pace since the 2008 financial crisis. The weakness in growth is driven by a sharp slowdown in manufacturing...

One must only watch a few minutes of Peter Navarro’s economic hypernationalist film “Death By China” to understand why President Trump has an affinity for the man. In the movie’s opening scenes, a flag-painted cutout of the United States tumbles to the ground and is brutally stabbed with a knife. As the map gushes blood, the knife’s handle is revealed to resemble Chinese currency, and its blade is labeled “Made in China.”

Negative interest rates are spreading like a virus. Central banks in the Eurozone, Switzerland, Sweden, and Japan all have below-zero policy rates. “NIRP,” as economists call a negative interest rate policy, is a desperation move—but the only move those central banks have. The Federal Reserve hasn’t followed—yet. When the next recession strikes, I believe Janet Yellen will choose to break the zero lower bound. The rationale was laid out in Jackson Hole. Look behind the headlines and you’ll see the Fed already preparing for NIRP. In theory, negative rates should encourage consumers and businesses to spend more freely and stimulate...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is preparing for its spring meeting which gathers the leading economic voices across the globe to discuss the issues and policies impacting the world's financial markets. It's a critical time as we watch a continued struggle for the global economy. I spoke with managing director Christine Lagarde to get a sense of where things stand.

After a series of stunning declines through the month of January and the first half of February, global financial markets seem to have found a patch of relative stability at least for the moment. But that does not mean that the crisis is over. On the contrary, all of the hard economic numbers that are coming in from around the world tell us that the global economy is coming apart at the seams. This is especially true when you look at global trade numbers. The amount of stuff that is being bought, sold and shipped around the planet is falling...

Americans tapered off from shopping toward the end of the holiday season, while lower gasoline prices cut into overall retail sales in December. The Commerce Department said Friday that retail sales dipped a seasonally adjusted 0.1 percent last month to $448.1 billion after having climbed a solid 0.4 percent in November. The report shows consumer tastes shifting toward restaurants and online shopping. The extra savings from falling gas costs have yet to boost spending much in other retail categories. Sales fell in December at clothing, electronics outlets and general merchandise stores. But those declines were largely offset by spending at...

Manufacturing activity in the U.S. contracted at the fastest pace since July 2009 in December, dampening optimism over the strength of the economy and adding to uncertainty as to how fast the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates next year, industry data showed on Monday. In a report, the Institute for Supply Management said its index of purchasing managers fell to 48.2 last month from a reading of 48.6 in November. Analysts had expected the manufacturing PMI to inch up to 49.0 in December. The New Orders Index registered 49.2, an increase of 0.3 points from the reading of 48.9...

Some 63% of people can't deal with a $500 emergency. Americans are starting 2016 with more job security, but most are still theoretically only one paycheck away from the street. Approximately 63% of Americans have no emergency savings for things such as a $1,000 emergency room visit or a $500 car repair, according to a survey released Wednesday of 1,000 adults by personal finance website Bankrate.com, up slightly from 62% last year. Faced with an emergency, they say they would raise the money by reducing spending elsewhere (23%), borrowing from family and/or friends (15%) or using credit cards to bridge...

<p>As Wilbur Ross so eloquently noted, for Puerto Rico "it's the end of the beginning... and the beginning of the end," as he explained "Puerto Rico is the US version of Greece." However, as JPMorgan explains, for some states the pain is really just beginning as Municipal bond risk will only become more important over time, as assets of some severely underfunded plans are gradually depleted.</p>

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. economy staged a far bigger rebound last quarter than first thought, outpacing the rest of the developed world and bolstering confidence that it will remain sturdy in coming months despite global headwinds. The economy as measured by gross domestic product expanded at an annual rate of 3.7 percent in the April-June quarter, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. That's more than a percentage point greater than the initial 2.3 percent estimate and a sharp upgrade from the anemic 0.6 percent advance during the January-March quarter. President Barack Obama took note of the good GDP report, saying...

A prime technique for bringing down an existing social order is to OVERLOAD and OVERWHELM the governmental systems, creating economic and social chaos. What’s going on today is straight out of Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” and the Cloward-Piven Strategy named for the Marxist maniac couple who tutored obazo on its finer points. Because we have NOT sent home 20 million illegals, WE NOW HAVE THE FISCAL BANKRUPTCY AND ARE CLOSING IN ON THE SOCIAL CHAOS. BOTH parties have been applying those methods but obozo, who studied those methods under Cloward-Piven Ayers while a so-called “community organizer,” is using ALL...

Hope flickered last year when the economy grew at more than a 4% clip in the second and third quarters. But then came last week’s news that fourth-quarter growth slowed to 2.2%, a gloomy revelation that the rebound was temporary. Economic growth for 2014 clocked in at about 2.3%—the same disappointing pace since the recession officially ended in 2009. What is the problem? For years I and many others have argued that a return to the principles of economic freedom would convert this not-so-great recovery into a great one. But Washington has not seriously considered pro-growth policy—no tax reform to...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Ask Joshua Thevenin — who since last month has been a newspaper salesman, fireworks vendor and tele-marketer — what he thinks about assertions the economy is roaring toward recovery and you'll get a sigh and a shake of his head. "I don't see it. If it is, I don't know where," he said. Lately, everyone from economists to President Barack Obama himself are bullish on the economy. Labor Department statistics this month showed that a healthy month of hiring in December capped the best year for U.S. job growth since 1999, with nearly 3 million...

Americans are more anxious about the economy now than they were right after the Great Recession ended despite stock market gains, falling unemployment and growth moving closer to full health. Seventy-one percent of Americans say they think the recession exerted a permanent drag on the economy, according to a survey being released Thursday by Rutgers University. By contrast, in November 2009, five months after the recession officially ended, the Rutgers researchers found that only 49 percent thought the downturn would have lasting damage. And that was when the unemployment rate was 9.9 percent, compared with the current 6.2 percent. …

Wall Street, the Fed and the oval office are determined to convince you that the U.S. economy is on the upswing. After all, the economy grew at a 4% annualized rate in the second quarter.  And jobs growth continues to exceed 200,000 new jobs monthly — assuming, of course, that you buy into the manipulations used to calculate the jobs picture and disregard the inconvenient truth that our economy is gaining more low-wage part-time jobs and losing more higher-wage full-time jobs. So, apparently, life outside my front door is hunky-dory, peachy-keen and all-around nifty — at least that’s what...

“Americans should stop whining about food prices.” That was the message AEI’s Mark J. Perry blasted last September to families gullible enough to believe that rising food prices were a problem: It’s a favorite pastime in this country – Americans love to complain about rising food prices. Even when they aren’t. In fact, given all of the complaining you would never know that average food price inflation in recent years is actually the lowest in several generations. Below are three reasons that Americans should stop whining about food prices, and be a little more appreciative of how affordable food is...

Of all the purposes for which you might put U.S. taxpayer dollars at risk, helping wealthy petro-states borrow millions to buy Boeing jets would not rank among the most urgent. Yet that is what the Export-Import Bank does: In fiscal 2013, Ex-Im backed $8.3 billion in aircraft and related sales, including a $117.5 million loan guarantee to support Boeing 737 purchases by Dubai — a typical transaction for an agency that has, over the years, earned the sobriquet “Bank of Boeing,” though it does also support Caterpillar and General Electric, among others. Now Ex-Im suddenly faces extinction: Its charter expires...