Free Republic

By Mr. Curmudgeon:While Islamic militants riot outside U.S. embassies overseas, and kill American counselor officials and their support personnel, another terrorist act just as deadly took place on American soil. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced his independent, in your face, answer-to-no-one agency will flood the U.S. economy with $40-billion-a-month in counterfeit greenbacks to buy worthless mortgage-backed securities. He said the Fed would continue the policy "until such improvement is achieved in a context of price stability." That's Fed speak for "Forever."Commodity prices, like oil for instance, soared after Benny boy's announcement. So much for "price stability."As if to prove...

Once there was an unwritten rule that the Federal Reserve would refrain from significant policy adjustments before an election. Few things are as encompassing to culture as our currency, or as vital that they be thought free of intrigues. With public confidence in the dollar diminished, or perturbed by politics, society suffers this dearth of trust in more than just finance. Commentary abounds that Mr. Bernanke will soon commence yet more quantitative easing, QE3 for short. Why? Clearly the ongoing economic stagnation stems not from prohibitively high interest rates. Rates hover just off historic lows. Given the moribund economy, financial...

Mitt Romney said Thursday that he would replace Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, dismissing the advice of a top adviser who suggested this week that the chairman should be considered for a third term.

The spotlight in the European debt crisis has now shifted decisively toward the influential leader of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, who emerged from the recent summit meeting in Brussels with new powers and stronger backing to address the Continent’s financial woes. Political leaders took significant strides toward making the central bank more like the United States Federal Reserve, giving it authority to oversee the eurozone’s largest banks and, once that new regulator is in place as soon as the end of this year, a likely role in rescuing Spanish banks with capital directly from the European rescue funds....

Financial Times writer Samuel Brittan says You Don’t Need to be a Lefty to Support Krugman. Brittan kicks off with "The remedy for too little spending is more spending. Everything else is commentary." Who Decides? Just who gets to decide there is "too little spending?" Krugman? Brittan? How about the free market? Look at what promotion of spending got us. The mother of all housing bubbles is what. In a 2002 New York Times editorial Krugman said "To fight this recession the Fed needs…soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. [So] Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble...

WASHINGTON — Fears about a looming fiscal crisis at the end of the year are starting to pinch job growth and threatening to undercut the nation's fragile recovery, a growing number of economists and employers say. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, in testimony Thursday before Congress, repeatedly warned about the so-called fiscal cliff — a reference to the expiration of tax cuts Dec. 31 and the imposition of automatic spending reductions Jan. 1. By some accounts, the U.S. economy could see an unprecedented fiscal hit of as much as $720 billion if the slated changes take effect. They would...

Jun 7, 2012 4:46pm Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke Warns Congress on ‘Taxmaggedon’: ‘If You All Go on Vacation, It’s Still Going to Happen’ The Federal Reserve Board Chairman had a stern warning today for Congress: “Taxmaggedon” is real, it’s coming and only lawmakers can save the nation from falling off this rapidly approaching “fiscal cliff.” “What is particularly striking here is that this is all pre-programmed,” Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said. “If you all go on vacation, it’s still going to happen, so it’s important to be thinking about that and working with your colleagues to see how you might...

(CNSNews.com) - Since President Barack Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, the Federal Reserve’s holdings of U.S. government debt have quintupled, according to the Fed’s official monthly balance sheet. On Jan. 28, 2009, a week after Obama’s nomination, the Fed owned $302 billion in U.S. Treasury securities. On April 25, 2012, the latest date reported, the Fed owned five and a half time that much in U.S. Treasury securities--$1.668 trillion. That is an increase from January 2009 of $1.366 trillion—or 452 percent. Under Obama, the Federal Reserve has become the single largest owner of U.S. government debt. When Obama entered...

Emigrant Bank was recently identified to receive a waiver that would allow the bank to opt out of rigorous Dodd-Frank requirements. These of course are the same new rules and regulations that Barack deems essential to the nation. Yet when the bank’s owner, Howard Milstein, who is a close friend and was a bundler for President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, protested that the new rules would seriously crimp operations of his bank, the Obama Administration worked with members of congress to grant him a waiver from the new rules. Other financial institutions and banks have consistently and vehemently argued that...

Link only due to copywrite issues

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...

‘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...

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...

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....