Free Republic

So we enter the treacherous market month of August with Europe in limbo. The actors wait upon each other. World finance held hostage to a fiendishly complicated game of diplomatic chess. Italy's premier Mario Monti - working in tandem with ECB President Mario Draghi - agree that markets are unfairly punishing the victim states. The European Central bank will not move until Spain requests a full sovereign rescue from the EU bail-out fund (EFSF), and cedes yet more ground to EU commissars. Spain in turn will not move until the ECB lays out the exact terms of any deal, and...

South Korea boosted its gold holdings by nearly a third in July, buying 16 tonnes to diversify its massive foreign exchange reserves. South Korea's central bank said it now holds 70.4 tonnes of gold, after paying $810 million last month for the purchase. The increase supported expectations that central banks will remain gold's key buyer as increased volatility in global markets and waning confidence in the U.S. dollar fuel a global drive to divest from the U.S. currency and government debt securities. The Bank of Korea paid about $1,582 per ounce on average, slightly lower than the average spot gold...

Thousands of Greek businesses are facing the specter of bankruptcy, unable to service bank loans and liabilities to suppliers with increasingly meager turnover and profits. According to Hellastat, which processed the balance sheets of 52,000 enterprises between 2002 and 2011, about 50 percent of operating profits today go to pay banks and suppliers, compared to about 30 percent before 2008. In a sample of 15,000 firms of all sizes and activities, aggregate sales fell 4.66 billion euros in 2011. Within four years, businesses lost 25 percent of turnover and 50 percent of profits. Exempting very large businesses and organizations, the...

World oil demand growth will slow in 2013 from the already weak 2012, OPEC said on Wednesday, citing Europe's debt worries, a faltering U.S. economic recovery and deceleration of growth in emerging markets. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which produces a third of global oil, said healthy output levels from non-OPEC producers next year would be enough to cover the modest growth in demand without the need for OPEC itself to increase output. "Besides the euro zone crisis, geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, the contraction of manufacturing in the U.S. for the first time since 2010...

When Media Matters helped organize the Stop Rush boycott pressuring corporations to pull advertisements from Rush Limbaugh’s show, the online file storage company Carbonite was one of the first big names to give in. Now, as William Jacobson of the “Legal Insurrection” blog noted, Carbonite’s CEO David Friend conceded on a conference call that dropping Limbaugh deeply hurt the company’s earnings. “It turned out to be a bigger hole in our revenue than we had thought when we initially did this,” Friend said on a conference call on August 1. In fact, as Jacobson wrote, Carbonite’s 2nd Quarter 2012 results...

Bill wrote: Where's the email? Who from and to whom? What did it say? This article is garbage as it provides no documentation. Not to mention that the source of the article has a bit of a slant.- Almost Union Free: ACLU, Union Caught in Reform Kill PlotDear Comrade Bill,Did you really think I would write an article that goes to a million readers about a non-existent email? If you want a copy of the email and others like it, you can see this article by education expert Ben DeGrow. There are apparently a lot more just like it waiting...

Iran's leaders have repeatedly claimed that sanctions against its oil exports, aimed at pressuring it over its nuclear program, will harm the West more than they harm the Islamic Republic. Data published by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries late Monday show how hollow that claim may be. Last year, before any direct oil sanctions were imposed on Iran, the country generated 88% of its export earnings from oil. Yet its significant contribution to national income belied the apparent weakness of Iran's oil industry. Iran's crude oil exports fell 12.5% in 2011, faster than any other country apart from Libya,...

This is encouraging. The AP reports Mitt Romney thinks the Federal Reserve shouldn't employ another stimulus "to boost the still-sluggish economy":   The Republican presidential hopeful says he doesn't think another round of stimulus would help the economy, arguing that previous measures didn't work. Romney tells CNN's "State of the Union" in an interview scheduled to air Sunday morning that business incentives are preferable to more government intervention. ... Romney also doubled down on his vow to create 12 million new jobs during his first term, calling that goal realistic and achievable. It's encouraging for conservatives to see that Romney's...

The total revenue of the 11 members of the Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) soared to $624.8 billion in 2011, according to the latest data. OAPEC data for the oil income generated in the year 2010 was announced as $450bn. In real terms, the combined Arab income stood at $479bn in 2011 taking into account the real dollar value and global inflation. While the nominal price of OPEC's basket of crudes stood at around $107 per barrel in 2011 its real value averaged about $88 in 1995 prices. The oil price in 2010 also averaged nearly $60 far...

Economist Nouriel Roubini is tweeting doom about the London Olympics this morning. From @Nouriel: UK policymakers scared so much folks before the Olympic that London is a deserted city: non-olympic tourists are away; londoners are gone! The Olympics are an economic failure as London is totally empty:hotels, restaurants, streets. They scared all off with crowd excess warnings By scaring every1 to stay out of London with warnings about too many people coming here it turns that London is totally empty, a zombie city RT @Notgiamatti The Yogi Berra effect! Nobody goes there, it's too crowded. The West End - usually...

Happy anniversary, America.  One year ago today, President Obama presided over the first national credit downgrade in US history.  From the August 6, 2011 edition of the Wall Street Journal:   A cornerstone of the global financial system was shaken Friday when officials at ratings firm Standard & Poor's said U.S. Treasury debt no longer deserved to be considered among the safest investments in the world.  S&P removed for the first time the triple-A rating the U.S. has held for 70 years, saying the budget deal recently brokered in Washington didn't do enough to address the gloomy outlook for America's...

There's an old joke about a boy who complains to his mother that his little sister keeps pulling his hair. "Oh," responds the mother, "she doesn't know that it hurts." A few minutes later, the mother hears the girl scream and runs into the other room. "She knows now," the boy explains. There's a lesson for Republicans in that old joke, if they're smart enough to absorb it. For the past few years, there has been a drumbeat in favor of increased taxes from Democrats of all stripes. Make the rich pay their "fair share." Get rid of "loopholes." Make...

Let us review the Obama administrations GDP projections: - In August of 2009, the White House — after having a half year to view the economy and its $800 billion stimulus response — predicted that GDP would rise 4.3% in 2011, followed by 4.3% growth in 2012, 2013 and 2014. - In its 2010 forecast, the White House said it was looking for 3.5% GDP growth in 2012, followed by 4.4% in 2013, 4.3% in 2014. - In its 2011 forecast, the White House predicted 3.1% growth in 2011, 4.0% in 2012 and 4.5% in 2013, 4.2% in 2014. -...

David Plouffe, White House senior adviser, sent a fiery memo to House and Senate Democrats late Friday, urging them to use the August recess to echo President Barack Obama’s message to middle-class families that “he is on their side by fighting for legislation that grows the economy from the middle out, not the top down.” “The president and Democrats in Congress move into the August recess with clear momentum on the question of who to trust on taxes and, more broadly, whose economic agenda will benefit the middle class,” Plouffe wrote in the memo obtained by POLITICO. “Over the coming...

The U.S. economy lost 1.2 million jobs between June and July. But that’s not how it got reported. When the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its jobs figures for July, it said the economy gained 163,000 jobs. So what gives? It all has to do with what’s known as “seasonal adjustments.” The U.S. economy follows certain predictable patterns in hiring and layoffs. School districts always let workers go for the summer and hire in the fall. Retailers always staff up for the Christmas holidays and lay people off afterwards. Students always flood the labor market in June. So if we...

President Obama has spent more campaign cash more quickly than any incumbent in recent history, betting that heavy early investments in personnel, field offices and a high-tech campaign infrastructure will propel him to victory in November. Since the beginning of last year, Mr. Obama and the Democrats have burned through millions of dollars to find and register voters. They have spent almost $50 million subsidizing Democratic state parties to hire workers, pay for cellphones and update voter lists. They have spent tens of millions of dollars on polling, online advertising and software development to turn Mr. Obama’s fallow volunteers corps...

Gas prices have surged in recent weeks creating fresh openings for GOP attacks against President Obama. Gas prices have surged in recent weeks and analysts predict they’ll keep rising, creating fresh openings for GOP attacks against President Obama that had waned when prices dropped sharply. The nationwide average for regular gasoline is $3.60-per-gallon, a 24-cent rise over the past four weeks, according to AAA. Prices are well below the peak of nearly $4 in early April, a run-up that fueled constant GOP criticism of White House energy policies and threw Obama on the defensive.

Last May, Governor Jerry Brown threatened to close 70 state parks in order to help balance the budget and plug the holes of the sinking ship that is California.    Immediately, park-loving activists went to work and through bake sales and donations, the public helped save 69 of the 70 parks. But then, oops---California auditors recently looked under their government couch cushions and located over $286 million in “misplaced” funds. From the L.A. Times (emphasis added):  “Gov. Jerry Brown's administration on Friday announced that $119 million more in untapped money was found in a sweeping audit of state accounts, bringing...

Zambian coal miners killed a Chinese mine manager and injured his colleague in a riot over wages at a mine known for tensions with the Chinese investor in southern Zambia, state media reported. "Wu Shengzai, aged 50, has been killed by protesting workers after being hit by a trolley which was pushed towards him by the rioting miners as he ran away into the underground where he wanted to seek refugee. He died on the spot while his colleague is in hospital," Southern province police commissioner Fred Mutondo told state news agency the Zambia News and Information Services on Sunday....