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The Greek government on Sunday agreed to drastic austerity measures in the hopes of securing a 130 billion euro bailout from international creditors -- the second in two years. The measures include dramatic cuts in pay, pensions and government services. In addition to Greece, several European Union member countries now face overwhelming government debt. On Monday, Moody’s downgraded six countries, including Italy, Portugal and Spain. Other countries, like Germany and Japan, also have burdensome debts, but unlike Greece or other troubled EU members, their debt problems are not unmanageable. 24/7 Wall St. has identified the countries that have the highest...

Geithner: Tax hikes must be part of budgetBy Peter Schroeder - 02/14/12 01:18 PM ET Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told skeptical Republican senators Tuesday that it is simply not possible to correct the nation’s fiscal problems without raising taxes. Geithner defended President Obama’s 2013 budget proposal before the Senate Finance Committee and said the plan is the only option he sees for helping the economy and addressing the deficit without hurting the middle class. "I do not see how you get there if you are unable ... to contemplate and to embrace modest increases in revenue through tax reform," Geithner...

The Greek government on Sunday agreed to drastic austerity measures in the hopes of securing a 130 billion euro bailout from international creditors — the second bailout in two years. The measures include dramatic cuts in pay, pensions and government services. The creditors, which include the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank, demanded that by Wednesday Greece show clear evidence of how it will make 325 million euro of the 3.3 billion euro cuts. Greece, which has among the worst debt in the world, faces default as early as March if it does not get...

The great myth of the last few decades is that people can establish sustainable savings by investing in other people’s debt. That is how relatively astute and candid writers, such as Jeremy Warner for the Telegraph, can claim that “Britain is still a hugely wealthy nation� and actually mean it. In his latest blog post, Warner tries to convince us that aggregate private debt in Britain is not so bad when we factor in “assets� as well.From his piece:Believe it or not, Britain is still a hugely wealthy nationLast week I drew attention to a report by Royal Bank of...

The federal debt has increased by $4.47 trillion since President Barack Obama released his first federal budget on Feb. 26, 2009. That budget was entitled, “A New Era of Responsibility.” On Feb. 26, 2009, as Obama released his budget for fiscal 2010, the national debt stood at $10.88 trillion (10,881,159,722,022.36). At the close of business on Feb. 9, 2012, the national debt stood at $15.36 trillion ($15,355,838,921,022.16). That represents an increase in the debt of $4.47 trillion ($4,474,679,198,999.80).

Yes, I know Athens is burning as some of the more violent demonstrators threw some Molotov cocktails and the media was given some photo ops so the situation can be understood by those too involved with life’s challenges to read. If that sounds acerbic it is because I have been writing about the Greek debt crisis since December of 2009 when the Chinese investment funds reneged on a promise to purchase $25 Billion of Greek bonds and the debt crisis was in full swing. Again, Athens may be the present battleground but the political and financial games are being played...

Despite increased economic activity that will bring additional tax revenues to the government. Barack Obama's budget to be released on Monday shows an increase in the budget deficit from last year.The Hill: President Obama's 2013 budget due out Monday will estimate the deficit for 2012 to be $1.33 trillion, higher than the $1.29 trillion deficit in 2011, according to senior administration officials.The increase happens largely because the budget assumes enactment of a $350 billion stimulus package, including extension of the payroll tax cut. That package is a scaled-down version of the $447 billion American Jobs Act that Obama proposed...

The White House has released their proposal for the Federal Budget for 2012. Before we discuss the 2012 budget, harken back to President Obama saying in 2009 that he will CUT the deficit in half by the end of his first term. His first term ends in January 2013, so he has less than a year to accomplish his promise. The projected deficit for 2012 is forecast to be $1.33 trillion, 2.6% higher than the $1.296 trillion deficit in 2011 and 16% higher than the $1.15 trillion projection released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) last week. This is a...

Obama budget sees increased deficitBy Erik Wasson - 02/10/12 06:07 PM ET President Obama’s 2013 budget due out Monday will estimate the deficit for 2012 to be $1.33 trillion, higher than the $1.29 trillion deficit in 2011, according to senior administration officials. The increase happens largely because the budget assumes enactment of a $350 billion stimulus package, including extension of the payroll tax cut. That package is a scaled-down version of the $447 billion American Jobs Act that Obama proposed in the fall. The budget estimates that the deficit in 2013 will be $901 billion. This means that Obama will...

Of all Super Bowl commercials, Chrysler's latest pro-America, Imported-from-Detroit pep talk may be getting the most attention. As you've no doubt seen by now, Clint Eastwood's steely gaze and growling baritone speak of a county knocked down but not out. A country that's hurting, scared and angry. A country that's lost its AAA credit rating. A country that needs to pull together to pick itself up. The advertisers are trying to tap into the sense that all's not right in the economy. Something is fundamentally broken, and, until it's fixed, problems like chronic joblessness, bombed-out home prices and stagnant wages...

Let's think about the kind of mess that we're in. Federal 2010 Medicare and Medicaid expenditures totaled $800 billion. The projected annual growth of both programs is about 7 percent. Social Security expenditures are more than $700 billion a year. According to the 2009 Social Security and Medicare trustees reports, by 2030, 49 percent of federal revenues will go for Social Security and Medicare payments. The unfunded liability of both programs is already $106 trillion.But not to worry. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that it's possible to sustain today's level of federal spending and even achieve a balanced budget. All...

Breakdown of how each region’s external debt around the world has evolved through the decades, starting back in 1970, all the way until today. We all read about the U.S. national debt, and whether we should be concerned that it’s in the $12 trillion range these days. But the United States isn’t the only country carrying a huge amount of debt. In fact, it seems that operating just about any country is a money losing proposition. According to the CIA’s Worldbank data, the majority of countries carry huge sums of national debt. And for most countries – although there are...

Three and a half years after a rally by then candidate Barack Obama in Springfield, city officials in the state capitol say they are left holding the bill for police overtime. On August 23, 2008 the Obama campaign rolled through central Illinois to announce Joe Biden as its Vice Presidential running mate... Thousands turned out in the square by the old State Capitol to witness the announcement. But before the event could begin, the city of Springfield had work to do, said Alderman Frank Edwards. “There are a lot of things that they asked for,” Edwards said. “Extra police, move...

France and Germany has controversially told Greece it should place state revenues into a separate fund so it can pay off its crushing debt - to avoid bankruptcy and prevent the crash of the single currency. French President Nicolas Sarkozy told a Paris news conference, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, that Greece's new leaders must also 'take their responsibility'.

Checkmate For Japanese Sovereign Debt 4 comments | February 2, 2012 Global Debt Crisis: Greece -> Europe -> Japan? From my previous article: Greece and Portugal are stuck in a very vicious cycle. Greek and Portuguese sovereign bond yields have risen substantially making it nearly impossible for these nations to roll over the debt with yields they can pay. For Greece, rising yields have brought it to the edge of default several times. To prevent a Greek default, the Troika (European Commission, International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank) has been sending large tranches of money to Greece to keep Greek...

The president devoted just 189 words to the deficit and our growing national debt, but the fact is that once again this year we will borrow 32 cents out of every dollar we spend. Overall, our national debt now tops $15.2 trillion (with Congress raising the debt ceiling to $16.4 trillion last week). And that doesn’t count the unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare. Throw those in, and our total indebtedness exceeds $120 trillion. That means that if one counts only the official national debt, every man, woman and child in America owes $48,700. Include the unfunded liabilities of...

I’m a huge fan of lotteries. It is one of the few taxes that citizens pay willingly. Spending a dollar for the prospect of winning a hundred million is kind of fun. And the fact that the state’s provide the fig leaf of responsibility by suggesting all funds go to support education makes players feel like they are doing their part to support the kids… Imagine, a way of taxing people that is actually voluntary! Unfortunately however, most taxes are anything but voluntary, particularly those levied by the federal government. In 2011 the federal government took in $2.3 trillion in...

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is out with its annual report. It’s a blockbuster. This 165 page monster is filled with dozens of charts, graphs and detailed projections. It will be talked about for weeks. The report provides a dismal outlook for the economy. Here is the CBO forecast for real GDP for 2012 and 2013:

Sound bites from the left. Sound bites to the right; here I am, stuck in the middle with you (STEALERS WHEEL). The House Budget Committee was in full political regalia as posturing for the home folks and November’s election was in full force. Most of the questions are redundant or ridiculous and in some cases, both. An exception was Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, who asked Mr.Bernanke if the FED‘s policies had corrupted the BOND markets that they stopped sending a credible signal. It has been a consistent theme of NOTES that the BOND market is broken as an indicator of...

Fed chief Bernanke issues debt warningBy North America correspondent Jill Colgan, ABC February 3, 2012, 11:08 am United States Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has warned that the US economy could face the same fate as troubled European countries if it fails to curb its growing debt. Mr Bernanke delivered a sobering assessment of the economy that defies recent attempts by the Obama administration to talk up the economic turnaround. Testifying before a House Budget Committee, he said the pace of recovery had been "frustratingly slow". He urged lawmakers to be more aggressive in reducing the nation's $15 trillion debt...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Figures on government spending and debt The government's fiscal year runs Oct. 1 through Sept. 30. Total public debt subject to limit Jan. 30 15,313,699,000,000 Statutory debt limit 16,394,000,000,000 Total public debt outstanding Jan. 30 15,356,140,000,000

BILL GROSS: 'We Are Witnessing The Death Of Abundance' Joe Weisenthal Febuary 1, 2012 In his latest monthly letter, PIMCO's Bill Gross has a long philosophical-sounding discussion about credit, delevering, and the difficult task facing Bernanke. The money line is this paragraph at the end: Where does credit go when it dies? It goes back to where it came from. It delevers, it slows and inhibits economic growth, and it turns economic theory upside down, ultimately challenging the wisdom of policymakers. We’ll all be making this up as we go along for what may seem like an eternity. A 30-50...

[T]he real question that we face for all the markets is WHEN will the Sovereign Debt Crisis go into meltdown? We are in the 13th year from the Major Directional Change of 1999 that marked the birth of the Euro, low in gold and crude oil, and the bubble in shares that peaked in many countries in 2000. Just as the United States has been obsessed with the Great Depression as government always is ready to stimulate and many see this as pending hyperinflation with the end of the world, Germany suffers from the opposite delusion. There, the fear is...

S&P Sounds Alarm On US, G20 Downgrades Antonia van de Velde, CNBC January 31, 2012 Concerns over the size of United States debt reared their head once again as ratings agency Standard & Poor’s warned that health care costs for a number of highly-rated Group of 20 countries, including the U.S., could hurt growth prospects and harm their sovereign creditworthiness from the middle of this decade. S&P downgraded the United States credit rating for the first time ever in August of last year. "Governments' fiscal burdens will increase significantly over the coming decade, with the highest deterioration in public finances...

Greece is balking at surrendering its sovereignty as the Merkel-led European elite is shouting for more austerity from the “profligates” in an effort to insure the large continental banks against the ravages of default. As one reader e-mailed today, IT IS AS IF THE GERMANS ARE PLACING THE ENTIRE NATION OF GREECE INTO DEBTORS PRISON. Life was much easier when a country could send in its gunboats to collect its loans. Tonight the Czechs have purportedly joined the Brits in opposing the fiscal straitjacket being demanded by Berlin. The official vote on the fiscal treaty won’t take place until March...

Personal consumption expenditures (70% of GDP) was flat in December of 2011. And November was no winner either. This bodes ill for the ZIRP policies of The Fed where they were hoping to stimulate households to borrow more money and purchase goods and services. Unfortunately for The Fed, households decided to save more in December 2011. This is a reversal of the steady downward trend in savings since mid 2010. But is an increase in household saving sustainable? Stated differently, can households resist the enormous temptation of cheap debt by The Fed? Should The Fed be trying to encourage households...

Chris Martenson Interviews John Mauldin: "It's Time to Make the Hard Decisions" Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/28/2012 12:05 -0500 Submitted by Chris Martenson Back in the 1930's, Irving Fisher introduced a concept called the 'debt supercycle.' Simply put, it posits that when there is a buildup of too much debt within an economy, there reaches a point where there simply is no other available solution but to let it rewind. We are at that point in our economy, as are most other major economies around the world, claims John Maudlin, author of the popular Thoughts from the Frontline newsletter...

China's Debt: You'll Grow Out of It By TOM ORLIK Objects in the rearview mirror are often closer than they appear at first. But in the case of the Chinese juggernaut, rapid economic growth means they are actually shrinking at a rapid rate. In 2011, China's gross domestic product came in at 47.1 trillion yuan ($7.4 trillion). That represented nominal growth of 17.5% from 2010, a blistering pace that makes many of the problems of debt and credit that trouble investors and hang over valuations for Chinese stocks appear a little more manageable. /snip Investors also worry about China's credit...

Yesterday the Japanese Finance Ministry made a whopper of an announcement: in the year ending March 2013, total Japanese debt will surpass one quadrillion yen, or ¥1,086,000,000,000,000. This is roughly in line with the Zero Hedge expectations that by this March total Japanese debt would surpass one quadrillion yen. In USD terms, at today's exchange rate, this is precisely $14 trillion. And while smaller than America's $15.4 trillion (net of all post debt ceiling breach auctions), which was $14 trillion about a year ago, the GDP backing this notional amount of debt, which just so happens is greater than...

Geithner: I won't serve second termBy Peter Schroeder - 01/25/12 04:27 PM ET Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner does not anticipate serving a second term under President Obama. Geithner said in an interview with Bloomberg Television that he is "pretty confident" the president would not ask him to stay on if he is reelected. "I'm confident he'll be president. But I'm also confident he's going to have the privilege of having another secretary of the Treasury," he said, adding that he planned to do "something else." Geithner mulled leaving the administration this summer once a deal to raise the federal debt...

House Budget Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., tells Bob Schieffer that President Obama's State of the Union address was "predictable" and explains why he doesn't think Congress will accomplish much this year.

Blaise Ingoglia, producer of the website “Government Gone Wild!”, was our speaker at the Manatee Tea Party last night. He has produced several short videos to explain the political mess we are in. Click on the link, watch the videos, and forward this message. http://governmentgonewild.org/ Some of the titles of his videos are: Brother, Can You Spare a Trillion? “Land of the Freebies, Home of the Enslaved” Special Interests…Exposed! Welcome To The United “Waste” of America

Debt Lies By Obama...True Chart Shown From the Washington Post: on the obvious Lies in the Chart above. "... this chart, originally created by the office of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, is as phony as a three-dollar bill. Our friends at PolitiFact did a pretty thorough takedown of it in May, giving it their worst rating: “pants on fire.” They even caught the Pelosi people in a bad mathematical error, based on the fact that the Democrats calculated the numbers as if Obama took office a year later than he did." The Obama Administration has failed so miserably, that...

One thousand days is long enough to get a lot done. An elephant needs only about two-thirds of that time for a full-term pregnancy. In the past 1,000 days, the Egyptians figured out how to overthrow their government. The Libyans figured out how to overthrow their dictator. Theoretically, man could travel to Mars and back in that time. However, the U.S. Senate has failed to figure out how to propose and pass a budget for this country as required by law in that time. It is only fitting that President Obama will deliver his State of the Union address on...

As we watch the Eurozone struggle with its financial challenges Keynesians keep telling us the solution to our economic problems is to spend more money, to pile up bigger debts. A week and a half ago, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the debt of more than half of the Eurozone's countries, and the failure of those policies should be very obvious by now. Solving the Greek debt crisis hit yet another snag on Sunday afternoon. New aid for Greece from the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank would have relied on private bondholders “voluntarily” agreeing to a 50...

While politicians may debate whether or not America is the most "generous" (with other generations' money of course) socialist welfare state in the history of mankind, the undoctored numbers make the affirmative case quite clear and without any chance for confusion. The single most disturbing statistic: in 2011 nearly half of the population lived in a household that receives some form of government benefit, which in turn accounted for 65% of total federal spending, or $2.5 trillion, and amount to 15% of GDP. And yet some people out there still think these people, long since indoctrinated to do little but...

Obama delays budget for 2013 By Erik Wasson - 01/23/12 02:08 PM ET President Obama will release his 2013 budget one week late, an administration official said Monday, the third time the administration has missed the legal deadline. Under the law, the budget is to be released on the first Monday in February, but the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will be releasing the 2013 budget on Feb. 13. The Obama administration also delayed the release of the budget last year, waiting until Feb. 14. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said the delay is symptomatic of a...

A third of Florida's nearly 3 million retirees, 65 and older, now rely entirely on Social Security, according to an analysis by AARP. "Folks have spent down their assets," said Jeff Johnson, AARP interim director in Florida. More Floridians are likely to end up only on Social Security than retirees in the rest of the country: A quarter of U.S. retirees, 65 and older, have only their monthly checks as income, Johnson said. Many of the most strapped are Florida's oldest, he added. Florida seniors, 80 and older, are about three times as likely to depend

If The U.S. Government Keeps Spending Money Like This We Are Doomed And If The U.S. Government Stops Spending Money Like This We Are DoomedMichael T SnyderJanuary 23, 2012 If you increased your credit card spending by a couple thousand dollars per month would your lifestyle improve? Of course it would. By going into large amounts of debt, it is possible to live a lifestyle that you can't really afford, at least for a while. But if you keep racking up huge amounts of credit card debt every single month, eventually it gets to a point where it is extremely...

A Strange Appetite For US Debt By Bill Bonner 01/23/12 Baltimore, Maryland – We went around the world last week. We wish we could say we learned something. But modern travel has been standardized…and culture and technology have been “globalized”…so that the more you travel the more you feel you never left home. “How was your trip around the world?” asked our assistant when we got back in the office in Baltimore. “No problem. Nothing special,” we replied. How could a trip around the world not be ‘special’? Well, the airports all look alike. The planes are all alike. The...

After saddling the country with as much new debt as the rest of the world combined in one year flat, one would think that Uncle Sam wouldn’t have the cojones to dish out debt advice to others. But one would be wrong. In an unwitting self-parody worthy of Froma Harrop on The Daily Show, the Federal Trade Commission has created a step-by-step web guide for Americans “Knee-Deep in Debt.” The first step, says the agency, which represents a government that went over 800 days without passing a budget, is: create a budget! Get a “realistic assessment of how much money...

Obama Was Warned By His Economic Team That His Campaign Promises Would Create A Mountain Of Debt Michael Brendan Dougherty Jan. 23, 2012, 8:57 AM Ryan Lizza reports for the New Yorker that on December 15 2008, a few short weeks before his inauguration, president-elect Obama was presented with a 57-page memo on the depth of the economic crisis drafted by Lawrence Summers and other economic advisors. The memo informed the president that if he enacted his campaign promises in the current environment, he would shoot a gigantic hole into the nation's budget. “Since January 2007 the medium-term budget deficit...

It's time for public agencies to come clean about their debt.On Wednesday morning, we editorially criticized the Moraga Orinda Fire District for plans to borrow $2 million for a new administration building that was twice the size it needed when there was adequate office space available for lease in Orinda City Hall. That night, the fire district board, in a stunning reversal, canceled the deal.It was the right decision, although some board members said they made it only because of bad publicity. Director Frank Sperling said individuals and organizations "have created a perceived reality through purposeful misinformation."Actually, it's the district...

ATHENS (Dow Jones)--Talks between Greece and its private sector creditors over a debt writedown plan appeared to stall Saturday as the banks' top negotiator left Athens amid signs of fresh disagreements over how much Greece would pay its bondholders in the future. Officials close to the talks said they may not conclude before a meeting Monday of euro-zone finance ministers where a second bailout which will keep Greece from defaulting is supposed to be discussed. Without a deal on the write-down of the debt held in private hands, the loan can't be released. Institute of International Finance chief Charles Dallara,...

Say, remember when the state of Illinois took the Democratic approach to fixing their budget woes by raising taxes? The debt problems of the Land of Lincoln would disappear, Governor Pat Quinn argued, if the state hiked corporate and personal income tax rates by as much as two-thirds. The extra revenue would stabilize the state’s fiscal footing and pull them from the brink of financial disaster.How well did that work out? As the Wall Street Journal reports today, Illinois debt has now been downgraded to the lowest rating of all 50 states by Moody’s: Though too few noticed, this month...

In November 2011, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS reported $86 million in unused vacation pay, sick time, and other severance had been paid to departing state workers and MnSCU employees in the past three years. And the total is growing by the day. Now, the University of Minnesota has released its separate payroll records, showing it paid departing employees $30 million during the same time period. That brings the total to at least $116 million for all departing state workers in the past three years.

E.R. Companion, of Eagan, writing to the editor in Sunday's Pioneer Press, wondered why our elected officials would commit to spending billions of dollars for a so-called high-speed rail line from the Twin Cities to Chicago. (Well, because they're nuts.) Companion was referring to a story that appeared Jan. 12 featuring the idea that the Minnesota Department of Transportation has begun studying environmental impacts along the 400-mile route, which would take passengers to Chicago, through Milwaukee, in an advertised five hours and 30 minutes. Companion wondered what was high-speed about that, and I could not agree more with his sentiment....

Sometimes it helps to offer an analogy to show how utterly out of their minds they are in Washington when it comes to financial matters. We offer for your consideration, this short video. The names have been changed to protect the politicians.

.............."People are very frightened, not just about current conditions, but the future of this country for their children, grandchildren and the $15 trillion worth of debt. I ask people if you were better off today than you were $4 trillion ago … and people get it." Snip VIDEO -- discusses Tax System. “We can’t fire the nominee in September, because by then it will be too late,” he said, adding, “If we’ve got a flawed candidate that’s going forward and someone who is gonna get eaten alive, either because of business practices or because of their taxes or the system...

When Barack Obama and the Democrats fought to raise the debt ceiling last summer, there wasn’t another news story that could drown out the fervor on that issue. But, now that the national debt has ballooned to $15 trillion dollars and grown to the size of the entire U.S. annual economy, and Obama is already talking about raising the ceiling again, where is the same fervor? Have Americans become somewhat desensitized to it all? When liberal economist Paul Krugman says we should all relax about this whole debt thing, is he insane? Or not? Put financial analyst and business owner...