Free Republic

The U.S. Treasury has been using emergency measures to avoid breaching the federal borrowing limit since March. Is it time to ditch the debt ceiling?The Government Accountability Office raises that question in a new report that both quantifies the damage caused by past episodes of debt-ceiling brinksmanship and offers Congress with possible ways out.The report is particularly relevant right now because the U.S. Treasury has been using emergency measures to avoid breaching the federal borrowing limit since March. Budget analysts estimate that it can use those measures, such as halting certain pension investments, until it is unable to borrow money sometime in November...

...Mr. Obama’s mission to destroy America’s economy is complete. The damage he has done is irreversible. The dollar is history. The American economy is going down, and soon. The posh commentators say the collapse will be gradual rather than sudden. But few are now predicting there will not be collapse at all. Here are just some of the pointers. First and foremost, U.S. public debt is $18.3 trillion. By the time Mr. Obama leaves the White House late next year, he will have doubled it in a single “presidency.” On top of that, Uncle Sam has unfunded liabilities of at...

The Simpsons had it right all along: With the provocative and dramatic Greek "time out" language pulled from the final finmin and summit draft language, the two most humiliating aspects of the latest extend and pretend "deal" for the Greek people will be the return of the Troika's (surely we can call it the Troika again as part of the Greek capitulation) IMF mission to Athens, and the escrowing of some €50 billion in  Greek assets in a liquidation fund. Granted said fund will not be domiciled in Luxembourg as was originally envisioned, but Europe will still have control and...

BRUSSELS — Greece and its European creditors announced an agreement here on Monday that aims to resolve the country’s debt crisis and keep it in the eurozone, but that will require further budgetary belt-tightening that Primes Minister Alexis Tsipras could have trouble selling back in Athens. The agreement does not guarantee that Greece will receive its third bailout in five years. But it does allow the start of detailed negotiations on a new assistance package for Greece. One open question is whether the deal gives enough confidence to the European Central Bank to let it continue channeling sorely needed emergency...

Eurozone leaders have agreed to offer Greece a third bailout, after marathon talks in Brussels. Amid one of the worst crises in the EU's history, the head of the European Commission said the risk of Greece leaving the eurozone had been averted. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said that after a "tough battle", Greece had secured a "growth package" and debt restructuring. Greece will now have to pass reforms demanded by the eurozone by Wednesday. These include measures to streamline pensions, raise tax revenue and liberalise the labour market. An EU statement spoke of up to €86bn (£61bn) of financing...

Starting in the Eighties populist spending and cronyism became the norm for both main parties, PaSoK and the conservative New Democracy party, which followed Papandreou’s practices when it returned to power in the 1990s. The civil service became part of the spoils of government. There was no room for universal benefits or long-term strategies of assisting the poor. Everyone was out to secure the best short-term outcome for themselves. The big winners were the public sector unions, the utility companies’ unions and the professionals: doctors, lawyers, engineers, pharmacists. The economy remained closed and protectionist, working largely for the benefit of...

(CNSNews.com) – Testifying in the U.S Senate yesterday, Congressional Budget Office Director Keith Hall warned that the publicly held debt of the U.S. government, when measured as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, is headed toward a level the United States has seen only once in its history—at the end of World War II.To simply keep the debt at the high historical level where it currently sits—74 percent of GDP–would require either significant increases in federal tax revenue or decreases in non-interest federal spending (or a combination of the two).Historically, U.S. government debt as a percentage of GDP hit its...

Testifying in the U.S Senate yesterday, Congressional Budget Office Director Keith Hall warned that the publicly held debt of the U.S. government, when measured as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, is headed toward a level the United States has seen only once in its history—at the end of World War II. To simply keep the debt at the high historical level where it currently sits—74 percent of GDP--would require either significant increases in federal tax revenue or decreases in non-interest federal spending (or a combination of the two).

(CNSNews.com) - Testifying in the U.S Senate yesterday, Congressional Budget Office Director Keith Hall warned that the publicly held debt of the U.S. government, when measured as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, is headed toward a level the United States has seen only once in its history—at the end of World War II. To simply keep the debt at the high historical level where it currently sits—74 percent of GDP--would require either significant increases in federal tax revenue or decreases in non-interest federal spending (or a combination of the two). Historically, U.S. government debt as a percentage of GDP...

Barbarians at the gate usually don’t bring down once-successful civilizations. Nor does climate change. Even mass epidemics such as the plague that decimated sixth-century Byzantium do not necessarily destroy a culture. Far more dangerous are institutionalized corruption, a lack of transparency, and creeping neglect of existing laws. All the German euros in the world will not save Greece if Greeks continue to dodge taxes, featherbed government, and see corruption as a business model. Even obeying so-called minor laws counts. It is no coincidence that a country where drivers routinely flout traffic laws and throw trash out the window is also...

Editor’s Note: This column was coauthored by Geno Lattus. The perfect formula for financial crisis: Imagine a country that spends more than it makes and continues to borrow to make up the difference, leaving it forever catching up on debt payments because of mounting interest. Another analysis on the Greek crisis? No. The United States is running its government in the same fundamental way as Greece and a meltdown may be coming soon. The Greek Formula. Greece recently defaulted on a $1.8 billion debt payment to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). After borrowing large sums, big bailouts and profligate government...

Greece may be dealing with a debt crisis, but the average U.S. household may have more to lose. The fate of debt-troubled Greece is now only days away from being decided. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras requested bailout funds on Wednesday, promising to submit reform proposals later this week. Either the country will agree to severe austerity measures in exchange for a reprieve from its lenders or will have to exit the eurozone and strike out on its own. Whatever happens, the average American may be worse off than Greece. Here are three ways to look at it: 1) Americans...

When Jim Palermo was serving as a trustee of the village of La Grange, Ill., he noticed something peculiar about the local police officers and firefighters. They were not going to live as long as might be expected, at least according to pension tables. After Mr. Palermo dug into the numbers, he found that the actuary — the person who advises pension plan trustees about how much money to set aside — was using a mortality table from 1971 that showed La Grange’s roughly 100 police officers and firefighters were expected to die, on average, before reaching 75, compared with...

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.” – Margaret Thatcher Greece is liberal economics on steroids, Detroit writ large, and a place where the "takers" outnumber the "makers." In other words, if you want to know what the end road is for the sort of economics pushed by people like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Paul Krugman, Greece is it. According to the World Bank, Greece’s labor participation rate is only 53%. It’s hard for private industry to take advantage of an underemployed populace because government regulations and powerful unions make it difficult...

Almost every option facing debt-drenched Greece is bad, but there is only one that will end this Greek tragedy for good. Let Greece go bankrupt. Then let this once-rich nation, hit the restart button to rebuild its economy. What I’m suggesting for Greece is what might be called the Detroit option. Put Greece under receivership and let these new authorities figure out how to manage the debt and decide who will take a haircut and how big. Pensioners, bondholders, welfare recipients, government workers, the International Monetary Fund, all will have to settle for less — maybe a lot less. It’s...

In 2011 the biggest fear from the Greek financial crisis was that it would cause a ripple effect throughout the global economy. But despite years given to de-leverage themselves, banks worldwide are still exposed to Greece, carrying more derivatives than ever tied to the tiny European state. Now that the Greek citizens have rejected the austerity measures proposed by the EU, we are facing a real potential of a Greek default, which could trigger a cascade collapse of credit default swaps and cause the implosion of the German central bank. Then, a continent away, we are facing trouble of a...

One year after Thomas Piketty sold a record number of economic textbook paperweights which virtually nobody read past page 26, once again showing the power of constant media hype, the French economist and wealth redistributor is out and about, this time pouring more gasoline on the fire started by the IMF last week when it released the Greek debt sustainability analysis showing Greece needs a 30% haircut, only to be met with stern resistance by, who else, Germany who know very well that should Greece get a debt haircut it will unleash the European dominoes which not even all...

Socialism’s Greek Staring Contest The day will come when America faces its own inner Greece. July 5, 2015 Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. The Greeks gambled in their referendum that European elites were more committed to their ideological obsession with integrating Europe than with mere economics. Stand up to a bunch of corrupt Greek civil servants and Europe risks going back to the bad old days of nation states and independent economies. It is likely that their bet will pay off. After all even a cursory...

ATHENS — Greece’s combative finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, who took a strong stand in demanding that creditors write off some of his country’s debts, abruptly resigned on Monday morning. Mr. Varoufakis had played a central role in rallying votes for a resounding no on a referendum on Sunday that asked Greeks whether they were willing to accept an arrangement with creditors that would require considerable further austerity, such as pension cuts. Mr. Varoufakis had threatened last week to resign in the event of a yes vote, and his decision to step down after he and his allies prevailed in the...

Sunday, Greeks should vote “no”!Hellenic voters are being asked whether they accept the terms offered by the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund to extend the bailout for Athens‘ troubled finances or give Prime Minister Tsipras a mandate to insist on a better deal.Those conditions include more cuts in government supported pensions, higher taxes and labor market reforms other European governments’ are often not inclined to accept in the conduct of their own affairs.Urging a Yes vote, European leaders and their supporters in private institutions claim more austerity would reinvigorate the Greek economy and permit Greeks to...