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August 06, 2015 Raul_I_Meijer Far too many people have already used lines like “We Are All Greeks Now” for the words to hold on to much if any meaning by now. But it’s still a very accurate description of what awaits us all. Just not for the same reasons most who used it, did. No, I don’t really want to talk about Greece again. I want to talk about where you live. And about how similar the two will be not too long from now. How Greece is holding up a lesson and a big red flashing warning sign for...

I suppose Scott Walker is still polling a little too well for the comfort level of liberal commentators. If that weren’t the case, one wonders if they would still be so obsessed with the financial situation of one of the least wealthy candidates for the presidency. But since this tired story is being whipped up for another lap around the campaign track, let’s check in on the latest financial burdens being discussed around the kitchen table in the Walker household. (National Journal) Gov. Scott Walker has two credit-card debts of more than $10,000 apiece on separate cards and is...

Puerto Rico missed its first debt repayment on Monday, the first time the troubled US commonwealth has failed to pay its bills. The island paid just $628,000 toward a $58m debt due to creditors of its Public Finance Corporation. While the default was expected, it is likely to worsen the financial situation for the island as it struggles with debts estimated at $72bn.

Puerto Rico paid only $628,000 on a $58 million debt bill due Monday, putting the country into default for the first time. The country's Government Development Bank was supposed to make the full payment on its Public Finance Corporation debt service, but failed to do so. Moody's said it considers the lack of payment a default, CNBC reported. "Due to the lack of appropriated funds for this fiscal year the entirety of the PFC payment was not made today (the first business day after the Saturday deadline)," GDB President Melba Acosta-Febo said in a statement.

Puerto Rico chose not to make a $58 million bond payment on Monday, a move that essentially amounted to a default for the first time in its 117 years as a United States possession. Although the territory did make a payment on the interest of about $628,000, it said it lacked the funds to make the full payment.

One evening three weeks ago in Kifissia, an affluent garden suburb of Athens, a retired financial adviser and his wife decided to take in one of the delights of summer here, an outdoor movie. They pulled tight the shutters, set the alarm, locked the house and strolled off. Halfway through the movie the alarm company called, and they rushed home to find the alarm immersed in a bucket of water, the shutters jimmied and a safe emptied of jewelry. The speed and sophistication of the crime were astonishing, the financial adviser’s wife said, still feeling vulnerable and not willing to...

Could you live without debt? Most Americans say that they cannot. According to a brand new Pew survey, approximately 7 out of every 10 Americans believe that “debt is a necessity in their lives”, and approximately 8 out of every 10 Americans actually have debt right now. Most of us like to think that “someday” we will get out of the hole and quit being debt slaves, but very few of us ever actually accomplish this. That is because the entire system is designed to trap us in debt before we even get out into the “real world” and keep...

Medicare at 50--Still Flawed, After All These Years ST. PAUL, Minn.—This Thursday, Medicare will mark a milestone—50 years since it was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 30, 1965. Designed as part of LBJ’s “Great Society” initiative, Medicare was intended to provide low-cost hospitalization and medical insurance for the nation’s elderly. But the program has been in crisis for years and needs an escape plan, not a rescue plan, says Twila Brase, president and co-founder of Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom (CCHF, www.cchfreedom.org), a national organization dedicated to preserving patient-centered health care and protecting patient and...

Some controversy is swirling around the new Vikings Stadium, as some are saying the project could be millions of dollars over budget. One member of the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority is speaking out on the issue and facing opposition from other members. Duane Benson has served as the MSFA treasurer since the group's inception back in 2012, however, he is preparing to leave the group in light of recent turmoil and says the $1.1 billion project's finances are anything but in order at the moment. As the groundbreaking project continues to break the bank, Benson says there is a problem--perhaps...

The plunge in oil prices last year led many to say that a decline in U.S. oil production wouldn't be far behind. This was because almost all the growth in U.S. production in recent years had come from high-cost tight oil deposits which could not be profitable at these new lower oil prices. These wells were also known to have production declines that averaged 40 percent per year. Overall U.S. production, however, confounded the conventional logic and continued to rise--until early June when it stalled and then dropped slightly. Anyone who understood that U.S. drillers in shale plays had large...

I’m asked every day if America is the next Greece or Detroit or Puerto Rico — and the answer is an unequivocal no. The U.S. economy — especially the private sector — is structurally very healthy. That wasn’t the case on the eve of the great financial meltdown of 2008 when American companies and households were leveraged up to their eyebrows. What’s different today from eight years ago is that now it’s the government that’s in the fiscal intensive care unit while companies and households have rebooted. The stunning improvement in business and family balance sheets is arguably the most...

Last month Gina Rinehart, Australia’s richest woman and matriarch of Perth’s Hancock mining dynasty delivered an unwelcome shock to her workers in Western Australia: accept a possible 10pc pay cut or face the risk of future redundancies. Ms Rinehart, whose family have accumulated vast wealth from iron ore mining, has seen her fortune dwindle since commodity prices began their inexorable slide last year. The Australian mining mogul has seen her estimated wealth collapse to around $11bn (£7bn) from a fortune that was thought to be worth around $30bn just three years ago. This colossal collapse in wealth is symptomatic of...

Last month, in "Cities, States Shun Moody's For Blowing The Whistle On Pension Liabilities," we highlighted a rift between Moody’s and some local governments over the return assumptions for public pension plans. To recap, when it comes to underfunded pension liabilities, one major concern is that in a world characterized by ZIRP and NIRP, it’s not entirely clear that public pension funds are using realistic investment return assumptions. The lower the return assumption, the larger the unfunded liability. After 2008, Moody’s stopped relying on the investment return assumptions of cities and states opting instead to use its own models....

There has been so much attention on Greece in recent weeks, but the truth is that Greece represents only a very tiny fraction of an unprecedented global debt bomb which threatens to explode at any moment. As you are about to see, there are 24 nations that are currently facing a full-blown debt crisis, and there are 14 more that are rapidly heading toward one. Right now, the debt to GDP ratio for the entire planet is up to an all-time record high of 286 percent, and globally there is approximately 200 TRILLION dollars of debt on the books. That...

Our unsustainable predicament Democrats, along with a number of equally feckless Republicans, are extolling the virtues of “comprehensive immigration reform.” Such jargon obscures their real agenda, which is the abandonment of the rule of law in favor of a political expediency that benefits the ruling class and its campaign contributors. A ruling class and campaign contributors who seek to “fundamentally transform the United States of America” into a nation where progressive power is permanent, and cheap labor is plentiful. Hence, while those virtues are put front and center before the public, the vices associated with illegal immigration are relegated to...

In 2015, the human race will create about $75 trillion in economic output, well more than half of which will be the product of the three largest economies: those of the United States ($18 trillion), the European Union ($16 trillion), and China ($11 trillion). Two of those economies are in the midst of serious economic and political crises. The other is in the grip of something much more difficult to overcome: complacency. Europe is being convulsed by a debt crisis in which Greece is, for the moment, the lead player, but which very well may grow much more intense if...

In June, Greece defaulted on a €1.73 billion payment to the International Monetary Fund. In a national referendum shortly thereafter, the Greeks strongly rejected European conditions for receiving yet another bailout. For the first time in the Eurozone’s history, the exit of one of its member countries became a very real possibility. [SNIP] While there are important differences between the U.S. and Greek economies, policy makers and the public should be concerned with the dismal U.S. fiscal outlook. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates in its alternative fiscal scenario that U.S. publicly held debt will grow to 180 percent (exceeding...

While all Eyes are on Greece, Italy’s Banks are Drowning in Bad Debt The real danger to the euro area probably doesn’t emanate from Greece, but from two of its heavyweights, namely France and Italy. A small note in the European press reminds us that all is not well in at least one of these countries, least of all with its banks (currently this is only a “page 16 story”, but it has great potential to eventually move to the front page). Regional distribution of non-performing loans in Italy The note reads as follows:  “Rome – because of the recession of recent...

Our situation is nowhere near as bad as Greece’s — but it’s bad enough. Last week, Keith Hall, director of the Congressional Budget Office, told Congress that the United States could be facing a Greek-style debt crisis down the road. “Unfortunately,” Hall testified, “there is no way to predict confidently whether or when such a fiscal crisis might occur in the United States. . . . But all else being equal, the larger a government’s debt, the greater the risk of a fiscal crisis.” That’s not exactly a ringing vote of confidence. Obviously there are big differences between the U.S....

There is an unsolvable problem at the heart of our financial system. The outcome of this problem is inevitable. The joblessness, increasing debt and recession that we see now is only the first stage of a crisis that is certain to come soon. Everything about our way of life is about to change. Many people believe that today is as bad as it will get and that things will not get worse. The truth is that this is just the start of what is about to unfold. We will all be witnesses to the real consequences of this coming collapse...