Free Republic

House GOP members are meeting at Capitol. The meeting is about how to increase the debt limit for the USA. If Democrats and Republicans cannot reach an agreement, the USA is head for … default! 2012-movie-431x300 (1) It is true that the US is at (or actually a little past) its statutory debt limit. debtceilgst But what do credit default swaps, the price for insurance against sovereign default, tell us? First, the 5y CDS did rise after the specter of default reared its head. But fell towards the end of the week as rumors surfaced that President Obama was willing...

“There is precedent for a government shutdown,” Lloyd Blankfein, the chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs, remarked last week. “There’s no precedent for default.” How wrong he is.

The rhetoric in Washington DC and the media is … silly. Here is a chart of Federal government receipts and Federal government expenditure on interest for Treasury debt. fedrecifedint Does that look like the US can’t afford to pay its debt? Of course not. The problems is the voracious spending in DC which no one seemingly wants to stop. Now, if I plot Federal government current receipts against Federal government current expenditures, we see a different picture: its the spending that’s the problem. govtrevexp You can see in the picture that the much vaunted reduction in the deficit was a...

U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew warned Congress that “uncertainty” over the debt limit is starting to stress financial markets and trying to time an increase to the last minute “could be very dangerous.” Lew was speaking in testimony prepared for a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee today. debtceilgst But not the growth rate in debt or entitlements? Obamacare and other entitlements will lead to even more explosive debt growth in the US. debtprojection7 The US and much of the world has already been experiencing explosive debt in both the public and private sectors. See this link for a...

<p>One of the nation’s top credit-rating agencies says that the U.S. Treasury Department is likely to continue paying interest on the government’s debt even if Congress fails to lift the limit on borrowing next week, preserving the nation’s sterling AAA credit rating.</p>

The International Monetary Fund Oct. 8 lowered its global growth forecast for this year to 2.9 percent and to 3.6 percent in 2014, from 3.1 percent and 3.8 percent it had in July. The U.S. economy is “at the center of events,” the fund said. The damage to the world’s largest economy from a longer federal government shutdown “could be quite harmful” while “the failure to promptly raise the debt ceiling, leading to a U.S. selective default, could seriously damage the global economy,” the IMF warned in its new “World Economic Outlook”. Bear in mind that the IMF has had...

It is fascinating to watch the game of chicken being played in Washington D.C. Both sides on the budget war have drawn lines in the sand. President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Reid refuse to negotiate and have shut down the Federal government (sort of). House Republicans demand that Obamacare carveouts to political friends, Congress, etc. be ended or everyone be given a waiver from Obamacare. Regardless of which side of the fence you line up on, here are the facts. In 2014, $2.16 trillion of Federal government debt matures or rolls over. Now, THAT is a big Twinkie! usdebtdist...

While the world's largest hedge fund, the Fed, may not care about the performance of its "bad bank" assets, and thus is largely ambivalent if the US Treasury defaults on the $2 trillion in US paper held by Ben Bernanke, others don't have the luxury of merely printing away any incurred MTM losses. Such as America's largest foreign creditor China, which at last check held at least $1.277 trillion in US Treasurys, which after realizing with a substantial delay that the US Congress is not precisely a "rational actor" and its bonds may be materially impaired in the case of...

As many observers have noted, the dysfunction in Washington is on the verge of becoming a full-blown crisis. A handful of extremists in one political party have become so convinced of their own brilliance and rectitude — and so frustrated by their inability to persuade the rest of the country of it — that they are threatening to cause the United States of America to default if their demands aren't meant. This is extortion, plain and simple. And the Obama Administration is right not to give into it. If it becomes legitimate for a small group of politicians on either...

In the old days, if you wanted to see master propagandists at work, you looked to Moscow, where none honed the craft as crassly as the boys in the Kremlin. The Soviets were so excellent at manipulation and disinformation, at agitation and propaganda (read: agitprop), that they had a government department that specialized in the work. Entire elements of the arm of the state were employed in the ignoble task.Here at home, Communist Party USA wasn’t too shabby either. [SNIP]...This tactic is precisely what Barack Obama and his allies are doing right now. Obama’s exploitation of the government shutdown (never...

It’s impossible to default on the debt——years down the road, maybe Average monthly interest costs are $18 billion….. we take in on average $225 billion. By law, the president must pay interest first before anything else. In addition to interest we must roll over the $550 billion of maturing debt each month. Newly issued bonds replace maturing bonds with no net change in total debt outstanding. If the Chinese and other investors won’t purchase them, Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke will just buy them for the Fed’s account. When confronted with money problems, adults make decisions and set priorities. We pay...

After the housing crash of 2008, millions of US borrowers were suddenly plunged into a negative equity position of their homes where the amount they owed to lenders exceeded the value of the property. The problem was so bad that it has motivated cities to consider eminent domain to seize the underwater debt of borrowers (as in Richmond and San Bernardino California). Here is a recent map of negative equity from Zillow. zillowmapofnegeq These borrowers have nothing on Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam now owes $17 trillion to bondholders. GFDEBTN_Max_630_378 (3) Currently, Uncle Sam has public debt equal to 100.46% of...

Before I went on The Willis Report on Fox Business to discuss the latest FHA bailout, reporter Rich Edson discussed the pending government shutdown. That is, The House passed a continuing resolution without Obamacare funding, the Senate put Obamacare back in the continuing resolution, and now the ball in the House’s court with only days to go …. to government shutdown! Zero Hedge has a nice summary of the negatives associated with a government shutdown. Suffice it to say, it is all about the crippling Obamacare legislation. Regardless of the government shutdown or not, labor force participation rate will continue...

You know me too, Frank -- we met at McStain's campaign shindig at the University Club in Washington DC in the summer of 2008. I recall that you and Governor Ridge both refused to take a stand on all the frauds in the mortgage market -- the very frauds that just a couple of months later led to the failure of Lehman, the market crash in general and the ensuing disaster. It figures that you're now the President and chief executive of the American Bankers Association [ABA]. It must be really, really awesome to have your candidate suspend his campaign...

Before I went on The Willis Report on Fox Business to discuss the latest FHA bailout, reporter Rich Edson discussed the pending government shutdown. That is, The House passed a continuing resolution without Obamacare funding, the Senate put Obamacare back in the continuing resolution, and now the ball in the House’s court with only days to go …. to government shutdown! House Republican leaders are proposing to attach a one-year delay of Obamacare provisions and a repeal of the medical-device tax to a short-term spending bill and send it to the Senate, said Representatives Michael McCaul and Kevin Brady of...

<p>WASHINGTON — The Treasury will only have $30 billion of cash on hand by mid-October, putting the United States on the precipice of an unprecedented default, the department said on Wednesday.</p> <p>The warning puts additional pressure on a hamstrung Congress, which is already struggling to prevent the federal government from shutting down over a budget impasse on Oct. 1.</p>

President Barack Obama will appeal to business leaders on Wednesday to urge Congress to approve an increase in the U.S. debt limit and avoid a default that is possible as early as mid-October. Obama is to address the Business Roundtable as part of a renewed push to focus on domestic budget and economic issues after a month dominated by foreign policy. The U.S. Treasury is expected to exhaust measures to avoid exceeding the $16.7 trillion debt limit as soon as mid-October. If the cap is not raised, the United States will not be able to pay all of its bills...

The toll-road authority of Orange County, Calif., is nearing the biggest municipal default since Detroit's record bankruptcy ... The Foothill-Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency... risks default on $2.4 billion in debt, according to a consultant to the Debt and Investment Advisory Commission of California Treasurer Bill Lockyer.

If I invoke the phrase “Greek debt crisis,” do your eyelids start to grow heavy? Do you somehow find it difficult to summon up a fresh wave of outrage if someone mentions that when Barack Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (better known as the Democratic Tax-Hike Justification Front) convened for its second monthly meeting last week, Congress was already 41 days past its April 15 deadline for passing a budget resolution — scared to death to admit, in an election year and the third year of the Second Great Depression, just how much new debt and spending...

The U.S. Justice Department has subpoenaed documents from what was Wall Street’s largest mortgage due-diligence firm as it ratchets up an investigation into bank actions in the years before the financial crisis. The Justice Department delivered a subpoena to Clayton Holdings LLC last month for an extensive number of documents related to the firm’s work on residential mortgage-backed securities deals. Information sought includes due diligence reports, internal communications related to reviews of pools of loans and correspondence with clients, according to a copy of the subpoena filed as an exhibit in federal court. Let’s take the case of the FHA....