Free Republic

This Car Won’t Move Jeffrey TuckerMay 3, 2013 The latest unemployment data reveal the hope and tragedy of the American economic plight. Cheers went up for a modest increase in hiring, one that: • barely keeps up with population; • features mostly temp workers; • leaves out prime-age males and all young workers; • and keeps labor participation rate at a low level from 1979. This is good news? Hmmm… But the central bank will save us, right? So say economic journalists. They love metaphors. Actually, professional economists love them too. The latest phrase being tossed around is that world...

Bernanke Cancels Jackson Hole Appearance Four Months Out Due To 'Personal Scheduling Conflict' Matthew BoeslerApril 22, 2013 Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke won't be attending the annual Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium in August due to a "personal scheduling conflict." The event, held by the Kansas City Fed every summer in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, usually features a keynote speech from the Chairman of the Fed. In recent years since the financial crisis of 2008, the speech has been used to signal important monetary policy shifts as the Fed has experimented with unconventional monetary policy tools. As MNI's Steven Beckner points...

Boston was battered but vigilant on Tuesday as an army of federal agents raced to find out who attacked the city’s historic marathon, leaving three dead and more than 100 injured amid a war zone of shattered glass and bomb debris on Patriots Day.

It's a rough job market for anyone looking for work as we continue to just barely break stagnation levels in the Slowest Recovery Ever, but the picture is particularly bleak for the fresh-faced youths looking start careers. According to a new economic report, the situation is going to be “extremely difficult” for the crop of 2013 college graduates: Unemployment remains high for young college grads. For those who will find jobs, many will probably have to settle for low-level positions, the Economic Policy Institute said Wednesday.The unemployment rate for recent college grads between the ages of 21 to 24 has...

FBI investigators for at least five years have routinely used a sophisticated cellphone tracking tool that can pinpoint callers’ locations and listen to their conversations — all without getting a warrant for it, a federal court was told this week. The use of the “Stingray,” as the tool is called, “is a very common practice” by federal investigators, Justice Department attorneys told the U.S. District Court for Arizona Thursday, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Installed in an unmarked van, Stingray mimics a cellphone tower, so it can pinpoint the precise location of any mobile device in range and...

A growing number of states are moving forward with legislation to exempt them from new federal gun controls and, in some cases, brand as criminals anyone who tries to enforce them. While many of the bills are considered symbolic or appear doomed to fail, the legislative explosion reflects a backlash against legislative and regulatory efforts in Washington to tamp down on gun violence. As of this week, at least 28 states had taken up consideration of gun bills this year, according to new data compiled by the National Conference of State Legislatures. More than 70 bills have been put forward...

Now, this is awkward. One agency of the federal government is suing a company for fraud while another agency continues to endorse it. On Monday in Los Angeles, the Department of Justice sued Standard & Poor's and its parent McGraw-Hill MHP -0.25% for $5 billion. The claim is that S&P committed civil fraud when it issued high credit ratings on mortgage-related securities prior to the financial crisis of 2008. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have piled on the suit. No doubt investors who relied on the opinions of S&P and the other big credit-rating agencies, Moody's and Fitch,...

The "Oklahoma 2nd Amendment Preservation Act" is now working its way through the Oklahoma legislature. Introduced by state senator Nathan Dahm, this legislation puts Oklahoma shoulder-to-shoulder with Wyoming and Texas by putting federal gun-grabbers in check. The language of the legislation is clear: "Federal acts, laws, orders, rules, regulations, bans or registration requirements regarding firearms constitute an infringement on the individual right [to keep and bear arms] in the Constitution of the United States...and are hereby declared to be invalid in the State of Oklahoma." The legislation mentions the "intent" of America's "Founders" and the Constitution's "ratifiers," and sets forth...

Did The Fed Lie About QE 3 And 4? Stock-Markets / Quantitative EasingJan 05, 2013 - 08:24 AM By: Graham Summers It’s common belief that Bernanke and the Fed are printing $85 billion per month ($40 billion to buy Mortgage Backed Securities and $45 billion to buy Treasuries). After all, these are the policies that the Fed announced in September and December 2012, respectively. The only issue with this is that the Fed lied. Today, the Fed’s balance sheet is $1.3 billion smaller than it was at this time last year. Last week it was $19 billion smaller. The largest...

ZERVOS: The Fed Is Risking An Inflation Disaster, And There Will Only Be One Place To Hide Joe WeisenthalDecember 21,2012 Jefferies' economist David Zervos is back in a new note, which takes stock of developments at the Fed and the Bank of Japan. The Fed, of course, recently adopted Evans Rule, which indicates that tightening won't occur until unemployment gets to around 6.5%, or inflation expectations are around 2.5%. The Bank of Japan is expected to see a new round of aggressive policy, thanks to the wishes of incoming Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. While markets seem to be pretty happy...

Ben Bernanke continues to make history at the Federal Reserve. On Wednesday, the FOMC announced more quantitative easing at a rate of $85 billion a month for an extended period of time. The Bernanke Fed has also modified its guidance, noting its ultra-accommodative stance will remain in place until the unemployment rate falls below 6.5% and inflation projections remain no more than half a percentage point above 2% two years out. QE4 is here. Only a few months after announcing what had been dubbed QE3, an open-ended $40 billion a month program to buy up mortgage backed securities (MBS), the...

U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar rejected a proposal to extend the lease of a popular oyster farm at Point Reyes National Seashore on Thursday, effectively ending more than a century of shellfish production on the 1,100 acres where Europeans first stepped foot in California. The decision will allow the National Park Service to turn the picturesque bay where Sir Francis Drake landed more than 400 years ago into California's first federally designated marine wilderness area. Salazar made his decision a day before the 40-year lease allowing Drakes Bay Oyster Co., to harvest shellfish in the estuary expires and one week...

<p>Madison - As Gov. Scott Walker contemplates whether to create a state health care exchange under Obamacare, he will have to contend in the coming legislative session with nine lawmakers who have said they back a bill to arrest any federal officials who try to implement the health care law.</p>

Jesse Jackson Jr. Could Be Faking Bipolar to Dodge Feds, Says BuzzFeed ReporterBy Jack Coleman | November 27, 2012 | 16:35 **SNIP** STANTON: You know, but there's a lot of speculation that a lot of that may not have been true, uh, that he knew he was facing this investigation, that he knew he was going to be in trouble, he was looking for a way out potentially, uh ... PRESS (sensing trouble in conversation): He said in his statement he's cooperating with federal authorities in this criminal investigation. What are they investigating? What alleged ...? STANTON: It's a little...

Feds ‘going down every rat hole’ in Jesse Jackson Jr. probe: sourceBY NATASHA KORECKI Political Reporter November 15, 2012 8:24PM **SNIP** Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed reported last week that Jackson is in the midst of plea discussions. “No one has pled guilty, but plea discussions are ongoing,” a source told Sneed. Meanwhile, investigators are also examining what role the congressman’s wife, Ald. Sandi Jackson (7th), played in the finances, but the source described the inquiry into her so far as a “normal” part of investigating a main target. **SNIP** Jackson was temporarily back in Washington last month when he was...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Your emails are not nearly as private as you think. (Snip) Under the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, federal authorities need only a subpoena approved by a federal prosecutor — not a judge — to obtain electronic messages that are six months old or older. To get more recent communications, a warrant from a judge is required. (Snip) "Technology has evolved in a way that makes the content of more communications available to law enforcement without judicial authorization, and at a very low level of suspicion," said Greg Nojeim, a senior counsel at the Center for Democracy...

QE3, A Light On The Future For Investors Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2012Oct 27, 2012 - 05:28 AM By: DeepCaster LLC “The challenge for Ben Bernanke and the Fed governors since the 2008 bailouts has been how to deal with the backlog of fraud – not just fraudulent mortgages and fraudulent mortgage securities but the derivatives piled on top and the politics of who owns them, such as sovereign nations with nuclear arsenals, and how they feel about taking massive losses on AAA paper purchased in good faith. On one hand, you could let them all default. The problem is...

Billionaire Frank Giustra: Gold Will Be The Final Bubble Frik Els October 18, 2012Canaccord's Global Resource Conference happening in Miami at the moment featured a lengthy interview with billionaire investor Frank Giustra where he said "he doesn't want to sound apocalyptic," but probably ended up scaring the bejezus out of the audience anyway. In 2002 Giustra wrote a book called A Tarnished Dollar Will Put the Shine on Gold. That was back when gold was trading below $300 and quantitative easing wasn't even a glint in Ben Bernanke's eye. A decade later he's sticking to his guns: "I don't know...

<p>NACO, Ariz. -- A Border Patrol agent was shot and killed near Naco, Arizona, on Tuesday, the agency said. Another agent sustained injuries that are not considered life-threatening, said Brent Cagen, a Border Patrol spokesman.</p> <p>The shootings happened in the southeastern part of the state, near the Mexican border.</p>

The Fed Is Trapped, Gold Is The Exit Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2012Sep 26, 2012 - 05:45 AM By: Darryl R Schoon 47% of US investors dependent on the Fed believe they are victimized by government, who believe they are entitled to enough liquidity to profit when risk is laid-off onto others, to society, to you-name-it… On September 13th, the Fed announced QE3, a policy of open-ended bond purchases which would add $1 trillion annually to the Fed’s balance sheet. The Fed’s decision to provide liquidity ad infinitum, i.e. QE etc, was framed in reasonable and carefully chosen language: …These...