Free Republic

Seeking a jolt for a wilting economy, President Barack Obama will give a major speech in early September to unveil new ideas for speeding up job growth and helping the struggling poor and middle class, a senior administration official told The Associated Press. The president's plan is likely to contain tax cuts, jobs-boosting infrastructure ideas and steps that would specifically help the long-term unemployed. The official emphasized that all of Obama's proposals would be fresh ones, not a rehash of plans he has pitched for many weeks and still supports, including his "infrastructure bank" idea to finance construction jobs. On...

So far the U.S. government has bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the tune of at least $130 billion, and perhaps as much as $1 trillion. And yet, the Obama administration continues to stonewall the release of documents that could shed light on why Fannie and Freddie failed, thereby sending the economy into a tailspin from which we have yet to recover. (Those records are housed at the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) now that Fannie and Freddie are owned and operated by the federal government.)

We got another negative data point today, the August Empire State Manufacturing Index came in below expectations, showing a 3rd straight month of contraction in current business conditions. Alarmingly, the index for future business conditions had the 3rd lowest reading in the last 10 years (the only lower datapoints were for September 2001 because of what happend on 9/11, and February 2009). Besides the actual reading, the rate of change is rather disturbing. Over the last six months, future expectations have deteriorated at the fastest rate of the last 10 years. As you can see from the chart below, the...

Not knowing who the eventual Republican presidential nominee will be in the 2012 election, President Obama's supporters are taking the opportunity to blast all of the GOP candidates, using aggressive language to argue that the crop of contenders is either uninterested or incapable of helping Americans. Much of the criticism is focused on describing the candidates as lackeys to the Tea Party, which establishment Democrats have classified as right-wing zealots bent on destroying the U.S. snip "In a Republican field that has already pledged allegiance to the Tea Party and failed to present any plan that will benefit the middle...

Who can forget that rare moment of honesty during the campaign to pass Obamacare when Nancy Pelosi said, "We have to pass the bill in order for you to find out what's in it"? Now we have it, and almost daily there are new revelations about the staggering extent to which our private lives and individual freedoms have been stomped on. We learn now that free birth control in the form of contraceptives, morning-after pills, and sterilization is part of the grand Obamacare socialist dream-come-true. The health insurance that Obamacare mandates that all employers provide and that all citizens acquire...

Stop the presses. Barely did we have time to report that European regulators failed to impose a coordinated short selling ban, that Bloomberg reports that the countries most impact by the market plunge are about to impose standalone short-selling bans. These are Belgium, Italy, Spain and France. In other words, it really is on and the 2008 Lehman PTSD flashbacks may now resume. Until we get a headline that says it isn't. The rescue of the Borsa Italian is now more schizophrenic than that of Greece. As a reminder, in the previous post the FT quoted Abraham Lioui, a professor...

President Barack Obama sought to reassert economic leadership on Thursday by pledging to deliver new ideas every week to create jobs, and he slammed Congress for "bickering" that hurts economic recovery. In a passionate speech to auto industry workers aimed at deflecting public anger over policy gridlock in Washington, Obama said the refusal to put country ahead of party "has got to stop." His hopes for reelection in 2012 will hinge on his success in lowering unemployment, currently pinned above 9 percent, and boosting sluggish economic growth, and he promised to deliver fresh approaches. "I'll be laying out more proposals...

DeMint: "We saw within a few days that this President was going to be heavy-handed, he was going to implement his agenda and pay back his political allies, and it just went on from there to ObamaCare and then to Dodd-Frank. It has been the most anti-business and I consider anti-American administration in my lifetime. Things that are just so anathema to the principles of freedom, and everything he has come up with centralizes more power in Washington, creates more socialist-style, collectivist policies. This president is doing something that’s so far out of the realm of anything Republicans ever did...

NEW YORK—American consumers can expect bigger grocery bills in 2012, even as commodity prices are forecast to fall. (snip) In a recent report, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said grocery-store prices will likely rise 3% to 4% in 2012, on par with this year, even though ingredient costs may fall. The biggest increases would likely be in the first half of next year, but prices would most likely ease later in 2012, said USDA economist Richard Volpe.

Treasury reports $1.09T deficit through JulyBy Erik Wasson - 08/10/11 03:13 PM ET The Treasury Department on Wednesday reported the nation has run a $1.099 trillion budget deficit through July. The deficit is about $70 billion less than last year's budget deficit at this point in the fiscal year. The reason is higher government revenues, the Treasury statement said. Total spending has increased this year from $2.921 trillion to $2.992 trillion, but receipts to the government are up from $1.753 trillion to $1.893 trillion. The fiscal year ends on Sept. 30. The latest figures on the budget deficit come after...

As the U.S. bond rating falls and the stock market plunges, the American Century looks to be well and truly over. While this has provoked no small amount of hand-wringing, Americans may soon come to enjoy no longer bearing the responsibility for running the world's indispensable nation. The signs of decline are everywhere. Illegal immigrants are heading back home in search of a better life. China already leads the world in green technology and is about to become the world's biggest economy in terms of purchasing power. Two U.S.-led wars are dragging toward an end charitably described as: mission not...

As our economy continues to self-destruct; U.S. credit is shockingly downgraded; home prices remain at historic lows; unemployment rises; small businesses continue to close their doors; public-employee-bloated cities, towns, states and employers continue to default; race riots flare, Mexican drug cartels cross our sovereign border at will to establish ultraviolent operations; test scores for public school children continue to plummet; the health care system falls under the control of a failed socialist model; terrorism rises, and the world outside our borders spirals into deeper and more dangerous chaos, a serious and very legitimate question needs to be asked: In the...

I know what you’re thinking. “It seems like just yesterday that he was talking about a ‘new sense of urgency’ on deficits and job growth.” You’re wrong, though. It was two days ago. Maybe the mood passed? Over to you, Zero Hedge guy: We bring you this special announcement courtesy of the White House which has informed that American plebs that following a fantastic job well done, in which the market is now back to pre-QE2 levels, unemployment is near record highs, delays for presidential press meetings compare with Newark airplane take offs, pessimism is at record highs, America’s credit...

U.S. President Barack Obama may be a Democrat, but he is certainly no Harry Truman. Truman, the 33rd president of the United States, had a sign on his desk that read, "The buck stops here!" Obama, president No. 44, has chosen instead to pass the buck, claiming his country's economic troubles were inherited, and the majority of the mess on his desk is not his fault. As a result, he's become a full-fledged disaster, eclipsing even Jimmy Carter as the worst president in modern U.S. history. Obama is drowning in his own purple prose, and is so in love with...

Supposedly, one of the main purposes behind Obamacare was to provide affordable health care coverage for every American family. Yeah, right! Since the passage of Obamacare, healthcare costs have climbed higher than they have ever been. More and more employers are reducing the amount and type of coverage they provide to their employees while increasing how much the employees pay. Deductibles are getting so high that many families can’t reach the limit and have to pay everything out of pocket. And then Obamacare mandated that every American WILL purchase health insurance or be penalized and fined by the IRS when...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Struggling to clear its inventory of foreclosed properties, the Obama administration said Wednesday it’s looking for investor ideas for converting more than 92,000 foreclosed properties owned by the U.S. government into rental units, a sign of the depths to which the U.S. housing market has sunk. “Exploring new options for selling these foreclosed properties will help expand access to affordable rental housing, promote private investment in local housing markets and support neighborhood and home-price stability,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in a statement. The Obama administration is working with the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the regulator for...

Joe Biden and his wife have escaped the heat and political squabbling of Washington to spend the rest of the week vacationing in the Hamptons. Although the VP’s official schedule says only that the Bidens are set to “visit Long Island,” they traveled to their annual vacation spot in Southampton earlier today and plan to stay through Monday. President Obama will follow his number two’s lead later this month when he and his family travel to Martha’s Vineyard for a little R&R. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney confirmed today that, despite the staggering economy, the president still plans to...

The decision by credit agency Standard and Poor’s to downgrade America’s AAA credit rating for the first time in 70 years is a massive blow to the credibility of the Obama administration, and a damning indictment of its handling of the economy. No doubt the White House will pathetically try to blame the Bush Administration, Republicans in Congress, and of course its favourite target, the Tea Party, for the move by S&P. But without a shadow of a doubt, responsibility for the country’s financial mess and staggering levels of debt lie with the current US president and his administration. They...

Stocks finished near session lows in choppy trading Wednesday, with the Dow and S&P wiping out all of the previous session's gains led by financials, as investors continued to cautiously monitor developments in the European banks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down over 500 points, wiping out the previous session's 429-point rally. The blue-chip index has had triple-digit moves in four of the last five trading days. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq also finished sharply lower. The CBOE Volatility Index, widely considered the best gauge of fear in the market, soared more than 25 percent.

The Obama administration may turn thousands of government-owned foreclosures into rental properties to help boost falling home prices. The Federal Housing Finance Agency said Wednesday it is seeking input from investors on how to rent roughly 250,000 homes owned by government-controlled mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration. All of the homes are foreclosures. The U.S. government rescued the two mortgage giants in September 2008 and has funded them since the financial crisis. Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee about half of the nation's mortgages and nearly all new mortgages. Converting the homes into rentals...