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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration warned on Monday it could start defaulting on the government's obligations "very soon" after hitting a limit on the national debt later this month. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said the federal government should hit the ceiling by the end of February unless Washington raises the nation's limit on public borrowing. The federal government would then burn through its remaining cash more quickly that it would at other times of the year because the Treasury will be issuing tax refund checks, Lew said. "Without borrowing authority, at some point very soon, it would not be...

A US Default Would Be The Financial Equivalent Of This Painting Of Hell Brett LoGiuratoJanuary 14, 2013 Earlier today, President Barack Obama almost dared Republicans to not increase the nation's borrowing limit in a White House press conference. "If Congressional Republicans refuse to pay America’s bills on time, Social Security checks, veterans benefits will be delayed," Obama said. "... Investors around the world will ask if the United States of America is in fact a safe bet. Markets could go haywire. Interest rates would spike for anyone who borrowed money." One analyst — Michael Feroli, the chief economist at JP...

Three false arguments, pushed hard by the Obama administration and accepted on faith by the media and much of the political establishment, must be laid to rest if the American people are to understand the issues at stake in the federal "debt ceiling" debate. The first is that Congress's failure to raise the debt ceiling—the amount of money the federal government is authorized to borrow at any given time—will cause a default on the national debt. The second is that federal entitlement programs are constitutionally protected from spending cuts. The third is that the president can raise the debt ceiling...

Former U.S. Comptroller David Walker has warned that the U.S. could slide into a debt scenario similar to what Greece is experiencing. “The truth is if you count total U.S. government debt as compared to many of the European nations that are in the news, we’re already worse than they are, and we’re two years away from where Greece was when it had its crisis,” Walker said in a recent interview with CYInterview.com. But he said that the size and economic power of the U.S. means it would have more time to right itself before disaster. Walker served as U.S....

When U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue proclaimed that the Keystone XL pipeline would create 250,000 jobs, he touched a nerve in the environmental community. “That’s just not true,” Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s international program, told reporters Friday, calling Donohue’s jobs estimate “wildly inflated.” It’s a familiar refrain from the environmental community, which has been working overtime in recent weeks to counter Republican and industry claims that the 1,700-mile pipeline would create a mini-job boom in the United States. The fight over the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry oil sands crude from...

22 Signs That We Are On The Verge Of A Devastating Global RecessionJanuary 12, 2012Michael Snyder 2012 is shaping up to be a very tough year for the global economy. All over the world there are signs that economic activity is significantly slowing down. Many of these signs are detailed later on in this article. But most people don't understand what is happening because they don't put all of the pieces together. If you just look at one or two pieces of data, it may not seem that impressive. But when you examine all of the pieces of evidence that...

When things get bad – and they will – the most essential items necessary for survival will disappear first. As currencies collapse, financial market destabilize and economies come to a standstill, critical supplies like food and medicine will become difficult to acquire at any price. This is exactly what is now taking place in Greece, where access to life-saving drugs and even common over-the-counter medicines like aspirin is becoming a tragedy where the losses will be measured not in Dollars or Euros, but lives.

The end of the federal 45-cent-per-gallon tax credit for U.S. oil companies that buy and blend ethanol with gasoline has boosted pump prices by a nickel, but largely drowned out by consumers' grumbling were two valuable civics lessons. The feds require fuel blends that are 10 percent ethanol for most vehicles, and going forward, they have guaranteed greater demand for ethanol with their escalating alternative-fuel mandate. Adopted in the 1980s and twinned with a 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol, the tax credit transformed grain markets by encouraging farmers to devote more acres to corn. That reduced the production of other...

My second PinocchiObama piece for OMG! For America. See the first one here.

Nikos Gavalas and Alexandra Tricha, both 31 and trained as agriculturalists, were frustrated working on poorly paying, short-term contracts in Athens, where jobs are scarce and the cost of living is high. So last year, they decided to start a new project: growing edible snails for export. As Greece’s blighted economy plunges further into the abyss, the couple are joining with an exodus of Greeks who are fleeing to the countryside and looking to the nation’s rich rural past as a guide to the future. They acknowledge that it is a peculiar undertaking, with more manual labor than they, as...

Anarchists take over Greek radio studio, broadcast message supporting domestic terror groupBy Associated Press, Updated: Tuesday, January 10, 9:04 AM ATHENS, Greece — A group of anarchists took over the studio of a local radio station in the Greek capital Tuesday, and broadcast a message in support of a domestic terrorist group. **SNIP** Police said they arrested 20 people who had participated in the occupation. They were to be charged with a felony count of praising terrorism.

MF Global unloaded hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of securities to Goldman Sachs in the days leading up to its collapse, according to two former MF Global employees with direct knowledge of the transactions.

LONDON (MarketWatch) — No one ever said gold was an asset for the faint-hearted. Or indeed, for anyone who doesn’t enjoy an argument. To some it is the only true form of money, a king over the water just waiting to be re-installed on its rightful throne once the impostors are cleared out of the way. To others, it remains, as the economist John Maynard Keynes described it, a “barbarous relic,” of no more relevance to the 21st century that the canal or the telegraph. Still, even by its usual standards, it was more contested than ever as 2011 closed...

PARIS (Reuters) - The euro could become the world's leading currency in the next decade if leaders of the single-currency bloc succeed in tightening fiscal integration, European Central Bank policymaker Christian Noyer said in an article to be published in the Journal du Dimanche. European leaders struck a historic deal at an emergency summit in Brussels on December 9 to draft a new treaty for deeper economic union, in an attempt to stem the debt crisis that is threatening to cause the collapse of the single currency. The news temporarily calmed markets. But concerns quickly resurfaced as the final details...

The Number One Catastrophic Event That Americans Worry About: Economic CollapseDecember 30, 2011 Can you guess what the number one catastrophic event that Americans worry about is? There are certainly many to choose from. Many Americans are deathly afraid of a major terrorist attack. Others live in constant fear of natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes and hurricanes. Still others are incredibly concerned that a massive pandemic will break out at any time or that World War III will erupt in the Middle East. Yes, there are certainly a lot of potential catastrophic events that one can worry about in...

In 2012 The Economy Will Be On 'Firmer, Albeit Unsteady, Footing' Peter Demirali, Cumberland Advisors Dec. 28, 2011, 4:51 PM The last twelve months have been quite remarkable in terms of volatility and absolute levels of interest rates. The bond market was whipsawed by events in Europe and Washington. Greece was the poster child for the debt crisis in Europe but it was merely the first country to feel the wrath of the capital markets. Portugal, Ireland, Spain, and ultimately Italy experienced difficulty accessing the cash markets to roll over debt. You can view the spreads on various European sovereign...

The Government is considering plans to restrict the flow of money in and out of Britain to protect the economy in the event of a full-blown euro break-up. The Treasury is working on contingency plans for the disintegration of the single currency that include capital controls. The preparations are being made only for a worst-case scenario and would run alongside similar limited capital controls across Europe, imposed to reduce the economic fall-out of a break-up and to ease the transition to new currencies. Officials fear that if one member state left the euro, investors in both that country and other...

China and Japan have agreed to start direct trading of their currencies, officials announced during a visit here by Japan’s prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda. The move was among several that emerged from Mr. Noda’s meetings with President Hu Jintao. Japan will also apply to buy Chinese bonds next year, allowing it to accumulate more renminbi in its foreign-exchange reserves. China is the world’s second-largest economy while Japan is the third largest, and the currency agreement is part of a move away from using dollars. Chinese officials have said recently they would like to broaden the global use of the renminbi,...

The case of Sakineh Ashtiani was moved to a back burner after her death sentence drew intense international scrutiny and criticism, not unlike how Youcef Nadarkhani's case is dragging on more quietly after similar international condemnation of his death sentence for apostasy from Islam. In both cases, Iran tried to come up with other excuses to execute them and erode support for them. The murder charge against Ashtiani, which was applied later, seems to be an afterthought below, and it appears to be the adultery charge on which authorities are moving ahead. An update on this story. "Iranian woman convicted...

3 share via email OTTAWA - The Canadian economy's recent growth spurt ran out of steam in October, but the country still got a strong vote of confidence Friday from the influential Moody's Investor Service. The New York rating agency renewed Canada's AAA debt rating — a seal of approval for the federal government's bonds — on a day when Statistics Canada reported the economy failed to grow for the first time in five months, Ratings by Moody's, Standard and Poor's and similar services are among the factors that determine how much interest governments have to pay when they issue...