Free Republic

Given a lot of the rhetoric coming out of Washington and mainstream media outlets these days, one could be forgiven for believing that the United States has entered a new age of unprecedented austerity. This is hardly the case. Indeed, despite the best efforts of an insurgent Republican majority in the House of Representatives — elected in 2010 as a rebuke to Democratic fiscal recklessness — federal spending continues to rise.

(CNN) -- A Louisiana lawmaker wants the National Guard to patrol the streets of New Orleans after a toddler who was four days shy of her second birthday was shot and killed in a drive-by. "She was out here as a innocent bystander. She's dead now," said Rufus Ruck, the child's cousin. Keira Holmes Gordon was gunned down in a double shooting at the B. W. Cooper Housing development on Sunday. She was one of two people hit when gunmen from two separate cars opened fire on a man who was standing nearby. According to police, the man ran into...

North Korea test-fired two short-range missiles off its east coast on Monday, the same day it announced the death of leader Kim Jong-Il, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said.

North Korea's decision to not welcome foreign delegations to the funeral of former leader Kim Jong-il has some analysts in South Korea speculating about instability in the North, with the abrupt death of Kim heightening the uncertainty surrounding his untested heir-apparent. North Korea declared a 13-day mourning period through Dec. 29 from the day of Kim's death on Saturday, while stating it will not accept foreign delegations at a state funeral set for Dec. 28 in Pyongyang. No entertainment will be allowed during the mourning period.

In a blockbuster ruling, Federal Judge George Daniels in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York issued an order stating that Iran and its Lebanese Shi’ite terror proxy, Hizballah, are jointly responsible together with al-Qa’eda for the attacks of September 11, 2001. The long-awaited ruling came in the cases of Havlish, et al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, et al., and Bingham, et al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, et al., lawsuits filed by families of 9/11 victims. The cases provided clear and compelling evidence that Iranian officials at the top levels of the Tehran regime...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- U.S. stocks fell sharply Monday as investors remain concerned about the debt crisis in Europe and its potential impact on the global banking system. The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) was down 114 points, or 1%, in afternoon trading. The S&P 500 (SPX) sank 14 points, or 1.1%. The Nasdaq (COMP) slid 31 points, or 1.2%. Stocks opened higher but the gains faded as the banking sector dragged down the broader market. Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) fell below $5 per share, lowest level since the worst of the financial crisis in March 2009. Citigroup...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- There's a good chance France and a few other euro area governments will have their credit ratings downgraded in the near future. That would mark another low point in Europe's long-running debt crisis, but it may not shock the markets. "The downgrades are likely to come sooner rather than later," said Ewen Cameron Watt, chief investment strategist for the BlackRock Investment Institute. "But we believe bond markets have largely factored them in for countries such as France, Italy and Spain." While the bond market may be prepared, the immediate response could be less sanguine in the...

Financial Panic Sweeps Europe As The Head Of The IMF Warns Of A “1930s Depression”December 17, 2011 Are we on the verge of another Great Depression? Christian Lagarde, the head of the IMF, said this week that if dramatic action is not taken immediately we could actually see conditions "reminiscent of the 1930s depression" and that no country on earth "will be immune to the crisis". Right now, financial panic is sweeping across Europe, but most Americans are not too concerned about it because they simply don't understand how important the EU is. The truth is that the EU has...

More Upside For Gold As Government Spending Continues Unabated By Bill Bonner 12/16/11 Baltimore, Maryland – Have yourself a merry little depression. Dow up 45 points. Gold down $9. We’re still waiting for a major correction in the gold market. Each time one begins, it seems to run out of steam before doing any real damage. At yesterday’s closing price, $1,577, gold is still solidly ahead for the year. So, where’s the soft spot? Where’s the test? Where will it come from? When? Don’t worry, dear reader, Mr. Market will test us. He’ll throw his curve ball. We have to...

Should You Worry About Europe's Back Door Bank Run? December 16, 2011 By Keith Fitz-Gerald, Chief Investment Strategist, Money Morning On Wednesday, Fitch Ratings Inc. downgraded its credit ratings on five of Europe's biggest banks, and while that decision made headlines, it's not the most important story to come out of Europe this week. The real story, which the mainstream media is neglecting, is that there are signs of an underground run on Europe's banks. Almost nobody's talking about it, but there are indications money is already moving out of the European Union (EU) faster than rats abandoning a sinking...

Europe is in the midst of a fiscal crisis caused by too much government spending, yet many of the continent’s politicians want the European Central Bank to purchase the dodgy debt of reckless welfare states such as Spain, Italy, Greece, and Portugal in order to prop up these big government policies. So it’s especially noteworthy that economists at the European Central Bank have just produced a study showing that government spending is unambiguously harmful to economic performance. Here is a brief description of the key findings. …we analyse a wide set of 108 countries composed of both developed and emerging...

Spain's recent elections produced one of the most lopsided results since the country's return of democracy in 1975. With a 186-seat parliamentary majority and more than 44% of the vote, the conservative Popular Party managed its best performance ever, while the ruling Socialists suffered their worst defeat. If incoming President Mariano Rajoy doesn't deliver his country from economic catastrophe, it won't be because he lacks political support. Of all the troubled countries in Europe, Spain is the most significant. Given their relatively small sizes, Greece, Ireland and Portugal — the countries already temporarily "rescued" by the European Union — do...

Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday ordered $1 billion in midyear cuts to California's budget that will result in pain for students who rely on school buses to get to class, mothers who depend on child care subsidies to keep working and support programs for the developmentally disabled. Brown, a Democrat, said that the state's revenues will fall about $2.2 billion below the $88.4 billion he and state lawmakers had hoped for when they passed the budget last summer. The announcement was not surprising and could have been worse. The state's legislative analyst had predicted revenues would fall $3.7 billion below...

Last week's European Summit shows how difficult it is for the European Union to confront its fundamental economic problems. Since 2007, many European Union countries have suffered loss of their rates of growth and high unemployment. Yet the European Summit offers no plan for growth. More trouble lies ahead for Europe. America's economic condition is not yet as dire as Europe's, but it soon will be if we do not correct the root cause of the problems that we face in our own country. Since 2006 America's growth rate has also declined. America now has 15.5% less GDP than it...

So How Do These Sorts of Crises End? Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis Oct 28, 2011 - 01:38 AM By: Paul Tustain However this crisis is resolved, guess who'll be footing the bill... The World has endured these sorts of crises before. Somehow they come to an end. What happens? Sometimes, someone turns up who can prop up the collapsing debt mountain, and they make it grow higher, for a little bit longer. For a short while they are even called brilliant, but they leave a bigger problem than they started with. Eventually the thing comes crashing down and the...

STOCKS SURGE AHEAD OF HUGE WEEKEND FOR EUROPE: Here's What You Need To Know Sam Ro Oct. 21, 2011, 3:59 PM Stocks rally for the fourth week in a row ahead of this weekend's EU leaders' summit. First, the scoreboard: Dow: +268 pts, +2.3% S&P 500: +23 pts, +1.9% NASDAQ: +39 pts, 1.5% And now, the top stories: * Jitters returned to the global markets overnight on rumors that Germany and France had reached an impasse on eurozone debt crisis solution talks. Then a German official came out and said the concerns over disagreements were exaggerated. U.S. futures spiked, setting...

It sure looks like they did. Yesterday. Here's the DTS (daily cash statement) for Treasury. And here's the problem with it: Note that the pink line did not move much. In fact, it went down. It should have gone up - a lot - because the "Trust Funds" (you know, Social Security and Medicare?) that you folks on the left keep bleating about being "money good" and "actual debt" had a coupon payment from Treasury due yesterday. IT WAS NOT MADE. IF IT HAD BEEN, IT WOULD HAVE BLOWN THE DEBT LIMIT. That's a default, and it instantaneously destroys both...