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(article photo) As America grew in the 1800s from a republic of a few millions, whose frontier stopped at the Mississippi, into a world power, there were constant collisions with the world’s greatest empire. In 1812, we declared war on Britain, tried to invade Canada and got our Capitol burned. In 1818, Andrew Jackson, on an expedition into Spanish Florida to put down renegade Indians harassing Georgia, hanged two British subjects he had captured, creating a firestorm in Britain. In 1838, we came close to war over Canada’s border with Maine; in 1846, over Canada’s border with the Oregon Territory....

Washington's efforts to balance the budget are holding back the wobbly economic recovery. After "fiscal cliff" fears brought the economy to a near standstill late last year, many forecasters had expected growth to come roaring back in the first quarter as consumers made up delayed spending and businesses filled deferred job openings and restocked depleted inventories. But the Commerce Department's latest read on growth Friday showed U.S. gross domestic product expanding by 2.5 percent in the first three months of the year, less than the 3.1 percent pace forecasters had expected. Analysts say deficit-cutting moves, including a 2 percent payroll...

While at the same time comparing the Republicans to Opie! When I say that a comparison can be made between the Obama administration and Islamic extremists and terrorists let me be perfectly clear! In no way am I saying this relative to anything having to do with the Obama administration vis a vis the killing of innocent human beings! I do however say it in the context of the ability to listen to words, spoken or written, and then be faced with the prospect of having to successfully decipher the true meaning behind those words. Put another way, it's the...

"The U.S. government temporarily banned BP Plc from federal contracts on Wednesday over its "lack of business integrity" in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, a move that the British company had said could force it to rethink its entire U.S. operations. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said the suspension was "standard practice" following criminal actions. . . . The suspension means that BP will not be able to secure any new contracts with the U.S. government, including the lease of new exploration territory in the federal Gulf of Mexico, one of BP's biggest oil production regions globally. Some...

The corporate closure will eliminate not only jobs, but 33 bakeries, 565 distribution centers, 5,500 delivery routes and 570 bakery outlet stores in the United States. While some workers bucked threats from union bosses and returned to work, it was not enough. "The problem is we don't have enough crossing those lines to maintain normal production,” said Rayburn. So, this ends a company that has been in business since 1930 providing delicious treats to generations of customers. While it is a sad day for most Americans, one person who will be celebrating is First Lady Michelle Obama, who is the...

Barack Obama, who was influenced by the peace movement of the 1960’s, was the one candidate most unlike President George W. Bush. And so it was that Barack Obama became the 44th president of the United States. After four years of the Obama administration the American economy continues to falter, the world is more dangerous than it was four years ago despite the death of Osama bin Laden, and our national debt is threatening our entire economic existence. Today the federal government spends eleven dollars for every seven dollars it collects. Our national debt has soared past $16 trillion.

By Mr. Curmudgeon:While Islamic militants riot outside U.S. embassies overseas, and kill American counselor officials and their support personnel, another terrorist act just as deadly took place on American soil. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced his independent, in your face, answer-to-no-one agency will flood the U.S. economy with $40-billion-a-month in counterfeit greenbacks to buy worthless mortgage-backed securities. He said the Fed would continue the policy "until such improvement is achieved in a context of price stability." That's Fed speak for "Forever."Commodity prices, like oil for instance, soared after Benny boy's announcement. So much for "price stability."As if to prove...

nterest rates will stay in current range through 2015 and the Fed will be buying $40 Billion worth of mortgage backed bonds per month...until morale improves. This is what makesthe biggest difference: the Fed isn't announcing a limited amount of purchases. It's an open-ended program to buy bonds until the economy improves. From the statement: "If the outlook for the labor market does not improve substantially, the Committee will continue its purchases of agency mortgage-backed securities, undertake additional asset purchases, and employ its other policy tools as appropriate until such improvement is achieved in a context of price stability." Fed...

We have seen three very loud and very clear messages this week on the state of the US consumer's mind. After a few months of extravagance, on the back of what can only be described as depression-fatigue, reality is biting once again. The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort index just missed expectations by its greatest amount in three years and has plunged over the last 5 weeks by the most in four years - dropping back to four-month lows. Do these two messages explain the catastrophe that is JCP's results this quarter? We suspect so as the outlook for the economy (sub-index)...

How long are we going to put up with the fiction that free trade with China is beneficial to the United States? China uses our myopia about free trade to cheat us coming and going, steal our patents and manufacturing secrets, and violate the rules of the World Trade Organization to which they agreed when they joined. Communist China's strategy is to spend and spy and steal to become the number one superpower in the 21st century. The Chinese are seeking every kind of technology: aerospace, biotech, information, and energy....

CBS News) President Obama on Tuesday scoffed at the notion he wants higher gas prices, as some of his critics claim. Asked about the charge at his first formal White House press conference of the year, Mr. Obama replied to Fox News correspondent Ed Henry's question with a question of his own. "From a political perspective, do you think the president of the United States going into re-election wants gas prices to go up higher? Is there anybody here who thinks that makes a lot of sense?" Presidents of both parties have historically considered it harder to get votes if...

U.S. businesses slashed spending on machinery and equipment in January after a tax break expired, pushing orders for long-lasting manufacturing goods down by the largest amount in three years. Orders for durable goods fell 4 percent last month, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. A big reason for the decline was demand for so-called core capital goods, which are viewed as a good measure of business investment plans, tumbled 4.5 percent. That's the biggest drop in a year. Economists attributed much of the decline in January to the end of the tax credit. They noted that demand for core capital goods...

Most drivers are familiar with the nagging refrain of "Are we there yet?" But with gasoline heading back to $4 a gallon on average, it takes on more urgency: Oil can't go much higher without derailing the economy. Brent crude oil is back above $120 a barrel. Looked at on a 12-month rolling average, it is now 6% above its prior 2008 peak. U.S. gasoline demand is down almost 7% year-on-year. This year, Europe is forecast to consume 10% less oil than it did in 2008. Global demand is still forecast to rise, but only in emerging markets. Oil's high...

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Wednesday offered a tempered view of the U.S. economy, pouring cold water on the notion that recent upbeat signs herald a stronger recovery. Bernanke told Congress that unless growth accelerated, the unacceptably high U.S. unemployment rate would not keep dropping. But he stopped short of signaling further Fed bond purchases, dashing the hopes of some traders in financial markets who were betting on more monetary stimulus. "The job market is far from normal," Bernanke said. "Continued improvement ... is likely to require stronger growth in final demand and production." The swift decline in the...

Canada needs to look beyond its southern neighbour for markets because the United States economy is unlikely to ever fully recover, Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney said Sunday [January 22, 2012]. In an interview with CTV's Question Period, Carney said that it is vital for Canada to look for new trading partners in the Asia-Pacific region and elsewhere to prevent the economy from being dragged down by the U.S. "It's going to take a number of years before they get back to the U.S. that we used to know -- in fact, they are not, in our opinion, ultimately...

High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0c73f10e-f8aa-11e0-ad8f-00144feab49a.html#ixzz1b6DTpeKa Recently I met a retired British diplomat who claimed with some pride that he was the man who had invented the phrase, “the management of decline”, to describe the central task of British foreign policy after 1945. “I got criticised,” he said, “but I think it was an accurate description of our task and I think we did it pretty well.”...

Unemployment rates rose in a majority of states in August for a third straight month, further evidence that the depressed job market is widespread. The Labor Department said Friday that unemployment rates increased in 26 states. They fell in 12 and remained unchanged in 12. Nationwide, the economy added no new net jobs in August, and the unemployment rate stayed at 9.1 percent for the second straight month. Many employers pulled back on hiring after the economy barely grew in the first half of the year. The economy added an average of just 39,500 jobs per month from May through...

(CBS News) DETROIT - President Barack Obama called for an end to "Washington games" and for Congressional Republicans to support initiatives to promote job creation benefiting the middle class. Speaking to a Labor Day rally in Detroit, a city he said had been "to heck and back," Mr. Obama challenged Congressional Republicans to put the country ahead of party. In a preview of his speech Thursday to a joint session of Congress, Mr. Obama proposed boosting construction and infrastructure projects - and included some finger-wagging at critics. "We have more than one million unemployed construction workers ready to get dirty...

On Friday, Goldman's Jan Hatzius downgraded the US economy. Following another week of weak economic data, we have cut our estimates for real GDP growth in the second and third quarter of 2011 to 1.5% and 2.5%, respectively, from 2% and 3.25%. Our forecasts for Q4 and 2012 are under review, but even excluding any further changes we now expect the unemployment rate to come down only modestly to 8¾% at the end of 2012. What, specifically, prompted the worry? Two specific datapoints this week. The latest Empire Manufacturing Index went into shrinkage for the second straight month. More worrisome...

It has always been the case in history, when a particular event occurs that is significant, no one can actually know at the time the portent of the event in question. For instance, who could have known that the tyrannical excesses of King George during the Americas' colonization would eventually lead to a Revolution that would define free societies for the next two and a half centuries? Even better, who could have known that this same revolt against Great Britain would ultimately lead to the salvation of a latter day United Kingdom, if not the world, during both Germany and...

When adding in all of the money owed to cover future liabilities in entitlement programs the US is actually in worse financial shape than Greece and other debt-laden European countries... Much of the public focus is on the nation's public debt, which is $14.3 trillion. But that doesn't include money guaranteed for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security... The government also is on the hook for other debts such as the programs related to the bailout of the financial system following the crisis of 2008 and 2009, government figures show. Taken together, Gross puts the total at "nearly $100 trillion

The America Family Association has organized ten powerful economic graphs that put financial facts and figures into visual form. Sometimes you can quote economic statistics to people until you are blue in the face and it won’t do any good, but when those same people see charts and pictures suddenly it all sinks in. As you examine the economic charts below, pay special attention to what has been happening to the U.S. economy over the last 30 or 40 years.

<p>The last month has been a horror show for the U.S. economy, with economic data falling off a cliff, according to Mike Riddell, a fund manager at M&G Investments in London.</p> <p>"It seems that almost every bit of data about the health of the US economy has disappointed expectations recently," said Riddell, in a note sent to CNBC on Wednesday.</p>

For the first time in history, Standard & Poor’s hit the American economy with a major warning, changing their view of our prospects from stable to negative. The top ratings agency put the United States on notice yesterday that it could lose its AAA rating if it does not act quickly to pare down our deficits and total national debt. If we as a country refuse to immediately address the federal spending spree we will be responsible for a catastrophic collapse of our economy. That is why the GOP Trust has launched a national ad campaign to STOP CONGRESS FROM...

The mainstream media is full of happy economic news these days. The S&P 500 has shot up 16 percent since the beginning of July. Ford Motor Company just reported a profit that jumped nearly 70 percent in the third quarter. It was Ford's best third quarter performance ever and it was the 6th quarterly profit in a row for the company. Other major firms have announced earnings that have far exceeded expectations in recent weeks. Hooray! The pundits are proclaiming that the economic collapse is over and that the U.S. economy has won. It is almost enough to make one...

Citing what he believes are clear signs the economy is bouncing back from recession, Vice-President Joe Biden yesterday touted Barack Obama's 'stimulus package' and bailout of Wall Street. Time for yet another fact-check on the pathological liars of the Obama Administration. Banks are failing at double the rate of last year. During 2009, which the government claims was the peak of the recession, the total number of bank failures at this point in the year was 40. It is already 83 for this year. Yet the FDIC is running ads on radio stations across the country attempting to scare people...

America is burning right before our very eyes. Liberty is under direct assault by forces in our own government and by large corporations that have decided to cut a deal with the devil. Our economy is headed for complete disaster as Europe teeters on the brink of collapse. And the American President agrees with the Mexican President that breaking the law of the land concerning illegal aliens is perfectly acceptable.

Does the Chinese stock market presage the U.S. market's direction? If so, the U.S. market is set for a fall. The economies of China and the U.S. are in effect Siamese Twins, joined at the hip. By pegging their currency to the U.S. dollar, the Chinese central government has tethered its economy to both U.S. policy and the U.S. economy. Since the U.S. economy is still considerably larger than China's, and the yuan/renminbi is pegged to the dollar (and not vice versa), then we might expect China's stock market to follow the American market's lead. As expected, the two markets...

The verdict is in: China is still the top holder of U.S. government debt, the Treasury said in a report on Friday. The report showed that as of December, China held $894.8 billion in U.S. securities. The figure is consistent with a preliminary report released in late February. Friday's final version of that report puts to rest a question about whether Japan had surpassed China as the top holder of U.S. debt in December. A report released by the government in mid-February had suggested that China had lost its top spot—one it had gained in 2008. But then, later that...

Although the Obama White House and economists keep saying the economy is getting better, Americans appear to be rejecting the message and the messenger.

Two major developments in the U.S. financial and business sector denote an ironic symbolism, pointing to precisely what is wrong with the American economy today. The corruption-laden Goldman-Sachs contributed nearly one million dollars to the campaign of Barack Obama, making it his largest donor. And GE, the Leftist corporation that pushed Obama's 'cap and trade' scheme, paid zero in taxes. (AP Photo/Diane Bondareff). Inside Goldman-Sachs headquarters. Goldman-Sachs was a major player in the near-collapse of the financial sector in late 2008, resulting in the 2 bailout bills enacted by Congress--one under George W. Bush and the other under Barack Obama....

Conservatives in one accord are united behind at least 2 principles--reducing the size of government by slashing federal spending, and cutting taxes for all, across the board. At issue is how to best go about it.

In a display of gross misrepresentation of the supposed 'savings' the ObamaCare plan would provide for medical care in this country, Barack Obama claimed in a speech in Pennsylvania on Monday that his healthcare plan would save the system nearly $1 trillion dollars over a ten-year period. He even quoted the report of the Congressional Budget Office as the basis for his assertion. The problem is that the Congressional Budget Office report on the present proposal for healthcare reform says the exact opposite. As widely reported on Monday, the CBO estimates that ObamaCare and the other components of the Obama...

For those true believers out there who still accept whatever this Administration tells them, despite being caught in numerous lies, here is one to add to the list. Perhaps this will convince you that Barack Obama and his minions cannot be trusted. The Congressional Budget Office released figures that show that despite Obama's notion that his plan for America will reduce the national debt, the Obama agenda will actually add 9.7 trillion dollars to the debt over the next ten years, almost doubling the current debt-load of 12 trillion.

In a stunningly futile attempt to hide the facts concerning the job market this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, stated that he had 'good news.' And what, exactly, was that 'good news?' Reid continued, 'Only 36,000 lost their jobs in February.' This is good news, how? According to Reid it was not as bad as expected and not as alarming as it was during 2009. One is hard-pressed to find any good news in 36,000 more Americans losing their jobs in one month. But then, as bad as it is, this is a drop in the bucket compared...

A new report issued today by the National Bureau of Economic Research indicates that the present severe recession is much more than simply a subprime mortgage crisis. No doubt the government's policy of applying pressure to mortgage lenders via FannieMae and FreddieMac to lend money to those unable to afford mortgages was a major contributor to the financial meltdown. However, the NBER report indicates that the problem is much deeper. In order to understand the problem one must become familiar with a little-known entity by the name of REPO--the Renew Sale and Repurchase market for collateralized securities:

Hoping to keep the news low-keyed and under-reported, Fannie Mae announced late Friday afternoon after the markets closed that it had lost over $74 billion in 2009, bringing its 3-year loss totals to $137 billion. This is in addition to Freddie Mac's $80 billion loss during the same period. Fannie and Freddie have continued to squander taxpayer dollars even after the massive bailouts by the federal government. In fact, the mortgage giants lost more money after the bailouts than they did before.

It is time for some painful plain talk on the economy. Rather than dancing around the issue, whistling past the graveyard as if things are not as bad as they seem, the only solution for our current financial woes is to cut government spending to the bone. Economists across the board are in near-unanimous agreement that the mind-boggling debt load of the United States is unsustainable and only adds to the ongoing problem in the economy. There can be no recovery when the nation carries a debt load that is nearly impossible for the human brain to comprehend.

Even as the American economy shows tentative signs of a rebound, the human toll of the recession continues to mount, with millions of Americans remaining out of work, out of savings and nearing the end of their unemployment benefits. Economists fear that the nascent recovery will leave more people behind than in past recessions, failing to create jobs in sufficient numbers to absorb the record-setting ranks of the long-term unemployed. Call them the new poor: people long accustomed to the comforts of middle-class life who are now relying on public assistance for the first time in their lives -- potentially...

In a report that on the surface appears to be good news--news which the Obama Administration will no doubt use as proof that its policies are working--the government today stated that unemployment declined to 9.7% in January. But the report on the improving jobless rate is basically meaningless. Jobs remain scarce amid a sluggish economic recovery. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter). One key component of calculating joblessness is the number of jobs that are available. For several years the U.S. has been losing the number of jobs that are available for workers. Those lost jobs skew the unemployment figures. And here...

More news is surfacing concerning the story reported yesterday on the under-the-table plans for the U.S. Treasury to seize retirement funds and other citizen assets in order to minimize the impact of the coming economic meltdown. The IRS has been purchasing shotguns for its tax collection activities. A photo of the type of shotgun they are buying indicates that it is the short-barreled variety. Only 60 of these shotguns will be purchased. But the story concerning the IRS and firearms highlights the fact that the agency has a massive arsenal at the tip of its hands, given that it deploys...

As the Obama administration assures Americans that 'there are signs of hope' in the economy, the facts say the opposite. The forecast is so dire, in fact, that the retirement funds and financial assets of all Americans are vulnerable to government seizure. Economists and market analysts who predicted the last meltdown are joining in a united chorus to warn that yet another is on the way for 2010, and this one will be much worse than the last. In an alarming piece at WRSA the assertion is made by several respected authorities on economics that the U.S. Treasury Department will...

WASHINGTON — US existing-home sales plunged in December following a buyers' rush to take advantage of tax credits, industry data showed Monday, signaling a murky outlook for the troubled sector.

The Waffle House in Columbia, South Carolina gives one an interesting panoramic view of the American electorate--a microcosm of the U.S. population. Here there are white-collar government types, blue collar whites, African-Americans, Hispanics, the works. Conversations over the past week in this popular gathering place have centered on Barack Obama and the state of the economy. South Carolina has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the nation, which spiked up by .3% in December to 12.6%. December's unemployment figures for the entire nation continued to move upward, in spite of the jobs created by the holiday season. The...

Editor's note: Lyle J. Rapacki, Ph.D. is a frequent contributor to RFFM.org. Rapacki is an independent intelligence analyst and consultant in behavioral analysis and threat assessment. Rapacki's reports, briefings and personal commentaries are distributed nationally. A Christian, Rapacki's motivation is to challenge people to think critically about the times we are experiencing and to prepare appropriately, especially in their relationship with God. "People die for lack of knowledge" is a defining statement guiding his writings. Overview: A clock is ticking…prior to the clock striking the preverbal midnight, will the 2010 elections arrive and usher in a sweeping repudiation of Obama,...

If you still have a job, maybe Friday's numbers from the Labor Department will give you a chance to exhale. Since the recession began in December 2007, the employment market, for the most part, has been one negative headline after another. Now, we've learned that the U.S. lost only 11,000 jobs in November, that the unemployment rate surprisingly ticked down from 10.2% the previous month to only 10%, and that for the prior two months the total of jobs lost actually wasn't as bad as initially thought. The last time the data were so bright, if they can be called...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US unemployment rate jumped to 10.2 percent in October as 190,000 jobs were shed, the government said Friday in data highlighting ongoing struggles of an economy emerging from recession. The Labor Department report, seen as one of the best indicators of economic momentum, showed a rise in the jobless rate, up from 9.8 percent in September, to the highest since 1983. But the number of jobs lost narrowed to the lowest level in over a year. The jobless rate shot above the key 10 percent barrier for the first time since June 1983, even though the...

AP IMPACT: Stimulus jobs overstated by thousands October 29, 2009 By BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE and MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writers WASHINGTON – A Colorado company said it created 4,231 jobs with the help of President Barack Obama's economic recovery plan. The real number: fewer than 1,000. A child care center in Florida said it saved 129 jobs with the help of stimulus money. Instead, it gave pay raises to its existing employees. Elsewhere in the U.S., some jobs credited to the stimulus program were counted two, three, four or even more times.

According to current documents the Copenhagen Treaty, if signed by President Obama in December, will ultimately make the U.S., along with other "developed nations", financially responsible for the CO2 emissions of "developing nations". Read the document here. "Recognizing that current and potential climate change impacts require a shift in the global investment patterns and that criteria for financing allocation shall clearly respond to the priorities identified by the international community, with climate change stabilization being one of these priorities." What does this mean? Essentially, the treaty would mandate that the U.S. and other developed nations share there wealth with developing...

Not content with his humiliation at Copenhagen, Denmark this past September, President Obama will be traveling there again in December to attend the UN COP15 Climate Change Conference. This agreement would commit the United States to punitive and expensive greenhouse gas regulations dictated by the United Nations without recourse. COP stands for "Conference of the Parties" and the December Copenhagen conference will be the 15th under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), hence COP15. According to their website, it will be one of the largest conferences ever held outside the New York or Geneva headquarters, with an...