Free Republic

Pork is being served in Washington again. Big juicy slices to the lobbyists with the deepest wallets and the campaign contributors who write the biggest campaign reelection checks. It is the way of the swamp. It is the currency of the Washington Beltway. It explains how people get so rich in politics. The two massive spending bills now circulating through Congress with a combined price tag north of $5 trillion are filled with earmarks and thank-you gifts to big donors and the Gucci Gulch lobbyists. That's why the bills have thousands of pages -- to bring home the bacon. We...

This market is looking like a disaster and the rates are a reflection of that," warns one of the world's largest shipbrokers, but while The Baltic Dry Freight Index gets all the headlines - having collapsed to all-time record lows this week - it is the spefics below that headline that are truly terrifying. At a time of typical seasonal strength for freight and thus global trade around the world, Reuters reports that spot rates for transporting containers from Asia to Northern Europe have crashed a stunning 70% in the last 3 weeks alone.

Everything Obama has put in motion has had the single objective of destroying the nation's economy in every possible way As 2015 began the Journal Editorial Report on Fox News was devoted to having its reporters, some of the best there are, speculate on what 2015 holds in terms of who might run for president and what the economy might be. The key word here is “speculate” because even experts know that it is unanticipated events that determine the future and the future is often all about unanticipated events. How different would the world have been if John F. Kennedy...

Like the car salesman in National Lampoon’s Vacation (played by Eugene Levy) said: “You think you hate it now, but wait ’til you drive it!” The same applies to the Affordable Healthcare Act (aka, Obamacare). levycar Why will you hate Obamacare once you drive it? 1. Forced forced home inspections by gov’t agents: Under Obamacare, government agents can engage in “home health visits” for those in certain “high-risk” categories. Those categories include: • Families where mom is not yet 21; • Families where someone is a tobacco user; • Families where children have low student achievement, developmental delays, or disabilities,...

(Reuters) - U.S. state and local governments cut thousands of jobs in June, pushing their payrolls down to the lowest in five years, according to Labor Department data released on Friday, and analysts do not expect the losses to end any time soon. Local governments shed 18,000 jobs and state governments cut 7,000 in June. The level of local government employment -- 14.143 million employees -- is the lowest since June 2006. State government employment is the lowest since August 2006."Today's employment report reflects continued belt-tightening at the state and local level and the trend we have previously noted, a...

O'Hagan said that under no circumstance was he advocating a bank such as Anglo Irish to default on any bank bond debt issued under the government's Eligible Liabilities Guarantee (ELG), which the EU has allowed to be extended to the end of the year. "An Irish default on some of its state-owned bank debt after 29 September actually could benefit the sovereign if properly managed," said Société Générale, adding "a massive transfer of costs and risks" had been moved from "defunct banks to the taxpayer". Reversing that process could now benefit taxpayers, it said.

It’s one of my favorite truisms that you can never be too cynical about Wall Street or Washington. But after watching Bob Toll, CEO of Toll Brothers on CNBC this Monday, I’ll be adding home builders to that esteemed list. Every CEO talks his own book, but few do it like the home builder CEOs. On CNBC, Toll was at it again, exhorting the Fed to keep pumping billions into housing because new home construction “employs through direct and corollary basis about 20-25% of all the jobs in the country.” That’s right. Bob Toll apparently thinks 30 million Americans derive...

General Motors Corp. said it intends to draw down the remaining $3.5 billion of an existing $4.5 billion secured revolving credit facility to boost its liquidity amid uncertainty in the capital markets. The move reflects concern at GM about the effect tight credit markets are having on the company's cash cushion. GM's liquidity has been drained by falling sales in the U.S. and restructuring charges recorded in recent years. The $4.5 billion secured revolving credit facility was put in place in July 2006 with a consortium of banks and provides liquidity that GM can draw on to fund working capital...

The Russian government was facing one of the biggest tests of its market economy on Wednesday after it was forced to close its two main stock exchanges to halt a market rout that has led to the steepest declines since the August 1998 crisis. The two main bourses, the MICEX and RTS, said they were suspending trading until further notice from the state’s main financial regulator. The move came after shares began to tumble again as investors faced a new wave of forced equity sales on margin calls and a dearth of cash. They had not reopened by close of...

”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

The dollar recovered from early sharp losses on Monday, while the yen and Swiss franc were lifted by demand for safe haven assets. Turbulence on FX markets followed the dramatic events in the US financial sector, where Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and Bank of America offered $50bn for Merrill Lynch. “The liquidation of Lehman’s positions is likely to lead to increased volatility in financial markets and could place greater pressure on already distressed markets,” said Lee Hardman at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ. Investors’ immediate reaction to the Lehman collapse was to sell the dollar against the euro and sterling...

Wall Street: Old timers will recall F.I. DuPont or Goodbody & Co. Not-so-old timers remember E.F. Hutton and Kidder Peabody. Now we can add Bear Stearns and Lehman Bros. to the storied names that have fallen.We drop these names (and we could have mentioned a hundred more) for two reasons: (1) to remind readers that this isn't the first time an investment bank or brokerage has gone under, and (2) to point out that the country has always survived and grown. In fact, what's happening now is quite normal in a financial system characterized by booms that lead to excesses...

KKR favourite in bid for Lehman Bros Private equity firm KKR is frontrunner in the bidding for investment banker Lehman Brothers' assets AccountancyAge.com, Accountancy Age 27 Aug 2008 The private equity group Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), has emerged as favourite in the bidding for investment banker Lehman Brothers’ asset management business. Other private equity groups understood to be considering the purchase of Neuberger Berman, the successful fund management business acquired by Lehman four years ago, include Blackstone and TPG, The Times reports. Dick Fuld, Lehman Brothers chairman and chief executive, is considering a range of options for Lehman’s future, including...

Goldman Sachs was one of the top 10 sellers of C.M.O.’s for the last two and a half years. From the evidence I see, Goldman was doing this for years. It might have sold very roughly $100 billion of the stuff in that period, according to ABAlert. Goldman was doing it on a scale of billions even when Henry M. Paulson Jr., the current Treasury secretary, led the firm. The point to bear in mind, as Mr. Sloan brilliantly makes clear, is that as Goldman was peddling C.M.O.’s, it was also shorting the junk on a titanic scale through index...

In early July, I was concerned enough about the antics of Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Harry Reid that I coined the term “POR economy” to describe what they were creating with their anti-oil, high-tax agenda. The tax-happy, Big Oil-punishing trio seemed to believe that a poor third-quarter economy would enhance their chances of winning the presidency and larger Congressional and Senate majorities. They appeared to be in a position to make it happen. Three things have occurred since then to greatly reduce the chances that the economy will move into negative territory in the third quarter...

The global financial crisis is set to get worse, with a large US bank likely to collapse in the next few months, a former IMF chief economist has warned. Kenneth Rogoff's comments came as shares in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sank on a report that the home lenders would, in effect, be nationalised. Despite hopes that the US economy had turned the corner, Mr Rogoff claimed it was "not out of the woods". "I would even go further to say 'the worst is to come'," he said. "We're not just going to see mid-sized banks go under in the...

China stocks slide 5.3 pct to new 20-month low Reuters - Tuesday, August 19 * Strong South Locomotive debut not positive sign for market * Over 200 Shanghai stocks plunge 10 percent limit * Regulator's pledge of support fails to reassure investors By Claire Zhang SHANGHAI, Aug 18 - China's main stock index tumbled more than 5 percent on Monday to a new 20-month closing low, hit by fears that slowing economic growth will stifle the expansion of corporate profits. The Shanghai Composite Index ended down 5.34 percent at 2,319.868 points, only marginally off its intra-day low of 2,318.926. It...

Looking for new and innovative ways to spread the doom-and-gloom news associated with the economic downturn, BusinessWeek magazine launched a recession blog on its Web site back in May to give a personalized glimpse into "recession" hardships. "This blog is one of the places we'll tell these stories," BusinessWeek.com reporter Tim Catts wrote on the blog's first post on May 2. "Here, we'll jump into the conversation about where the economy is and where it's going. Yes, sometimes we'll look at the latest data. Sometimes we'll share observations from the road. The goal is to give readers real stories about...

The eurozone is tipping into a deeper downturn than America itself despite the tremors in the US mortgage industry, and may already be in full recession for the first time since the launch of the single currency. Industrial production for the EMU bloc fell 1.9pc in May, according to fresh Eurostat data. It is the sharpest one-month decline for the region since the exchange rate crisis in 1992. Officials in Berlin have warned that Germany's economy could contract by as much as 1.5pc in the second quarter as export orders crumble. Industrial output in both Italy and Greece has slumped...

Sen. John McCain on Tuesday brushed off skepticism from economists and insisted he could balance the budget by 2013 by keeping taxes low and curbing spending. "We're going to restrain spending, we're going to have the economy grow again and increase revenues. The problem is that spending got completely out of control," McCain said on CNN's "American Morning." McCain is in favor of extending the Bush tax cuts, which are set to expire in 2010. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has projected that by extending the cuts, which McCain originally opposed, and including the additional cuts McCain has...