Free Republic

Buckle up, America! The signs are clear, and they’re not pointing towards mere challenges but a looming economic catastrophe. The U.S. housing market, a historical indicator of economic health, is in a deadlock, and it’s sending shockwaves through the nation. With 30-year mortgage rates hitting two-decade lows, buying conditions have plummeted to levels unseen since 1960, a grim foreshadowing of past severe economic downturns. The housing market, sensitive to interest rate changes, is sounding the alarm. Adding to the distress, businesses are facing tightening credit access. Over 30% of domestic banks are imposing stricter lending standards, reaching a concerning 50.8%...

As the average American wakes up from their slumber, feeling like they’re in Venezuela, know you aren’t alone. Our ruling class has spent decades getting high off our money supply while the rest of us worked to survive. We woke up to inflation nation, and before I go any further, I want to make sure we don’t lose sight of what inflation means. By definition, inflation is an increase in the money supply. We hear inflation used to describe rising prices, but I want to clarify what it means. When used as a term to describe an increase in prices,...

I’ve been involved in the restaurant business for most of my life, and through the years, I have seen a lot – recessions, labor shortages, product scarcities, and changes in culture both internally and externally. But I have never seen anything like the current condition of the industry’s supply chain. From toilet paper to lumber, the supply chain crisis has been at the forefront of Americans’ minds for months. As a restaurateur who has an inside perspective and has personally observed its repercussions, I am compelled to speak honestly into the crisis at hand. We will never fix the supply...

Americans want little more than their lives to return to normal, to get back to school and work so that their families can prosper. But with the virus tapering off, the Biden administration sees their window of opportunity to radically change our country beginning to close. Thanks to the pro-growth policies of the Trump administration, first quarter GDP rose a healthy 6.4 percent, economic output is at pre-pandemic levels, retail sales are up and consumers are flush with cash. Ignoring the economic recovery, the Biden administration has embraced a “Help is on the way” refrain, rather than embracing the momentum...

One particularly terrifying consequence of the Chinese Bat Soup Virus that is not yet getting the attention it deserves is how this situation is making already stupid liberals even dumber, especially when they sound off about economics. In the wake of this pandemic, we’ve been subjected to a series of mind-numbing insights from the pinko blue check brain trust that reaffirms the clichéd but true observation that our elite is anything but elite. Leave it to our liberal betters to take a bad situation and seek to make it exponentially worse. For example, Sally Kohn – oh, you know where...

In a powerful monologue questioning the wisdom of these draconian, economy-killing shutdowns, Fox News host Tucker Carlson noted the tendency of our “opinion making class” to portray those who express concern about the U.S. economy as being guilty of a “kind of moral crime.” “Our leaders still seem far more afraid of a virus that probably kills fewer than 1 percent of those infected than the prospect of a third of all Americans losing their jobs,” Carlson said Thursday night. “We don’t judge anyone for that … Still, this is a moment, it will pass. A year from now, what...

The problem with people referring to this bizarre pandemic life limbo as “the new normal” is that there are people out there, both in and out of positions of responsibility, who are digging this opportunity to boss us around. And it is troubling to see that there are a number of prominent folks who are in no hurry to curtail their ability to boss us around. We need to note carefully who these people are and ensure that they never get a chance to control anything again. You are starting to see more of that as this drags out. You...

"I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore." Remember that line from the famous American movie "Network"? It's time for a rebellion. Every out-of-work American and every out-of-business American business owner needs to open their windows and shout it, shout it so loud it reaches President Donald Trump, Congress and every swamp politician from Washington D.C., to New York to Boston to Beverly Hills, California. It's time for this madness to stop. Mr. President, do you understand how many suicides of prominent business owners are going to start piling up? Here in Las Vegas, a business...

We have few material numbers yet from companies or economies on the actual, bottom-line business impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The repeatedly adjusted economic contraction estimates and revisions to guidance for companies - both always to the negative - results in, essentially, almost all predictions before actual numbers post being guesswork at best for these unprecedented circumstances. CARTOONS | Michael Ramirez View Cartoon The Thursday unemployment numbers reflect this stark reality well. The prior week's new seasonally adjusted unemployment claims, for the week ending on March 21, posted at 3.28 million and coming in at the higher end of the...

In the South they say you focus on killing the closest snake first, and right now our country’s politicians and policy-makers are consumed with efforts to stem the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus and deal with the public health problems it has already caused. Our state, federal, and local governments have fully committed their resources and time to keeping people safe and assuring they get what they need. (Read: keeping toilet paper on the shelves.) More importantly, and impressively, the federal government and its newly-recruited corporate partners have brought their full weight to bear on finding a solution to this...

November 2, 2008 To: Senator Obama From: Transition Economic Team Subject: Participation in G20 Meeting Under pressure from President Sarkozy and some other European leaders, President Bush has called the leaders of the G20 countries to Washington for a meeting on November 15 to discuss the international financial crisis. There has been speculation that the President-elect will be invited, though the White House official who informed the campaign of Bush’s intention to convene the meeting did not say such an invitation would be extended. Because an invitation, should one be forthcoming, would presumably be made soon after the election, we...

WASHINGTON (AP) - An American accused in court papers of having ties to Osama bin Laden is now working for the Iraqi government's Foreign Ministry, U.S. officials and a former CIA counterterrorism chief say. Iraqi-born Tarik A. Hamdi was the ``American contact'' for one of bin Laden's front organizations and gave a satellite telephone battery to a bin Laden aide in Afghanistan for a phone used by the terrorist leader, according to an affidavit from Customs Agent David Kane.The affidavit was unsealed this week in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., along with a federal indictment charging Hamdi with lying...

Wealthy individuals including Tom Steyer and others are driving an effort to effectively "short sell" the American economy by attacking oil, natural gas and coal producers while touting the benefits of "green" energy resources that are still unreliable or are contributing minuscule amounts of power to our nation’s energy demands. For those who are unfamiliar with investing, "shorting" a stock means that an investor who thinks a stock will go down in price will borrow shares of that stock from a brokerage firm and then sell those shares. If that stock does indeed go down, the speculator can buy it...

LARES, Puerto Rico – Ismael Rodriguez looked out on a nearly empty plaza from the clothing store he opened in 1960, now hemmed in by padlocked businesses in this mountain town in northwestern Puerto Rico... experiencing the deepest malaise of just about any community on this island in the depths of an economic crisis. "I have seen the destruction of a town," Rodriguez, 67, said as he gestured toward the plaza. "Look at all the shuttered stores." Lares has become emblematic of the economic stagnation that is overwhelming Puerto Rico, and those who live here believe it is a warning...

<p>Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his party Syriza have just screwed the pooch, and royally so. Tsipras has just done something so colossally idiotic and childish that perhaps Greece deserves its impending economic collapse for having elected someone so incredibly stupid. Greeks have suffered six years of chronic recession and endless rounds of debt negotiations, but this will all seem like a walk in the park compared to the poverty and civil chaos about the engulf their country.</p>

The mad dash and perhaps last dash for euros in Greece is on. Some will undoubtedly be frozen out as soon as the ECB halts emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) to Greek Banks. Emergence Meeting Monday, Unscheduled ECB Conference Call Today There's an Emergency Meeting of Eurozone Leader on Monday to discuss Greece, but the ECB may very well act in advance. Once ELA is removed, Greece will soon be forced to issue capital controls. Greek banks have continued to suffer withdrawals amid concerns that Athens and its creditors will fail to strike a deal to avoid a debt default. The...

Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2004 1:09 p.m. EDT Billionaires Secretly Met in Aspen to Defeat Bush In the days following the Democratic National Convention in Boston this past August, several billionaire Democratic activists secretly met at the famed Aspen Institute in Colorado. The purpose of their clandestine meeting was "to use their fortunes to engineer the defeat of President George W. Bush," The New Yorker magazine reports in its most recent edition. Details of the meeting remain sketchy, but the magazine described the Aspen conference this way: "Five billionaires joined half a dozen liberal leaders in a lengthy conversation about the...

Tomas Hirst September 30, 2014The hot debate in financial circles at the moment is exactly when the Fed (and/or the Bank of England) will start raising rates as the economic recovery picks up steam. However, the authors of the Geneva Report suggest talk of the crisis being over is seriously premature. Six years on from the financial crisis, people were expecting a global economy less reliant on debt financing and gradually moving back toward trend growth. According to Luigi Buttiglione, Philip Lane, Lucrezia Reichlin, and Vincent Reinhart, we instead have global debt-to-GDP breaking new highs and a permanent decline in...

As President Obama approaches the end of his fifth year in office, he's nearing the time for his annual report card. It isn't a pretty picture. Americans are giving him failing grades, as polls show his job approval scores plunging to the lowest level in his presidency. Only 41 percent approve of his performance in office, while 52 percent now disapprove of the overall job he's been doing. There are plenty of reasons for Obama's dismal marks: from his foreign policy blunders, a troubling decline in our national security defenses, to a still high unemployment economy that remains sub-par and...

Barack Obama's presidency is falling apart, as a growing number of Americans now realize his promises of prosperity and jobs were bogus and his health care law a fabric of lies. A president who promised hope and change has given us despair and a failed,1930s agenda, as a once-mighty economy continues to limp toward the end of its fifth year in "recovery" -- yet with no full, lasting recovery in sight. Twelve months ago, a majority of voters handed him a second term. This week, the Gallup Poll reported that a 54 percent majority disapprove of the job he's doing...