Free Republic

The big concern about the failure of Chinese real estate titans Evergrande Group and Country Garden was that their financial collapse would spread into the rest of the economy. Specifically, the concern was that so-called shadow banks, which were involved in many of these property deals, would be impacted. And sure enough last week a major shadow bank called Zhongzhi Enterprise Group sent a letter to investors announcing it was insolvent.China’s Zhongzhi Enterprise Group, a leading wealth manager, told investors it is heavily insolvent with up to $64 billion in liabilities, threatening to reignite concerns that the country’s property debt...

While Biden and his cronies line their own pockets, ordinary voters will get hit the hardest by Democrats’ debt denial.A dozen years ago, Democrats faced a dilemma. A long-term care entitlement known as the CLASS Act that they added to what became Obamacare faced serious solvency concerns. But after Scott Brown, R-Mass., won a shock Senate victory for Republicans in a January 2010 special election, ending Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority, Democrats didn’t have the votes to alter the CLASS Act or remove it from Obamacare.What did Democrats do? The Obama administration suppressed the internal documents showing that the CLASS Act wouldn’t...

anadians are finding it more difficult to pay for food, housing and transportation and nearly half are on the brink of insolvency as rising interest rates and soaring inflation continue to weigh on household budgets. That's according to MNP's quarterly Consumer Debt Index released on Monday. The survey, which is conducted by Ipsos and tracks Canadians' attitudes towards their debt situation, found that 52 per cent of respondents say it is becoming less affordable to feed themselves and their families, an increase of five percentage points from December 2021.

Politicians have been hiding the hard facts of Medicare for decades, and the American people will not like it when they learn the truth.The recently released Medicare trustees report estimates the program’s Part A trust fund faces insolvency in 2028, two years later than last year’s estimate. Some might think that represents a major improvement in the program’s fiscal position. But a fact-checker—at least a politically honest one—might say the 2028 projection lacks important context.In reality, Medicare faces a series of financial challenges, many of them created by fiscal gimmicks, that make the program’s shortfalls much greater than the “official”...

The latest report on funding for social security benefits did not give a financially positive outlook for the future to federal lawmakers. Instead, a report by the Social Security Administration said benefits will cost more than the income collected to pay for it. By 2035, the SSA's Social Security Board of Trustees reported that the money in the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance (OASI and DI) Trust Funds will be depleted, putting funds toward insolvency, meaning it is unable to pay its debts. Slightly sooner, SSA reported the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund would be empty by...

Most conservatives recognize the federal government faces enormous fiscal problems—both a large overhang of debt from spending in years past, and sizable deficits forecast for the years to come. But what to do about it?While spending on things like earmarks and Congress’s failure to right-size spending when passing tax relief have worsened our fiscal woes, at bottom the United States’ financial shortfalls stem from unsustainable entitlements: Obamacare, Medicaid, Social Security, and Medicare. These programs comprise a large, and growing, share of the federal budget, particularly as the Baby Boom generation retires.In the immediate future, President Joe Biden and his Democrat...

Bernie Sanders .. wants to expand Social Security, even as the program will pass an omnious tipping point. Some time next year, as the ranks of retirees swell, the Social Security system in the United States will pass an ominous tipping point and start the slide into insolvency. For the first time in nearly four decades, the government program that provides retirement checks to older Americans will pay out more in benefits in 2020 than it takes in. That will force the program to dip into a rainy day fund that will be depleted in about 15 years. And if...

There is only so much we faithful, native Californians can take. How much beautiful weather is worth this leftist insanity, and/or before this leftism turns into liberty crushing authoritarianism? Just sayin... The midterm elections have turned out as most observers expected, nationally, statewide, and in Sacramento. By historical standards, nationally, the Democrats underperformed and lost a number of high-profile races. There was no Blue Wave—more like a blue ripple. However, California is another story, remaining as blue as can be, and headed right into insolvency. In the contest for governor, California voters chose Democratic politician Gavin Newsom over Republican businessman...

Social Security is like the classic children's tale, "The Boy Who Cried Wolf." So many warnings have been made, no one listens anymore. Well guess what? The wolf's now at the door. Are you listening now? For the first time in 36 years, Social Security will take money out of its "trust fund" — an accounting fiction that would get you jailed for fraud in the private sector — to pay retirees. The truth is, Social Security is for all intents and purposes bankrupt. Since 2010, Social Security has been spending more than it took in, making up the difference...

The latest official report on Medicare's financial status says it will be insolvent in 2026 — just eight years from now. So much for the promise that ObamaCare had fixed that program for the long term. When he signed ObamaCare into law in 2010, President Obama bragged repeatedly that ObamaCare's combination of slowing down overall health spending, payment cuts to providers, improved productivity and quality, as well as less waste, fraud, and abuse would vastly extend Medicare's solvency. He promised ObamaCare would guarantee that Medicare's "sacred trust between America and its seniors … is never broken." Turns out "never" isn't...

Social Security will spend more than it collects this year, the program’s trustees said Tuesday, marking the first time in more than 35 years that it will run an annual deficit as it slides toward insolvency by 2034. Medicare’s main trust fund is in even worse shape, scheduled to hit insolvency in 2026 — three years earlier than last year’s estimate, the trustees said. The twin warnings add even more pressure to a budget already strained by last year’s tax cuts and this year’s deal to boost spending on defense and basic domestic needs, leaving few bright spots in the...

The Treasury Department on Friday rejected an effort by the Teamsters Central States Pension Plan to cut benefits for 270,000 retired workers starting in July. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said in a letter to members of Congress that while the decision blocks the pending pension cuts, it does not resolve the issue because the pension plan remains severely underfunded and is projected to become insolvent within the next 10 years. …

<p>According to the government, the Social Security trust fund is due to go broke in 2033. But two recent studies show that the Social Security Administration is using incorrect accounting procedures and that the fund will run out of the money years before that.</p>

Chicago has a simple financial choice: Stay in frying pan or get in the fire. That in simple terms is what Moody's Investors Service said in a report today about the difficult options the Emanuel administration faces over the city's woefully underfunded pension funds. The city must cut spending and raise taxes now or the risks of becoming insolvent will grow, forcing even harsher decisions later. The credit rating agency offers a sobering reminder of what's at stake in the eight-page report, which focuses on the pensions problems. ... A CUT ABOVE JUNK. Moody's, typically the most conservative of the...

I don't know too much about Jim Rickards, just found this to be an interesting video about the overall economy and some tidbits about what our government agencies are up to. The video is a 45 minutes long interview of sorts and discussion. Just posting in the event other are interested.

Despite recent congressional action, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s (PBGC) multi-employer pension insurance program is “likely to be insolvent by the year 2024,” according to the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) latest list of 30 “High Risk” government programs. PBGC collects premiums set by Congress from employers to insure the pension benefits of more than 44 million American workers and retirees currently covered under defined benefit plans. The agency’s “single-employer program protects about 33.6 million workers and retirees in about 27,600 pension plans,” according to the PBGC website. “The multi-employer program protects 10.4 million workers and retirees in about 1,500 pension...

California public employees now enjoy the highest benefits of any state in the nation. To pretend to fund this largess, California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) is an “outlier” among public pension plans in using creative accounting to blur its grossly underfunded status. This has allowed its school district clients and unionized employees to short-check their annual payment for the nation’s most lucrative teachers' pension benefits. But pressure from Moody’s credit rating agency is causing CalSTRS clients and unionized teachers to make big increases in pension and benefit funding. The latest “hokey-pokey” drama is the California State Teachers’ Retirement System...

For months, many of Illinois’ human-services organizations and vendors have seen improvements in their state payments. They could thank the cyclical nature of tax collections for the improvement. But now, according to Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka’s office, the cycle is beginning to shift in the other direction and payment delays are once again getting longer. The backlog of bills waiting to be paid in the comptroller’s office has grown by $3 billion since the spring, when the state was flush with tax revenue. “As the numbers grow, so too do payment delays to vendors throughout the state,” said Topinka spokesman...

With more frequent reminders coming from the Federal Reserve that its “Quantitative Easing” program will “taper off,” the Chinese gvernment is becoming increasingly alarmed. Should the Fed’s program of buying bonds come to an end interest raters are expected to rise and bond prices to fall. China’s Minister of Finance Lou Jiwei urged that “the tapering not be too hastily implemented. We have billions of dollars on US Treasury Bonds that we must be given time to unload before their value goes down. The victims of such a move by the United States will not just be domestic capitalist exploiters,...

This week’s charts show total receipts, expenditures, and assets left in the Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) trust fund. Data from the 2013 Trustees Report show that the disability fund is currently predicted to be three years from insolvency. Under more pessimistic assumptions, the insolvency date is pushed up to 2015. The fact that the DI trust fund is not currently depleted shouldn’t mislead us into thinking we have until 2016 to deal with the shortfalls.Spending on Social Security has more than doubled in the past decade, and DI now accounts for almost 20 percent of Social Security’s budget, up...