Free Republic

The International Monetary Fund has slashed its growth forecast for large parts of the world economy and warned of a full-blown global slump if policymakers in Europe or the US mishandle serious threats. “Risks for recession in the advanced economies are alarmingly high,” said the Fund’s latest World Economic Outlook. “The intensity of the euro area crisis has not abated as assumed in previous projections.” Spain’s economy is expected to contract by 1.5pc this year and 1.3pc next as austerity bites, pushing public debt to 97pc of GDP in 2013. The estimate was 84pc as recently as April, showing how...

So far, during the presidency of Barack Obama, the price of a gallon of gasoline has jumped 83 percent, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (AP Photo) During the same period, the price of ground beef has gone up 24 percent and price of bacon has gone up 22 percent. When Obama entered the White House in January 2009, the city average price for one gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $1.79, according to the BLS. (The figures are in nominal dollars: not adjusted for inflation.) Five months later in June, unleaded gasoline was $2.26 per gallon,...

this is the typical response all my John Huntsman lovin' , Obama votin' friends have whenever talking up the economy. what say you?

Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke couldn't deny the obvious in his speech Tuesday in Atlanta. The economy is bad, with Obama’s “recovery” is setting records for being anemic and the unemployment stuck above 9 percent. Almost 5 million Americans have completely given up looking for work and left the labor force since the "recovery" that started in June 2009. GDP growth the seven quarters into the Obama recovery has averaged an annual rate of only 2.8 percent, a fraction of the 4.6 percent average growth during recoveries since 1970. And this recovery would have been even worse if the Federal...

In response to the Great Recession, the US government has gone on a spending spree in the hope of using Keynesian stimulus to restart the economy. However, according to a new analysis by Dr. Polina Vlasenko at the American Institute for Economic Research, that approach may make us even more vulnerable to future recessions. The amount of economic damage done to Western economies by the downturn directly relates to the aggregate debt in each economy as a percentage of GDP, she argues — and Japan and the Eurozone paid a steep price for their public and private debt. From the...

I was reading about bankruptcy, county, state, ... because that’s where I believe many locations are headed. I then read an article about personal bankruptcy. One of the things the lawyer was recommending in the article was to load up on unsecure debt. I consider it fraud to load up debt knowing that someone is getting ready or will declare bankruptcy. I believe the courts hold that view also. That’s when I had an epiphany . The government knows damn well they can’t pay all this debt off and won't even try. The deficit in February of this year alone...

Earlier today, the White House released a budget proposal that included trimming the mortgage interest deduction for taxpayers in the top income tax brackets. This is the first step in eliminating what many economists view as an expensive and inefficient housing subsidy. Unfortunately, many of the critics of the mortgage interest deduction focus on its immediate costs. If it were eliminated, it might bring in more than $2 trillion of new revenue for the government or—as I proposed this morning—allow up to $2 trillion of new tax cuts for the American people. Actually, I think getting rid of the housing...