Free Republic

Drinking the Kool-Aid on MSNBC wasn't enough, even for CNBC's Jim Cramer, to escape the reality that Obamanomics isn't working. Back on October 12, Cramer, to his credit, knew there were some problems with the $787-billion stimulus passed earlier this year. However, he felt it was necessary to pledge his admiration for President Barack Obama, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. But, Matthews asked Cramer if there would be something tangible to back up that praise. "OK - let me ask you the question," Matthews said on MSNBC's Oct. 12 "Hardball." "Let's talk about how we...

Democratic U.S. Rep. Michael Arcuri, whose district includes a large portion of Cayuga County, said Saturday that he will support the health care reform bill now under consideration in the House of Representatives.

Nov. 7, 2009, 10:29 a.m. EST Brown urges global tax to fund bank bailouts By William L. Watts, MarketWatch LONDON (MarketWatch) -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Saturday urged finance officials from the world's 20 largest industrialized and developing nations to weigh a global tax on financial transactions that would be used to fund bank bailouts. "I believe we should discuss whether we need a better economic and social contract to reflect the global responsibilities of financial institutions to society," Brown told finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 nations gathered at St. Andrews in Scotland....

Treasury Blocks the Sale of Tax Credits by Fannie By NICK TIMIRAOS The U.S. Treasury blocked Fannie Mae's proposed sale of nearly $3 billion in low-income housing tax credits to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. on Friday after concluding that the deal was too costly for taxpayers. The extraordinary move was the latest sign of tensions within the Obama administration over how to balance political and financial pressures resulting from the housing crisis. Fannie Mae had agreed to sell roughly half of its $5.2 billion tax-credit portfolio and had received approval to proceed with the sale from...

Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress are spending billions of tax dollars to subsidize development of "green jobs" - positions for people and companies designing and manufacturing alternative energy sources such as biomass, wind and solar. One of Obama's buddies, Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, is also a vocal advocate of such subsidies. Last year, Patrick put Massachusetts taxpayers' money where is mouth is by backing a $58 million package of incentives and subsidies to Evergreen Solar, which manufacturers collector panels used in solar energy units. Now barely a year later, Evergreen has announced that it is moving its...

Blue Coat Systems (BCSI) this morning said it will cut about 10% of its staff under a new restructuring plan. The company currently has a little under 1,500 employees. The company also said it will acquire S7 Software Solutions, a software R&D firm based in Bangalore, India, for about $5.25 million in cash. Blue Coat said it will shift some engineering positions from Sunnyvale (which is where the company is based) and Austin, Texas to Bangalore and other locations. It is closing offices in Riga, Latvia; South Plainfield, New Jersey; and Zoetermeer, the Netherland.

ST ANDREWS, Scotland (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said high unemployment rates show that economic recovery is still perilous and governments need to maintain stimulus as long as necessary to ensure sustained growth. "If we put the brakes on too quickly we will weaken the economy and the financial system, unemployment will rise, more businesses will fail, budget deficits will rise, and the ultimate cost of the crisis will be greater," Geithner said in a statement issued at the conclusion of a two-day Group of 20 meeting. He said that with some growth beginning to become apparent in...

Price Trends / WAR OF THE WORLDS (Round # 2): If you use 120 years of data for your time horizon, and assume prices will return to the average, then our residential property bubble will fall 49% from the bubble peak to the long-run average (see above (a) aka “(x) - (z) / 202” aka “Projected Fall Peak to Trend”). This total projected fall is less than the 60% predicted in my recent post based upon 20 years of data and a trend line drawn with the eye (click here to see that post). Property Values Set to Fall 43%...

John Reed, who originally helped merge Traveller's Group with Citibank with Sandy Weill, is performing a mea culpa for creating megazombie Citigroup (C): Bloomberg: “I’m sorry,” Reed, 70, said in an interview yesterday. “These are people I love and care about. You could imagine emotionally it’s not easy to see what’s happened." “I would compartmentalize the industry for the same reason you compartmentalize ships,” Reed said in the interview in his office on Park Avenue in New York. “If you have a leak, the leak doesn’t spread and sink the whole vessel. So generally speaking you’d have consumer banking separate...

2:15 PM UPDATE: I've learned that 100 people are being laid off across "several divisions" of the A&E Television Networks yesterday and today "as a direct result of the merger". It will make those employees feel so much better that management tells me it's "no one in a decision making role." A&E Television Networks in August acquired Lifetime Entertainment, and everything is now owned by the Disney-ABC Television Group, Hearst and NBC Universal. Big Media = Big Mergers = Big Mistakes.

With the release of the jobs report on Friday, the broadest measure of unemployment and underemployment tracked by the Labor Department has reached its highest level in decades. If statistics went back so far, the measure would almost certainly be at its highest level since the Great Depression. In all, more than one out of every six workers — 17.5 percent — were unemployed or underemployed in October. The previous recorded high was 17.1 percent, in December 1982.

Floridians so far have received less federal stimulus money than any of their fellow Americans, despite an unemployment rate here that ranks among the highest in the country and a budget crisis that few states can match... Florida received just $505 per person, which ranks last among the 50 states, all U.S. territories combined and Washington, D.C., according to a Palm Beach Post analysis of the Journal’s data. The numbers raise significant questions about the stimulus program, which President Obama said during a February stop in Fort Myers would help curtail the state’s rising unemployment rate. Florida’s unemployment rate of...

NEW YORK, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Gold futures in New York rose to a record above $1,100 per ounce on Friday as the dollar eased in the wake of disappointing U.S. employment data. At 9:48 a.m. EST (1448 GMT) December gold GCZ9 was up $10.20 at $1,099.50 an ounce at the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, having topped at $1,101.90 in morning trade. Spot gold XAU= reached a record at $1,100.90 per ounce.

WASHINGTON, DC - C-SPAN is carrying live the debate on socialized health care in the United States House of Representatives live. Members of Congress have had their phone lines flooded all week as opposition by the American people has mounted. Most of the Democrat members from North Carolina phone lines have either been busy or, once a caller gets the voice mail message, the caller gets a message that their voice mailbox is full and cannot receive any messages. Rep. John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, has taken over chairing the House as debate becomes contentious as the Democratic leadership tries...

Russian economist and academic Igor Panarin says that there is a strong possibility that the United States will break into six pieces by June 2010, which he says will be the result of a second economic crisis in late November. After Texas Governor Rick Perry mentioned the possibility of his state seceding from the union, Americans started to take Panarin's predictions much more seriously and now the video game 'Shattered Union' is being developed into a major Hollywood motion picture.

An open letter to the local daily paper — almost every local daily paper in America: I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know. This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration. It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor...

President Barack Obama will leave the country for a four-nation tour of Asia starting Wednesday despite a host of domestic concerns, including the massacre at Fort Hood, a sharply rising jobless rate, his health care legislation stalled in the Senate and his Afghanistan troop decision still pending. He planned his Nov. 11-19 trip around the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Singapore, but added stops in Japan, China and South Korea. The itinerary reflects the growing importance of East Asia — especially China — to everything from financing U.S. debt and powering the global economic recovery to climate change, disease...

DALLAS — Seventy million dollars worth of federal, state and city funds are pouring into the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. Supporters hope the span will be a signature for the city. But it may be remembered for something else, because the key jobs in its construction -- tens of thousands of man hours of work — are going to Italians. On the construction site in the Trinity River bottoms, an American inspector told News 8: "If you don't speak Italian, it's going to be tough to communicate." In broken English, a man who appeared...

The Treasury recently reported that the federal government recorded a total budget deficit of $1.4 trillion in fiscal year 2009, about $960 billion more than the deficit incurred in 2008. CBO notes, in its latest Monthly Budget Review, that the federal deficit rose as a share of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) from 3.1 percent in 2008 to 9.9 percent in 2009—the highest deficit as a share of GDP since 1945.As shown in the figure below, federal spending and receipts diverged dramatically in 2009, reflecting the weakening economy and the federal response. The increase in the deficit of...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are burning a huge hole in the Treasury's pocket. But the Obama administration is getting something very valuable in return: the ability to provide immense support to the housing market with only limited interference from Congress. The credit crunch has displayed yawning democratic deficits, like the inability of Congress to get a proper handle on the Federal Reserve's emergency lending programs. But with Fannie and Freddie, it is the Treasury that gets to freely commit massive amounts of money. Both companies have bought most of the mortgages written in America this year and are modifying...

Taking candy from a baby: A consortium of Chinese and American companies goes to Washington and announces plans to build a $1.5 billion windmill farm in West Texas using $450 million in U.S. Stimulus funds, which will create 2,330 jobs – 2,000 of them in China. The baby – Washington -- doesn’t cry or whine or spit in the consortium’s face. That’s what’s really wrong with this story. So accustomed to being bought and sold, Washington simply begins processing forms so it can hand over your tax dollars to create jobs in a turbine factory in the city of Shenyang,...

MUCH OF the criticism of the health-care measure before the House of Representatives is overwrought. Another part is simply wrong. Unfortunately, that does not mean that this is a good bill. As we have said, it does not do enough to control costs, and it is not funded in a sustainable way... As an example of the hyperbole, take the ludicrous assertion by Minority Leader John A. Boehner that the Democratic measure "is the greatest threat to freedom that I've seen in the 19 years I've been in Washington." Come on. The proposal has been endorsed by the American Medical...

The 177 Republicans in the House of Representatives plan to unanimously oppose health-care legislation that would constitute the biggest expansion of insurance to Americans in decades, illustrating the huge divide that remains between the two parties on key issues and setting up a major debate in next year's elections. The universal opposition to the health-care bill, which Congress could vote on as soon as Saturday, was long expected, but Republican wins in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races on Tuesday further emboldened the GOP... If all Republicans vote no on the health reform bill, it would mean not a...

A Michigan congressman has released a report from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation confirming that the House Democrats' health-care bill could impose penalties of up to $250,000 in fines and five years in jail for failing to buy the proper insurance coverage. "This is the ultimate example of the Democrats' command-and-control style of governing – buy what we tell you or go to jail," said U.S. Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich. "It is outrageous and it should be stopped immediately," he said today. The letter of confirmation from the Joint Committee on Taxation was signed by Chief of Staff Thomas...

Earlier this week, Huntington Mayor Steve Updike held a press conference relaying information of coming citywide layoffs. The only position, at that date, to be announced in the layoff was the Mayor's secretary. He went on to say that six more layoffs were expected this week. Yesterday it was announce that......

<p>The dollar will get "utterly destroyed" and become "virtually worthless", said Damon Vickers, chief investment officer of Nine Points Capital Partners.</p> <p>"We don't have resources. Neither does a lot of Asia to be quite frank," Vickers said on CNBC's Asia Squawk Box. "Countries that have resources -- the Brazils, the Canadas, Australia -- their currencies are doing well."</p>

PARIS -- French police are working to solve what appears to be a simple -- and substantial -- bank heist. Authorities on Friday were searching for the driver of an armored van who vanished with €11 million ($16 million) in cash. Toni Musulin gave his two co-workers the slip on Thursday while the three men, who work for an armored-car firm, were on a routine round of money-collection in the central French city of Lyon, according to police and prosecutors in the case. Eleven million euros of freshly minted banknotes -- divided into 49 vacuum-sealed packs -- disappeared along with...

James Chanos, the famed short seller who was among the first to foresee the collapse of Enron, recently sounded the alarm on the municipal-bond market -- in the hallowed halls of the New York Historical Society, no less. The "cracking of state and local municipalities is coming," he predicted at a recent meeting attended by Barron's staffer Susan Witty, adding that he wouldn't touch munis. In a subsequent telephone interview with this columnist, Chanos said, "State and local municipal finance are a mess and going to get worse." It's not just the recession, which has reduced tax receipts. Rather, he...

Some AMA members are outraged that the group's trustees made the endorsement without the formal approval of the organization's House of Delegates. The American Medical Association's much-touted endorsement of the House health care reform bill has triggered a revolt among some members who want the endorsement withdrawn. Some members are outraged that the group's trustees made the endorsement without the formal approval of the organization's House of Delegates. On Monday, delegates will vote on a resolution offered by some members that, if approved, will withdraw the AMA’s endorsement of the bill. President Obama cited the endorsement of the influential AMA,...

After spending more than a year in suspended animation, the commercial real estate industry is expected to hit bottom in 2010 with a wrenching thud. Owners of business properties such as office buildings, warehouses and malls will suffer a surge of painful defaults, write-downs and workouts with their lenders as the market finally faces up to the reality of its diminished conditions, according to a report set for release today. The long-awaited blood bath, however, will benefit investors who are able to swoop in to take advantage of record bargains. Unlike the formerly overheated housing market, which is in the...

Supporters of a proposed maglev train from Pittsburgh International Airport to Greensburg wooed state representatives Friday with promises the project could create thousands of jobs in high-tech manufacturing, if the government could pay the $5.3 billion price tag. Building the 54-mile magnetic guideway between the airport, Downtown, Monroeville and Greensburg would create demand for an estimated 533,000 tons of steel and 712,000 cubic yards of concrete, and the precision-welding technology that would be used to turn the steel into the track could then be exported around the world, proponents told members of the state House Transportation Committee during a hearing...

Democratic Rep. Barney Frank took a dig Friday at the Republican lawmaker who organized a protest by conservatives against health care legislation. Frank, a Massachusetts liberal, told an audience: "Some of the people (at the rally) that wanted to engage me in conversation appeared to have been the losers in the 'Are you smarter than Michele Bachmann contest?"' Rep. Bachmann, R-Minn., had organized Thursday's rally attended by thousands of conservatives critical of the Democrats' health care plan. Frank, who recently compared arguing with an angry voter to conversing with a dining room table, said this week's protest was like being...

AMERICA'S unemployment rate pushed through the 10 per cent mark in October for the first time in 26 years. The Labour Department said that 190,000 jobs had been lost in October, worse than the 175,000 expected by economists, pushing the unemployment rate to 10.2 per cent — the highest figure since April 1983. The data is being watched closely as economists ponder whether the United States can sustain a recovery without government stimuli after emerging from recession in the third quarter. Last week, figures revealed that gross domestic product (GDP) had risen by 3.5 per cent between July and September....

A familiar definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. So in the wake of yesterday's report that the national jobless rate climbed to 10.2% in October, we suppose we can expect the political class to demand another "stimulus." Maybe if Congress spends another $787 billion in the name of job creation, it can get the jobless rate up to 12% or 13%. It's hard to imagine a more complete repudiation of Keynesian stimulus than the evidence of the last year's job market. We've now had two examples of such stimulus—President Bush's $160 billion...

First thought on Tuesday's elections: There's a lot of firing going on in America, and now that includes politicians. Seems only fair and will likely continue. I don't think voters in New Jersey and Virginia were saying, "Oh the Democrats are awful, and we hate them," nor were they saying, "Republicans are wonderful, and we love them." The voters were being practical, and thinking policy: "Will he raise my taxes?" In Jersey, they fired the incumbent governor because they couldn't imagine the state getting off its current trajectory (high unemployment, high taxes, high spending) with him there. And they're certain...

The wavering Democrats have been specifically identified by the Left for a large amount of pressure. The following members were specifically targeted for pressure in a Kos article last night: Arcuri, Baird, Bean, Boyd, Carney, Donnelly, Kaptor, Kucinich, McMahon, Scott Murphy, Nye Well, we need to encourage these members as well. To keep objecting to the bill. And to vote "NO" Please note: not all of these guys are "blue dogs." Take Kucinich for an example. His objection is that the bill doesn't go far enough. So when you call and fax and meet and greet, make sure to look...

Ludwig von Mises was snubbed by economists world-wide as he warned of a credit crisis in the 1920s. We ignore the great Austrian at our peril today. Mises's ideas on business cycles were spelled out in his 1912 tome "Theorie des Geldes und der Umlaufsmittel" ("The Theory of Money and Credit"). Not surprisingly few people noticed, as it was published only in German and wasn't exactly a beach read at that. Taking his cue from David Hume and David Ricardo, Mises explained how the banking system was endowed with the singular ability to expand credit and with it the money...

Democratic leaders trying to preserve a high-stakes Saturday vote on a House health reform bill battled a swift current of rank-and-file defections Friday as the White House swung into action to help corral the final votes. But progress was slower than expected – as a bad jobs number Friday with unemployment eclipsing 10 percent, and Tuesday’s election losses making that job harder. President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and a number of top aides – including chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Education Secretary Arne Duncan — called wavering members.Democratic officials said their count of hard...

By DAVID LEONHARDT For all the pain caused by the Great Recession, the job market still was not in as bad shape as it had been during the depths of the early 1980s recession — until now. With the release of the jobs report on Friday, the broadest measure of unemployment and underemployment tracked by the Labor Department has reached its highest level in decades. If statistics went back so far, the measure would almost certainly be at its highest level since the Great Depression. In all, more than one out of every six workers — 17.5 percent — were...

Taxpayers get a 20 year bill for a problem the bond markets fixed in 6 months. The Obama administration famously refused to bail out California earlier this year on the rationale that one state bailout could well become 50. But thanks to the Build America Bonds program, part of the stimulus package passed in February, the federal government is committed to covering a portion of interest payments on at least $8 billion of the state's taxable debt for decades to come. In effect, what California saves by selling Build America Bonds gets billed to U.S. taxpayers. States, led by California...

The bailout is hurting--not helping--employment. The White House announced last week that the $787 billion stimulus package has "saved or created" more than 1 million jobs. Yet on Friday we learned that unemployment increased to 10.2%, and the number of unemployed Americans rose by 558,000 in October. If you factor in workers who gave up looking or settled for a part-time job, the real unemployment rate--what's known as U6--is an astounding 17.5%. Look out now for even more claims about "saved or created" jobs from the Obama administration. As numerous economists have explained, there is no academic or empirical basis...

President Obama is preparing to break the deadlock in negotiations on a global deal on climate change by announcing a target for cutting US greenhouse gas emissions. The US is the only developed country yet to propose an emissions target. Poorer nations, including most of Africa, are threatening to walk out of a UN summit in Copenhagen next month unless Mr Obama commits to an ambitious reduction. Mr Obama may wait until the final stages of the negotiations in Copenhagen in order to achieve maximum political impact with his announcement and give other countries little opportunity to demand deeper cuts...

The fiscal strain of deteriorating pension funding levels on local and state governments could contribute to downgrades in the next several years, especially among those governments that entered the recession with poor funding ratios or have little flexibility in their funding requirements, a new report from Moody’s Investors Service warns. In the near term, the impact of dwindling investment returns as a result of the market downturn is broad and adds yet another layer of fiscal stress on governments already faced with faltering tax revenues, heightened demand for social services, and pressure to scale back pension contributions to balance their...

Democrats Clear Impasse Blocking Health Care Vote By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS November 7, 2009 WASHINGTON (AP) -- Capping months of struggle, House Democrats cleared an abortion-related impasse blocking a vote on sweeping health care legislation late Friday and officials expressed optimism they had lined up the support needed to pass President Barack Obama's top domestic priority. A vote was expected on the legislation on Saturday, after Obama's scheduled midmorning trip to the Capitol complex to make one final pitch for its approval. The bill is designed to spread coverage to tens of millions who now lack it and ban insurance...

Last week the Obama administration issued a report purporting to show that the President’s $787 billion economic stimulus plan had saved or created exactly 640,329 jobs. Such a precise number for such a fuzzy concept as jobs “saved or created” immediately raised doubts about the veracity of the report in any honest American’s mind. And since that report was issued, a once compliant press has filed story after story tearing the credibility of the Obama administration’s job creation claims to shreds. Just enter the words “stimulus”, “jobs”, and “report” in a Google News search and these are just some of...

Broader Measure of Unemployment Stands at 17.5% By DAVID LEONHARDT November 6, 2009 For all the pain caused by the Great Recession, the job market still was not in as bad shape as it had been during the depths of the early 1980s recession — until now. With the release of the jobs report on Friday, the broadest measure of unemployment and underemployment tracked by the Labor Department has reached its highest level in decades. If statistics went back so far, the measure would almost certainly be at its highest level since the Great Depression. In all, more than one...

TurkeyÂ’s privatisation administration (OIB) received bids totalling $1.2bn at an auction of three power grids in Ankara on Friday, a test of market conditions that has persuaded it to press ahead with sales to ease strains on public finances. Eti Gumus, a recently privatised silver mining company with no previous involvement in energy, bid $485m for the Osmangazi grid, which has one of the lowest ratios of electricity loss and theft in the country. Calik Enerji, a unit of the unlisted Calik group, bid $441.5m for the Yesilirmak grid, which has 1.5m customers in the northern Black Sea region, while...

United Commercial Bank, a big San Francisco bank with branches in China, was closed by state regulators on Friday and its banking operations were acquired by East West Bancorp Inc, also active in both nations. East West (EWBC.O) said the transaction made it the second-largest independent bank in California. Based in Pasadena, East West has 137 U.S. branches, including offices in New York, Atlanta, Boston and Seattle, and four in China.

Radio's Rush Limbaugh is not only good for his own business -- with a new eight-year contract offering him the potential to make $400 million -- he's also good for Fox News. Limbaugh's appearance on "Fox News Sunday" set a ratings record for the year so far for the network's Sunday morning counterpunch to "Meet the Press" and the rest. Limbaugh drew 3,892,000 viewers, including 1,180,000 in the coveted 25-54 age group, for the show on the Fox broadcast network and cable's Fox News Channel (2.35 million tuned in at FNC.) "I'm a ... guy who earns a percentage of...

After giving free markets a bad name, investment banks are turning to religion. These guys really have no shame. They pose as free marketeers when every penny they make is propped up by government, and now they want to invoke the good words in the Bible to justify their scamming. IB's are now hitting the churches of London, before they divvy up this year's loot. It is an attempt to do what they do best, confuse great truths with their scams. Barclays Plc Chief Executive Officer John Varley stood at the wooden lectern in St. Martin-in-the- Fields on London’s Trafalgar...