Showing posts with label US Economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US Economy. Show all posts

Friday, 17 June 2016

Immigration Economics: Illegal Aliens Are Our Bread and Butter - The Great Recession Blog

Illegal Aliens Are Our Bread and Butter


Have you ever wondered why politicians make some immigration illegal and then turn a blind eye to illegal immigration wherever it is happening … for decades? What about why they talk so much about building walls to keep out the vast hoards, rather than simply arresting the much smaller number of people who hire illegal immigrants? Surely drying up the jobs that are available to illegal immigrants would be much more economical than building a thousand-mile wall. This article will tell you why we make some immigration illegal and then turn a blind eye to it.
Have you also wondered why politicians make it illegal for millions of people to enter the country and then eventually support naturalizing those people who broke the laws these very politicians made? This article will answer that, too.
First, I’ll state that immigration is largely about economics; and by that I do not simply mean that people are coming to the U.S. to gain economic opportunity, though, of course, they are. Nor do I simply mean immigrants are taking jobs away from Americans, though, of course, they are. Nor am I going to talk about the welfare costs that come with migrant workers because those get discussed a lot.
I want to talk about a major economic factor in the immigration issue that is the elephant in the room that no one is talking about, and it’s not just a GOP elephant. Immigration economics has a dark underbelly that neither party will ever bring up. Since immigration reform is one of the major planks of the Republican’s top candidate for the presidency, there is no time like the present to talk about the elephant.

Thursday, 16 June 2016

15 Facts About The Imploding U.S. Economy That The Mainstream Media Doesn’t Want You To See | Zero Hedge

15 Facts About The Imploding U.S. Economy That The Mainstream Media Doesn’t Want You To See


You are about to see undeniable evidence that the U.S. economy has been slowing down for quite some time.  And it is vital that we focus on the facts, because all over the Internet you are going to find lots and lots of people that have opinions about what is going on with the economy.  And of course the mainstream media is always trying to spin things to make Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton look good, because those that work in the mainstream media are far more liberal than the American population as a whole.  It is true that I also have my own opinions, but as an attorney I learned that opinions are not any good unless you have facts to back them up.  So please allow me a few moments to share with you evidence that clearly demonstrates that we have already entered a major economic slowdown.  The following are 15 facts about the imploding U.S. economy that the mainstream media doesn’t want you to see…

How Will You Cope With A Lower Standard Of Living? | Zero Hedge

How Will You Cope With A Lower Standard Of Living?


The forces are mounting that will eventually overwhelm most Americans and send their standard of living to unknown depths.Americans that have only known the post WWII prosperity are ill equipped and educated to deal with depression level living. Easy credit and instant gratification have created a nation of whining, self absorbed, entitlement minded people with no moral or mental toughness.
Doug Casey believes we are headed for what he calls a super depression created by the ending of a debt super cycle. The bigger the debt cycle the bigger the depression that follows. That’s how reality works and most people are not prepared for reality.
When this depression, which has already started, gets momentum, it will overwhelm the plans of a society that is expecting to get things like social security, pensions and payouts from retirement plans they have paid into for many years. All of those things will disappear almost overnight and leave society gasping and stupefied over what to do. Their reactions will be to yell and scream and try to identify who to blame but the only person they should blame is the one in the mirror.

Saturday, 11 June 2016

An Everyman's Guide To Understanding Cryptocurrencies | Zero Hedge

An Everyman's Guide To Understanding Cryptocurrencies


When an asset rises by almost 30% in a few weeks, it tends to attract attention.  Recently, that asset was bitcoin (BTC). The price of BTC in dollars rose from $454 on May 23 to $590 on June 6th.
When an asset doubles in a matter of a few months, it tends to attract attention.  The cryptocurrency Ether (part of the Ethereum platform) doubled from around $7 in April to roughly $14 in early June.
Are these cryptocurrencies mere fads? Or are they potentially game-changing alternatives to the conventional currencies such as the U.S. dollar, Chinese RMB, Japanese yen or European Union euro?
There’s no lack of skeptics and critics of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. For example, “National currencies aren’t as Centralized, and Bitcoin isn’t as Decentralized, as you think.” (Source)
There are plenty of defenders of cryptocurrencies as well, for example this response to the article above. 
The controversy is understandable; bitcoin has had a difficult adolescence. After soaring from $15 in early 2013 to over $1,000 in December 2013, the cryptocurrency crashed to $215 in early 2015 in the wake of the bankruptcy of a major exchange (Mt. Gox) that cost bitcoin investors $470 million in losses.
Yet despite concerns about security, criminal use and volatility, cryptocurrencies have proliferated at a dizzying pace, and new models such as the “smart contracts” of Ethereum have been developed.
So what are those of us who can’t follow the technical arguments supposed to make of all this? For that audience, here's my stab at making sense of the potential global role of cryptocurrencies.

Friday, 10 June 2016

Where Do Matters Stand? -- Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigRoberts.org

Where Do Matters Stand?


Paul Craig Roberts
On the eve of World War II the United States was still mired in the Great Depression and found itself facing war on two fronts with Japan and Germany. However bleak the outlook, it was nothing compared to the outlook today.
Has anyone in Washington, the presstitute Western media, the EU, or NATO ever considered the consequences of constant military and propaganda provocations against Russia? Is there anyone in any responsible position anywhere in the Western world who has enough sense to ask: “What if the Russians believe us? What if we convince Russia that we are going to attack her?”
The same can be asked about China.
The recklessness of the White House Fool and the media whores has gone far beyond mere danger. What do the Russians think when they see that the Democratic Party intends to elect Hillary Clinton president of the US? Hillary is a person so crazed that she declared the president of Russia to be “the new Hitler” and organized through her underling, neocon monster Victoria Nuland, the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Ukraine. Nuland installed Washington’s puppet government in a former Russian province that until about 20 years ago was part of Russia for centuries.

Thursday, 9 June 2016

On Death And Taxes: "The Greed Of The Government Can Never Be Overstated" | Zero Hedge

On Death And Taxes: "The Greed Of The Government Can Never Be Overstated"



Readers, you’re awake to the horrors of the Federal Government, our rapidly-declining GDP and ever-increasing debts.  Trillions of dollars have been stolen, in the form of appropriations and programs that funnel directly from the tax-base: the fat “cash-cow” that the government suckles from.  The taxes are life-sustaining to the government juggernaut, managed by the ever self-serving “representatives” of Congress who approve pay raises for themselves, immunity from prosecution from (what was formerly) insider trading, and exonerate themselves from any and all ethics violations.
Taxes keep the government going, keep the system emplaced and you the citizen in your place, from birth to death.  The websiteivn.us reports the breakdown for the federal government’s feedings:
Personal income taxes               47.4%
Corporate income taxes             34.1%
Social insurance taxes                9.9%
Tariffs/gas taxes/fees                 8.5%
Ben Franklin summarized the position of the average citizen two centuries ago:
“In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”
Franklin was correct; however, he should have reversed the order, because taxes can both bring on death and still haunt the deceased after their passing.  The best example of this is the death tax, where a person’s estate is assessed after their death.  Their heirs better pay the tax man!  Yes, how exactly does all of that work?  The deceased individual worked all of their lives, paying income taxes both federal and state, paying off their house and mortgage, paying their property tax.

EBT Card Outage? 8 Days Into June And Many Americans Are Still Waiting For Food Stamp Money | Zero Hedge

EBT Card Outage? 8 Days Into June And Many Americans Are Still Waiting For Food Stamp Money


Widespread reports continue to pour in from all over the nation of “glitches” with the food stamp system.  It is eight days into the month and large numbers of people still have not received their benefits, and in other instances it is being reported that EBT cards are simply not working correctly.  So what in the world is going on here?  On downdetector.com there are scores of reports of problems with the EBT system from people all over the nation.  Could this simply be another example of government incompetence, or is something else at work here?
I had heard some rumblings about this over the past few days, but I had not really taken them seriously until I read an article from highly respected author Ray Gano
It interesting over the weekend I got several emails telling me about cell phones being down, internet being down, and get this, EBT cards not working and having no money associated to them.

This is a concern because when the US Government has payment failures, then there is possibly something happening that the press is not telling you about.

Now, we know that computers have problems and that states, counties and cities run on computers. But what is interesting is that since the beginning of 2016, The US government has had over 2,700 reports on downdetector.comshowing that they have been late loading the money onto these EBT cards.

Folks, we are now going on 8 days where the Government has not paid the EBT payments so that people have food.
So I went over to downdetector.com myself, and I was stunned to see that reports of EBT outages continue to pour in every hour.  Here are just a few of the recent comments that have been left by people that are still waiting for their food stamp benefits for June…

It Took $10 In New Debt To Create $1 Of Growth In The First Quarter | Zero Hedge

It Took $10 In New Debt To Create $1 Of Growth In The First Quarter



When the Fed unexpectedly stopped reporting the data for Total Credit Market Instruments in September 2015, the most comprehensive series of total credit in the US economy, there were many screams of disappointment and frustration from US debt watchers. However, this was unnecessary, as all the Fed did was break up the series into its two constituent components: total debt (found here) and total loans (found here).
So today we had a chance to update the total US credit following the release of the Fed's Flow of Funds (Z.1) statement, which is usually parsed for its tracking of changes to household wealth. And while it showed that in  the first quarter the net worth of US residents, mostly the wealthy ones as the bulk of financial assets is held by a small fraction of the total population, rose by $837 billion to $88 trillion mostly as a result of a change in real estate holdings, we were more interest in the aggregate picture.
It wasn't pretty.
As a reminder, according to the latest BEA revision, nominal Q1 GDP was $18.23 trillion, an increase of just $65 billion from the previous quarter or an annualized 0.7% rate, the question is how much credit had to be created to generate this growth. Well, according to the Z.1, total credit rose to a new record high $64.1 trillion. This was an increase of $645 billion from the previos quarter. It means that in the first quarter, it "cost" $10 in new debt to generate just $1 in new economic growth!

Wednesday, 8 June 2016

Baby Bust: US Fertility Rate Unexpectedly Drops to Lowest on Record | MishTalk

Baby Bust: US Fertility Rate Unexpectedly Drops to Lowest on Record



Economists figured the recovery would bring about increased confidence and a rise in the birth rate.
Instead, the rate dropped into a tie with the lowest birth rate on record.
This is yet another surprise for economists to ponder.
Please consider the Wall Street Journal report Behind the Ongoing U.S. Baby Bust.

Monday, 6 June 2016

The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity : The Keynesians Stole The Jobs

The Keynesians Stole The Jobs



Late last week the markets were shocked by a surprisingly bad May jobs report – the worst monthly report in nearly six years. The experts expected the US economy to add 160,000 jobs in May, but it turns out only 38,000 jobs were added. And to make matters worse, 13,000 of those 38,000 were government jobs! Adding more government employees is a drain on the economy, not a measure of economic growth. Incredibly, there are more than 102 million people who are either unemployed or are no longer looking for work.

Gold reacted to the report quickly and decisively, gaining 2.5 percent to $1,243 per ounce on Friday. Gold mining stocks also saw significant gains on the day.

As recently as late May, there was confident talk about a rate increase when the Federal Reserve meets in June. Transcripts of the Federal Reserve’s April meeting showed that the central bank was seriously considering a June rate hike. With last week’s jobs report and other bad news, that is increasingly unlikely. In fact, citing the weak May employment numbers, Goldman-Sachs is now predicting that there is a zero percent chance of a rate hike in June. Of course they also see this as a temporary blip in an otherwise robust economy, predicting a 40 percent chance of a rate hike in July.

I don’t mean to rain on Goldman’s parade, but there are no miracles between now and July that will propel the economy to where according to their terms a rate hike would be appropriate.



Cont..... 

Sunday, 5 June 2016

How To Spot Bullshit - Princeton Professor Explains Why Ignorance Of The Truth Matters | Zero Hedge

How To Spot Bullshit - Princeton Professor Explains Why Ignorance Of The Truth Matters


Princeton Professor Harry Frankfurt provides a succinct primer on why truth needs to prevail over bullshit - something that could be helpful for many.
"People should care about the truth, because the truth is the truth about how things are and it's important us to recognize how things are, not to pretend that it's something else. If you have the truth you know what reality is like, if you don't you're ignorant of reality"
"We are living in an age in which there's another alternative to the truth, and that's bullshit"
"The reason why there's so much bullshit I think is that people just talk. If they don't talk they don't get paid. The advertiser wants to gain sales, the politician wants to get gain votes. Now, that's ok, but they have to talk about things that they don't really know much about. So since they don't have anything really valid to say, they just say whatever they think will interest the audience, make it appear that they know what they're talking about - and what comes out is bullshit."
"The danger is that there will be a loss of concern for the truth, and that I believe is an insidious assault on the fundamental principles of society."

Grasshopper Nation: Planning For Those Who Aren't Prepared | Zero Hedge

Grasshopper Nation: Planning For Those Who Aren't Prepared


Take a moment to reflect on all the people you care about who aren't reading this article. Or sites like this, which wrestle with the implications of limits to growth and the concerning unsustainability of the economic and natural systems our society depends upon.
How many of your family members, good friends, and neighbors simply choose to ignore the messages from those of us alarmists on the "doomer" side, and live life trusting that tomorrow will always look and feel pretty much like today? Most of them? All of them?
Look, it's understandable. Humans aren't wired well to respond to future risk that isn't visible as an immediate threat. And temperamentally, we prefer good news over bad, so we seek to overweight the former and discount the latter. Who wants to stress out about what "might" happen tomorrow, anyways -- can't we just enjoy life today?
The rift between the preparedness-minded and those not is age-old, as fables like Aesop's The Ant & The Grasshopper date at least as far back as the 5th century BCE.
We spend our focus on this website engaging the "ants", the empirically-minded folks who look at the data and concur that there is sufficient possibility of one or several crises (economic, energy-related, environmental -- or a combination of such) occurring in the next several years. And that taking advance action is prudent.
But the ants are the minority.
Forget about planning for the more esoteric risks posed by faulty monetary policy or energy economics -- 72% of Americans don't even have a basic emergency response kit in place should an ordinary kind of disaster strike (power outage, hurricane, tornado, earthquake, etc).
The simple reality is that, if you're investing your energies towards building resilience against potential hardship, most of those around you likely aren't.
In the midst of your efforts, are you planning for their lack of preparedness?

Saturday, 4 June 2016

Why The Fed Is Trapped: A 1% Increase In Rates Would Result In Up To $2.4 Trillion Of Losses | Zero Hedge

Why The Fed Is Trapped: A 1% Increase In Rates Would Result In Up To $2.4 Trillion Of Losses


A funny thing happened as every central bank around the world rushed to stimulate their economy by devaluing their currency in a global FX war that is now 7 years old and getting more violent by the day: with bond yields plunging, and over $10 trillion in global debt now having a negative yield, every fixed income investor starved for yield was pushed into the long end of the bond curve where whatever yield is left in the world of "safe" bonds is to be found. As long as interest rates never go up, this strategy is relatively safe. However, a major risk emerges when central banks start tightening.
To be sure, banks have been eager to front-run any concerns about the Fed's rate hike by cheering higher rates as precisely what they need to be more profitable, and the market has so far believed and rewarded bank stocks the higher rate hike odds rose. Just this Thursday, speaking at an investor conference James Dimon said that if short-term and long-term rates were to move up by 1 percentage point simultaneously, 70% of the benefit would come from the move in short-term rates. The reason for this is that even if long-term rates remain under pressure, and the curve flattens further, an increase in short-term rates provides an immediate boost to bank profits. That is because many loans are automatically priced against short-term benchmarks like LIBOR and Prime.

Guided By Nonsense - The Data Doesn't Add-Up | Zero Hedge

Guided By Nonsense - The Data Doesn't Add-Up


Seven Year Achievement

“Read the directions and directly you will be directed in the right direction.” — Lewis Carroll

directions
See? It’s easy Janet! Just read the directions!

U.S. consumers are at it again.  After a seven year hiatus they’re once again doing what they do best.  They’re buying stuff.
According to the Commerce Department, personal consumption expenditures (PCE), which is the primary measure of consumer spending on goods and services in the U.S. economy, increased $119.2 billion in April.  That marks an increase of 1 percent, and is the biggest one month increase since August 2009 – nearly seven years ago.  Indeed, this is quite an achievement.
The consumer, you know, is the primary engine of U.S. economic growth. Without consumption GDP doesn’t go up; rather, it goes down.  Moreover, in a debt based money system, when GDP goes down the whole financial debt structure breaks down.
We don’t condone it.  Certainly we’d prefer an honest hard money system where savings and investment drives growth as opposed to borrowing and spending.  But our preference has no bearing on reality in this matter.