Category: US Debt
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Friday, October 18, 2013
The Government Is Broke and They’re Coming For Your Cash - Video / Politics / US Debt
The Government is agreeing on the debt ceiling. This does not fix the problem its a temporary fix. The Government is pushing the banks outside of the country to report the money in foreign accounts. Chase is no longer allowing wire transfers out of the country. The housing market is still declining and mortgage companies are laying off thousands of people. The next event will bring the world to its knees.
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Friday, October 18, 2013
Blackrock - Impact of the Debt Ceiling Debate on the Bond Market / Interest-Rates / US Debt
BlackRock Chairman & CEO Larry Fink appeared on Bloomberg Television's "Market Makers" today, where he told hosts Erik Schatzker and Stephanie Ruhle that stock markets may decline as a result of the debt ceiling debate. He said, "I'm much more worried about the U.S. now than the last time I was on your show...We are going to see a lower equity market and a longer period of lower rates" if earnings start to deteriorate in the fourth quarter following the stalemate in Washington.
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Thursday, October 17, 2013
U.S. Debt Ponzi Scheme Ceiling Crisis Deal - Smoke and Mirrors for America's Debt Slaves / Politics / US Debt
U.S. politicians of the Donkey and Elephant parties during the past few weeks have been busy pounding their chests on the propaganda air-waves to give the illusion of much self worth and power in the faces of the american people when the reality was assured long before the current round of debt crisis play acting ever began in the mainstream media that the debt ceiling WOULD be raised as it ALWAYS has been (about 100 times since it was introduced in 1939)! Meanwhile the mainstream press will continue to pump the story at length on how close the U.S. came towards a debt default and continue to do so in the run up to when the U.S. is next due to hit its revised debt ceiling by early Feb 2014.
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Tuesday, October 15, 2013
The U.S. Debt Crisis from the Founders' Perspective / Politics / US Debt
The U.S. government is paralyzed, and we now face the possibility that the United States will default on its debt. Congress is unable to resolve the issue, and President Obama is as obstinate as the legislators who oppose him. To some extent, our political system is functioning as intended -- the Founding Fathers meant for it to be cumbersome. But as they set out to form a more perfect union, they probably did not anticipate the extent to which we have been able to cripple ourselves.
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Monday, October 14, 2013
Central Planning, Lying Career Politicians, and the US Ponzi Debt Scheme / Politics / US Debt
The political class in Washington has failed to reach a deal. They are effectively playing a game of chicken with the markets to see who blinks first. As usual, there are plenty of lies and spin swirling around this situation.
The US Treasury has stated it will run out of cash on October 17.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
The Fed Could Simply CANCEL $2 Trillion of U.S. Government Debt / Politics / US Debt
Bipartisan Proposal Would Substantially Reduce Budget Crisis
Congressman Alan Grayson and former congressman Ron Paul are two of the fiercest warriors against an out-of-control Federal Reserve.
Paul has campaigned to dissolve the Fed for 35 years, and wrote an entire book called “End the Fed“. Grayson has repeatedly slammed the Fed, and absolutely demolished it … to its face. Paul and Grayson also co-sponsored a bill to audit the Federal Reserve. (Their desire to rein in the Fed is supported by numerous top economists.)
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Friday, October 11, 2013
Republican Party Debt Ceiling Delusions / Politics / US Debt
The popular take on the current debt ceiling stand-off is that the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party has a delusional belief that it can hit the brakes on new debt creation without bringing on an economic catastrophe. While Republicans are indeed kidding themselves if they believe that their actions will not unleash deep economic turmoil, there are much deeper and more significant delusions on the other side of the aisle. Democrats, and the President in particular, believe that continually taking on more debt to pay existing debt is a more responsible course of action. Even worse, they appear to believe that debt accumulation is the equivalent of economic growth.
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Friday, October 11, 2013
U.S. Debt Ceiling Political Economic Blood Sport / Politics / US Debt
In what is BECOMING the deadliest game of CHICKEN since the August 2011 US debt ceiling Showdown, we are at the doorstep of part II. In a game of chicken, two cars rush headlong towards each other to see who veers off first. Occasionally, neither driver does and both parties perish in the collision. Usually, it is just the drivers who pass away from their imprudence; in this case it will be the spectators. Just like children playing with FIRE who BURN the HOUSE down. Blood sport of the worst sort.
I have commented a number of times that since 2008 elected veto-proof majorities, the implementation of socialism went into HYPERDRIVE during the 2008 to 2010 period. The affordable care act was, and has been, the dream of socialists since 1945.
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Thursday, October 10, 2013
U.S. Debt Default? The Perversion of the Constitution / Politics / US Debt
David Kotok, Chairman and Chief Investment Officer of Cumberland Advisors (and our host at "Camp Kotok" for the annual "Shadow Fed" fishing expedition), leads off today's Outside the Box by meticulously dissecting the roadkill that is our federal government's process for deciding whether they will continue to pay their bills and federal employees' wages.
Will the US default? David doesn't think so, and neither do I; but oh, the foolishness, even to tempt the economic fates (read: the markets) this way. David notes that global investors think differently about US default risk than we US-centric types do. Well, David Zervos is with me here at Barefoot, and we just heard that one foreign prime broker (and now maybe two?) is calling hedge funds to say they will not take short-term T-bills as collateral and will mark T-bills down to zero in the event of an actual default. The ultimate risk-free asset is now full of risk? REALLY? This is an unthinkable event. This broker is a Primary Dealer, and I assume they will very shortly get some irate phone calls; but these things start with one bank and then it turns into a herd.
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Wednesday, October 09, 2013
Ominous Warnings About U.S. Debt Default and Impact on the Global Economy / Interest-Rates / US Debt
Michael Snyder writes: A U.S. debt default that lasts for more than a couple of days could potentially cause a financial crash unlike anything that the world has ever seen before. If the U.S. government purposely wanted to damage the global financial system, the best way that they could do that would be to default on U.S. debt obligations. A U.S. debt default would cause stocks to crash, would cause bonds to crash, would cause interest rates to soar wildly out of control, would cause a massive credit crunch, and would cause a derivatives panic that would be absolutely unprecedented. And that would just be for starters. But don’t just take my word for it. These are the things that top financial experts all over the planet are saying will happen if there is an extended U.S. debt default.
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Monday, October 07, 2013
U.S. Debt Ceiling Deception / Politics / US Debt
Former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson weighed in on the budget and debt ceiling gridlock in Washington and offered a solution last week by saying, "I hate the whole concept of a debt ceiling". He also indicated that putting a legal limit on our nation's borrowing authority is a "flaw in the system". In other words, if we just did away with the strictures of a debt limit our problems would go away. Unfortunately, this view is shared by most in our government.
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Sunday, October 06, 2013
US Government Shutdown - Wall Street Signals Concern on Debt Ceiling / Politics / US Debt
Bill Van Auken writes: With the partial shutdown of the US government ending its fourth day on Friday, leaving 800,000 federal employees out in the street and vital social, environmental and other services paralyzed, the US Congress appeared no closer to an agreement on a bill that would provide the appropriations to keep the government running in the new fiscal year that began Tuesday.In immediate jeopardy are programs like WIC, which provides supplemental food assistance to some 9 million low-income women, infants and children, and Head Start, with nearly 20,000 children in programs whose grants kick in on October 1 already facing the threat of being locked out.
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Sunday, October 06, 2013
An Empire of Money and Privilege in Decline: Portrait of a Tragic Policy Error / Politics / US Debt
"Everybody, sooner or later, sits down to a banquet of consequences." Robert Louis Stevenson
"They don't have intelligence. They have what I call thintelligence. They see the immediate situation. They think narrowly and they call it 'being focused.' They don't see the surroundings. They don't see the consequences." Michael Crichton
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Sunday, October 06, 2013
US Government Shutdown Theatre Of The Absurd / Politics / US Debt
DEBT AND ANARCHY
Claims in the US media, from left and right, that anarchy is rising and is being encouraged are easy to find. This is nothing more or less than a diversionary tactic to keep everybody's mind off the real subject which is out-of-control debt. Journalists as wide-ranging as arch-keynesian Paul Krugman to left wing senator Elizabeth Warren, and “moderates” like the collective Bloomberg Editorial Board or anonymous editorialists at Wall Street Journal work the anarchy theme.
Friday, October 04, 2013
First U.S. Government Shutdown in 17 Years. If Only It Will Last? / Politics / US Debt
At the very core, this U.S. government shutdown means that about one million federal employees will be told to go home without pay. Non-essential services will be stopped until further notice. This will be mainly due to a lack of funds. (Source: Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, September 24, 2013.) National parks will be closed; museums will be shut along with many other services.
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Wednesday, October 02, 2013
US Debt Flies High – But NASA Keeps Mission Control Going / Interest-Rates / US Debt
ALWAYS A TEMPORARY SHUTDOWN
Analysts cited by ZeroHedge, 29 September, said that some 50% of US defence force workers will continue to be paid, and NASA will continue paying workers at Mission Control in Houston to support the International Space station, where two Americans and four other people live. Aside from that, only 3% of NASA's 18 000 other employees will keep on working. About 91% of the tax-gathering IRS' staff will also be furloughed – who needs to collect taxes at a moment like this?
Tuesday, October 01, 2013
U.S. Debt Burden - The Most Predictable Economic Crisis? / Interest-Rates / US Debt
Forget about a government shutdown. The quibbling over concessions to keep the government funded distracts from what might be the most predictable economic crisis. We have problems that may affect everything from the value of the U.S. dollar to investors’ savings, but also to national security.
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Saturday, September 21, 2013
Do You Have Any Idea What $50 TRILLION Looks Like?! / Politics / US Debt
Comedian Lee Camp was inspired enough by our latest commentary on the state of our economy to feature it in his new Moment of Clarity video. Apparently only comedians seem to understand the mind-blowing absurdity of US millionaires having $50 TRILLION in wealth, while we also have a record number of people living in poverty. Russell Brand has been riffing on that stunning fact on his Messiah Complex tour, and now Lee Camp throws some fuel on the fire and also rips on this “crime against humanity.”
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Saturday, September 21, 2013
Debt is Still Cheap, and Getting Looser / Interest-Rates / US Debt
Suddenly, borrowing and lending is all the rage again.
The financial crash was five years ago this fall, and nobody is letting us forget it. According to ex-FDIC Chair Sheila Bair, financial soundness isn't much improved. She says, "I think our system is still somewhat fragile, a lot more needs to be done."
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Sunday, September 08, 2013
The Fed Has Wasted Trillions and the US Will Default / Interest-Rates / US Debt
The facts are now becoming abundantly clear, that the forecast we’ve maintained for well over two years has been validated: the US is in a DE-pression and both Washington and the Federal Reserve have wasted trillions of Dollars.
The reality is that what’s happening in the US today is not a cyclical recession, but a one in 100 year, secular economic shift.
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