By Bill Wilson “[T]he only question now is just how bad the crash will be.” That was none other than New York Times pundit Paul Krugman commenting on recent financial developments , including a credit slowdown, in China, an economy he says “has reached its limits” after decades of record expansion. The Krugman warning comes at a time when Fitch is flashing the […]

By Bill Wilson The second quarter is looking particularly grim for the U.S. economy, with forecasts being downgraded across the board by Wall Street. JP Morgan has cut its estimate for the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in half to just 1 percent annualized from its previous 2 percent expectation. Barclays has come down to 0.5 percent from its previous guess of 1 percent .  Other current estimates for a weak second quarter include Goldman Sachs at Macroeconomic Advisors at […]

By Bill Wilson $167 billion. That is how much extra the federal government will owe every year in gross interest payments for every point the interest rate on U.S. treasuries rises. That’s bad, because since Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced on June 18 a potential 2014 sunset to the central bank’s quantitative easing program , 10-year treasuries have jumped from 2.2 percent to 2.57 percent. If that […]

By Bill Wilson A recent piece by Bruce Bartlett brings together numerous useful academic studies that suggest “financialization” — the expansion of the credit sector as a percent of the economy — can be beneficial to economic growth to a certain point.  But beyond that level, it becomes corrosive. Towards the end of […]

By Bill Wilson It is no mystery that the U.S. is a consumer-based economy. Approximately 71 percent of the $16 trillion Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is personal consumption. So, when consumption expenditures decline — as they did in April — by $20.5 billion, or 0.2 percent as […]

By Bill Wilson U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio came out swinging recently against the nomination of Thomas Perez for Secretary of Labor — and rightly so. “After carefully reviewing Thomas Perez’s, record, views and conduct during his confirmation process, it is clear to me he should not be […]

By Bill Wilson — It has been four years and two months since the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,” the so-called “stimulus,” was signed into law on Feb. 17, 2009. That day, Barack Obama told the American people he was keeping his campaign promise that he would “do all that I could to give every American the chance to make of their […]

By Bill Wilson — Remember all the infrastructure spending that was supposed to happen under the “stimulus” and other state bailouts in 2009 and 2010? The bailout included the $173.6 billion Build America Bonds program, a Treasury program subsidizing 35 percent of interest payments on state and […]

By Bill Wilson — “Listen. It was never a rule to begin with.” That was how House Speaker John Boehner responded to a question about violating the so-called “Hastert rule” in order to pass Democrat-supported legislation on guns and the budget. The rule itself, named after former House Speaker Dennis Hastert states bills will only be brought before […]

NRD Editor’s Note: This column originally appeared at Investors.com . By Bill Wilson — Government interventionists insist the free market, if left unchecked, endangers individuals and our planet. According to their collectivist worldview, profits trump safety — while “corporate greed” overshadows the greater good and the right of […]