By Robert Romano “Employees who occupy permanent positions earn [within-grade increases] upon meeting the following three requirements established by law: The employee’s performance must be at an acceptable level of competence. To meet this requirement, an employee’s most recent performance rating of record must be at least […]

By Robert Romano The non-defense, non-postal service part of the federal government comprises about 2 million employees — about 1.37 percent of the total U.S. workforce. Since 2004, federal government average hourly earnings have increased from $28.57 to $39.19 in 2016, while private sector average hourly earnings […]

By Peter Hong There is an all too common pattern in Washington, D.C.  Congress does nothing.  A crisis arises.  Panicked, Congress overreacts.  It creates bad laws.  These bad laws preclude or delay any recovery that would have resulted from a market readjustment.  Congress does nothing […]

By Robert Romano The home ownership rate among 25 to 34 year olds peaked in 2004 at 49.5 percent and then plummeted when the housing bubble collapsed, to 39.2 percent in 2015, according to data compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau . It still has not stopped dropping. The cause? Apparently, the gap between incomes and […]

By Robert Romano The Federal Reserve has increased its holdings of mortgage-backed securities dramatically since Oct. 2012 by almost $1 trillion, from $834 billion to $1.77 trillion today . That was at the time the third round of quantitative easing began. By the time the Fed’s taper was supposedly over in Oct. 2014, […]

By Natalia Castro President Trump is utilizing a new platform to engage in foreign trade relations — Twitter. With simple tweets Trump has made it clear that the United States is completely willing to withdraw from the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) if the […]

By Robert Romano The measured 0.7 percent Gross Domestic Product by the Bureau of Economic Analysis in the first quarter of 2017 is no surprise, said Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning in a statement. “The U.S. economy is already coming off its worst decade ever from a growth perspective, averaging just 1.3329 percent inflation-adjusted growth a year from 2007 to 2016 , worst than even the Great Depression’s 1.3334 percent average annual […]

By Robert Romano “They’re not currency manipulators.” That was President Donald Trump’s reversal in the Wall Street Journal on his campaign pledge to direct the Secretary of Treasury to label China a currency manipulator under 22 U.S.C. Section 5304(b) , which provides that “If the Secretary considers that such manipulation is occurring with respect to countries that (1) have material […]

By Natalia Castro President Trump completely changed the electoral map in 2016. Now, he has enacted policy through a new Executive Order which will continue to serve the unique coalition of conservative and union households he attracted. Trump has ignited a flame under new Republican […]

By Robert Romano Don’t look now, but prices dropped 0.3 percent in March, led by a 3.2 percent drop in energy costs according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics . Less food and energy, prices still fell slightly 0.1 percent. This, as WTI Crude Oil remains well off its 2014 highs of $107 a […]