By Robert Romano You’ve heard it a bazillion times. The end of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve — since August 2007 it has added $3.6 trillion to its balance sheet — will mean interest rates have to rise. Because, well, they have to. At first, there […]

By Robert Romano “When former Fed chief Ben Bernanke has trouble refinancing his mortgage , you know there’s a problem.” That was Bloomberg View’s Barry Ritholtz on October 17, commenting on the supposed shortage of mortgage credit in the current U.S. housing market. “Banks have avoided making loans to many […]

By Robert Romano CNS News’ Terence P. Jeffrey reports that the 89.2 million full-time private sector employees’ share of the $17.86 trillion national debt hit $200,258.81. That’s interesting, but Congress has no intention of ever balancing the budget. Plus, with the auto spending we’ll once again be adding $1 trillion to the debt by decade’s end as the retirement wave hits full […]

By Robert Romano “A quarter of Italian industry has disappeared. Our currency is overvalued and there is nothing we can do about it within the euro.” That was Five Star movement co-founder Gianroberto Casaleggio in an exclusive interview with the UK Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard , describing the incompatibility of Italian membership in the Eurozone. The tepid austerity […]

By Robert Romano At the height of the Great Recession, by December 2009, 8.4 million jobs were lost. It has taken six years to recover to the 146.4 million January 2008 pre-downturn jobs level. Today, 146.6 million people have jobs, according to data compiled by the Bureau […]

By Robert Romano It was 1932 all over again. The economy had collapsed right before the 2008 election, and, as a result, Democrats swept to commanding majorities in the House and Senate, and claimed the White House from an unpopular incumbent Republican. It had all the makings […]

By Rick Manning Urge Congress to end sugar subsidies the right way! Federal government sugar support or subsidies have been part of our national policy since the First Congress of the United States in 1789 legislated a foreign sugar tariff to help fund the fledgling government . Sugar subsidies, supports or tariffs have existed virtually non-stop throughout our nation’s history since this initial act of Congress.  From the last half of the 20th Century to today, […]

By Robert Romano Baby Boomers led the march out of the civilian labor force in the past year, data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics show. Those not in the labor force increased by 1.9 million from 90.6 million to 92.5 million since September 2013 using non-seasonally adjusted numbers. 70.5 percent of them, 1.3 million, were […]

By Robert Romano One of mainstays in the postwar economy, and in particular, the post-gold standard economy after 1971 has been the dollar’s unchallenged status as the world’s reserve currency. It has been called the exorbitant privilege . At the time, as the story goes, to help resolve to the 1973 oil shock, Richard Nixon convinced Saudi Arabia to only accept dollars for payment of oil in return for protecting […]

By Robert Romano “This is what happens when prices go up, it’s elementary.” That was Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street,” explaining how if home prices rise too fast, it can have an adverse impact on home sales as they become increasingly unaffordable. And then, it eventually impacts on home […]