By Robert Romano Pimco CEO Bill Gross has left the company he founded, the largest bond fund in the world with over $2 trillion in assets under management, and that has everyone wondering what’s next for interest rates. Bloomberg View columnist Megan McArdle has an interesting pieced entitled , “Gross gets out of bonds just in time,” […]

By Robert Romano The Federal Reserve’s tapering of quantitative easing continues, dropping from $25 billion a month of securities to $15 billion, according to the central bank’s latest statement . Since August 2007 when the financial crisis began, the Fed has dramatically expanded its balance sheet by $3.5 trillion, from $907.5 billion to $4.493 trillion . Today’s total […]

By Robert Romano “I don’t see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing.” That was then-Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) in […]

By Robert Romano Household debt has outpaced household median income for almost 40 years, and we’re paying the price, the latest figures from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Census show. While median income for households grew by $929 to $51,939 in 2013, the amount of debt per household remained elevated at $106,921. […]

By Robert Romano By now, the causes of the mortgage crisis that nearly wrecked the global economy in 2007 and 2008 are common knowledge. Too many high risk loans were made, too much credit boosted housing prices to the moon, too much leverage was taken on by […]

The full version of this story originally appeared  on TheHill.com, linked below. By Rick Manning It is not all that surprising that a retiring Senate Committee chairman would be grasping in the last days in power for one last legacy achievement, but it is shocking when the […]

By Robert Romano On June 22, Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace asked newly minted House Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) if he “would allow the Ex-Im Bank to expire in September?” “Yes, because it’s something the private sector can be able to do,” McCarthy said at the time. Ahead of the June 18 House leadership elections necessitated by the defeat of former Majority […]

By Robert Romano “If the government has no place insuring export loans, then surely it also has no place providing subsidized crop insurance to farmers…” That was Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein, commenting on the imminent demise of the Export Import Bank of the United States, a […]

By Robert Romano On September 4, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and Fast Food Forward promised to shut down fast food joints across America in their Fight for $15 campaign. The groups propose increasing the minimum wage nationwide to $15 an hour from its current $7.25 level. The groups tout the increase as the means to lift millions of Americans out of poverty. But will […]

By Robert Romano The unemployment rate on September 5 was reported at 6.1 percent, having dropped from a recession peak of 10.6 percent in January 2010, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics . And while the Obama administration would like to put a positive spin on the current economic situation, including the jobs […]