By Robert Romano Throughout much of October, during the partial federal government shutdown, some 700,000 federal workers were furloughed.  Yet, according to data compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, even though they were not working, they were not unemployed, either. Sure enough, the government’s data shows […]

By Robert Romano The economy grew at a 2.8 percent annualized rate in the third quarter, reports the Bureau of Economic Analysis , up from 2.5 percent in the second quarter and 1.1 percent in first quarter. Meanwhile, personal consumption has steadily slowed down the past three quarters from 2.8 percent, to 1.8 […]

By Rick Manning Ending sugar subsidies makes sense if done the right way. The right way is to create a pathway for ending the subsidies that allows the U.S. sugar farmers and industry to compete in a free and open marketplace, winning or losing market share based […]

By Bill Wilson Reuters on Oct. 30 blared the headline “U.S. Treasury lashes out at Germany, says export dependence hurts global economy,” highlighting a new semiannual report to Congress from the Treasury’s Office of International Affairs urging trade surplus nations like Germany and China to increase domestic demand. Why? The reasons vary. In the case of Germany, […]

By Robert Romano On Oct. 29, the Dow Jones Industrial average reached an all-time high. So, what has investors cheering? A manufacturing boom? More jobs? Lower taxes? None of the above. It was “expectations that the Federal Reserve will keep its economic stimulus program in place,” reports the Associated Press . […]

By Rick Manning Ten years ago, the national debt was an astounding 6.8 trillion dollars, fifteen years ago, it was 5.5 trillion and twenty years ago, it was 4.4 trillion.  After all the accounting tricks ended, the 2013 fiscal year ended with just over a 17 trillion […]

By Robert Romano Since 2009, the working age population has increased by 11.4 million people, and yet, in all that time, only 2.15 million of them have found jobs. The rest of them, more than 8 out of 10, are not officially unemployed, according to data compiled […]

By Tom Toth President Obama claimed that lifting the debt ceiling did not cause increased indebtedness, and while this is technically true, not even the prince of prevarication himself could claim that the day after the debt ceiling was lifted, the national debt jumped by […]

By Robert Romano Is the White House bluffing about an imminent default on the $16.7 trillion national debt? Is the debt ceiling crisis just a made-up D.C. myth meant to frighten young children? Heretofore, the story coming out of the U.S. Treasury has been that if the […]

By Tom Toth Generally, the idea of going to college is not to just get a job but to begin a career. School loans are assumed to be worth the investment because of all the businesses waiting to accept entry-level graduates into their companies with […]