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 Robert Romano A recent New York Federal Reserve study has found that 11.2 percent of 39 million borrowers with student loans are 90 days-plus delinquent on making payments on the nation’s $986 billion of student loan debt. A pretty depressing statistic. That’s more than 4.4 million Americans joining a lost generation of opportunity — and counting. […]

By Robert Romano On Wednesday, June 18, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced that the central banks $85 billion of monthly bond purchases would slow down until the unemployment rate reaches 7 percent , expected sometime in 2014. At that point, he said, the program would end altogether. Investors, already concerned about rising interest rates, began a seeming panic. In the first two days since the […]

By ALG Staff As the House prepares to vote on a Farm Bill this week, there’s been an interesting development in American sugar policy. Check out this joint letter spearheaded by the American Conservative Union promoting a zero-for-zero sugar policy. Under the proposal, America will […]

By Robert Romano International Monetary Fund (IMF) Director Christine Lagarde has called on Congress to “repeal the sequester” because she says “the effect of the sequester and deficit reduction more generally are already affecting the economy.” Lagarde claimed that the budget cuts would “shave 1.25 to 1.75 percentage points of growth.” She left out the most important part, however. The reason is […]

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 Rick Manning America has been breathlessly awaiting the calamity that was predicted to befall the Washington D.C. area due to the “draconian” budget cuts known as the sequester. Now, the April data is in from the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics detailing how the D.C. area is doing as it copes […]

On May 23, the U.S. House of Representatives passed HR 1911 , legislation that purports to avert student loan interest rates doubling from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. The truth, as usual, in Washington, D.C., is always slightly more nuanced. The hike in interest rates does not […]

By Robert Romano Is a housing recovery finally at hand, or are we just witnessing a new bubble fueled by unlimited government finance? Or is it none of the above? Average prices for new homes reached a new all-time high of $330,800 in April , a 15.4 percent increase in a single month, and 34.9 percent off its Jan. 2009 low […]