By Bill Wilson — From 1989 through 1992, I had the good fortune of visiting Poland to see firsthand the rapid economic transformation the country was going through in the post-Soviet era. Just a few hundred yards away from the Parliament, near the corner of Wiejska and […]

By Bill Wilson — If housing tends to lead economic recoveries, then we’re in trouble. This marks the worst post-recession home buying market since the Great Depression. Nobel laureate Professor Vernon L. Smith, who delivered the keynote address at the Cato Institute’s 30th Annual Monetary Conference on Nov. 15 , noted how housing leads both recession and recoveries. “In 11 of […]

By Bill Wilson — On Dec. 12, the Federal Reserve announced yet another open-ended round of quantitative easing — a promised $540 billion of purchases of U.S. debt every single year. Call it QE4Ever. The announcement comes atop the Fed’s $2 trillion balance sheet expansion since Aug. 2007 when the financial crisis began, plus its pledge to buy […]

NRD Editor’s Note: This column was originally published at TheHill.com . By Rick Manning — The International Monetary Fund has jumped into the so-called “fiscal cliff” crisis in the United States with Managing Director Christine Lagarde weighing in on the situation this past weekend, saying, “The best way […]

By Bill Wilson — In 2013, $2.2 trillion of the $3.65 trillion budget will be on so-called “mandatory” spending — a Washingtonian euphemism for automatic spending. This is money that will be spent regardless if Congress ever votes on anything ever again — with the notable exception […]

By Robert Romano — The Congressional Budget Office warns the budget deficit was $292 billion for the first two months of fiscal year 2013 , $57 billion more than this time last year. So far, revenues are averaging $172.5 billion a month, and spending $319 billion. For every dollar we spent, we had to borrow 45 cents. That’s an average deficit of $146 billion every month. Even […]

NRD Editor’s Note: This column originally appeared at TheHill.com . By Rick Manning — Perhaps it is time for Congress to zero out the budget of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an agency of the Department of Labor whose data is so important to financial markets that figuring […]

By Bill Wilson — 122,000 fewer Americans had jobs in November than in October, yet the government reports that the unemployment rate declined to 7.7 percent.  This simple fact is why the unemployment rate has become one of the least relevant economic statistics that the federal government […]

By Kevin Mooney — With Obamacare set to go into effect this coming January, the small-and medium sized business that typically create most of the new jobs will be at a severe disadvantage. That’s because the new federal health care law includes provisions that discourage […]

By Robert Romano — Economic growth will slow down to 1.5 percent in the fourth quarter, reports JP Morgan in its most recent forecast , citing “appreciably more inventory accumulation and weaker real domestic final sales, both negatives for current-quarter growth.” Combined with the uncertain outcome of the fiscal cliff negotiations — which threaten tax […]