By Bill Wilson — Will state and local governments add 220,000 jobs in 2013? That’s what chief economist at Moody’s Analytics Mark Zandi is suggesting in a recent report by Bloomberg News . “Their payrolls in the fourth quarter will be 220,000 larger than in the same period for 2012, he projects,” states […]

By Bill Wilson — Soon, the Obama Administration will be able to borrow money to refinance and expand the $16.4 trillion national debt without any permission from Congress. That is, if House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi gets her way. On CBS’ Face the Nation on Jan. 6 , Pelosi said that if the debt ceiling […]

By Rick Manning — All the talk about fiscal cliffs and budget deficits has obscured one of the most important measures of our nation’s financial health — Christmas retail sales. After the hopeful press releases surrounding Black Friday, retailers are faced with having to sharply discount their […]

By Howard Rich — No matter what happens between now and January 1 upper-income earners in America — including tens of thousands of small business owners — will be saddled with sizable tax increases in the coming year.  No amount of negotiating in advance of […]

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 […]