By Bill Wilson — The ultimate leverage in the game of chicken now being played in the upcoming fiscal cliff is who will get blamed politically if everyone’s taxes go up at year’s end. Because, unless House Republicans can come to some sort of an arrangement with […]

By Bill Wilson — Let the happy talk begin. It did not take long after Barack Obama’s reelection for financial pundits to begin forecasting a miraculous economic recovery in his second term. Take Financial Times U.S. economics editor Robin Harding, who proclaims that “The headwinds that buffeted Mr. Obama’s first term — financial crisis, falling house prices, and […]

A Las Vegas company has laid off 22 employees in the aftermath of Obama’s victory Tuesday night. The reason for the layoffs? The tax burden and regulations from Obamacare: “I’ve done my share of educating my employees. I never tell them which way to vote. I believe in the free system we have, I […]

By Robert Romano — Now that the Nov. 6 reelection of Barack Obama is in the books, all eyes now turn toward the fiscal cliff that looms at year’s end. Barack Obama need only do nothing, and everyone’s taxes will go up on Jan. 1. Specifically, personal […]

By Bill Wilson — There can be little wonder as to why bankrupt states like Illinois would love to see the Federal Reserve fire up its printing presses and start buying state and municipal bond debt. At $85 billion — and counting — Illinois has one of […]

By Bill Wilson — On Oct. 26, the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ advance estimate of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the 3rd quarter (Q3) of 2012 showed 2 percent growth — not really a good number. Just to get to the 3 percent annual growth rate […]

By Bill Wilson — Writing for the New York Times on Oct. 23 , Stanford law professors Joseph Grundfest, Mark Lemley and George Triantis call for another round of quantitative easing (QE) — i.e. money-printing — by the Federal Reserve. This time however, instead of buying mortgage-backed securities or U.S. treasuries, the Stanford trio wants Fed […]

By Bill Wilson — Our annual trillion dollar deficits are “a significant national security concern because we’ve got to make sure that our economy is strong at home so that we can project military power overseas.” That was not Mitt Romney at Oct. 22’s foreign policy debate. […]

By Robert Romano — Since Barack Obama took office, the civilian non-institutional population has increased by 8.7 million, and yet only 437,000 people have been added to the civilian labor force — i.e. those working or seeking work. That’s an awful absorption rate of new population into […]

By Robert Romano — Don’t look now, but at $16.190 trillion, the national debt is just $204 billion away from reaching its statutory ceiling of $16.394 trillion — just one short year after the federal government increased the ceiling from $14.294 trillion last summer. It was the […]