Free Republic

On Friday’s edition of NBC’s “MTP Now,” NBC News White House Correspondent Mike Memoli stated that “the Biden team has seemed to concede that there’s nothing they’re going to be able to do to fix the inflation problem” and are trying to reframe things to a “stylistic” argument. Memoli said, “Every single demographic, every poll shows the number one issue, cost of living, inflation. And the Biden team has seemed to concede that there’s nothing they’re going to be able to do to fix the inflation problem. So, they’re trying to make this a whose side are you on, who...

It’s becoming tougher and tougher for Americans to carry on with their spending spree. Years of elevated inflation and the highest interest rates in almost a quarter century are wearing out the US consumer. Savings accumulated during the Covid-19 pandemic are drying up, borrowers continue to rack up debt and delinquencies are marching higher. Retailers say shoppers are fed up with rising prices and are changing their purchasing behavior.

For the better part of two decades, a small group of us fiscally prudent types have been relegated to the wilderness for having the temerity to sound the alarm. Our warnings were bordering on heresy to many on Wall Street and in DC. But lately, more and more voices are joining the chorus that we are heading headlong toward a fiscal and monetary cliff. When the day of reckoning arrives, most people will be unprepared. That is a fact that has been proven throughout history. Just as fortune favours the prepared, financial ruin will befall the unprepared. Before you roll...

It appears there’s growing concern over the management of federal debt and deficit amidst the backdrop of recent financial maneuvers. Janet Yellen’s decision to draw down $5.7 billion from the Treasury cash account raises eyebrows, seen by some as an attempt to obscure the true scale of the deficit ahead of upcoming elections. This move, while potentially reducing immediate debt figures, could inflate long-term debt obligations to record highs once the accounting is adjusted.

Lillian Zhang wasn’t even out of college before she started planning for retirement. Zhang was 20 years old when she opened her first retirement account, a Roth IRA, after learning about them from personal finance Youtube channels. She maxed it out for two years using money from her savings and summer internships, and when she got a job after college, switched her focus to maxing out her 401(k). Zhang, now 24, now has six figures stashed across three different retirement funds. (She recently opened a Simplified Employee Pension, or SEP, IRA for her side hustle as a content creator.) And...

On Wednesday’s edition of NBC’s “MTP Now,” Biden Campaign Co-Chair Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), who is also running for the U.S. Senate in Delaware, said that “A lot of people are going through a lot of struggles right now, coming out of the pandemic. And they are not even aware of the things that this administration has done to really uplift our communities.” Host Peter Alexander asked, “So, Congresswoman, let me ask you specifically, then, I think the question is, if the campaign was in such good shape with black voters, as President Biden has done in the past...

MESQUITE, Texas — In a warehouse off Lyndon B. Johnson Freeway in an industrial area outside Dallas, the future of American military ammunition production is coming online. Here, in the Pentagon’s first new major arms plant built since Russia invaded Ukraine, Turkish workers in orange hard hats are busy unpacking wood crates stenciled with the name Repkon, a defense company based in Istanbul, and assembling computer-controlled robots and lathes. The factory will soon turn out about 30,000 steel shells every month for the 155 mm howitzers that have become crucial to Ukraine’s war effort. Ukraine fired 4,000 to 7,000 such...

Austan Goolsbee, President of the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank, highlighted that consumer delinquencies are among the most worrisome economic indicators currently being monitored. His concerns now appear prescient as new data reveal a significant uptick in delinquency rates in the first quarter of 2024. "If the delinquency rate of consumer loans starts rising, that is often a leading indicator that things are about to get worse," Goolsbee stated.

Many Americans do not plan to enjoy a summer vacation in President Joe Biden’s America, a Fox News poll found in May, underscoring the economy as the number one 2024 issue for voters. The Fox News poll found: Of the 55 percent who are not taking a summer vacation, 73 percent do not have enough money to do so. Seventy-two percent said higher prices impact their summer plans. Fifteen percent do not have time and must remain focused on the daily grind. The last time a pollster asked Americans this question, in 2010, of those who were not going on...

Interest payments on the nation’s ballooning debt just eclipsed spending on defense and Medicare, worrying policy experts who have warned this threatens to undermine U.S. economic stability. In the first seven months of fiscal year 2024, which began in October, spending on net interest surged to $514 billion, surpassing spending on both national defense ($498 billion) and Medicare ($465 billion). In fact, interest costs have topped spending on veterans, education and transportation combined. Rising debt will continue to put upward pressure on interest rates," the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), a nonpartisan group that advocates for lowering the...

President Joe Biden revealed that his administration will be canceling more than $7 billion in student debt for 160,000 people. The White House issued a statement Wednesday announcing that 160,000 people in the United States would have their student loans canceled, erasing a total of $7.7 billion in student debt for those people. In June 2023, the Supreme Court issued a 6-3 decision to block Biden’s plan to cancel $430 billion in student loan debt for almost 40 million people.

The United States has long had the world’s biggest defense budget, with spending this year set to approach $900 billion. Yet this spending is rapidly being eclipsed by the fastest-growing portion of federal outflows: interest payments on the national debt. For the first seven months of fiscal year 2024, which began last October, net interest payments totaled $514 billion, outpacing defense by $20 billion. Budget analysts think that trend will continue, making 2024 the first year ever that the United States will spend more on interest payments than on national defense. ... Just two years ago, interest payments were the...

An economist offered an explanation for a paradox that has emerged in recent data showing that spending has remained robust even as consumers report feeling pessimistic. Joanne Hsu, who is the director of the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment survey, told CNBC on Friday that she thinks Americans have abandoned plans to save money as they see their financial goals look less attainable and are spending money instead. “This positive spending is not a reflection of some sort of internalized secret sense of confidence that consumers have,” he explained. “And instead my interpretation is that consumers see that a lot...

“The crisis of meaning only becomes a problem when society becomes resigned to it, accepts a condition of meaninglessness, and seeks to dispossess humanity from the insights and truths it learned through the ages.” — Frank Furedi. Really, you must agree: just about anything can happen now, and probably will, and possibly all at the same time — war, sickness, a disordered economy, chaos in money and finance, savages pouring across the open borders, assassination, mayhem in the streets, systems failure, mental illness everywhere you look. You have a sinister, blob-infested government acting like a desperate, cornered animal, fronted by...

"Spaving" – spending more to save – is an old "trap" with a new name hitting grocery stores, retailers and even online gambling. Though there are times "spaving" is worthwhile, one personal finance expert outlined how consumers can avoid becoming the "victim" of the marketing ploy. "The whole concept of ‘spaving’ is to get consumers to buy more," Kuderna Financial Team founder and "What Should I Do with My Money?" author Bryan Kuderna told Fox News Digital. "You see different examples like that all throughout the economy. And where it hurts the consumer is if it encourages them to essentially...

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 15, 2024-- The way people pay and get paid has changed more in the past five years than in the last 50. Consumers have evolved, adapting to new payment experiences – from the advent of embedded, digital commerce to the rapid adoption of “the tap.” Today at the annual Visa Payments Forum in San Francisco, Visa (NYSE: V) unveiled new products and services that will revolutionize the card and address the future needs of businesses, merchants and consumers and the financial institutions that serve them. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240515563838/en/ “The...

President Joe Biden introduced new provisions to his student debt relief plan earlier this month, and the primary beneficiaries are high-income earners, according to a new analysis released by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. While Biden’s 2023 SAVE Plan already put taxpayers on the hook for $475 billion, the new plans add another $84 billion to the tally — largely by “canceling” the student debt of some 750,000 households making more than $312,000 a year on average. The average debt relief for these households is $25,500, the study found. In June 2023, the Supreme Court struck down...

s the nation’s $34 trillion-plus debt remains top of mind for some on Capitol Hill, polling has shown Americans have also grown more concerned about the country’s balance sheet. Although Washington is deeply divided over how to tackle the nation’s deficits, there has been some momentum among House Republicans for a special commission to explore ways to improve the country’s fiscal trajectory. Those efforts have fueled concerns about cuts to key programs seniors rely on, like Social Security and Medicare. But experts warn the potential consequences of higher debt could impact all Americans.

Borrowing to pay for college is about to get more expensive: The interest rate on new federal student loans for undergraduates during the upcoming 2024-25 academic year will be the highest in 12 years. The federal student loan interest rate will be 6.53% for undergraduate students, up from 5.5% for the current year. The interest rate has not been that high on any undergraduate loans since the 2012-13 school year. Graduate students will see an 8.08% interest rate this coming academic year, up from 7.05%. And PLUS loans, which are available to both parents and graduate students, will come with...

Credit card delinquencies are on the rise, as research from the New York Federal Reserve shows nearly a fifth of borrowers are “maxed-out.” According the new report, issued by the bank’s Center for Microeconomic Data, household debt rose by 1.1 percent, or $184 billion, in the first quarter of the year, bringing the total to $17.69 trillion. “In the first quarter of 2024, credit card and auto loan transition rates into serious delinquency continued to rise across all age groups,” Joelle Scally, regional economic principal within the household and public policy research division at the bank, said in a statement....