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According to the head of economic affairs at Brazil’s foreign ministry, Carlos Marcio Cozendey, the plan is “to distribute the retaliation broadly in order to maximise pressure.”
The “retaliation” he refers to includes trade sections on 100 US goods, ranging from cars to milk powder. The tariffs are in response to cotton producer subsidies the US has kept in place despite a 2008 WTO ruling that found the practice discriminatory.
(more...)The pills that I thought were tranquilizers turned out to be vitamins, and although I am on the verge of some kind of mental breakdown because of the mix-up, I feel great!
Turning to the old tried and true, I soon learned that I had started too late, and I was not nearly drunk enough to have properly anesthetized my nerves when I chanced to read Agora Financial’s 5- Minute Forecast report that “The CBO’s latest numbers reveal that President Obama’s proposed fiscal 2011 budget would add $9.7 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years.”
(more...)Dr. Ron Paul (R-TX) isn’t one to let his opinion go unheard… especially as Congress continues approving massive amounts of debt-financed spending.
From his recent Texas Straight Talk:
“Last week, the House approved another increase in the national debt ceiling. This means the government can borrow $1.9 trillion more to stay afloat and avoid default. It has been little more than a year since the last debt limit increase, and graphs showing the debt limit over time show a steep, almost vertical trend.
(more...)As we’ve pointed out before, there are two parts to a political system. One part is shrewd, calculating and corrupt. The other is stupid, senseless, and earnest. The first is surprisingly predictable. The second is predictably surprising.
Like the two sides of the brain, people use politics both ways. On the right side, they use it to do something that is completely preposterous…and often completely at odds with their own interests.
(more...)Senator Dodd has suggested that the Consumer Financial Protection Agency be housed with the Federal Reserve Board… yet, despite having all the power needed to stop the mortgage debacle, it was never able stop that train wreck. Why trust it to do more in the future?
The muttering over regulation sounds like putting the cart before the horse.
(more...)If you don’t read the newspapers you run the risk of missing something. Of course, if you do read them, you run the risk of catching something.
Not much in the financial news worthy of comment this morning…
The Dow gained $13. Gold lost $13. Nothing much to say about it…
(more...)The latest deficit projection from the Congressional Budget Office was conveniently revealed just prior to the close of business on Friday.
“Why so?” You ask suspiciously.
“Because,” we respond in a hushed tone.
The CBO’s latest numbers reveal that President Obama’s proposed fiscal 2011 budget would add $9.7 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years. The White House projection is only slightly less staggering – $8.5 trillion.
(more...)This is a hot button issue… many federal workers are going to read statistics about how a number of occupations in the public sector get paid more than their private sector counterparts and they are simply not going to believe it. Clearly, it’s frustrating for both sides. An article today digs a little further into specifics and helps explain the details behind the discrepancy as well as some explanatory factors that make sense to consider.
(more...)“The US is insolvent,” says a report from a hedge fund. As of the third quarter of last year, the federal government had assets of $2.67 trillion and total liabilities of $14.12 trillion.
That leaves a net negative position of more than $11 trillion. By the way, this is projected to get a lot worse, fast. The feds are expected to increase their debts by about $3 trillion more over the next 2 years. Federal spending is out of control…the feds have lost control of their own budget, let alone the economy.
(more...)Happy inauguration day! Today we begin with this little known factoid: For the first 143 years of the American Republic, presidents were inaugurated on March 4, the only day of the year that is also a command.
The date was moved up to Jan. 20 in 1932 when the activist president Franklin Delano Roosevelt couldn’t wait to wring his hands around the neck of the US economy. Roosevelt set in motion 78 years of what the economist Friedrich von Hayek called the “fatal conceit” – the arrogant belief that anyone could know enough at any one time to plan an economy.
(more...)If you don’t want to pay capital gains taxes, work for the President…or have lots and lots of kids.
In the biggest stock sale of his life, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson didn’t pay one dollar of capital gains tax. Nearly $500 million worth of Goldman Sachs shares – a profit of hundreds of millions of dollars – and not a red cent went to the IRS. Paulson’s Treasury predecessors Robert Rubin and Paul O’Neil enjoyed a similar tax dodge themselves…as did many other familiar Washingtonians over the last 20 years, like Donald Rumsfeld and Donald Evans.
(more...)With the 2011 federal budget the Obama administration is adding a two percent wage increase for civilian federal workers. It doesn’t sound like much but, at a time when the total compensation for the average federal worker is double the average of a private sector worker, any increase is too much.
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