United States

As we face another brutal fight over the federal debt ceiling at a time when the economy still remains fragile, the stock market is oddly complacent. Even if the debt ceiling crisis is resolved, the result would be some combination of…

Last year, I started my weekly newsletter out with Ten Surprises for 2012. The goal was to give you a list of things that investors only assigned one in three odds of occuring that I believed had a fifty percent or better chance of…

The Platinum coin has been all over the blogosphere as well as the media. Some have been arguing it will cause hyperinflation. How can issuing a coin to be held at the Fed to allow the Treasury to spend up to budgeted amount lead to…

The explosive market rally following the fiscal cliff agreement was based more on what didn't happen than what did. What didn't happen was the implementation of automatic tax increases and spending cuts that would have shaved about 5% off…

Last night I was on BBC World News and BBC Radio talking about the fiscal cliff. I stressed the fact that the deal being worked out in Washington will still see a hefty rise in taxes for the middle class via the payroll tax and for wealthy…

As the New Year begins, there are four events that are creating significant headwinds for the US economy. There has been a lot of talk about the fiscal cliff in the press but behind this is the debate over the US debt ceiling, which will be…

This article from the New York Times gets it totally wrong: The Tea Party might not be over, but it is increasingly clear that the election last month significantly weakened the once-surging movement, which nearly captured control of the…

According to Stan Collender, the chance that the US goes over the fiscal cliff is now at least 75%. This rhymes with what I have been saying all along. I would put the number at 90%. The US will NOT get all of the line items to prevent the…

Here's a very good video on MMT with Stephanie Kelton, the chair of the Economics department at the University of Missouri at Kansas City talking to Lauren Lyster of RT's Capital Account. As you know, despite my Austrian bias and my…

Yesterday the ISM Manufacturing Report on Business came out and it showed a large decline in the US manufacturing sector. The headline PMI number of 49.5% means that the US manufacturing sector is below the 50% threshold that separates…