The Obama administration will begin to tap federal retiree programs to help fund operations after the government lost its ability Monday to borrow more money from the public, adding urgency to efforts in Washington to fashion a compromise over the debt. (Bloomberg) — Lee Sachs, chief executive officer for AlliancePartners and former assistant U.S. Treasury […]
The U.S. government is expected to hit the $14.294 trillion debt ceiling Monday, setting in motion an uncertain, 11-week political scramble to avoid a default. The Treasury Department plans to announce Monday it will stop issuing and reinvesting government securities in certain government pension plans, part of a series of steps designed to delay a […]
(OC Register)– High pay and benefits for lifeguards in Newport Beach is the latest example of frustrating levels of compensation for public employees. More than half the city’s full-time lifeguards are paid a salary of over $100,000 and all but one of them collect more than $100,000 in total compensation including benefits. We are talking […]
Posted by Colin Barr– Think the debate about U.S. creditworthiness can’t get any sillier? Guess again. A week after Standard & Poor’s finally told us what we already knew, that the U.S. fiscal fiasco is in danger of spinning out of control, along comes Weiss Ratings of Jupiter, Fla., to reaffirm we can’t max out […]
The U.S. Export-Import Bank, an independent agency of the federal government, is now planning a $2.84-billion loan of borrowed money, for a massive project to expand and upgrade an oil refinery in Cartagena, Colombia. The money would go to Reficar, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ecopetrol, the Colombian national oil company. This isn’t even the […]
The National Inflation Association (NIA) announced in its November 5th, 2010, food price projection report that food inflation would take over as America’s biggest crisis in calendar year 2011, surpassing the mortgage crisis and high unemployment, which were the top economic concerns of Americans in 2010. NIA’s food price projection report received worldwide media attention […]
Violence on the streets as backlash grows over Greece’s austerity package and €110bn bailout A growing chorus of voices is urging the Greek government to restructure its debt as fears grow that a €110bn bailout has failed to rescue the country from the financial abyss and is forcing ordinary people into an era of futile […]
Both political parties have failed to come up with any credible plan to solve this crisis, writes Jeremy Warner. If you want to scare yourself with statistics, go to www.usdebtclock.org. This brilliantly conceived internet graphic engenders much the same feeling you get when watching the extortion of the meter in a London taxi; at some […]
The US is going down a similar road as that taken by Greece and Portugal with regard to its budget decisions, John E. Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo, said on Wednesday. “To me—being in Europe for a few days—the plot in Greece and Portugal sounds an awful lot like the same plot that’s going […]
Trump brings media blitz to NBC, ‘steamrolls’ Meredith Vieira on birther issue. Trump–the billionaire real estate tycoon and reality TV figure who is flirting with a 2012 presidential run–again sought to suggest that Obama was not born in the United States. [youtube RfoCrZJ8dQY nolink]
