Protect Your Future Today
In a worrying sign for the fiscal health of American households, debt levels continue to increase. Levels of credit card debt have increased 8% from last year, rising to a total of $905 billion. That works out to an average of over $15,000 in credit card debt per household. While...
The government shutdown drama has come to an end… for the next two weeks. Kicking the can down the road yet again, Congress has authorized a two-week spending bill, meaning that come December 22nd this whole mess will be back in the headlines yet again. The thinking behind a...
In a recent interview with Fox Business, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned about trying to stimulate economic growth. While growth in economic productivity continues to remain limited, the Trump Administration has adopted a 3% annual GDP growth target as one of its aims. Greenspan believes that the...
The personal savings rate in September reached its lowest level since 2007. And while it hasn’t reached its all-time low, the trend is definitely downwards. Personal savings are now at 3.1 percent of income, still slightly higher than the 2.5 percent low reached in December of 2007. Looking back at...
Online retail giant Amazon announced a nationwide search for its second headquarters, looking to complement its existing headquarters in Seattle. The company is looking to locate its second headquarters in a metropolitan area with more than 1 million people, with close proximity to an international flight hub, good public...
Stock markets continued to reach record levels on Friday as investor sentiment was buoyed by reports that tax reform proposals had passed their first hurdle in the Senate. Investors also were cheered by reports that President Trump is leaning towards picking Federal Reserve Board Governor Jerome Powell as the...
Thirty years ago today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered its largest single-day drop in history, losing 508 points, nearly 23% of its value. With the Dow currently hitting new records and standing at over 23,000 points, are we poised for a repeat of Black Monday? It seems as though...
The safety of global systemically important banks (GSIBs) has improved significantly since the Great Recession, according to the latest Global Financial Stability Report from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), issued earlier this week. However, roughly a third of them, representing about $17 trillion in asset size, could “struggle to...
Most Americans with an opinion on the subject think the free market should set interest rates, not the US Federal Reserve, according to a recent survey from the Cato Institute. “Unsurprisingly, a plurality (44 percent) of Americans have not thought much about whether Federal Reserve officials or the free-market...
Stephen Williamson, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, joined critics of the US central bank last week by conceding there is no proof that massive intervention in the credit markets such as the Fed’s quantitative easing program has worked. “There appears to be no evidence that...