The United States is a decisive power, but also a dangerous one. The concentration of power and capabilities, and the degree to which they are globally interconnected, means that an American failure would likely have disastrous consequences globally. Source: The American Crisis Intensifies – Geopolitical Futures

By: Alan S. Blinder –  wsj.com – March 15, 2023 But don’t succumb to Yogi Berra Syndrome and declare this déjà vu all over again. This isn’t a replay of 2008. Yes, the problems at SVB initially were characterized as small and contained, redolent of the original attitudes toward subprime mortgages in 2006-08. But this time around, it took the authorities...

Prices rose by 0.4 percent in February and core inflation was up 0.5 percent, the third consecutive month that it has increased.

By The Editorial Board –  wsj.com – March 13, 2023 Perhaps investors don’t believe the Administration’s Sunday interventions solve the problems. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. says it couldn’t find a private buyer for SVB, though a source tells us Treasury and the Federal Reserve favored one. FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg nixed it owing to hostility to bank mergers. Instead the...

The following statement was released by Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen, Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. Powell, and FDIC Chairman Martin J. Gruenberg: Today we are taking decisive actions to protect the U.S. economy by strengthening public confidence in our banking system.

By: The Editorial Board – wsj.com – March 12, 2023 This is a de facto bailout of the banking system, even as regulators and Biden officials have been telling us that the economy is great and there was nothing to worry about. The unpleasant truth—which Washington will never admit—is that SVB’s failure is the bill coming due for years of monetary and...

The comments were Powell’s first since inflation unexpectedly jumped in January, and marked a stark acknowledgement that the “disinflationary process” he spoke of repeatedly in a Feb. 1 news conference was not unfolding smoothly.

U.S. households are racking up credit card debt as they confront relentlessly high prices for everyday necessities, the New York Federal Reserve reported Thursday.

By: Daniel J. Pilla – nationalreview.com – January 27, 2023 In what is certainly the shortest bill regarding federal revenue that I’ve ever seen come out of the House of Representatives, the House voted to rescind much of the $80 billion funding granted to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The bill, H.R. 9092, known...

By: The Editorial Board – wsj.com – Feburary 15, 2023 The nearby table shows how far the Biden revenue and outlay numbers exceed the U.S. historical norm. Revenues last year hit 19.6% of GDP, far above the 17.4% average over the last 50 years, and a share of the economy reached only in 1944, 1945 and 2000. The overall federal...