Among the 140 participants at the Bilderberg Conference that begins Thursday in the spectacular Grove Hotel, some 20 miles northwest of London: American Enterprise Institute fellow Richard Perle, former CIA Director David H. Petraeus, former World Bank President James Wolfensohn, former Treasury secretaries Timothy F. Geithner and Robert Rubin, Washington Post CEO Donald Graham, Stratfor geopolitical analyst Robert Kaplan, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and The Economist Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait.
President Obama on Monday nominated Wal-Mart's Sylvia Mathews Burwell to head the Office of Management and Budget, a job which places her at the epicenter of the budget wars between the White House and Congress.
If future historians look back on the ruins of the American economy after a U.S. bond crisis struck in the second decade of the 21st century, many causes will be noted. Obviously, it will be seen that for decades before the catastrophe, the United States was spending vastly more than it could afford on government health and retirement programs.
For all of the recent publicity about the Dodd-Frank legislation, one of its regulatory initiatives is seriously underreported; namely, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's (CFTC) hugely expensive plan to regulate not merely the kind of derivatives that brought down AIG but also the common, garden variety hedges used by energy users, farmers, home builders and others that pose no "systemic risk" to anyone.
If future historians look back on the ruins of the American economy after a U.S. bond crisis struck in the second decade of the 21st century, many causes will be noted. Obviously, it will be seen that for decades before the catastrophe, the United States was spending vastly more than it could afford on government health and retirement programs.
The unemployment numbers came out last week, but they were not the nationwide 8.9 percent average that was announced with much hoopla earlier this month and captured all of the headlines.
The precipitous stock market plunge of June 22, with the Dow Jones dropping 185 points, is all about Washington's continued war on prosperity.
Democrats in Congress and on the presidential trail are intensifying their high-tax war against prosperity and the so-called rich. Their latest salvo includes more tax penalties on successful investors and entrepreneurs, such as a proposed 4.3 percent surtax on high-income earners and a tax assault on the private-equity buyout industry.
Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin warned in January that, most dangerously, there is a risk of disruption to our bond and currency markets as a result of much higher interest rates caused by fiscal imbalances, fear of inflation and efforts to monetize our debt (print money).
Former Clinton Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin warned in January that, most dangerously, there is a risk of disruption to our bond and currency markets as a result of much higher interest rates caused by fiscal imbalances, fear of inflation and efforts to monetize our debt (print money).
