Via The Washington Examiner –
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United States Government spends so much money these days that the debt is reaching its ceiling again. Do not expect Republicans put much of a fight up in stopping any raises as they usually join Democrats in governments spending addiction.
Via CNBC –
Unless Congress takes action, the U.S. will hit its debt limit on Mar. 16, but would begin taking “extraordinary measures” to finance the government on a temporary basis, according to the U.S. Treasury.
In a Friday morning letter to House Speaker John Boehner and other House and Senate leaders, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said that his office will be forced to suspend the issuance of State and Local Government Series securities on Mar. 13 unless the debt limit is raised.“Accordingly, I respectfully ask Congress to raise the debt limit as soon as possible,” Lew wrote in his letter.
The Congressional Budget Office said this week that if Congress does not raise the federal debt limit, the Treasury Department will exhaust all of its borrowing capacity and run out of cash in October or November, slightly later than a previous forecast.
Economics 21 had an interesting graph in their article titled “How to Fix the $960 Billion Budget Deficit”.
Here is how federal government spending will be broken up the next ten years.
Almost two-thirds of additional spending will be driven by entitlements, primarily Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. America’s aging population is the primary contributor to the growth of Social Security and Medicare, while the Affordable Care Act substantially expanded the scope of Medicaid.
Adding interest payments to the budget brings the total increase in the debt from mandatory spending to 85 percent. Spending is projected to grow by $2.3 trillion annually by 2024.
CNBC reports as the financial elite meet at Davos for the World Economic Forum they are shelling out some hefty money to eat food. Appearently hot dogs are a big seller:
Full of global leaders, policymakers, business gurus and the odd music star, the attendees at the World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos aren’t short of a dollar or two. But they might well be at the end of the week — with some of the food prices around town proving to be a little hard to stomach.
At the posh Steigenberger Grandhotel Belvédère, a conference hotspot, even humble menu items can be astronomically pricey. A hot dog with pickles, fried onions and mustard is priced at 38 Swiss francs (about $43.50). It’s 48 Swiss francs for a chicken Caesar salad with parmesan (about $55) and a draft beer at a local restaurant – in a pint-sized glass – can cost 6.50 Swiss francs, about $7.50.
I really don’t know how this yearly meeting of financial gurus does for the world economy. Probably a lot of it is nostalgia. But you do get a lot of lecturing of how to live your life from these people. This does remind me of a story related to Walmart. One year during their annual board meeting of directors the financial numbers weren’t too hot. The meeting was getting close to lunch and board members were getting ready for a big spread. The door opened and it was a Walmart associate with bread, lunch meat and some chips. The members looked stunned and the director said [paraphrasing] “If we are losing money, that means we have to cut expenses”.
I think I’ll buy my hot dogs at Walmart.
As crude oil prices have collapsed over the last few months oil producers have taken notice here in the US. Once oil prices reach a certain point, oil rig operators start shutting down rigs because it cost more to run them then what it’s worth in pumping oil.
Oil tycoon Boone Pickens is a guy you want to follow on predictions in the oil market and he just came out with one reason why oil prices will likely go back up in 2015. Robert Wenzel from Economic Policy Journal pointed to this interview for reference:
Boone Pickens was on CNBC this morning and he noted that some 75 rigs have been laid down, out of a total of around 1,500 rigs operating in the US. He expects that another 500 rigs will be taken out of operation over the next few months.
This is a big swing in oil production and something that needs to be monitored along with the strength of the dollar.
As the Federal Reserve started printing money here is a listing showing how prices took off.
CNSNews.com is reporting the federal governments 2015 first two fiscal months of tax revenue collected and how much it spent.
The U.S. Treasury continued to rake in tax dollars at a record rate in November as the federal government closed out the first two months of fiscal 2015 with $404,155,000,000 in total receipts, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released today.
Even with these record revenues, the Treasury ran a deficit of $178.531 billion deficit in October and November as it spent $582.686 billion.
What were the sources of revenue?
The biggest source for the record federal revenue during the two-month period was the individual income tax. It brought in $192,619,000,000 in October and November. The second biggest source was “Social Insurance and Retirement Receipts,” the taxes Americans pay for Social Security and Medicare. These brought in $146,263,000,000.
The United States Federal Reserve is not trusted and it doesn’t appear to be getting any better. In plain speak, the Dutch just told them they didn’t either. Also take this news as a great investment tip to start buying gold and silver as a precautionary investment.
The Dutch central bank, De Nederlandsche Bank, has repatriated in utmost secrecy 122.5 tonnes of gold from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to its vaults in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, according to a press release from DNB published today.
“It is no longer wise to keep half of our gold in one part of the world,” a DNB spokesman said. WOW.
Hoosier Econ 