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—Weeks shy of his 95th birthday, former President Jimmy Carter said he doesn’t believe he could have managed the most powerful office in the world at 80 years old. Carter, who earlier this year became the longest-lived chief executive in American history, didn’t tie his comments to any of his fellow Democrats running for president in 2020, but two leading…
Read moreState insurance regulators moved briskly through four topics as they try to thread the needle between suitability and fiduciary in crafting an annuity sales model law.
Nearly 700 health insurance and benefits advisors from across the nation will travel to Washington to meet with members of Congress. In addition, NAHU members will hear from industry experts, members of Congress and members of the Trump administration as they look at the future for health care reform.
Congress has a lot of its plate, but financial services would like to see a retirement income security bill get passed before the end of the year.
The Federal Reserve looks poised to cut interest rates for a second time Wednesday to help extend the economic expansion in the face of global weakness, President Donald Trump’s trade war with China and geopolitical risks such as the attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday shrugged off a series of recent retirement announcements from Republicans in the chamber, saying it’s healthy to have a decent bit of turnover and fresh faces in the ranks. He also pointed to Republican Dan Bishop, who won the recent do-over election in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District by about 4,000…
—In less than three years, President Donald Trump has named more former lobbyists to Cabinet- level posts than his most recent predecessors did in eight, putting a substantial amount of oversight in the hands of people with ties to the industries they’re regulating. The Cabinet choices are another sign that Trump’s populist pledge to “drain the swamp” is a catchy…
No less a figure than former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has suggested that it’s just a matter of time before negative rates come to the United States. Last week, the ECB deepened its negative rates as part of a package to fend off a recession. Negative rates represent another technique by which central banks, such as the Federal Reserve, try to spark the economy.
Sep. 16– WASHINGTON– While the White House and President Donald Trump remained noncommittal on the prospect of an impending UAW strike of General Motors to begin at midnight, Democratic politicians voiced support for workers. Meanwhile, in a statement issued by his campaign, U.S. Sen. GM, Sanders went on, “is not a poor company.
The Federal Reserve is scheduled to deliver an update on its interest rate policy Wednesday. The Fed is widely expected to announce another quarter-point rate cut as officials move to sustain the nation’s economic expansion. The Fed’s benchmark rate is now at 2% to 2.25%.
President Trump fired a new salvo at the Federal Reserve bankers for not juicing the economy by slashing interest rates to nothing– or even below. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin insisted Tuesday that the president does not want to oust Fed chairman Jerome Powell, whom he appointed.
A leading pro-democracy activist from Hong Kong is heading to the United States, and China’s government is furious at the American show of support. “It is extremely wrong for German media and politicians to attempt to tap into the anti- China separatist wave,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters in a Beijing news briefing Tuesday.
The Labor Department said Wednesday that the gain in its producer price index, which measures inflation pressures before they reach the consumer, followed a modest 0.2% rise in July. Given the low inflation, the Federal Reserve is expected to cut its key interest rate for a second time this year at next week’s meeting. Trump tweeted, “It is only the naïveté of Jay…
For the first time since July 29, both houses of Congress returned to Capitol Hill Monday, formally ending a recess period that saw numerous calls for legislative change– particularly with regard to gun violence. While Congress was away for five weeks, multiple attacks in Texas, Ohio and California killed dozens of Americans. In the Senate, Republican leader…
Four states are preparing to cancel their 2020 Republican presidential primaries and caucuses to thwart the long-shot hopes of President Donald Trump’ s GOP challengers. Republican parties in South Carolina, Nevada, Arizona and Kansas are expected to finalize cancellations of primaries and caucuses at meetings in those states this weekend, Politico…
“History says be prepared for a down month because it’s the only month since World War II to post a decline more frequently than an advance,” says Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA. Still, the factors that rattled markets in August are expected to continue weighing on stocks this month: uncertainty over the escalating trade conflict between the U.S….
Instead of debating how many trillions the Green New Deal will cost, House Republicans have a suggestion for Democrats: Pass a slew of GOP- backed bills aimed at reducing greenhouse-gas emissions without razing the U.S. economy and energy sector. All of which rankles Republicans who say they grow weary of being called “deniers” even as their ground-ready…
The California senator laid out her plan to tackle the climate crisis at CNN’s presidential town hall on the issue Wednesday, along with nine of her White House rivals. The contenders pointed to the real-world impacts Americans are already seeing from climate change– from storm surges and flooding in the South and Midwest to increasingly deadly wildfires in…
—The day started with one Republican congressman from Texas announcing he would retire and ended with another, a long-serving former committee chairman from Wisconsin, saying he too was ready to bow out, signaling the House GOP mood as the party tries to find its path back to the majority in 2020.. Bill Flores, R- Texas, and Jim Sensenbrenner, R- Wis., 15 House…
The Federal Reserve says the U.S. economy is still growing steadily and most businesses are optimistic, even in the face of President Trump’s trade wars. In The Fed’s latest report on economic conditions nationwide, hiring increased modestly in most industries, though manufacturing employment declined in some areas.
—The U.S. trade deficit declined in July, including the gap with China that has been the focus of President Donald Trump’s tariffs. Trade has become a sensitive topic for the global economy as the United States has escalated a tariff war with China. The taxes are hitting U.S. consumers and businesses as 87% of textiles and clothing the United States buys from China…
U.S. factory activity shrank in August for the first time since August 2016, a sign that the trade war with China is weighing down a crucial sector of the economy. The Institute for Supply Management, an association of purchasing managers, said Tuesday that its manufacturing index slid to 49.1 last month, from 51.2 in July.
Is the John Deere corporation “tired of winning,” as Trump promised that all Americans soon would be? The Wall Street Journal reports that U.S. farmers are purchasing fewer farm machines- Deere’s profits from this business are down 24 percent from a year ago- partly because farmers’ incomes have suffered as a result of the tit-for-tat trade spat that Trump started…
—Global stocks rose Friday on hopes that next month’s U.S.- Chinese talks might produce progress toward ending a costly tariff war over trade and technology. Investors were encouraged by a Chinese government statement Thursday that its penalties on U.S. products are adequate. Some analysts say Beijing might be waiting for President Donald Trump’s…
The U.S. economy slowed in the spring, and most analysts expect it to weaken further in the months ahead. The nation’s gross domestic product— the broadest gauge of economic health— grew at a moderate 2% annual rate in the April-June quarter, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.
Mr. Trump’s hurdle is even higher in North Carolina, where his 40% of the Hispanic vote in 2016, according to exit polls, has fallen to 18% support for reelection in 2020, according to Equis Research, which is conducting an ongoing study of Hispanic voters. The chief takeaway so far is that Mr. Trump faces major headwinds. In Florida, his 35% share of Hispanic votes in…
Aug. 28– A Quinnipiac University Poll released Wednesday found five top Democrats running for president defeating President Donald Trump in a hypothetical matchup. Kamala Harris has a 51 percent to 40 percent lead and South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg is ahead 49 percent to 40 percent. Quinnipiac said Trumps low numbers may be partly explained by a lack of…
Investors continued to shift money into U.S. government bonds, driving long-term bond yields further below short-term ones. The so-called inversion of the U.S. yield curve is a rare phenomenon that has correctly predicted previous recessions. Uncertainty over whether the trade war between the U.S. and China will drag the economy into a recession has roiled…
Banks and energy companies helped power U.S. stocks broadly higher in afternoon trading Wednesday as the market clawed back some of its losses from a day earlier. Both sectors have taken the heaviest losses this month as fear that the U.S. trade war with China is hampering global economic growth roiled markets. The 10- year Treasury note is a benchmark interest…
—Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis warns bitter political divisions have pushed American society to the “breaking point” in his most extensive public remarks since he resigned in protest from the Trump administration. Mattis resigned shortly after Trump announced he was pulling all U.S. troops from Syria. In Mattis’ view this amounted to betraying the…
With stocks exhibiting extreme volatility and growth slowing in all the major economies, many individual investors are rebalancing portfolios toward bonds — savvy investors will resist this temptation and stick with stocks.
As President Donald Trump prepared to head off to the G-7 summit of the world’ s top economic powers, the man who hopes to replace him in the White House was just getting rolling in front of a crowd in Hanover. “As long as this man is president– and this is no hyperbole– we are in trouble,” former vice president Joe Biden said Friday. Biden– the front-runner right now in the…
WASHINGTON- It’s getting harder and harder to write these budget columns, because it must be obvious to almost everyone by now that hardly anyone in Washington cares about the budget deficits. Just for the record, it’s worth reciting the basic facts in the latest report from the Congressional Budget Office. Between 2020 and 2029, the projected deficits total…
Aug. 25– Joe Walsh, who turned a lone term in Congress representing Chicago’s northwest suburbs into a national media platform to further his incendiary political rhetoric, announced Sunday he would challenge President Donald Trump for the 2020 Republican nomination for the White House. “We have someone in the White House who we all know is unfit.
A NBC/Wall Street Journal survey found that 70% of respondents were mad “because our political system seems to only be working for the insiders with money and power, like those on Wall Street or in Washington.” But Republicans are less enraged, likely thanks to the election of President Trump, whose campaign focused on GOP grievances. This year, 29% of Republicans…
Global stock markets are up ahead of a closely watched speech by the U.S. Federal Reserve chairman. Market benchmarks in London, Frankfurt, Shanghai and Tokyo are all higher on Friday. Against the backdrop of a vulnerable economy, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell takes center stage Friday with the financial world seeking clarity on whether last month’s…
Against the backdrop of a vulnerable economy, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell takes center stage Friday with the financial world seeking clarity on whether last month’s first Fed rate cut in a decade likely marked the start of a period of easier credit. The confusion has only heightened in the days leading to the annual gathering of global central bankers.
But even before last week’s swings, voters were expressing doubts about the state of the national economy, according to polling conducted by the online research firm SurveyMonkey for The New York Times earlier this month. That group cuts across party lines and encompasses a large group of voters who could collectively sink Trump’s re-election chances,…
—Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has released a $16.3 trillion climate plan that builds on the Green New Deal and calls for the United States to move to renewable energy across the economy by 2050 and declare climate change a national emergency. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York on climate legislation, Sanders’ climate plan provides the…
President Trump’s fondness for tariffs will take a small but very real bite out of the U.S. economy, the government’s chief scorekeeper said Wednesday. The Congressional Budget Office also said the budget deal Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reached last month, boosting spending for both domestic and military programs, will prove very costly.
The U.S. federal deficit will expand by about $800 billion more than previously expected over the next decade, as recent increases in spending push the nation into levels of debt unseen since the end of World War II, the Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday. The new deficit estimates could deepen worries of economic trouble ahead.
Economists and market indicators for weeks have signaled a possible recession at some point in the next 15 months– and more than two-thirds of Americans will blame President Donald Trump if one arrives, a new survey said Wednesday. In recent weeks, there have been indicators analysts say sometimes foreshadow a recession– including a nosedive for 10- and 30-…
President Donald Trump acknowledged his aggressive China trade policies may mean economic pain for Americans but insisted they’re needed for more important long-term benefits. Asked if his trade war with China could tip the country into recession, he brushed off the idea as “irrelevant” and said it was imperative to “take China on.”
The “fundamentals” of the U.S. economy are solid, the White House asserted, invoking an ill-fated political declaration of a decade ago amid mounting concern that a recession could imperil President Donald Trump’s reelection. With record-low unemployment and continued growth, a case can be made for the White House position.
President Donald Trump is calling on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates by at least a full percentage point “over a fairly short period of time,” saying that such an action would make the U.S. economy even better and would also “greatly and quickly” enhance the global economy.
On Tuesday, even Trump himself indicated he recognized the damage, postponing planned tariffs on $300 billion worth of China products until Dec. 15, thus reducing their impact on American consumers during the critical post- Thanksgiving shopping season.
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow and trade adviser Peter Navarro dismissed concerns about a recession Sunday after markets plummeted on Wednesday but bounced back by the week’s end. Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Kudlow said “there’s no recession on the horizon” citing strong retail sales and low unemployment as evidence the U.S. economy is still…
But as liberal voters size up the two leading candidates running on those values— Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren— one question is impossible to avoid: Can either one beat President Donald Trump? Even some of the most passionate liberals are not sure Sanders or Warren is up to the task, knowing that Trump will use anything he can to tear them down: age, gender,…
After talking about conservation and the need to fight “Big Ag,” the 69- year-old western Iowa farmer sat down with his family and Warren on strategically placed bales of hay to discuss her new agriculture plan as cameras recorded every moment from the other side of a weathered wooden fence. While Warren dismissed such talk as “name calling” and said she would rise…
—Aiming to put his mark on the world map, President Donald Trump has talked to aides and allies about buying Greenland for the U.S.. And a Republican congressional aide said Trump brought up the notion of buying Greenland in conversations with lawmakers enough times to make them wonder, but they have not taken his comments seriously. In 1946, the U.S. proposed to pay…
—President Donald Trump sought to reassure his supporters about the state of the U.S. economy despite the stock market volatility and told rallygoers in New Hampshire, a state that he hopes to capture in 2020, that their financial security depends on his reelection. Speaking to a boisterous crowd at Southern New Hampshire University Arena, Trump dismissed the…
U.S. industrial production fell 0.2% in July, as factory activity slumped in a worrisome sign for the economy. The interest charged on 10- year U.S. Treasury notes fell below the rate charged on 2- year notes, usually an indicator that investors see near-term problems that could cause a downturn.
Americans are slightly more likely now than in December of last year to support allowing refugees from Central America into the U.S.. Debate about the handling of refugees– as well as who qualifies as a refugee– comes as the U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports sharp spikes in the numbers of migrants coming to the U.S. border. At that time, 66% approved of the…
Cheered by rowdy workers in neon vests, Mr. Trump said the Shell Pennsylvania Petrochemicals Complex is a critical part of his push to bolster domestic energy and tame countries that have “taken advantage” of American workers. “This would have never happened without me, and us,” said Mr. Trump, though Shell announced its plans in 2016, when Barack Obama was president.
The South Bend, Ind., mayor’s “Investing in an American Asset: Unleashing the Potential of Rural America” plan includes provisions to expand broadband access, reduce teaching shortages in rural areas by 50 percent within 15 years, boost the share of adults in rural areas with a bachelor’s degree by 25 percent within 10 years, raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per…
All of the financial data of the last week — the strengthening of the dollar, the super-low 1.75 percent interest rate on 10-year Treasuries, the inversion of the yield curve, the drop in the 5-year TIPS spread to 1.3 percent, and the big fall in commodity prices (except gold) — are screaming out the same SOS message to the Fed: There is a dangerous and worsening global dollar shortage.
—President Donald Trump will welcome the president of Romania to the White House later this month. The White House says that at their meeting set for Aug. 20, Trump and Klaus Iohannis will discuss security challenges and ways to advance trade and energy partnerships. The visit occurs as Romanians mark the 30th year since the fall of communism and the 15th year of…
State insurance regulators moved briskly through four topics as they try to thread the needle between suitability and fiduciary in crafting an annuity sales model law.
President Donald Trump says Washington “must come together” in the wake of two mass shootings to “get strong background checks” for gun users. But he is providing no details on what sort of legislation he would support.
Seventy years ago, before Medicare existed to inspire “Medicare for All,” a Democratic president wrestled with a challenge strikingly similar to what the party’s White House hopefuls face today.
—The House’s only black Republican has become the latest GOP lawmaker to say he won’t seek reelection next year, jolting the party’s efforts to appeal to minority voters and wounding its already uphill chances of regaining House control. Hurd’s exit put the GOP ahead of its pace when 34 of its members stepped aside before the last elections— the party’s biggest…
The Federal Reserve is supposed to set interest rates based on gauges of inflation and employment. But President Donald Trump has injected a wild card into the mix with his combative trade wars and tariffs on imports. The resulting economic uncertainties, Powell said, had significantly influenced the Fed’s decision to cut rates.
Which of these Democrats can insure more Americans? Though only two candidates referenced health care in their opening remarks– former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, who also served as the mayor of San Antonio, Texas; and New York Sen. For about 24 minutes, nearly a quarter of the debate, the 10 Democrats wrestled for control of the health…
