Oct 13, 2011 – Instead, inflation in Italy will practically follow the course of consumer price indexes in the rest of Europe: it was 1.74% in October … Unfortunately, though, at the same time public debt will continue to go up and it will reach 118.9% of Italy’s GDP by the end of 2011 … It is a very high value, according to every standard, but do not forget that Europe as a whole has 80% of public debt, France has 81%…

Oct 24, 2011 – The move is designed to pick up the housing market and by reducing mortgage payments thereby increase the amount of consumer spending … Summers and Austan Goolsbee — did not favor a big program of debt reduction.” … At the end of the day, homeowners would still have as much debt.…

Nov 2, 2011 – But was the more fundamental reason for its demise was the European sovereign debt crisis?  … Since money’s most important function is to send signals — about price, consumer wishes, producer costs, political intent and expectations…

Oct 30, 2011 – Over the past eight years our national debt has doubled to $14.5 trillion, and our total unfunded liabilities now exceed an astonishing … Take, for example, the contrast between the Free World’s outpouring of diverse and imaginative consumer products with the Soviets’ … In other words: we must incur new debt to pay for the programs since the “trusts” are empty.…

Nov 9, 2011 – Many of these protestors are college students or recent graduates that have taken on enormous levels of debt — while the average debt … Most of this debt is the result of skyrocketing education costs. … $897.63 per month in debt retirement.…

Nov 26, 2011 – Obama knows that there is not enough of the 1% of the 1% to come up with enough revenue to cover his new $4 trillion in debt, but does … To the conservative, most (not all, to be sure) subsidies and breaks for college, housing, medical care, occasion debt relief, etc. … The onset of a billion new global workers, cheap consumer items, technological revolution, and government cash has meant that someone…

Nov 22, 2011 – Bank lending rose by 40% in 2010 and by another 40% in 2011, and Turks bought consumer goods from abroad, running up a balance of payments … Most of that is financed by short-term debt. … Turkey won’t go bankrupt — it’s overall debt levels are manageable — but its economy will have to shrink by a good 5% to staunch the…

Dec 28, 2011 – It did no good to remind Obama that confiscating all the wealth of the 1% would not end the debt, or that steep new income tax on the … For Obama, the massive importation of cheap consumer goods, the revolution in technology, the vast expansion of federal entitlements … None believe that wealth can be created by record deficits and aggregate debt.…

Jul 21, 2008 – Last week’s bump in consumer prices (the largest increase in more than a quarter century) reignited a real concern. … He has not begun to drive home the argument that the result of such an approach would be to worsen our debt problems, or more likely…

Oct 26, 2008 – on Wall Street, and bought and sold subprime mortgage paper, gambled on derivatives, garnered spectacular bonuses as you piled up debt—and … Did some others take out second and third mortgages to expand their consumer spending and hope to make it deductible on their income … Did others still simply make a business decision to walk away from a freely incurred debt that proved larger than the falling equity…

Oct 20, 2008 – they found that they could not make their monthly payments—once energy and food prices climbed, or their credit-card purchases of consumer … seminars on how to purchase homes without a down payment, and welcome snake-oil salesmen’s advice how to default on credit card debt…

Nov 8, 2008 – Like it or not, Obama, at a time  of soaring deficits and debt, has promised the entitlement industry even more. … When one reads of the spikes in oil prices and the tremendous transference of wealth abroad both in energy costs and consumer imports…

Nov 21, 2008 – Some advocates of this theory get a bit more creative and say that Keynesianism works because it increases consumer spending rather … And he certainly had no problem financing that spending with debt. … But the only thing that went up was Japan’s national debt, which more than doubled during the decade and now is far above even Italy…

Nov 17, 2008 – Aside from the fact we are broke and are $10 trillion in debt (a large aside), there is an existential problem here. … or that defaulters always were victims rather than occasionally foolish or even sly (e.g., 2nd and 3rd mortgages taken out for consumer … The local raisin cooperative went broke, and renounced their capital debt to their own members (we lost $70,000) whose vineyards had…

Dec 16, 2008 – Below the “Read More” The key here is exchange rates and the impact of increased consumer spending driven by the housing bubble … This represents trillions of dollars of consumer demand. Lots of this demand was met by foreign suppliers, most notably China. … At the same time, the high crude prices starting hitting the consumer in the gas tank.…

Jan 1, 2009 – stabilized through similar measures The commercial paper market is flowing via the Fed A $200 billion facility to enable consumer … debt securitization is in place The Fed is purchasing $500 billion of high grade mortgage paper to free up that market The Fed…

Feb 28, 2002 – Everyone in Japan knows what must be done: Write off bad debt, allow bad banks to fail, provide an RTC-type corporation to deal with … any assets, and deregulate farms and the consumer economy.…

Feb 22, 2002 – Jiang, and think of what the US consumer might do. We are the lifeblood of your regime. … Without our dollars, you can’t prop up your debt-riddled banks or stave off the bankruptcy of your state-owned enterprises.…

Sep 25, 2002 – The first is a bubble in consumption, financed by rising levels of consumer debt; the second is a bubble in housing.…

May 24, 2011 – In 2008, CNN pointed out that from 1985 to 2005, college tuition had increased more than four times faster than the consumer price … For a student who accumulated $30,000 in student loan debt, servicing that debt is going to be painful, if at all even possible. … rare exceptions, the only way to avoid repaying that debt is death or total, permanent disability.…

Mar 22, 2011 – Something similar often happens on the level of the individual consumer: homeowners rebuilding after a disaster take the opportunity … Europe has arrived at this dismal juncture driven by three forces: (a) large welfare states that were too often financed with debt … Even European countries not facing an immediate debt problem need to reduce budget deficits to retain market confidence.…

Apr 6, 2011 – It seems likely that the Fed will raise interest rates and launch the Good Ship QE3, in an attempt to disinflate consumer prices while … That’s 11 million American households with a vested interest in inflating away their biggest debt. How many voters is that? … Furthermore, Washington is sitting on $14 trillion in debt.…

Apr 1, 2011 – Over the 12 months that ended in February, consumer prices increased just 2.1 percent. … Just that increase in what we pay on debt we already owe would be bigger than what we spend each year on defense. … could eliminate one of the three of those, entirely, just zero it out of the budget, and it still wouldn’t pay for the increased debt…

Apr 15, 2011 – He announced he does not want a solution to America’s deficit and debt crisis. … on entitlements, discretionary spending, and debt, the Republicans are the only adults in the room. … To the casual consumer of political debate, Ryan is conscientious but not terribly charismatic in carrying the budget message.…

May 10, 2011 – Of course not, so why should the people who already benefited this country by producing jobs and our awesome consumer goods have to … Everyone born in this country owes a huge debt to those who went before and built it up for us, and if you’re not going to try and…