Markets in Italy are freaking out today, mainly because of the pronouncement of one man, Silvio Berlusconi. The former Prime Minister plans to run for office yet another time, and Mario Monti, the current caretaker leader, has resigned, setting up new elections probably in February.

Forgive me if I slip into some cliff metaphors for the next few posts, but the employment of the tool actually makes more sense in this context. The fact is that the expiration of the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act, as explained by Adam Levin of Credit.com, represents a real threat to a nascent housing [...]

This chart, which plots consumer confidence against incidences of news stories about the fiscal slope, finally shows the consumer affected by the uncertainty and fear from Congressional action (or lack thereof) tanking the economy. Since the summer, the consumer has been buoyed by a number of factors, including a recovery in housing prices and incremental [...]

As we gaze at today’s payroll report, it’s worth pointing out how government policies have improved the numbers in relative terms. Not by putting more people back to work, but by putting more people into the uncounted shadows: During a press conference demanding unemployment insurance be part of a fiscal cliff deal, Chuck Schumer noted [...]

The US economy proved surprisingly resilient in preliminary November job numbers, despite the effects of Hurricane Sandy, posting a gain of 146,000 jobs, and a drop in the topline unemployment rate to 7.7%. However, because of Sandy we should expect substantial revision to the numbers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics claims that their survey response [...]

While debating how much austerity outside of the magic no-budgetary-impact spending on the Pentagonto enact, the United States could take a lesson from, well, from the rest of the developed world. The relative lack of austerity in the US compared to Britain and the rest of Europe led to better economic performance (and it’s important [...]

Republicans have enough problems dealing with their own internal insurgencies, but it should be explained that their biggest problem in the fiscal slope negotiations is that the public is poised to blame them if things go awry. Four-in-ten (40%) expect that the president and congressional Republicans will reach a deal by Jan. 1 to prevent [...]

Zach Carter has a nice list of strategies that would save money for the government’s bottom line without having to either raise taxes or reduce social insurance benefits. They all have a degree of positive benefits to them, from prison reform to ending the drug war (those two are related) to cracking down on offshore [...]

Joblessness in the Eurozone reached new highs in October, with 11.7% of the population in the member states out of work. This compares to a 10.4% unemployment rate just a year ago. And inflation has slowed, suggesting that consumer spending activity has weakened even further. 23.9% of young people under 25 are unemployed. There’s considerable [...]

The Commerce Department revised its estimate of GDP in the third quarter up to 2.7%, a substantial gain from the initial estimate and an indication that the economy grew at a solid clip in the months leading up to the Presidential election, putting wind at the back of President Obama. This represents the fastest economic [...]

This diatribe bestowed upon Rep. Raul Grijalva on CNBC, which has become Fiscal Cliff TV, is really priceless, with the anchor accusing Grijalva of tanking the market because he refuses to cut benefits for poor people and seniors. The means testing angle is really a joke here, too. Medicare is already means-tested. To means-test it [...]