Ron Paul is out of the picture.

At least, that is exactly what entrenched politicians on both sides of the aisle — the neocon military/industrial complex intelligentsia, the media, the Greenwich Village pseudo-intellectual liberals and the Hollywood buffoons — would have you believe. It is hard to read a good word about Ron Paul, is it not? The silence on the media front when it comes to Dr. Paul makes you wonder if you hadn’t missed his obituary. Well, not quite. Out of eyesight, it looks as if Ron Paul’s Iowa ground army is overrunning opposition forces and propelling him to the front ranks of America’s first nominating battle in Iowa.

Ron Paul may well win Iowa and also New Hampshire. Victories in both states would dump the fat in the fire and panic would set in fast for the entire crowd outlined above. Can Ron actually get the nomination and win the White House? The Wall Street Journal wrote of Dr. Paul: “His radical views about the size of government probably doom him to defeat in the Republican primaries … As a candidate, Mr. Paul is likely finished.” Read 

Tasked with finding $1.2 trillion to cut in the federal budget, after summer’s playground antics that caused the markets to tumble and roll like a roller coaster, the 12-member congressional “super committee” — as expected — has turned into the “stupor” committee.

Monday was their deadline to send their plan to the Congressional Budget Office, and — surprise, surprise — the Dems and Reps released a joint statement of failure. But you can be sure that the rhetoric of blame has already begun. Even on Sunday, when unofficial statements suggesting no agreement had been made, the airwaves were filled with pointing fingers.

Business as usual in Washington. I’m not going to rehash the politics, as that won’t help you understand the importance of this failure. Instead, let’s look at how the inaction may negatively impact your financial situation. Read 

What happened to Thanksgiving?

What once was an entire season worth of anticipation toward family, friends, the meal of the year and watching the Detroit Lions get pummeled during the NFL’s traditional Turkey Day contest has been cut to practically just the holiday day itself — thanks to the ever-expanding “holiday season” that now sops up most of fall.

Now, Thanksgiving’s parasitic cousin, Black Friday, is threatening to finish the job on the back end. And the unlikeliest of champions — people who actually have a job in a down economy — are fighting back. Read 

How broken is government in Washington? So broken that Democrats and Republicans don’t even need to wait until the last minute to announce their failures. After all, it’s clearly a foregone conclusion — so why fake it?

The 12 members of the bipartisan congressional supercommittee given the task of finding spending cuts of $1.2 trillion admitted on Sunday night that they are heading for failure. As a result, the U.S. government and financial markets are wrapped in turmoil and uncertainty — again.

This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. I wrote last week why the supercommittee would fail, and how the market would sell off sharply as a result. I was hardly the first to say that, and it’s hardly news to anyone watching these so-called “negotiations” on Capitol Hill. Read 

When the congressional supercomittee tasked with finding more than $1 trillion in deficit reductions over 10 years first met in August, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (D-Kent.) declared that “failure is not an option” for the dozen-member bipartisan group. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Failure, as anyone with common sense will tell you, is always an “option.” That’s especially the case in Washington, where partisan gridlock this summer nearly caused the U.S. to default on its obligations and triggered an unprecedented downgrade of the debt of the world’s largest economy.  The supercommittee process was designed to find $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade or else $1.2 trillion in mandatory spending cuts — $500 billion in defense spending alone — would be triggered. That, of course, is an option that neither Democrats nor Republicans want, which should — in theory — encourage them to compromise.

Sadly, that has not happened. Read 

If you look at the crisis in Europe, the key questions to ask are clear: Will this crisis continue to spread? And will the United States get singed by the fallout?

In both cases, the answer is a very clear “Yes.”

Whereas traders once were content to play around the edges by trashing Greece, Ireland and Portugal, now they’re going for Europe’s jugular vein. What I mean is that traders are now dumping the debt associated with so-called “core” European Union nations. Read