Free Republic

The idea that President Obama is anti-business broke into the mainstream this week. It has long been a widely held view on the right that Obama’s rhetorical nods to the free market and American business were little more than that. But as Washington slowly staggered back to work this week following a long July 4 weekend, discussions of Obama’s troubled relationship with the private sector popped up with surprising frequency. Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria wrote Monday that after speaking with numerous corporate executives, most of whom voted for Obama, he found that “all think he is, at his core, anti-business.” Tuesday,...

With a massive new health care law and financial reform legislation looming, companies are more worried than ever about the impact new regulations and legislation will have on their operations and their bottom line. Not knowing what to expect from these pending regulations, businesses are acting cautiously to forestall any negative impact. These actions are squelching economic growth and job creation, as companies are forced to freeze investments and hiring until they understand how they will be affected by these new mandates.

The oil company formerly known as British Petroleum is starting to look kind of beaten up. So it goes when a business finds itself tossed into the ring with the current president of the United States. "We will make BP pay," Mr. Obama said Tuesday night. There is a mood in the land that BP is getting what it deserves. Maybe so. But players in the political game who've found it convenient to join the president in the BP bear-baiting should not delude themselves that BP is a free hit. In politics, nothing happens in isolation. The beating Mr. Obama...

When it comes to business climate, California ranks last among the states according to the latest attack on the rules and red tape despised by the respondents to a survey by CEO Magazine.

We turn to the Wall Street Journal for the math on what it will cost to raise taxes on corporations’ retiree prescription drug coverage. This is the provision that has caused several corporations to take markdowns recently. The bottom line: by closing this “loophole” — which was originally created to dissuade companies from dumping retirees’ prescription costs into Medicare Part D — the government could lose more than five times what it brings in. The Employee Benefit Research Institute calculates that the 28% subsidy on average will run taxpayers $665 in 2011 and that the tax dispensation is worth $233....

Obama's health care reform bill is not really reform but corporate socialism that will bilk Americans out of more of their money for premiums and force them to pay more of their money to corporate health giants. Not only this it will curtail our civil liberties and lead us into socialist despotism. In a previous article I pointed out that this tragedy was inevitable that America would eventually have some kind of universal insurance Like in Britain or mandated insurance like in Massachusetts. In fact the bill is like Massachusetts health care but far far worse. Liberal elitists in the...

We are at the mercy of economic "experts." These practitioners of the "dismal science" are managing large sectors of our economy in accordance with theories learned in Ivy League Universities. They have assured us that the lessons learned from the Great Depression will prevent another such occurrence. The problem is that every forecast by an economic expert can be matched by an equal and opposite forecast. Often these conflicting forecasts are made by the same individual. Economist Howard S. Katz provides an explanation for this situation in his book, The Paper Aristocracy: "Modern economics claims to be a science. This...

As America's trade with the Far East – principally China – expanded massively during the 1980s and 1990s, California reaped the benefits as the gateway for both exports and imports. With trade emerging as a major component of the state's very diverse economy, traffic and payrolls blossomed at its major ports. California now is mired in its worst recession since the Great Depression, and international trade has been seriously damaged. Imports and exports through the state's air and sea ports, the most recent Department of Commerce data show, are running at least one-fifth below last year's already depressed levels. Exports...

The Milken Institute is based in Southern California, but its annual survey of business conditions in the nation's cities has almost nothing good to say about California. It heaps praise on Texas - the Austin area was ranked No. 1 on Milken's list of "best-performing cities," released today, while three other Texas cities were listed in the top five, with only No. 3 Salt Lake City cracking that elite list. Cities in recession-wracked California, meanwhile, saw their rankings decline - especially those hit hard by the collapse of the housing market. "Metropolitan areas with a high exposure to durable manufacturing...

Is President Obama anti-business? The obvious answer is yes. Yet he insists he's a free-market guy who hates "meddling in the private sector" but has been forced to. So in deciding whether he's anti-business, let's be fair and judge Obama by nonideological and nonpartisan standards. I have four criteria: his appointments, his policies, his decisions, and his own words. Democratic presidents are not famous for appointing businessmen, merchants, or entrepreneurs to their cabinet or senior White House staff. These are people who have started or run private businesses, created jobs, met payrolls, and made profits. Thus they might be sensitive...

A tray of asymmetrical chocolate lumps balances on the counter behind the espresso machine, where owner Jean-Marc Gorce is slinging a cappuccino. Scotch-taped to the walls, clippings about the mom-and-pop truffle shop display accolades from Gourmet, the New York Times and 7 x 7. At the window, a few stools share a high counter; outside, two tables perch on the sidewalk. Cluttered but quaint, off-kilter but authentic, XOX Truffles is just the sort of place that one might associate with North Beach's motley character. Yet one of its design anomalies - a step from the curb into the shop -...

California has the seventh-worst legal climate in the nation for business, according to a survey released Wednesday by a leading business lobby. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for Legal Reform said California's legal climate moved up a spot from last year, but was still stuck in 44th place. "California's low ranking is not surprising, given the fact that California courts have a reputation for certifying class action lawsuits that most other jurisdictions would toss out, and that California juries are increasingly likely to award disproportionately large judgments in civil cases,"

Berkeley is one of the most affluent, lively cities in the Bay Area, but its downtown looks more like Tombstone, Ariz., on a slow day. Shuttered businesses dot the streets like tumbleweeds in a ghost town: Barnes and Noble. Gateway Computers. UC Theater. Soon to join their grim ranks: Ross Dress for Less and Shoe Pavilion. "Berkeley's downtown plan has resulted in a wonderful, vibrant, mixed-use community. It's called Emeryville," said Will Travis, chairman of the city committee charged with revitalizing the beleaguered commercial district around Shattuck and University avenues. In a few years, downtown Berkeley could look a bit...

Industry fears costs of minimum wage boost, sick leave, health care will hurt trade - The first big hit to the San Francisco restaurant industry came three years ago this month -- a $1.75-an-hour increase in the minimum wage. The second came last Monday when the city became the first in the country to require all businesses to provide paid sick leave to their employees. The third is due in July when the city's plan to require health coverage for uninsured residents kicks in -- assuming the employer mandate portion of the ordinance survives a legal challenge by restaurant owners....

A federal appeals court this week struck an indirect but potentially fatal blow to one of the most controversial pieces of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's comprehensive health insurance plan -- requiring employers to either provide coverage to workers or pay 4 percent of their payrolls into a state insurance purchase pool. By a 2-1 vote, a panel of the 4th District Court of Appeals ruled that Maryland's play-or-pay health insurance law, specifically aimed at retailing giant Wal-Mart, violates a federal law governing employers' group health plans. It upheld a lower court's finding that invalidated "any and all state laws insofar as...

Christiane Schmidt runs her small San Francisco restaurant, Walzwerk, on a tightrope-thin margin. She does her own bookkeeping and cleaning, waits tables and relies on tips to survive. Of her four full-time and six part-time employees, none gets paid sick leave, and only her chef gets a paid vacation. That's about to change. On Feb. 5, San Francisco will become the first city in the country to require all businesses to provide paid sick leave to their employees -- full- and part-time employees, permanent workers and temps. The sick leave requirement was passed by voters in November with little fanfare...

California continues to lose residents to other states, one factor driving a slowing population growth rate, the state Department of Finance reported Wednesday. Overall, the state gained a net 462,000 residents in the fiscal year that ended June 30, bringing the total population to 37.4 million. California lost a net of about 67,000 people to other states, the report said, but gained about 213,000 foreign immigrants. Those people, combined with hundreds of thousands of babies born to California residents, accounted for the growth. The relatively high cost of living in California is both keeping people from moving here and encouraging...

Foreign investment in S. Korea drops sharply SEOUL, Oct. 29 (Yonhap) -- Foreign investors' exit from South Korea is accelerating amid worries over a worsening business climate here and the economy's falling growth potential, the central bank said Sunday According to the Bank of Korea, foreign direct investment in Asia's fourth-largest economy reached a mere US$790 million in the first nine months of this year, about one-fourth of the $3.42 billion during the same period a year earlier. Foreign direct investment tumbled to $4.34 billion in 2005 from $9.25 billion the previous year. "It is true that foreigners are withdrawing...

Mike Hethmon, he is with the Immigration Reform Law Institute. He`s one of the groups backing the California lawsuit. Mike, thank you for doing this. I`ve been saying for a long time, "Choke these companies to death." Give me the lawsuit in a nutshell and the chances of it actually winning.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. It took the looming closure of much-admired Cody's Books on Telegraph Avenue for Berkeley to finally get serious about cleaning up what's become a four-block showplace for urban decay, drug dealing and homelessness -- right on the doorstep of one of the nation's most prestigious universities. Responding to Cody's recently announced exit in July, the Berkeley City Council last week approved a package of measures submitted by Mayor Tom Bates that will provide for more cops and more social workers, streamline the permit process for new businesses and generally clean things up. "We've had...