Free Republic

When times start to get tough, you begin to notice that some of the businesses and people you thought would always be around are starting to fade away. Two old companies made big changes this month. One is a new car dealer on Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco for nearly 60 years. The other is a ship company that has been operated out of either San Francisco or Oakland since the Gold Rush. Everyone who grew up in the Bay Area or lived here for a while has heard of Ellis Brooks Motors, mostly through an advertising jingle that...

Who is Joe the Plumber? He is Joe Wurzelbacher, an Ohio man looking to buy a plumbing business who came to symbolize the notion of spreading the wealth in Wednesday night's third and final presidential debate between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain. Earlier this week, when Wurzelbacher got a chance to speak with Obama during a campaign appearance in Toledo, he told Obama that his tax plan would keep him from buying the business that currently employs him. Sensing an opportunity during the debate, McCain cited that exchange when the candidates were asked to explain why their economic...

It was business as usual at the Cala Foods supermarket on Nob Hill this week. Customers lined up six deep at the cashiers and shoppers crowded the well-stocked aisles. So why is the store closing in 2010?The simple answer is money. Although Cala is making money, the profit margin for a large supermarket isn't large. Food costs are up, vendors are charging more to deliver products. Wages and insurance costs are rising. But more than that, supermarket sites are some of the last large real estate lots in the city. Eager developers are making such generous offers that store owners...

Now here is a Patriot Act everyone can get behind. It's called the Patriot Corporation of America Act and it rewards the companies that don't screw their employees and weaken the country by moving the jobs to China and elsewhere. In these troubled times, doesn't that sound like common sense? Government policy presently works in opposite ways. It literally assists and subsidizes the disloyal free riders who boost their profits by dumping their obligations to the home country. It's called globalization. Establishment wisdom says there is nothing politicians can do about it. But the bills introduced Thursday by three senators...

There was an old, and sadly funny joke about the Evolution of Math Quizzes that went like this: 1960s A logger cuts and sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is four-fifths of that amount. What is his profit? 1970s New-math A logger exchanges a set (L) of lumber for a set (M) of money. The cardinality of Set M is 100. The set C of production costs contains 20 fewer points. What is the cardinality of Set P of profits? 1980s A logger cuts and sells a truckload of lumber for $100. Her cost is...

The holiday shopping frenzy is upon us, but before you race to the mall to claim your new PlayStation 3, iPod or giant flat-panel TV, you might want to heed the words of the Rev. Billy, a.k.a. performance artist Bill Talen. Talen, 47, a longtime Bay Area actor and playwright who moved to New York in the early 1990s, has since become a well-known street performer in Manhattan as the Rev. Billy, an over-the-top, fire-and-brimstone preacher with a platinum blond pompadour and clerical collar who rails against the ills of consumerism and warns of a coming "shopocalypse" if humans fail...

The Bush administration will unveil its methadone plan for the mortgage crisis today. Instead of going cold turkey and letting the free market take its course, the administration reportedly has reached an agreement with lenders and mortgage investors to freeze interest rates for a select group of subprime borrowers who made bad, greedy or uninformed decisions. "You're just giving the junkie more dope," says Christopher Whalen, managing partner with Institutional Risk Analytics, a consulting firm. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson also has urged Congress to pass a law that would let cities and states sell tax-exempt bonds to refinance mortgages for...

America's most obscene shopping day meets its doom in an oily nightmare hell. All true! Is this why they hate us? Why we hate ourselves? Is this why we seem to have no real idea who the hell we are anymore, or what it means to have a humane and thoughtful national identity, and therefore we happily scratch and claw and fight our way into giant fluorescent-lit hellpits for a chance at a $29 DVD player and some crappy plasma TVs and a pallet of heavily discounted spatulas? More broadly: Is this why we're suffering such a general feeling of...

While out for a round of golf on Monday a middle-aged couple had their game disrupted by a teenage boy bearing a grudge and a gun. The strange encounter took place at Ringenäs golf course near Halmstad in western Sweden, Aftonbladet reports. At around 5.30pm the golfers came upon a boy dressed in camouflage combat fatigues and a helmet. Before they had time to react, the boy took aim at the pair and screamed "bloody capitalists" before firing a shot into the air above their heads. "My wife ducked behind her bag. It was very unpleasant. We were scared," the...

BERLIN (AP) - German authorities are using scent tracking to keep tabs on possibly violent protesters against next month's Group of Eight summit - a tactic that is drawing comparisons with the methods of former East Germany's secret police. Scent samples have been taken from an undisclosed number of people believed to be a possible danger to the upcoming summit so that police dogs can pick out the perpetrators if there is violence, the Hamburger Morgenpost reported Tuesday. Andreas Christeleit, a spokesman for federal prosecutors, confirmed the report but would give no further details. "This has happened to several suspects,"...

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....

The National Labor Relations Board has filed a formal complaint against Chandler-based Bashas' Inc., alleging the supermarket operator broke the law when it changed workers' health benefits without first consulting their union. According to the complaint issued Thursday, United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 99 requested in May that Bashas' enter collective bargaining with the union about changes to the health-benefits program. But the company "failed and refused" to bargain and changed its benefits plan in June, according to the complaint. Statewide, Bashas' operates about 158 stores, including Bashas', Food City and A.J.'s Fine Foods, and employs about 14,500...

Former President Clinton on Friday called the campaign against Proposition 87 a "ruse" and charged the oil companies with making "bogus" claims that the initiative would drive up gas prices. In a rare endorsement of a state ballot measure, the nation's former chief executive chided the oil companies that have pumped $64 million into the "No on 87" campaign. "If they really thought you were going to pay for this, would they have spent all that money trying to convince you to vote against it?" he asked students at a "Yes on 87" rally Friday. Introduced by Academy Award-winning actress...

Israel’s battle against Hizballah and Hamas continues to bring out the antisemites at Daily Kos: The case against Zionism, a historical perspective part 1. The writer of this diary congratulates him/her/itself for criticizing Israel without being antisemitic—yet the entire purpose of this semi-literate diatribe is to question Israel’s right to exist. Quote : "I have decided to write this essay because I have noticed a general lack of understanding of the the history of the conflict on this board. This writing is intended to showcase where the philosophy of zionism conflicts with my own philsophy on morality(which I believe almost...

It's not nice to speak ill of the dead, but Kenneth Lay's passing elicited little sympathy from average Americans on Wednesday. I spent much of the day trolling Internet message boards and blogs, polling Chronicle readers and talking to legal and other sources, trying to get a sense of how the public feels about Lay's death and how it will affect the legal proceedings against him. Lay was the former chairman and CEO of Enron, a name that became synonymous with corporate greed and wrongdoing, sparking a major reform movement in Congress. Enron also played a lead role ripping off...

"You can never be optimistic about anything in our country because it will likely end up badly," is the sentiment of the old-timers in Russia. Youngsters who do NOT remember the Soviet times do not share this sentiment-- nor do they have the aversion to capitalism that their parents and grandparents no doubt have. Young girls wear spike-heeled boots and tread carefully to keep the mud off. They also manage bank branches that specialize in giving small loans to entrepreneurs. Start-ups were few and far between just a few years ago-- bank portfolios have tripled and clients doubled in some...

Frustrated by soaring gasoline prices, two of California's top elected officials proposed legislation Thursday designed to crack down on consumer gouging by allowing a temporary price cap in times of "abnormal market disruption." Attorney General Bill Lockyer and Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez jointly proposed the measure, Assembly Bill 457, in response to pump prices that have jumped by more than $1 per gallon since January. "We need to make sure that California is not the victim of any type of market manipulation or Enron-type scheme to artificially inflate the price of gasoline at the pump," Núñez said. California's average price...

Maryland officials are scaring off investment in the state with such anti-business moves as the court-ordered scrutiny of Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.'s energy rates and the law that forces Wal-Mart to pay employee health benefits, business leaders say. "Wal-Mart yesterday. BGE today. Who's next?" asked William R. Burns, spokesman for the Maryland Chamber of Commerce, which represents about 850 businesses employing more than 340,000 people statewide. He said companies are thinking twice about operating in Maryland after Baltimore Circuit Judge Albert J. Matricciani Jr. ordered the state's Public Service Commission to review the utility company's pending 72 percent rate...

If you think environmentalism is all about saving the Earth, protecting the whales, stopping pollution, and the like, here's some news. It's not! Listen to what environmental advocates themselves have to say: "I think if we don't overthrow capitalism, we don't have a chance of saving the world ecologically. I think it is possible to have an ecologically sound society under socialism. I don't think it's possible under capitalism." Judi Bari, Earth First! member.[Environmentalism equals replacing capitalism with socialism.] "The environmentalist's dream is an egalitarian society, based on rejection of economic growth, a smaller population, eating lower on the food...

Coalition Sign-On Letter to the Senate Urging Opposition of Expansion of the Basic Pilot Employment Verification System (3/27/2006) Oppose Expansion of the Basic Pilot Employment Verification System as a Threat to American’s Privacy Dear Senator: The undersigned organizations and individuals urge you to oppose Section 301 of both Chairman Specter’s Immigration Mark and S. 2454, the Securing America’s Border Act, introduced by Senator Frist. This legislation mandates the use of the Basic Pilot employment verification database by all United States employers to verify the work-eligibility of all current employees and all future hires. The Chairman’s Mark, S. 2454, and other...