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The unemployment rate within the city limits of Anderson is near 30 percent, the highest in more than a decade and more than double the county rate. According to figures provided by the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, Anderson’s preliminary unemployment rate in the city was 27.9 percent as of Sept. 30, while the county unemployment rate stood at 12.5 percent. Since January, the city unemployment rate has averaged 27 percent, up 12 points over the 2008 average, and 15 points over the 2007 average. While city officials acknowledge that such high unemployment is a concern, a few questioned how...

See Sarah Palin sign over a 1,000 books in Florida

While Sarah Palin is certainly making waves with her own best-selling book “Going Rogue,” the former governor and vice presidential candidate is also in the spotlight with a cameo appearance as a heroine in the recently released children’s book “Help! Mom! Radicals Are Ruining My Country!”In the book written by Katharine DeBrecht, “Governor Sarah” (a character based on Palin) attempts to help two young boys hold onto their dream of a swing-set business which is struggling as a result of high taxes, heavy regulations and 246 czars. “I am trying to let all Americans know that these radicals are killing...

Will 2010 be a 1930 or, comparable to 1937? Is it different this time? When one nation state of a formerly high productive stature destroys itself with inflation, the untouched others can soften the blow and in time bail out the fallen one. This was Germany’s fate in the 1920’s. In our current instance, most all of the world’s economies are on their knees with some hurting worse than others. Who can help with recovery this time? There is no one. It will not be China as some suppose as China shall suffer the same systemic collapse as the U.S,...

Elected Scoundrels drive Gold Higher By MrArbitrage CNBC featured another “expert” commenting on Gold today as it crossed a new threshold of $1,200 per ounce. He was bullish on it, calling for $1,800 an ounce. Yet they are still perplexed by what is driving the price because it has risen more sharply than the dollar has fallen in recent days, as though gold should only trade in perfect parity with the daily valuation of the US Dollar in relation to other fiat currencies. I don’t know why it’s so difficult to understand that it is trading not just on the...

They froze my account! I opened a Scottrade account a couple weeks ago I had to do it in person because the credit bureau folks don't know me well, as I I am not in debt. I gave them my address, both physical and the required PO Box, as I live in a rural area without delivery. They mailed my first statement to the physical address. I got it anyway, as the postmistress knows my wife and I. I went online and changed the mailing address to the PO Box. Seems easy enough eh? Well, they froze my account because...

Alternative headline: Liberals in the private sector.The staffs of the Las Vegas Sun and its Web site, LasVegasSun.com, will merge and move into the same office as part of a plan to reorganize the local operations of The Greenspun Media Group, the company announced today… The reorganization involves an unspecified number of layoffs. Affected employees were to be informed today. The changes were prompted, Greenspun said in the press release, by the need to better meet the information and marketing needs of the Las Vegas area and to create a sustainable business model in the face of the continued recession…...

Yesterday, I posted a video of Peter Schiff lambasting Ben Bernanke for never getting anything right. In and of itself, this is nothing new. What made it fun, however, was the fact that he was part of a panel discussion with St. Louis Fed President James Bullard and Fed Vice Chair Alan Blinder, who both attempted, quite weakly, to defend Bernanke. Today, a new clip from the same roundtable, as Schiff gets technical and dismantles Bullard's weak sauce theory that other countries will for some unknown reason return to the dollar during times of crisis. Schiff also goes on to...

It’s really comical at this point! Despite all of the important events happening in the world today – the president’s speech tonight on the strategy in Afghanistan, the Senate debate over health care reform, the disturbing details of the “Climategate” scandal, the continuing challenges facing the world economy – the media is concerned about my travel and lodging arrangements on my book tour?! Does this sound familiar? It should. The media showed the same out-of-proportion obsession with my personal arrangements, clothes, and hairstyles last year instead of focusing on the crucial issues involving the election. So what is this news...

Dubai is in huge debt. The repercussions to the world economy might be tremendous. We’ll see more on Monday. Cross-posted at RudyCarrera.com.

I posted video from the Tempe, AZ and Phoenix, AZ book signings "Going Rogue" has gone platinum after only 2 weeks. HarperCollins spokeswoman Tina Andreadis said Tuesday that just two weeks after publication, Sarah Palin's memoir has sold 1 million copies. The print run for "Going Rogue" has been increased again, to 2.8 million copies. The original printing was 1.5 million, then moved up to 2.5 million.

Next Monday, the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in Free Enterprise Fund and Beckstead and Watts v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) and United States of America. If the plaintiffs are successful, they could unravel one of the most used and persuasive tools in security technology sales: the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. The particulars of the case aren’t really that important, but I’ll recount them quickly. Beckstead was a small accounting firm in Henderson, Nev. (just outside Las Vegas). It was audited by PCOAB in 2004 for compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley and several deficiencies were...

A classic example of why I don't believe any of the snake oil sales pitch about health care costs. Maybe when you print money all day, it becomes easier to spend. A Republican congressman is taking a hard look at a program in the Bureau of Engraving and Printing that would give hundreds of senior employees $75 gift cards in exchange for their printers, which the government already owns. "It's absurd and demeaning that managers would offer employees gift cards for the simple act of returning office property," Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., ranking Republican on the House Oversight Committee, said...

Here is a really fascinating series of tweets from Commissioner Tony Peraica as he participated in the latest Cook County Board meeting. Today (Dec. 1) Board President Todd Stroger tried to cajole the board into upholding his veto of the roll back of his implementation of the highest tax rate in the country. Peraica is against the tax and since the State Legislature ended the four-fifths rule, lowering it to three-fifths to overturn the president's veto, the fight was on. Anyway, here are the tweets that Peraica posted during the debate and they are a fascinating peak inside a board...

Howard Dean instantly makes himself the poster boy for cognitive dissonance by declaring the debate between Capitalism and Socialism over because we need to use...both!

A scant 12 months ago, Barack (“It’s ok to use my middle name, now that I’m elected”) Hussein Obama was basking in the glow of a victory in the Presidential election. He had a mandate (or so he thought) and announced that he was about to “fundamentally change America.” Crowds cheered. Women fainted. The sick grew well again. The afflicted healed. A warm tingling ran up Chris Matthews’ legs while a warm trickle of drool ran down Keith Olbermann’s chin. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers even won a couple of football games. “The Chosen One” had arrived. At least in the...

In three separate and unrelated sweeps across Italy police have arrested more than 100 suspected mobsters and seized $360 million in assets allegedly implicating the Parisi clan from the Sacra Corona Unita or Puglian Mafia, the Cosa Nostra or Sicilian Mafia, and the Somma-La Marca clan from the Camorra or Neapolitan Mafia as reported by Adnkronos. The largest bust involved the arrest of 74 alleged members and associates of the Parisi clan, including politicians and businessmen, in the city of Bari as reported by Nicole Winfield for The Associated Press: The 48-year-old head of the clan, Savino Parisi, was arrested...

What happens when a private sector union gets far too many benefits to the point where the business for which its membership works goes under or whose existence is threatened? Punishment. Unions either take a reduction of benefits or pay -- or both -- and cuts in time or jobs in order to right the ship and keep the business afloat occur. Just like punishment comes to businesses that make bad business decisions, private employee unions also realize punishment for overreach. At the risk of losing the whole enterprise both for unions and owners, the market serves to correct excess....

In 1991, James Payne wrote a book entitled The Culture of Spending. In the front jacket of the book he inscribed for me a quote from the French author and psychologist, Gustave Le Bon: "In politics, the name of things are more important than what they are." I found the quote as I flipped through the book searching for a particular passage I remembered from my original reading of the book. The original passage commented on the oft repeated view of those on the left that a dollar spent by the government is as good as a dollar spent by...

Coase’s FCC Legacy Bethany Stotts, December 1, 2009 At first blush the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)—which regulates “interstate and international communications” using “radio, television, wire” and “satellite”—doesn’t seem like much of a free-market mecca. But panelists at a recent conference held at George Mason University (GMU) argued that the FCC was significantly affected 50 years ago by Ronald H. Coase’s noted article, “The Federal Communications Commission.” In this paper Coase argues that, with regard to broadcast radio, “the government and its historians based their regulatory views ‘on a misunderstanding of the nature of the problem’” and “goes on to present...

I recently was included in an exchange of emails between two friends, and was so impressed by the insights contained and the ideas expressed that I immediately requested permission to publish the emails on Grand Rants. Permission from both authors having been received, I am pleased to present Part One of Point:CounterPoint:Repoint. Parts Two and Three will be posted tomorrow and Thursday. Enjoy!

The Cato Institute's Dan Mitchell appears once again for the Center for Freedom & Prosperity, this time to discuss the true fiscal costs of government run healthcare. Two main points here. First, that fiscal responsibility is achieved through smaller government, and second, that no matter what, a new entitlement program always means higher defecits. Enjoy, and share!

London Trader challenges CFTC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://truthingold.blogspot.com/2009...spotlight.html SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2009 A London Silver Trader Challenges The CFTC The following letter is from a London-based silver trader to CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton. I wanted to post this letter, which appeared in Friday's Midas report, for those who do not subscribe to http://www.lemetropolecafe.com/. Anyone who follows the gold and silver markets knows about the severe imbalance which has occurred for several years between the size of the short interest in gold and silver futures vs. the amount of physical gold and silver sitting in Comex warehouses. As an example, JP Morgan and...

Until recently, this political epitaph might have been written for Dick Morris: An amoral, but brilliant consultant, strategist, and analyst -- the man who kept Bill Clinton in, and Hillary Clinton out, of the White House. By selling the strategy of triangulation to Bill Clinton, Morris successfully neutered the Gingrich revolution of 1994. But he also neutered the worst political impulses of Bill Clinton (Morris couldn't do anything about the sexual ones) and forced Clinton to work with the Republican congress to balance budgets and reform welfare. But Dick Morris is doing his best work now in his crusade against...

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was hammered this week when a third quarter report demonstrated that the FDIC was running in the red to the sum of $8.2 billion. This is troubling since the FDIC protects deposits in member banks up to $250,000 and funds covered by the deposit insurance fund (DIF) are over $5.3 trillion, this amount is over one-third of our nationwide GDP. The FDIC as of Q1 of 2009 has 5,381 employees. Is that enough to deal with the enormous banking crisis?

Pampered Chef presenter Wilma Flanders is struggling to explain how Vice President Joe Biden was able to crash a recent party at a Nashville couple's house yesterday. To make matters worse, it was Jerry and Sheila Dorfmeyer's first attempt at hosting a party. And maybe their last. "I have no idea how he got in," said Flanders. "Nobody invited him. He wasn't on the list. He just kinda showed up." Jerry said the vice president's attendance at the party was a threat to the couple's security and a social setback for the couple, who were new to the community. They...

Peter Schiff appears on a panel with St. Louis Fed President James Bullard and Fed Vice Chair Alan Blinder. This was fireworks waiting to happen, and it doesn't fail to deliver, as Schiff drops a bomb on Bernanke that his cohorts are laughably unable to defend. Enjoy!

Katie Couric may be best known for her unflattering interview with Sarah Palin. But her nightly news broadcast this past Monday night may be an indicator that the big liberal media are now turning their guns on Obama. Couric said on “CBS Evening News” that Americans are growing “disenchanted” with Obama and are openly questioning his credibility. “Is the honeymoon over?” anchor Couric said at the beginning of her correspondent’s report. “Although President Obama has been in office less than a year, many Americans are growing disenchanted with his handling of the enormous problems he and the country are facing,...

The winner's name, however, turns out to be much less familiar: Arthur Cecil Pigou (pronounced "Arthur See-sil Pig-oo"). Stepping from the wings, a strapping Englishman with fair, wavy hair and a luxuriant moustache, smiles awkwardly and accepts his prize. A contemporary of Mr. Keynes at Cambridge University, Mr. Pigou was, for a long time, the forgotten man of economics. In the years leading up to his death, in 1959, he was a reclusive figure, rarely venturing from his rooms at King's College. His novel ideas on taxing polluters and making health insurance compulsory were met with indifference: Keynesianism was all...

Brent T. White, a University of Arizona law school professor, says that it's in the homeowners' best financial interest to stiff their lenders and that it's not immoral to do so.

Almost 40% of William Howard Taft's cabinet officials were from the private sector. Ike had nearly 60% of his appointees sporting private sector experience. Reagan had about 55% and George W. Bush about 53%. Even FDR and Truman had half their cabinet officials with private sector experience. And Obama? Less than 10%. That means that only about 7% of Barack Hussein Obama's cabinet appointees ever worked in the private sector. So is it any wonder that Barack Obama has become the president responsible for an unprecedented bloating of the federal government and a take over of power on a scale...

It was billed as a 787 billion dollar economic stimulus package and when critics said that it wouldn’t work they were roundly ridiculed by Barry Hussein Soetoro himself. (see 50sec. video) Well one thing that we don’t think a stimulus is, is what Democrats and president Soetoro have done with the economy, seriously! And don’t get it twisted Barry, George Bush pulled this economy back from the brink not anything that you did. Before you were in office Bush signed a 700 billion dollar bank bailout, and whether or not we agree with bailing out banks, that is what kept...

There is mounting evidence that the global Jihadist insurgency is fully entrenched in the USA. After the Fort Hood massacre news services seem divided between those hell-bent-for-leather on denying that it was a case of anything other than a persecuted loner “snapping” and those who proclaimed it the first “terrorist” attack on US soil since September 11th. Both were wrong. Over the last 12 months alone, we have been provided with a stack of evidence of the Jihadist insurgency inside America. Americans have largely ignored this evidence, or at least failed to “connect the dots.” I decided to go back...

1 out of every 6 Americans will participate in some form of online shopping today:Cyber Monday.Black Friday is the day when we stand pressed together in the dark waiting for doors to open at our favorite retail outlet. We race the aisles and grab and elbow our way to shopping nirvana.Today, Cyber Monday, is the day we do it from the comfort of our own home via the internet.

As Thanksgiving festivities wind down we contemplate all we have to be thankful for as free Americans! We head into the Christmas season wishing for leadership in Washington that reflects our commitment to the values and ideals that have built the freest and most prosperous and generous nation on earth. Heading into December and Tuesday’s announcement of our nation’s strategy in Afghanistan, I ask the President to reassure us that the administration is in this War on Terror to win. And I’ll pass along the following from Harold B. Estes, a 95-year-old member of the Greatest Generation: “I realize you...

The Federal Government admits to over $12 Trillion dollars in debt. In reality, its obligations are multiples of that number. The unfunded promises from Social Security and Medicare total around $100 trillion. To properly fund the forecasted future deficits in Social Security and Medicare, $100 trillion would have to be put in the fund today. Without this infusion, this liability grows exponentially. Next year, for example, it will be $4 - 5 trillion higher! The Government has promised benefits that they cannot possibly honor. The total net worth of the entire country (the country's total assets less liabilities) is slightly...

If you're starting a new business, hiring on a shoestring budget, or simply sprucing up your home office, you'll need some new office gear, and you probably won't want to spend much. Believe it or not, Craigslist isn't just for used couches and one-night stands; it's also exceptionally good for finding standard office furniture (cubicles, desks, chairs, and so on) at unusually low prices. However, Craigslisting is an art in itself, so we've got some tricks that will help you seal the deal on whatever used gear your new office needs. The Budget Buying a basic, no-frills office chair and...

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Mumbo Jumbo Give me a break!Worthless Government StatisticsIt was just back on November 3rd when the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), a division of the U.S. Commerce Department, declared that Gross Domestic Product grew at an annual rate of 3.5% during the 3rd quarter of 2009. Then on November 23rd, the Bureau declared that the actual rate of growth for the 3rd quarter was only 2.8%. So the question that comes to my mind, loud and clear, is what exactly does that mean?First of all what it does NOT mean is that the economy grew at...

The anemic results of the first government “stimulus” bill are said to be inspiring talk of another one. “There are nearly 16 million unemployed Americans,” complained House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif). “And this is after we approved a spending bill of over $700 billion. Every economist I’ve talked to says the problem is that the first stimulus package was too small.” Pelosi cited the estimated cost per job created to bolster her case for an expanded stimulus package. “With a cost of nearly $500,000 per new job created, it should be obvious that $700 billion won’t get us very far...

A group calling itself Alaska Wild Salmon Protection, Inc. recently ran full-page advertisements (see above) in Politico against development of the Pebble Mine in Southwest Alaska. The Pebble deposit is one of the largest finds in America, believed to contain 72 billion pounds of copper and 94 million ounces of gold, among other minerals. Alaska Wild Salmon Protection's advertisement was filled with distortions, but more on that later. I wanted to learn more about the group, so I went to check out its website. It didn't have one.* Odd, I thought, for an environmental group leading local opposition to the...

[posted on his blog, typos corrected]. There is no need for a government in a highly developed free market society to appoint itself as "provider of healthcare coverage." None, whatsoever. The proposition would be identical to the government taking control of the restaurant and grocery businesses because there are some people who, regrettably, cannot afford to eat. To do so would undermine the market mechanism of distribution, which is quite an effective mechanism. I believe the discussion of "subsidiarity" speaks to this. Furthermore, New York City once was a shining example of what Catholicism, when practiced, can do to generously...

Many in the mainstream media have tried to trivialize the Climate gate leaked emails from the University of East Anglia. These leaked emails are not just internal email from a small group of climate scientists in Great Britain. These are global emails between the top scientists behind anthropogenic global warming. Meet them in this video.

After the leaked email scandal, the University of East Anglia has been forced to admit they threw away the raw temperature data they used to make their predictions of anthropogenic global warming. They claim they only kept the 'adjusted' data. That is one sure-fire way to prevent skeptics from checking your calculations. Based on what programmers have learned from examining the leaked code the University of East Anglia used to calculate the 'Hockey Stick Graph,' their calculations definitely need rechecking.

I’d like to specifically request that retailers all over the U.S. stop saying “Merry Christmas” altogether. In fact, I want retailers to remove the word “Christmas” from all of their print ads, radio spots, TV spots, billboards, and in-store displays and decorations. I think it’s the least we can do for our Savior.

Vote with your Wallet -- Don't Buy Products from Companies That Support President Obama's Cap-and-Trade Policy Today the Free Enterprise Project of the National Center for Public Policy Research calls on patriotic Americans to vote with their wallets starting on Black Friday and avoid buying products from companies that are working with President Obama and liberals in Congress to impose cap-and-trade policies. "The only reason why cap-and-trade is on the national scene is because CEOs of major corporations are actively lobbying for the legislation. Every time we buy products from these companies our money is rewarding CEOs who are the...

The game is communicating climate change; the rules will help us win it."

I am seeking Feedback on your views as to what is this person's political ideology. Your opinions are most appreciated.http://www.linkedin.com/in/steventrevinohttp://www.globalresilience.mysite.com

Tired of shtick masquerading as talent? The team over at Barely Political spoofs Lady Gaga. Through Lady Gaga the entertainment industry is delivering a powerless caricature. Whatever happened to the voice of the strong woman in rock n' roll? While Lady Gaga is trying so hard like an adolescent teenager to shock her parents, nobody is going to remember her so-called music. Lady Gaga ain't no talent; she's a manufactured product. But in this era of inauthenticity who cares, right? The only thing that really matters these days is that everybody gets paid.

The NY Times this morning is running an Op-Ed piece which suggests that our government's policy toward ethanol production has been less than enlightened. Some of us arrived at this conclusion long ago. Georgie Cracks Corn I don't know how many State of the Union Addresses since 1973 have pledged commitment to energy independence, but to quote Jim Ignatowski when he was asked how many different illicit drugs he had ingested in his lifetime, it's "exactly a lot." It was still a surprise, however, when our current President touted ethanol last week citing the sustainability myth as just one of...

Environmentalists are at it again - this time, they are trying to lay a guilt trip on us for going Christmas shopping today. Erika Lovely of Politico has the story: "In the climate change sense, it's not that every other retail day isn't bad. This just happens to be the worst day for the environment," says Bill Sheehan, executive director of the Product Policy Institute, a nonprofit that aims to prevent waste through better design. Shoppers will buy mountains of limited-use products wrapped up in disposable boxes, bubble wrap, Styrofoam and other packing materials. It's a lot of trash that's...