Free Republic

QUESTION: What is your opinion of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg idea of universal income? ANSWER: The idea of free money being touted by Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg only demonstrates that they know nothing about humanity or economics. They see universal free money as a cushion for workers whose jobs might be replaced by automation or robots. They argue that free money could provide workers with the flexibility to retrain for a new career, pursue creative interests, or start their own business.If we are talking about a temporary benefit during a retraining period, then that is an entirely different...

The watchword for 2018 is: UNHINGED!That refers to Wall Street, Washington, the Dems and the GOP, and all the far and near corners of the planet which are implicated in their collective follies.The latter begins with the fact that Imperial Washington has become so dysfunctional that the most powerful government on earth can't seem to keep its doors open for more than a few weeks at a time.The next continuing resolution (CR) deadline is January 19 and the route thereto resembles nothing less than kick-the-can-alley. It's strewn with $100 billion of unfunded disaster aid, defense and nondefense sequester caps...

Modern finance has many complex moving parts, and this complexity masks its inner simplicity.Let’s break down the core dynamics of the current financial system.The Core Dynamic of the “Recovery” and Asset Bubbles: Credit Credit is the foundation of the current financial system, for credit enables consumers to bring consumption forward, that is, buy more stuff today than they could buy with the cash they have on hand, in exchange for promising to pay principal and interest with their future income.Credit also enables speculators to buy more assets than they otherwise could were they limited to cash on hand.Buying goods,...

Can't find simple charts revealing obamas 8 years of sub 3% GDP. Can find articles but no detailed govt. source such as Dept. of Com. All help is appreciated.

These six 2018 predictions are neither guaranteed, nor particularly prescient. But the best predictor of past behavior, with people and Krugman's cat, is past behavior. So if any, or all, of these predictions happen, we shouldn't be surprised. The continuing divisive and acrimonious political environment in 2018 America will bring no abatement of the decibel level held throughout 2017. In fact, it’s likely to dial-up.

What is it that ends a recession, and finally brings about an economic boom? After a long and painful “non-recovery recovery” – a decade-long stretch in which job growth and the labor force non-participation rate remained flat – the federal government has finally accomplished, in 2017, the primary contributions that it can make to bring about a real recovery: By year-end, Congress had passed, and the president had signed, a long-overdue tax cut, reducing the tax rate that employers pay by nearly a half. It wasn’t enough, and we will need to add additional cuts in a phase two and...

Apple has become one of the most popular investments in the world for both retail and institutional investors. Their incredible innovations have turned them into the 9th largest company in the world. However, their innovative ability has already diminished significantly since Jobs left the company and will likely diminish even more in the future. If you are a long-term investor, don't get your hopes up for the type of high-flying returns that we have seen in the past. It would not be the first time a major tech company has fallen from grace. The dot com bubble burst from 2000...

It’s over killed by the climate advocates like Al Gore, Tom Steyer and any who see themselves as superior to we peasants? For decades the Democrat championed the “little guy”, the blue collar working class and traditional union households. They were awarded many electoral victories as a result. But has that changed? Yes it has… the Democrat party is now the party of the privileged (mostly white) 1%... the richest among us! With the election of Donald Trump they no longer hide or even advocate for the “little guy”. Their new coalition are the outcasts from what was normal society…...

“You mentioned making the service better for our customers; but the American citizens aren’t our customers—about 400 junk mailers are our customers.” — US Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe to Outbox founder Evan Baehr This was after Baehr tried to start a high tech service using letters digitzed into email to benefit consumers. Trump has jumped the shark.

Before the bill was even passed through Congress, Trump’s tax cut already started signaling strong signs for the American worker, putting more money in his or her pockets. Corporate America has not only celebrated it, but has literally handed out more money to its employees with the passage of this ultimate Christmas gift, becoming a real life Santa Claus. AT&T expanded its bonus program to additional 200,000 employees, getting $1,000 per person. Then came Boeing announcing a gift of $300 million in investments in its employee-related charitable program “to support our heroes, our homes and our future.” A college friend...

California gun owners are making a mad dash for ammo, retailers report, ahead of Proposition 63’s looming deadline. Online ammunition retailer AmmoMan.com said sales have skyrocketed in the weeks leading up to January, with Californians snatching up 50 percent more ammunition than gun owners in other states. “Californians are ordering more than customers in other states right now which suggests that they are stocking up,” Eric Schepps of AmmoMan.com told Guns.com in an email. “What is even more glaring is the number of folks coming to our site right now and buying as opposed to just shopping or reading content....

The self described socialist and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, an actual communist (he spent his honeymoon in Soviet Russia by his own volition) who keeps blathering about “millionaires and billionaires”, a strange dude who never had a real job in his life until he was like 40 years old and then  started working for the government, and now he’s basically a one percenter himself (he owns like 3 houses and he’s worth millions of dollars) admitted on Sunday that President Trump’s tax reform is actually pretty good for America’s middle class. To make things even more interesting, comrade Bernie aknowledged...

Climate scare must be debunked if coal is to recover It is very appropriate that President Donald Trump virtually ignored climate change in his National Security Strategy (NSS). Recent climate change has been unremarkable and clearly does not constitute a national security threat in comparison with concerns such as terrorism and inadequate border controls. What does constitute a threat, however, is a lack of affordable, reliable energy to power the nation and export into world markets. So, as a citizen of Canada, a nation dependent on a prosperous U.S. for our defence and much of our economy, I am very...

As a heartwarming Christmas gesture, a newly signed minor league baseball player used part of his draft bonus to pay off his parents’ mortgage. In a viral video shared on Twitter, Arizona Diamondbacks prospect Pavin Smith tweeted a video of his parents reacting to a letter he wrote detailing that he wants their home to be officially theirs:

A Pennsylvania woman said she recently opened a power bill showing she owed more to her local power provider than the gross domestic product of most of the world’s nations. According to the Erie Times-News, Mary Horomanski, she was shocked to see an outstanding balance of more than $284 billion with a monthly payment of nearly $30,000 due immediately.

Not fit for 21st Century PeeCee police approval per CNN's Carol Costello! #Hillaryarius! The sexism is everywhere!!! CNN sees that Mr. Potter is the Liberal seeking to put the people in the straight jacket of his "public housing" and George Bailey is the "Donald Trump" seeking to make Bedford Falls great again by freeing the people from the dictatorial power of "Progressive" Potter... (censor! Can't allow that truth out!) As with all (misnamed) "progressives" Potter sought to own and control ALL aspects of life in Bedford Falls, seeing only George Bailey as standing in his way! He seeks and thinks...

The .22 LR bubble is over. With the Trump Presidency, gun owners are no longer worried that ammunition might be hard to find in the indefinite future. I visited the WalMart in Northern Dallas on the corner of Marsh Lane  and Frankford Rd. It has had more ammunition available, at lower prices, than the others I have visited in Arizona and Texas. As seen in the photo, take on December 20, 2017, Federal bulk packs of 550 rounds of 36 grain high velocity .22 Long Rifle cartridges were priced at $19.94.  According to my calculator 1994/550 is 3.62 cents...

With the meteoric rise of online retail in the age of Amazon, consumers have continued to opt more for shopping on the Internet in their pajamas as opposed to running out and getting their shopping done in person. The malls hit their heyday in the 1990s and the U.S. has definitely overbuilt the amount of retail needed per person. The American mall is now fighting for its life. A typical large mall in the mid-1990s entailed 142 stores spanning about 1.2 million square feet, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis on 458 malls across the states. Many retailers have...

Bolivian President Evo Morales met with German and Swiss officials in Bern, Switzerland, on December 14 to sign an agreement on building one of the largest infrastructure projects of the century—a coast-to-coast railroad across South America. The Central Bi-Oceanic Railway Corridor, or “Panama Canal on Railway Tracks,” will stretch from the Pacific coast of Peru, through Bolivia, and across Brazil to the Atlantic Ocean. The total length of the projected route is 2,333 miles. Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay also plan to add connection routes to the corridor. Germany and Switzerland will assist in the ambitious project’s construction and will also...

I have believed that Modern Sporting Rifles would hit an oversupply after the election of President Donald Trump, for some time. Price cuts and sales were a near certainty. I have no knowledge of DEL-TON products. They claim "Mil-Spec" for at least some of the parts. $375 with $8 shipping is very reasonable. Here is the link to the sale site.  Minimum wage in the U.S. is now $7.25 per hour, $6.71 after 7.65%  is taken out for federal Social Security and Medicare. At that rate,  an AR-15 clone is available for 57 hours worth of work at the...