Free Republic

As a seasoned restaurant consultant deeply entrenched in the industry, I've got my finger on the pulse of what's happening. Running a restaurant has always been a tough gig. Everyone seems to think their family recipe will turn into a gold mine, but sadly, it's not just about the quality of Grandma's lasagna. There are myriad challenges to navigate in this business. From securing the right location and talent to nailing down a winning concept, dealing with everything from theft to insurance, not to mention the endless stream of fees, licenses, and paperwork, the restaurant industry can nickel and dime...

Stop! Stop! Stop! … all the printing! These people have to be stopped! We are talking about the nation’s unhinged monetary politburo domiciled in the Eccles Building (The Federal Reserve), of course. It is bad enough that their relentless inflation of financial assets has showered the 1% with untold trillions of windfall gains, but their ultimate crime is that they lured the nation’s elected politician into a veritable fiscal trance. Consequently, future generations will be lugging the service costs on insuperable public debts for years to come. For more than two decades these foolish PhDs and monetary apparatchiks drove the...

“Trade Compliance” is a subset of regulatory compliance, focused primarily on export controls and the Customs rules concerning importing and duty assessment. Outside of the occasional discovery of illegal Chinese copies of branded gym shoes, or the even rarer news story about a company caught selling technology to the Iranians or North Koreans, this specialty rarely makes the mainstream news. An exception occurred as April, 2024 came to an end: the Federal Trade Commission announced a record fine against an American retail chain, Williams-Sonoma, and its subsidiaries (including Rejuvenation, Goldtouch, and the Pottery Barn family), for violations of the FTC’s...

15-year-old Matisse tragically met his end when an Afghan migrant, previously arrested for violent crimes, fatally stabbed him in the heart, while his own mother joined in, mercilessly slapping the defenseless victim as he lay dying on the pavement. In a case that has sent shockwaves across France and reignited the contentious immigration debate, the gruesome murder of 15-year-old Matisse, who was stabbed to death by an Afghan migrant in Châteauroux with the help of his mother, has taken a chilling turn with the emergence of disturbing new details. The alleged perpetrator, a teenage Afghan migrant with a history of...

In the wake of Tucker Carlson's much-publicized interview with Vladimir Putin and his subsequent display of what can only be described as “clueless man babbles one-dimensional nonsense in admiration for Russia in a supermarket,” we find ourselves confronted with an important issue: Either Carlson is a master in controlled opposition, skillfully playing his part in a grand geopolitical chess game, or he is just masterfully milking the easily-misled for clicks, views, attention and money. Even the most astute among us can fall victim to a well-crafted deception, and I fear that this is precisely what is happening to Carlson and...

People keep acting as if we are living in “normal” times, but the truth is that these are not “normal” times at all. We are in the midst of a “perfect storm”, but most people in the general population don’t seem to realize this. While the mainstream media is endlessly focused on political drama, our world is being deeply troubled by war, economic problems, food shortages, nightmarish pestilences and terrifying natural disasters. But as bad as things are at this moment, I am entirely convinced that they are about to get a whole lot worse. I would like to start...

A large landslide destroyed a significant portion of the Meizhou-Dabu Expressway in Meizhou City, Guangdong Province, China, at around 02:10 local time on May 1, 2024. The collapse caused 23 vehicles to plummet down a steep slope, igniting some in flames and resulting in 48 fatalities and 30 injuries as of May 2, 2024. In the early morning (LT) of May 1, 2024, a large landslide triggered by extensive rainfall hit the Chaoyang section of the Meizhou-Dabu Expressway in Meizhou City, resulting in severe destruction and loss of life. The landslide triggered the collapse of an approximately 18 m (59...

Surprise! Just in time for the November election, this is a negative surprise that Biden doesn’t want to hear. The Citi Economic Surprise index crashed to -7.30, the lowest since January 2023. Under Biden’s leadership (hell, he and his family already own several mansions … on a Senator’s pay), home prices are up 32% under Biden and mortgage rates are up a staggering 160%. Getting young households who rent to buy a home in this environment will require magic.

I doubt if Biden really understands what he is saying. He simply reads (badly) off a teleprompter. Biden has repeatedly claimed that no new taxes on anyone making less than $400,000. Remember, he has repeatedly said “You have my word as a Biden.” Which is worthless, by the way. There are TWO taxes that are hitting people making under $400,000 per year. First, the INFLATION tax coming from Biden’s/Congresses spending binge, The Fed printing gobs of money, and insane regulations. Biden and his mouthpieces like Karine Jean Pierre (KJP) claim that Biden inherited inflation from Trump. FALSE. Inflation was only...

Joshua Dean (45) has tragically died just two months after the mysterious death of John Barnett. Dean was a key figure in exposing alleged safety issues in Boeing’s 737 MAX production line. He died of complications arising from a severe and rapid bacterial infection, as reported by The Seattle Times.

Hey Joe! Where is the strongest jobs recovery in history?? BLS reported that in April the US added just 175K jobs, a nearly 50% drop from the upward revised 315K (was 303K)… .. and a huge miss to estimates of 240K… in fact, as shown below, this was the biggest miss since Dec 2021 The weakness was pervasive, and while payrolls were a huge miss, the unemployment rate also rose more than expected, from 3.8% to 3.9%, vs estimates of an unchanged print. Wages also eased back with average hourly earnings rising 0.2% MoM, below the expected 0.3% increase and...

Misinformation professor who alerted Twitter to "conspiracy theory," that vaccines mandates were coming, coauthors papers with CDC scientists for publisher caught hiding Wuhan funder's conflict of interest. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention repeatedly warned the public to reject purported misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines even after contradicting its then-director's certainty that the rushed-through therapeutics stop infection and transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Rochelle Walensky kept promoting the claim, which she knew was false just a month after emergency use authorization, as late as April 2023, several months after former White House COVID adviser Deborah Birx said she "knew" the vaccines...

Its early Friday morning in the UK results beginning to come in for the local government elections... Turkey (Türkiye) halting all trade with Israel... Eight Syrian soldiers wounded in an Israeli attack tonight in a Damascus suburb... A massive fire tonight in Moscow.. In the Uk 45 people arrested resisting efforts to detain illegal immigrants for transfer to Rwanda... Swedish authorities granting permission for a Quran burning rally on May 10th in Malmo... "If the Russians were to break through the front line, if there were a Ukrainian request--which is not the case today--we would legitimately have to ask ourselves...

Fed Chair Powell yesterday said he doesn’t see the “stag” in stagflation. Really? Well, in Q1 in the US… it failed to show up as non-farm productivity – or nonfarm employee output per hour – rose at a measly 0.3% annualized rate after an upwardly revised 3.5% gain in the prior period (well below expectations)… Source: Bloomberg On the flip-side of that – and echoing the market-worrying ECI data earlier this week – Unit Labor Costs soared 4.7% in Q1 (well above the 4.0% expected and the 0.4% rise in Q4)… Source: Bloomberg So wage inflation is confirmed – rising...

In the time (dis)honored tradition of Haruhiko Kuroda, the former governor of the Bank of Japan, Japan likely conducted its second currency intervention this week, current account figures from the central bank suggest, in another sign of the government’s intensified battle to prop up the yen. Tokyo’s latest entry into the market was likely around ¥3.5 trillion ($22.5 billion), based on a comparison of Bank of Japan accounts and money broker forecasts. The BOJ reported Thursday that its current account will probably fall ¥4.36 trillion due to fiscal factors on the next business day of Tuesday. That compares with the...

World reserve status allows for amazing latitude in terms of monetary policy. The Federal Reserve understands that there is constant demand for dollars overseas as a means to more easily import and export goods. The dollar’s petro-status also makes it essential for trading oil globally. This means that the central bank of the US has been able to create fiat currency from thin air to a far higher degree than any other central bank on the planet while avoiding the immediate effects of hyperinflation. Much of that cash as well as dollar denominated debt (physical and digital) ends up in...

The Fed will likely pause rate cuts/increases when The Fed reveals their plans today. Breaking: Federal Reserve officials are likely to hold interest rates steady at 5.25-5.5%—a 20-year peak—for a 6th consecutive meeting. With inflation still high, rate cuts seem off the table for now. Rate decision at 2pm Washington time. The Street seems aligned. Conforming rates are already up 161% under Biden. MBS returns have been abysmal under Biden/Powell.

Housing in the US is simply unaffordable, particularly after HUD levied new regulation rising the cost of new housing up to $31,000. Wait for this to kick into the data for mortgage demand! Mortgage applications decreased 2.3 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending April 26, 2024. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 2.3 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 1.4 percent compared with the previous week. The...

Last Sunday’s ‘Demonic Flooding of America’ was so popular, this is its companion piece, a fleshed-out examination of the Head of the Snake; the cabal that is behind the Great Reset, the Covid and Global Warming hoaxes, and every profit-bonanza-war of the last thirty, if not 500 years, but especially Ukraine. They call themselves by a proliferation of names: the Olympians, the Elect, Bilderbergers, the 300, demi-gods, the Black Nobility, other silly secret names that must not be spoken. They are secret because their intent is evil. They practice the occult – foolish and irresponsible – they are “Masons” of...

A report published by Politico claims that wanting the human race to reproduce is now a “far right” position to take. Yes, really. Leftists are so obsessed with identity politics, they’re arguing that human reproduction, and being in favour of people having babies is now right wing. The article focuses on a recent natal convention , and states that “The far right is so obsessed with making babies, they just held a whole conference about it.” The far right is so obsessed with making babies, they just held a whole conference about it. They are even using a political term...