Free Republic

China’s economic clout is real and growing rapidly, especially since the 2008 financial crisis. China has been the main engine of growth for the world’s economy since that time and, by some measures, has become the world’s number one trading state Napoleon Bonaparte purportedly said “Let China sleep, for when China wakes, she will shake the world.” As Thomas J. Christensen, the author of his recently published “The China Challenge: Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power”, reminds us, “For millennia China was arguably the greatest civilization on the planet and for many previous centuries its most powerful empire.” China...

Scott Santens has been thinking a lot about fish lately. Specifically, he’s been reflecting on the aphorism, “If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day. If you teach a man to fish, he eats for life.” What Santens wants to know is this: “If you build a robot to fish, do all men starve, or do all men eat?” Santens is 37 years old, and he’s a leader in the basic income movement—a worldwide network of thousands of advocates (26,000 on Reddit alone) who believe that governments should provide every citizen with a monthly stipend big...

Could oil prices be in for yet another decline? Oil prices have rebounded with surprising speed in recent weeks, with WTI prices bouncing by more than a third from March lows. There are good reasons for this. Rig counts are down by nearly 1,000 (or nearly 60 percent) since hitting a high in October 2014. Spending on some of the world’s largest projects has been cut by a combined $129 billion, a figure that could balloon to $200 billion by 2016. The spending and drilling contraction is finally leading to some small production declines.

Common Core teaches collectivism—socialism—and degrades various elements of education from math to English to science Think about the major policy undertakings of the Obama administration over the past six and a half years. It began with a “stimulus” that wasted trillions in the quest of generating jobs, but did little to nothing in achieving that goal. That was followed by ObamaCare which most agree has been a disaster for the nation’s healthcare sector and, finally, Common Core, a one-size-fits-all testing program intended, we were told, to improve learning standards in the nation’s schools. The only thing it has achieved is...

Japanese auto parts giant Takata agreed to double a recall of US cars with potentially deadly airbags to a record of nearly 34 million vehicles, officials said, sending the firm's shares plunging in Tokyo on Wednesday.

In just a few years, communities that depend on the trucking industry for their vitality will be facing major economic disruption.Roscoe, Nebraska, is a good place to contemplate how the evolution of long-haul travel can change a community. This unincorporated settlement—some classify Roscoe as a “semi-ghost town”—sits about seven miles east of the city of Ogallala along U.S. 30, which follows the old Lincoln Highway route and before that, various overland migration trails to California, Oregon and Utah. Just off U.S. 30, opposite the Union Pacific freight-rail tracks, there’s an abandoned gas station with its former pump, pictured above, standing...

Will someone please inform our so-called President it's not 1860 and that neither him or Michelle Obama have ever been slaves. Even at the height of slavery during the Antebellum period, less than 2% of the population were slave owners; which by the way, included black Americans amongst their infamous ranks. This of course is omitting the trivial facts African tribes sold their brethren into bondage for everyday trinkets and that nearly 400,000 white men died to procure their freedom. I'm also guessing our myopic pastor of prejudice forgot that the KKK was specifically forged as the terrorist arm of...

Google, the world’s largest search engine, is gargantuan in size and clout, but still small enough to fit in Barack Obama’s back pocket Conservative websites like Canada Free Press (CFP) owe a debt of gratitude to plucky ‘Citizen Journalist’, news researcher cum laude, Tina Siegert of News the Media Won’t Show You. Though some might not yet realize its full impact, all conservative websites are under Google suppression now that Google has claimed rights as the Grand Central of Internet Truth. Google will no longer drive traffic to Conservative websites. Internet traffic is what gets all websites Internet advertising. Without...

The oil price collapse is not over yet. It is more likely that the Brent price could fall back into the mid-$50 range than that it will continue to rise toward $70 per barrel. That is because oil prices have risen based on sentiment alone. The fundamentals of supply and demand indicate a dismal reality: oil prices will fall and may fall hard in the near term. Our present situation is like that of the cartoon character Wile E. Coyote. He routinely ran off of a cliff and as long as he didn’t look down, everything was fine. But as...

NEW ORLEANS — The American Federation for Children, which wants a dramatic expansion of charter schools and voucher programs, picked a boxing theme for its annual policy summit this week. Red boxing gloves became table centerpieces at the opening lunch Monday. Panel titles included "Knocking out yesterday's education models" and "Training parents to win the fight." And the first keynote speaker was Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a likely Republican presidential contender who is best known for aggressively fighting and weakening his state's education labor unions..... ....Wisconsin is home to the nation's first modern voucher system. The state adopted legislation in...

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- While it's hard to predict the markets, when it comes to the month of May, one thing is for certain: You'll hear someone say, at least once, "sell in May and go away." The cliché, which suggests that smart investors should sell off their portfolios in May and only re-enter the market in the fall, has long been part of Wall Street culture, but where does it come from? The saying dates back to old England, when the stock brokers would go on summer vacation in May and not return until September. The original saying was,...

While we constantly analyze short-term data, the industry has a longer-term problem. And it is not related to what lies below the ground. There is a retirement tidal wave that could wash over the oil and gas industry over the next few years. The seeds of this crisis were planted in the late 1980’s after the last major oil bust. Oil prices crashed after Saudi Arabia became fed up with losing market share, and beginning around 1986, it pumped flat out in order to force out other producers. The price of oil crashed and a lot of US drillers cut...

The New Hampshire House Business Caucus, in partnership with the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce, will host its fourth in a series of business roundtables with presidential candidates, on Monday, June 1, at 9 a.m. at The Draft restaurant, 67 South Main St. in Concord, according to a press statement. The featured speaker, and declared presidential candidate, will be Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. “The momentum continues to build as we have more and more candidates take part in this series. We have had a terrific response and level of interest from the business community, the candidates, and state elected...

What the EPA is attempting to impose on America is a drain on our production of electricity coupled with an increase in its price. It is an obscene attack on our economy There are many things I do not like about the Environmental Protection Agency, but what angers me most are the lies that stream forth from it to justify programs that have no basis in fact or science, and which threaten the economy. Currently, its “Clean Power” plan is generating its latest and most duplicitous Administer, Gina McCarthy, to go around saying that it will not be costly, nor...

A man who drove his wife to A Woman’s Choice abortion clinic in Raleigh, North Carolina has attacked a group, which refers to themselves as abolitionists against abortion, after he perceived they were accusing his wife of having an abortion. Abolitionists claim they hold to the tenants outlined by Abolish Human Abortion (AHA), and do not want to be linked in any way to the pro-life movement because they favor incremental strategies to end abortion. In the first video of the man, who drove his wife to the abortion clinic, he initially speaks with the abolitionists calmly, explaining that he...

Transgender issues are the next frontier of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights movement. A string of high-profile cases, such as a Kansas judge’s decision to allow Army Pfc. Bradley Manning to change her name to Chelsea and Olympian Bruce Jenner’s televised coming out as a transgender woman, coupled with a series of gay rights victories, have opened discussions of transgender rights. Here are seven things to know about the trans community. The basics Gender identity and sexual orientation are not the same; a transgender person, of which there are an estimated 700,000 nationwide, can be straight, gay, lesbian...

The best I can do is to wish you good luck. You’re going to need it. All manner of people are giving commencement speeches to students graduating from colleges and universities these days. It is doubtful that any will be remembered because the prospects of students depend in large part on the economy into which they are entering, the majors they pursued, their individual ambitions, and capacity for hard work. Then, too, there’s dumb luck which often plays a role. For those graduating this year, my profound sympathy because the economy could not be much worse short of being declared...

Some really weird things are happening in the financial world right now. If you go back to 2008, there was lots of turmoil bubbling just underneath the surface during the months leading up to the great stock market crash in the second half of that year. When Lehman Brothers finally did collapse, it was a total shock to most of the planet, but we later learned that their problems had been growing for a long time. I believe that we are in a similar period right now, and the second half of this year promises to be quite chaotic. Apparently,...

The Textron Scorpion costs $20 million, still not exactly a bargain by most people's standards, but a fifth of the cost of the F-35. It suggests that not every advanced defence project has to necessarily come in years late and billions over budget – and points to a new twist in not only the future of fighter-jet design, but also in more humanitarian roles that a budget jet could carry out. Textron aren’t the only ones creating the tech to address this issue. The single jet fighter JF-17 is a Chinese design, currently being built in collaboration with its sole...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)An Amtrak employee has filed the first lawsuit in connection to Tuesday's deadly train derailment that killed eight people and injured over 200 others in Philadelphia. The Bala Cynwyd law firm Coffey Kaye Myers & Olley, which is representing Amtrak employee Bruce Phillips and his wife Kalita Phillips of Philadelphia, confirmed with NBC10 that their clients are filing a lawsuit against Amtrak. Phillips is still hospitalized at Temple University Hospital. Phillips, an Amtrak employee, was "deadheading" in one of the rear railcars of Amtrak Regional Train 188 Tuesday night when the derailment occurred, according to the lawsuit. Deadheading is a...