Free Republic

In the past, I documented the overstatements by both the IEA and EIA in 2014 & 2015 in terms of supply, inventory and understatements of demand. Others also noticed these distortions and, whether intentional or not, they exist and they are very large in dollar terms. These distortions, which are affecting price through media hype and/or direct/indirect price manipulation, are quite possibly the largest in financial history. Putting numbers behind it, with worldwide production running some 95 million barrels per day, and assuming $55 per barrel for oil, the market for crude oil is about $5.2 billion per day. Each...

Last Thursday, The New York Times made a very serious allegation against a sitting Senator and presidential candidate. When asked by Politico’s Dylan Byers why Ted Cruz’s bestselling book “A Time for Truth” was kept of its bestsellers list, they alleged that “the overwhelming preponderance of evidence” was that someone (read: someone hired by Cruz) made “strategic bulk purchases” of the book. Essentially, Cruz was accused of using dirty tricks to try to get his book to the top of the bestsellers list. The next day, Cruz’s publisher HarperCollins has spoken out, saying they reviewed sales data and found “no...

The magnate turned presidential candidate insists he will get the Hispanic vote by creating jobs. He told the news conference it was 'political suicide' to discuss immigration and he was the only one doing it Donald Trump and the Stolen Lives QuiltIn recent days we have seen the meteoric rise of Donald Trump. We hear vitriolic, guttural attacks emanating from the left, all hurled towards Trump for daring to put truth to power, as our founding fathers would have insisted on doing themselves. Also unhappy are standard GOP elite backed candidates, who are upset with Trump because of his ability...

Heh heh heh.... Real-estate magnate Donald Trump is on a roll. And three-plus weeks into his presidential campaign, he doesn't seem to be slowing down. Not even a phone call from the leader of the national Republican Party — reportedly asking the presidential candidate to "tone it down" when it comes to his crusade against illegal immigration — has had much of an effect. There's a funny thing that happens when you reach your personal threshold of **** you money: Your middle finger gets a lot of exercise. Now this is not to say you should use it willy-nilly, but...

The news from the IEA is not good. “World oil demand growth appears to have peaked in 1Q15 at 1.8 mb/d and will continue to ease throughout the rest of this year and into next as temporary support fades.” I don’t have great faith in forecasts but the data shows declining demand growth from late 2010 to the 2nd quarter of this year The weak global economy is the cause of low demand growth. The current debt crisis Greece and collapsing stock markets in China are the latest alarm signals.

People have become herds of cattle and statistics to tax-rich governments and bureaucracies Any country whose financial problems leave thousands of elderly pensioners having to queue up in front of banks is an abysmal failure. Any system that doesn’t put vulnerable pensioners first is heartless. Governments worldwide and their bureaucracies continue to treat people like cattle. For all of their hype as saviours, the European Union is über government. Ditto for the out-of-control United Nations, whose bumper sticker approach of “saving humanity” is a decades-old farce. People have become herds of cattle and statistics to tax-rich governments and bureaucracies.

If I were negotiating this deal on behalf of the IMF and the EU, one term I would demand is the resignation of the socialist government It’s the third bailout of Greece in five years. Heck, even Chrysler must be appalled at a performance like that. And while we’re still waiting for the details, early reports indicate that Greece’s socialist government had to accept much more stringent terms than the ones they told Greek voters to reject just last week. It’s easy just telling everyone yes to whatever they want until you run out of stuff to give them. That’s...

Fascism and (Marxist) socialism are sisters. Close sisters. Both are fundamentally about controlling the economy in a quest for a greater “good.” They have important differences which are more than stylistic differences. But both are fundamentally opposed to free markets, free prices, and fundamentally the free will of individuals. At least most individuals.What is “socialism” and what is “fascism” is a point of ongoing debate on this site. Invariably someone posts a meme which purports to define fascism as what we see it in the movies. See, FDR and Obama can’t have fascist tendencies. (In FDR’s case it was probably...

*If you’ve never heard of ride-sharing, app-based taxi services like Uber and Lyft, you probably don’t get out much. They are pretty much taking over the world. And John Zimmer, who co-founded Lyft, even goes as far as saying that in five years, most millennials won’t own a car. They will see no need for it. “You could actually start seeing the majority of millennials in the next five years or so saying there’s no reason I should get a car,” Zimmer told Mashable recently. “The car used to be the symbol of American freedom. Now it’s like …owning a...

Resilience. That word is defined as being able to recover quickly from difficulties. But if the Obama administration and a controversial Progressive group get their way, it will mean Progressively so much more. The Rockefeller Foundation has a long history of pushing controversial Progressive ideas. From Population Control through family planning and Eugenics, to funding the Marxist affiliated Tides Foundation, to openly awarding Obama’s Communist Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones, an award, the Rockefeller Foundation has done everything but hide their true Progressive motivations from those who care to notice. But now the Rockefeller Foundation wants to dabble in one...

The federal government today released a new rule to ensure that women will have birth control coverage in their health insurance, even if they work for closely held for-profit companies that have a religious objection to contraception. The rule follows the Supreme Court’s decision last year that Hobby Lobby and other closely held corporations could not be required to provide contraceptive coverage to their female employees, even though that coverage is guaranteed under the Affordable Care Act. “Today’s guidance is a positive development for women denied access to important healthcare in the troubling aftermath of the Hobby Lobby ruling,” said...

The Office of Personnel Management is under fire again today after it was revealed hackers, allegedly Chinese, stole 21 million social security numbers during a massive data breach discovered last month (which officials originally said only impacted 4 million people). The social security numbers belong to Americans who have, or who currently are, working for the federal government. This new information comes on the heels of news hackers were able to obtain extremely sensitive information, including classified background check information that can be used for blackmail, belonging to tens of millions of government employees. More bad news: Here’s the kicker:...

We haven’t checked in on the state of affairs in the auto industry recently, but it may soon be back in the news in a big way. Ford is making noises about the fact that they are losing money on the smaller, high efficiency cars which they must produce to stay on top of the eco-minded consumer market, such as the Ford Focus. So what’s a business to do? One suggestion being floated is that they just give up on turning a profit in Detroit and head down south of the border. Ford Motor Co.’s decision to end production of...

Reflections on the anniversary of America’s most tragic duel… Early in the morning of July 11, 1804, the Vice President and the former Secretary of the Treasury stood on the Plain of Weehawken – a wild land in New Jersey, where the laws were different from civilized New York, across the water – and they had their interview, like many a pair had before them, on that “field of honor.” There was a time in American history when every product of our education system (yes - public, private, and homeschooled alike!) knew the participants in our most famous duel. Children...

Many of us remember the histrionics on display by GOP members of Congress when they had to take positions and vote on hiking the country’s debt ceiling. Well, according to the following information, provided by someone who sounds very authentic, here is the legerdemain that went on in that closed door session of the uniparty in D.C. There are a number of details here that lead me to think this is a true account. You may certainly make up your own mind. The Congressman’s name and state are deleted to protect his identity. “That Tuesday, lunch began with our leadership...

As I protested Thursday afternoon in front of the Old Post Office Pavilion on Pennsylvania Ave in Washington D.C.—the building Donald Trump is turning into a hotel a few blocks away from another historical building he wants to take over, the White House—I thought about a meeting I had with Trump at his headquarters in New York two years ago to discuss my organization’s programs, including the Hispanic Heritage Awards. Once the meeting was set, I called immigration activists Estuardo Rodriguez and Gaby Pacheco to gather some young DREAMers to crash the meeting and try and change The Donald’s mind...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) - When Americans line up for salad, you know there must be something special about it. That's exactly what's happening at the hot new restaurant chain Sweetgreen. It is already being dubbed the "next Chipotle." Sweetgreen was founded in 2007 by three Georgetown University friends who had a simple vision: make healthy food yummy, affordable and fun. "Healthy food shouldn't just be for the top 1%," Jonathan Neman, one of the co-founders, told CNNMoney. He studied abroad in Australia and was frustrated when he returned to the U.S. and felt his affordable meal options were limited. Just...

The publisher HarperCollins is disputing the New York Times' claim that Ted Cruz’s new book was disqualified from its bestseller list because its sales had been driven by "strategic bulk purchases." The On Media blog reported Thursday that the Times was keeping Cruz's "A Time For Truth" off of its forthcoming bestsellers list, despite the fact that the book has sold more copies in its first week than all but two of the Times' bestselling titles. In an email, Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy attributed that decision to an "overwhelming preponderance of evidence... that sales were limited to strategic bulk purchases."...

In a book I recently read, Complexity and the Art of Public Policy by David Colander and Roland Kupers, I was surprised to find a chapter entitled “I Pencil Revisited.” Yes, they meant Leonard Read’s famous essay showing how market prices and competition work to coordinate production in a way that no single person, however powerful or intelligent, possibly could. The authors aren’t exactly hostile to Read’s message but say that it leaves out something important — the role of government. They write, For me to be produced, someone had to protect the property rights upon which the market is...

An eye-opening analysis by SNL Metals & Mining released today shows how delays in the U.S. mine permitting process diminish the value of a minerals project – underscoring the urgent need for a streamlined permitting process. The study, commissioned by NMA, finds that a duplicative permitting process that can delay mining projects a decade or longer is hindering the U.S.’s ability to meet a rising demand for minerals. The study, “Permitting, Economic Value and Mining in the United States,” reveals that an average domestic mining project can lose a third of its value due to permit delays, and increased cost...