Free Republic

Dream on you loopians, just don't expect me to fund your crazy ideas! There is a new company, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) that intends to revolutionize high speed continental travel. It’s CEO, Dirk Ahlborn, recently announced an agreement with the Slovakian government to build Hyperloops from Vienna, Austria to Bratislava, Slovakia, and from Bratislava to Budapest, Hungary. Its competitor, Hyperloop One, recently tested an open air propulsion test of a vehicle with its “Blade Runner” test rig. The Japanese “bullet trains” going at 200 mph are like snails in comparison. The new hyper-things are envisaged to do about 760 mph....

In the marketplace, Brand Trump is authentic. It stands for aspiration and success, but more the ostentatious and flashy success that appeals to the newly wealthy, the entrepreneur, the outsider. For these consumers, brand Trump clearly delivers; Trump hotels, and resorts average a 4.5 rating on TripAdvisor. Brand Trump has been extended to other categories, from steaks, to education, to apparel. Not all of these ventures have succeeded. Few guests see the competencies of a good hotelier as relevant to designing distinctive quality suits. But, for a minority of consumers who embrace the Trump lifestyle, these other products can add...

You didn't build that, someone else did. There aren’t’ too many devices that you can look at and instantly ‘get’ that they led to near-instantaneous changes in the way the world functions and behaves. Radios and TVs certainly did, as did the affordable automobile. We can toss in the microwave oven, the X-ray camera, and the personal computer as well. Most recently, the honor would have to go to the cell phone and, in particular, the iPhone. Apple’s baby is widely regarded as the most ubiquitous, and most forward-thinking, of the now borderline-essential cellular handsets. For better or worse, it’s...

Despite the tone of America's current presidential campaigns, it is, in fact, 2016. In theory, companies should understand the kinds of actions that might be interpreted as racist or sexist. Unless, of course, those companies make laundry detergent in Italy or China. Or unless they're Fiat. Alas, Fiat has learned that the hard way, after facing serious backlash over an owner's manual distributed to customers in Argentina. Most startlingly, the manual assumed that cars would always be driven by men, with women only riding as "co-pilots" in the passenger's seat or back seat. It also assumed that women don't know...

When many lower-income Americans feel isolated and empty, they yearn for physical social networks. All across US, this happens organically at McDonald’s On the morning of their wedding, Omar and Betty shared a breakfast of egg McMuffins at a small McDonald’s table, dressed in their finest clothes. Before driving to a Houston courthouse to be married, they walked into the attached child’s play area and joked about one day bringing their kids there. Few understand celebrating at a McDonald’s, but for Omar and Betty it made sense. They don’t have a lot of money, and McDonald’s is part of their...

When Shell announced Tuesday it had green-lighted its ethane cracker plant in Beaver County, a high school buddy who has been watching the oil industry for decades emailed me from New York. This move “completely, totally, unbelievably turns conventional wisdom of the past 40 years on its head,” John Kingston, director of Global Market Insights for S&P Global, said. “A petrochemical plant in the U.S., and not in Asia? And one not on the Gulf Coast? C’mon, that’s crazy talk!” The announcement does seem a throwback to an earlier time in Western Pennsylvania. We’re talking 6,000 jobs in building the...

I have concluded that not doing fairly unto others ultimately could bring about another U.S. civil war. Please hear me out. See if you don’t agree it could happen unless the growing unfair political financial tide is corrected. The growing spread of wealth inequality has been underway for many years. It has come to pass even in a democracy and a so-called exceptional nation. I’m not a history major, but in my serious interpretation, another civil war appears to be a distinct possibility. Doing great and greater for the financially elite and less and less for others has come to...

Americans today say they are generally optimistic about their futures, according to Gallup polling. But one group in particular -- poor white Americans -- has a shockingly dismal view of what the future holds for them. And this pessimism among poor whites goes a long way toward explaining the strange political moment we find ourselves in, one in which Donald Trump surged to the top of the Republican primary ticket by tapping into a deep vein of racial anxiety among the nation's working class. Carol Graham, a happiness researcher at the Brookings Institution, recently analyzed Gallup's data on life satisfaction...

I just have to get this off my chest, websites in general have become incredibly annoying! Videos play that I don't want to watch, I start reading something and a pop comes up asking me sign up for an email I will never ever read, flash ads give me the dizzy;s, your bullshit plugins give me script errors and on average you leave 10-15 tracking cookies. And you folks are surprised people are using ad blocker? If someone comes up with annoying blocker you are screwed! Concentrate on user experience and then revenue, I just flat out leave websites I...

There is a war on over the future of the American economy-- Capitalism or Socialism? What side do you stand on? A National Review By, For and Of the Few William F. Buckley, the Founder of National Review, once said, “I would rather be governed by the first 2000 people in the Manhattan phone book than the entire faculty of Harvard.” The American people continue to uprise against the elitist deal makers in Washington DC—many Harvard alums who have given us $19 trillion dollars in debt, with no end to the spending in sight. As the American people continue to...

It wasn’t so long ago that some of the more famous investor gurus were shrugging off gold as nothing more than shiny trinkets with no investment value. They were wrong. This safe haven is back, the recovery is clear, and there have been some very big changes of heart. The biggest gold producers in the world have seen their share prices double this year. Not only are gold prices soaring, but producers are cutting costs and slimming down debt as they pave the way for gold to return to the top of the favored commodities list. Even though gold dropped...

Nearly half of unemployed Americans have quit looking for work, and the numbers are even worse for the long-term jobless, according to a poll released Wednesday that paints a grim picture of the labor market. Some 59 percent of those who have been out of work for two years or more say they have stopped looking, the Harris Poll of unemployed Americans showed. Overall, 43 percent of the jobless said they have given up, according to the poll released in conjunction with Express Employment Professionals, a job placement service. "This is a tale of two economies," Express CEO Bob Funk...

Steve Jobs went ballistic when public shipping manifests leaked the existence of the iPhone 3G. That’s about the only time something exciting happened in the freight forwarding business. The circulatory system of the global economy is a trillion-dollar industry, yet no one really talks about it, or builds tech for it. That’s what makes freight such a massive disruption opportunity for a startup like Flexport. Transparency begets data, which begets efficiency. Smarter shipping shrinks the physical world the way faster internet shrinks the digital one. New businesses emerge. High bandwidth connections paved the way for Netflix. Now Flexport could make...

There will be a gun turn in event in Detroit, Michigan, on Saturday, 11 June,  2016.  While these events are commonly labelled with the propaganda term “buyback” the guns were never owned by the people attempting to buy them. The event will be held at Mathis Community Center, 19300 Greenfield Road, Detroit.The event is scheduled to run from 10 am until the gift card supply runs out. People often turn up early at these events.  At other turn-in events, some excellent buys were made after the gift cards ran out. The incentive for the gun turn in is a...

An analyst at Global Equities Research by the name of Trip Chowdhry has publicly commented that he considers the market value of the Tesla/Panasonic Gigafactory to be $50 billion, according to recent reports. Considering that the projected development costs of the Gigafactory total “only” $5 billion, and also that Tesla’s current market capitalization is around $32 billion, that figure is quite a notable one. Whether one agrees or not, it’s a number that gets one’s attention…. In his denouement on the subject, Chowdhry drew an analogy with Amazon — noting that the company was originally just viewed as being an...

One of Hillary Clinton’s most influential labor supporters has endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders’ single payer healthcare plan. Members from Service Employees International Union, which represents nearly 2 million healthcare and government workers, passed a resolution declaring medical care a human right at its national convention in May. Obamacare, which the SEIU lobbied for and endorsed, failed to address inequality in the healthcare marketplace and insurance systems remain “confusing and inefficient.” The union pledged to work to improve upon Obamacare with the goal of expanding into a government-run system. “The American healthcare system allows the profit motives of providers, pharmaceutical companies,...

Just before New Jersey holds its presidential primary, Jesse Watters went "down the shore" to find out where Jersey Shore locals stand on the presidential race. He encountered a good number of Trump supporters on the boardwalk of Seaside Heights.

From the IRS link above: "The filing deadline to submit 2015 tax returns is Monday, April 18, 2016, rather than the traditional April 15 date. Washington, D.C., will celebrate Emancipation Day on that Friday, which pushes the deadline to the following Monday for most of the nation. (Due to Patriots Day, the deadline will be Tuesday, April 19, in Maine and Massachusetts.)"

The nation cannot afford to simply put all of that critical intelligence gathering “on hold” for several years No matter which party wins the White House in November our next Commander in Chief will inherit a world far more unstable than at any point in recent history. From the rapid expansion of ISIS, to recent nuclear tests in North Korea, to the many problems in Afghanistan and Iraq, the very real threats to America and its allies have never been more evident. Roughly 150,000 U.S. troops are stationed in more than 150 countries around the world and they are the...

TOLEDO, OH--(Marketwired - May 19, 2016) - Marco's Pizza® has a strong history of supporting U.S. veterans, and the iconic pizza franchise has now formally committed to being an employer of choice for veterans through the launch of a veterans recruiting initiative. U.S. Army veteran Scott Quagliata will oversee the program as Vice President, Veterans Program and Recruitment. "We want to make sure that veterans know that Marco's has wonderful leadership and ownership opportunities for them," said Quagliata, who served in several leadership positions during his 20-year Army career, including Deputy Commanding Officer. "Successful franchisees understand and adhere to operational...