Free Republic

“What I love most about FreedomFest are the debates!”– John Mackey (CEO, Whole Foods Market)Many of my free-market friends have attacked Paul Krugman, the inflammatory New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize winner, for deliberately distorting the facts about the economic recovery, austerity programs in Europe, the federal deficit, taxes, school choice, etc. Krugman has been especially critical of the “Austrians” for predicting double-digit inflation and another recession.In response, Steve Moore, Peter Schiff and Robert Murphy, among others, have challenged Krugman to a formal debate. But Krugman has adamantly refused…Until now!I have just confirmed the Dream Debate of the Century...

Allocating your investments is critical for those who want their money to work for them rather than fade into worthlessness while their funds sit in a savings account or a certificate of deposit (CD); those methods have not been keeping up with inflation. Asset Allocation can also mitigate emotional risks, and allow investments to mature or have losses without wreaking havoc on an investor’s psyche. Overall, my ideal asset allocation looks like the following: Hard Assets include real estate, commodities, and things like collectables Equities can be divided into domestic and international holdings, mutual funds, and exchanged traded funds (ETFs)...

Drone Exemptions for Hollywood Pave the Way for Widespread Use By BROOKS BARNESSEPT. 25, 2014 LOS ANGELES — The commercial use of drones in American skies took a leap forward on Thursday with the help of Hollywood. The Federal Aviation Administration, responding to applications from seven filmmaking companies and pressure from the Motion Picture Association of America, said six of those companies could use camera-equipped drones on certain movie and television sets. Until now, the F.A.A. has not permitted commercial drone use except for extremely limited circumstances in wilderness areas of Alaska. Put bluntly, this is the first time that...

One day after a bungled iOS update disrupted key features on thousands of iPhones, Apple on Thursday issued a follow-on version of the software to set things right. The newest update, iOS 8.0.2, is available immediately. The bruise to Apple's public image -- also dinged in the last few days by the discovery that its iPhone 6 Plus can be bent -- may take longer to heal.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Legal marijuana is luring pot tourists and business entrepreneurs to Colorado, and it’s also attracting another demographic: the homeless, some of whom trek to the state in hopes of landing a job in the industry. “There’s an enormous migration, even a homeless movement, so to speak,” David Spencer, a homeless man from Tennessee, said. “I figured this would be a good place to start over.” While shelters across the metro area are willing to open their doors, they’re quickly running out of room. “We were averaging 190 (homeless) last year. We’re now averaging 345 a night,” Murray Flagg of the...

The top lawyer arguing a case to overturn Obamacare subsidies believes he can succeed at crippling the law even if it's upheld in every district and appellate court. A three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit invalidated the federal exchange subsidies in June. The full court subsequently vacated the ruling and announced it'll re-hear the case, called Halbig v. Burwell. The conservative opponents have a tough battle because the en banc ruling will feature 8 Democratic-appointed judges — four of whom were appointed by President Obama himself — and 5 Republican-appointed judges. Michael Carvin, the lawyer for the plaintiffs, has appealed...

Moscow's tit-for-tat ban on imports of fruits and vegetables over Ukraine crisis leaves EU producers facing bleak autumn When Russia banned imports of Polish apples in July, politicians and the public laughed off the move by posing with the forbidden fruit on Twitter. Everyone from the head of the national security bureau to TV presenters posted gleeful photos, making the "Eat apples to annoy Putin" campaign a social media hit. Six weeks later, after the Kremlin extended its ban to all European fresh produce, from Greek peaches to German gherkins and Lithuanian cauliflowers, eating apples as a political statement is...

The company’s cable division has appointed a new executive in charge of the “customer experience.” After years of customer service complaints, Comcast said Friday it is appointing a new executive to fix the problem.

The state has received a $4.3 million grant to help small and medium-size military contractors prepare for anticipated cuts in Defense Department spending. Washington received the two-year grant from the Pentagon’s Office of Economic Adjustment, which is set up to help military communities cope with sudden changes in Defense Department trends. It will be used to help the Commerce Department’s military affairs office to develop programs to track workers with experience in Defense Department programs, study opportunities for growth in the defense industry, create a pilot program for small businesses to diversify their work if they’re dependent on military spending...

WASHINGTON -- Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy said Friday that she believes most states will ultimately comply with her agency's proposed new rules on carbon emissions. The rules, which were released earlier this year and are supposed to be finalized by June 2015, set new limits, specific to each state, on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. Each state, however, will need to develop its own plan for meeting those standards. Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA can impose its own plans on states that choose not to submit one, and can legally compel states to follow those...

A cargo vessel carrying a shipment of nickel from Nunavik to China left Deception Bay, Que., on Friday to sail through the Northwest Passage. Fednav, which owns the MV Nunavik, says it will be one of few commercial vessels to navigate the Northwest Passage, and the first to do so unescorted.

the 25 biggest systems by assets averaged a 7.45% return from 2004 to 2013, but liabilities tripled over the same period leaving them facing a $2 trillion shortfall as investment returns can’t keep up with ballooning obligations. The top 25 funds account for 40% of the entire US public pension system with Illinois, Kentucky, Connecticut, and Louisiana at the top of the 'most underfunded' list. .... the New York-based credit rater’s calculation of liabilities tripled in the eight years through 2012, ... liabilities are crowding out spending for services, roads and schools.

Democrat Mary Burke told education officials Friday she would fight as governor to stop the expansion of voucher schools but would leave alone the long-standing program in Milwaukee. "This is something that may sound like a good political sound bite, but it is bad public policy," she said of expanding the voucher program. "I think it is the thing that most threatens a vision of a public school system and an education for students in Wisconsin to be the leaders in our country." Her comments drew applause from her audience at a Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators conference at...

Is this really enriching anybody besides the Muslim settlers? A village of just 1,000 residents in Switzerland has been forced to raise taxes because an African refugee and her seven children cost the local authority $65,000 in benefits every month.Hagenbuch, in the Swiss canton of Zurich, is understood to be spending close to a third of its total annual budget on the family after they arrived from Eritrea in East Africa three years ago.The Eritrean woman and her family arrived in Hagenbuch three years ago in possession of a visa allowing her to stay in Switzerland for five years, with...

The previous estimates of economic growth in the second quarter turned out to be a shade too modest. The final estimate of second-quarter growth from the Bureau of Economic Analysis puts the annualized GDP increase at 4.6%, the best quarter in more than two years, and a sharp rebound from Q1′s -2.1%: Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 4.6 percent in the second quarter of 2014, according to the “third” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic...

The 2nd Amendment gives us the right to bear arms, but it does not limit the amount of ammunition a person can own.

There are 124.5 million Americans in their prime working years (ages 25–54). Nearly one-quarter of this group—28.9 million people, or 23.2 percent of the total—is not currently employed. They either became so discouraged that they left the labor force entirely, or they are in the labor force but unemployed. ... Those attempting to minimize the startling figures about America’s vanishing workforce—workplace participation overall is near a four-decade low—will say an aging population is to blame. But in fact, while the workforce overall has shrunk nearly 10 million since 2009, the cohort of workers in the labor force ages 55 to...

ob Schneider has learned the hard way that there's no way to inoculate yourself against an Internet backlash. State Farm Insurance has dropped an ad campaign featuring the "Deuce Bigalow" star in a reprisal of his "Richmeister" character -- a.k.a. the "making copies" guy -- from "Saturday Night Live." The decision stems not from an objection to rehashed humor from the mid-'90s, but to Schneider's outspoken stance against childhood vaccines. Along with former "View" co-host Jenny McCarthy, Schneider, who has lately been busy trying to revive his career with a spec sitcom, has been one of the most vocal celebrity...

The good news in the just released final Q2 GDP estimate soared by 4.6%, just as Wall Street expected, which was the biggest quarterly jump since 2011 Q4 2011, driven by gains in business spending, where mandatory forced Obamacare 

With housing prices still rising, albeit more slowly, inquiring minds might be wondering about "Real" interest rates and the "Real" CPI? CPI Distortions I believe the CPI is hugely distorted, but not for the same reasons as everyone else. Home prices used to be in the CPI but the BLS now uses OER (Owners' Equivalent Rent). OER is a measure of actual rental prices as well as fiction. The BLS determines OER from a measure of rental prices and also by asking the question “If someone were to rent your home today, how much do you think it would rent...