Free Republic

Europe faces yet another recession, and the prospect is shaking global financial markets. To eliminate the persistent threat of collapse, Europe must drop the euro, and Germany must abandon mercantilism. When the euro was adopted in 1999, domestic prices -- the face values for bonds and loans -- and bank accounts were translated into euros according to prevailing exchange rates for national currencies at the time. Initially, the single currency posed few significant problems. Over time, however, differences in labor market policies and geographic conditions that are difficult for governments to alter caused productivity to grow more rapidly in Germany...

Tens of thousands of federal workers are being kept on paid leave for at least a month — and often for longer stretches that can reach a year or more — while they wait to be punished for misbehavior or cleared and allowed to return to work, government records show. During a three-year period that ended last fall, more than 57,000 employees were sent home for a month or longer. The tab for these workers exceeded $775 million in salary alone. The extensive use of so-called administrative leave continues despite government personnel rules that limit paid leave for employees facing...

The New York Times is again on the warpath against what it calls "predatory lending." Just what is predatory lending? It is lending that charges a higher interest rate than people like those at the New York Times approve of. According to such thinking — or lack of thinking — the answer is to have the government set an interest rate ceiling at a level that will be acceptable to third parties like the New York Times. People who believe in government-set price controls — whether on interest rates charged for loans, rents charged for housing or wages paid under...

Parents aren't happy that the toy store chain is selling drug dealer dolls, complete with bags of crystal meth and sacks of cash. Susan Schrivjer, a mom from Fort Myers, Fla., was a fan of the award-winning AMC show Breaking Bad.... Even so, she thinks it’s not such a great idea to sell action figures based on the show’s notorious crystal meth dealers Walter White and Jesse Pinkman in a store where the customer base is families with young children.

U.S. businesses were much less likely to boost pay in the third quarter than in previous months, even as hiring remained healthy, a sign that wage gains may remain weak in the coming months.A quarterly survey by the National Association for Business Economics found that only 24 percent of companies increased wages and salaries in the July-September quarter. That’s down from 43 percent in the April-June quarter and the first drop after three straight increases. Yet the firms still added jobs at a healthy pace, which usually pushes wages higher as employers compete for workers. A measure of hiring in...

And you thought the Treasurer’s debate would be boring. That was the observation made by Fox 31 political reporter Eli Stokols as he moderated a debate between Treasurer Walker Stapleton and failed Congresswoman Betsy Markey. At about the 7 minute mark in the below video is when things get really heated. Stapleton asks Markey a basic question about public finance: “Could you describe to me what a yield curve is, please?” She is unable to answer. ... Stapleton has a degree in business economics from the London School of Economics and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He is not...

This summer, Montreal residents witnessed a strange sight: local police abandoned their traditional uniform pants and instead donned casual attire, ranging from camouflage and fluorescent-colored trousers to multicolored slacks. Some cops bizarrely even donned skirts. The dressing down was all done to show cops’ anger at the Quebec provincial government’s proposals to cut the costs of municipal pensions by getting workers to contribute more toward their retirement. Call it Canada’s summer of pension discontent. Governments throughout the country are grappling with as much as $300 billion in unfunded government-worker retirement debt. In a country of just 38.5 million people, that’s...

For several years now, I have been honored to be a member of a group known as the Philadelphia Society. The Society of leading conservative intellectuals was formed in 1964 in the wake of the Goldwater defeat. While I would never self-identify as an intellectual, I fall back on what the Sisters of St. Joseph used to tell us in grade school: “There’s two kinds of knowledge: knowing something and knowing where to find it.” You can gain a lot of insights at Society meetings. Here are just a few highlights from the Society’s regional meeting in Grand Rapids last...

As you can imagine, I was alarmed, but not very surprised, when I received reports of rioting at the Pumpkin Festival in Keene, NH. The residents of Keene hold the Pumpkin Festival annually. Their mission is first and always to amass the most number of jack-o-lanterns in history. In 2013 they broke the previous record held by Boston when they brought together 30,581 jack-o-lanterns, according to accounts by the Keene Sentinel.But into their 30,581 points of light this year was inserted sinister, dark forces. Forces that were nonsensical, dystopian and anarchical.And those forces descended into the hallmark expression of Obama’s...

Obama administration is planning to issue millions of new immigrant ID cards. The federal program will move forward after the midterm elections. US immigration released for illegal immigrants.The federal contract will plan for for up to 34 million cards.Breitbart reported: Despite no official action from the president ahead of the election, the Obama administration has quietly begun preparing to issue millions of work authorization permits, suggesting the implementation of a large-scale executive amnesty may have already begun.Unnoticed until now, a draft solicitation for bids issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Oct. 6 says potential vendors must be capable...

An Obama administration health official said Sunday that U.S. protocols on Ebola failed because they originally were intended for African field hospitals, while the White House came under another round of attacks for its refusal to restrict travel from nations suffering epidemic outbreaks. Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the original Centers for Disease Control and Prevention instructions for dealing with the virus were taken from the World Health Organization’s protocol for Africa, where conditions are much different from those in U.S. hospitals. Two nurses caring for an Ebola patient flown into...

The good citizens of Denton will be voting on Nov. 4 whether or not to ban hydraulic fracturing. They have been told by former Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Phillips the ban on fracturing is unconstitutional. “Under the Texas Constitution, I do not believe that a municipality may ban all oil and gas drilling within its borders,” former Chief Justice Phillips said during a hearing before the Denton City Council on July 15. He said the ban is incompatible with state law, and it amounts to a government taking of private property of many mineral interest owners and operators....

Delaware’s Democrat U.S. Senator Chris Coons has outsourced over 2,170 high-paying Delaware jobs to China, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland from his family’s business W.L. Gore and Associates. Yet in a bold act of chutzpah, Coons is also running for re-election by promising voters he will bring manufacturing jobs to ‘the First State.’ Nationwide, Republicans have been hammered for many years with the false and unfair accusation that American jobs are going overseas because of Republican plans. Whereas Democrat Party policies harm the nation's business environment and drive employers out of the U.S.A., liberals come close to accusing Republicans...

The first thing the firefighters saw was the arm sticking out of the barred window on the second floor of the factory. Flames reached through the partially collapsed roof and a high column of smoke darkened the winter sky. This fire had been burning for some time. The fire station is two minutes from the Teresa Moda garment factory, on the edge of the main industrial zone of Prato, a town outside Florence. The zone was developed for Italian textile manufacturers in the 1980s but now is predominantly Chinese. […] Prato is the epicenter of a thriving, illicit Chinese economy...

Although the Obama administration has yet to release the federal health care premiums for 2015, some private insurers have. One of them in Minnesota has indicated that they will be showing increases of up to 60% for their ACA-compliant policies. Preferred One, the largest and lowest-cost provider of health insurance in the state, pulled out of the state’s MNsure exchange last month due to its being “unsustainable.” Alycia Riedl, with the Minnesota Association of Health Underwriters, commented on the news:

The collapse in oil prices is already a major cause of concern for countries heavily reliant on exports of the commodity. For some, it could be a matter of avoiding a severe recession. Here's why: For governments in oil-exporting countries to meet their spending commitments they need oil to remain above a certain price. With oil prices under $87 a barrel, countries that rely on high oil prices, including Venezuela, Russia, and Saudi Arabia, may have a reason to be concerned. This chart shows the price per barrel that the six most exposed countries need to meet their national budgets....

Kaiser Permanente and other health providers are putting pressure on the powerful California Nurses Association (CAN) in negotiations for reductions in medical staffing and compensation due to the implementation of California’s version of Obamacare. Union nurses on Friday tried to launch a new initiative by demanding an extra compensation supplement and more staffing to be prepared to fight the Ebola virus. But just three years after union nurses won huge contract gains by striking, Obamacare rules that cut patient access to care could now result in huge nurse layoffs. ... the California Nurses Association and other labor unions that campaigned...

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. pushed down prices for some generic prescription drugs to just $4 eight years ago, setting a new industry standard. Now it is trying to do the same for seeing a doctor. On Friday, a Walmart Care Clinic opened in Dalton, Ga., six months after Walmart U.S., the retailer’s WMT, +0.38% biggest unit, entered the business of providing primary health care. It now operates a dozen clinics in rural Texas, South Carolina and Georgia and has increased its target for openings this year to 17. An office visit costs $40, which Walmart U.S. says...

Protesters fight to regain control of a flag that was taken by a fan (right) leaving the Edward Jones Dome after the St. Louis Rams game on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2014. Several fights erupted as fans and protesters mixed after the game. Two arrests were made.Rams fans and Ferguson protesters fought Sunday afternoon outside the Edward Jones Dome after the Rams secured a victory over the visiting Seattle Seahawks. At around 3 p.m. a handful of fans argued with protesters, who were yelling and chanting, near the intersection of North Broadway and Cole streets. The yelling escalated, a fan appeared...

(Reuters) - The U.S. National Security Agency has launched an internal review of a senior official’s part-time work for a private venture started by former NSA director Keith Alexander that raises questions over the blurring of lines between government and business. Under the arrangement, which was confirmed by Alexander and current intelligence officials, NSA's Chief Technical Officer, Patrick Dowd, is allowed to work up to 20 hours a week at IronNet Cybersecurity Inc, the private firm led by Alexander, a retired Army general and his former boss.