Free Republic

The stunning 40% drop in the price of oil over the past few months has scrambled global economic forecasts, changed the geo-political landscape, and has severely pressured many energy sector investments. Economists are scratching their heads to determine if the drop is good or bad for the economy or whether cheap oil will add to or decrease unemployment, or complicate the global effort to "defeat" deflation. While all of these issues merit detailed discussions, the first question to address is if the steep drop is here to stay and whether energy prices will stay low enough, for long enough, to...

Gasoline prices are falling across northeast Oklahoma and at many convenience stores, it is now below $2 a gallon. Tuesday morning, News On 6 viewers began sending us photos of $1.99 gas prices at QuikTrips across the Tulsa area. Viewers are also reported Kum & Go's in Tulsa area communities are also selling gasoline at $1.99 a gallon. And the lower price for gasoline is not just in the Tulsa area, a South Coffeyville gas station has gas at $1.97 a gallon.

Greg Willerer may not seem like your average entrepreneur. The once full-time school teacher quit his job to follow his passion for farming in the most unlikely of places. Located not far from Downtown Detroit, Willerer launched his urban farming business on just one acre of land. During his first year, Willerer earned almost the equivalent of his teaching salary. His venture, Brother Nature Produce, sells locally grown produce to restaurants across Detroit. They recently received a $10,000 grant to help grow their business from the New Economy Initiative’s small business challenge, and his farm was among one of five...

Electric cars are often touted as the most environmentally friendly vehicles out there, but the devil is always in the details. While charging tends to be the focus of environmental assessments, the entire life cycle of the vehicle needs to be considered.

Another unintended - but not unexpected - consequence of Obamacare is being felt as the program enters its second year. More than 20 million Americans who work for small businesses with less than 50 employees are covered by employer insurance. The 50 employee number is significant because if you work for a small business with more than 50 workers, your employer is mandated to cover your health insurance. But with insurance rates rising, many small businesses of less than 50 employees are opting to drop their coverage and have workers purchase their insurance through the Obamacare website. Daily Signal:...

The odds are stacked against low-income Americans seeking the education they need to move up. Chelsey Stone had already escaped so many of the traps that keep poor children in poverty for life. She recalls begging neighbors for dinner when her mother sold their food stamps for drug money. She slept on the trampoline outside when the heroin showed up and her mom locked the door and the binges began. When she rebelled as a teenager, it was with poster board: She plastered her house with bright signs warning, “Do Not Throw Needles Away Here.” Her teachers saw that spark....

HARTFORD, Conn. – The families of nine of the 26 people killed and a teacher wounded two years ago at the Sandy Hook Elementary School filed a lawsuit Monday against the manufacturer, distributor and seller of the rifle used in the shooting. The negligence and wrongful death lawsuit, filed in Bridgeport Superior Court, asserts that the Bushmaster AR-15 rifle should not have been made publicly available because it was designed for military use and is unsuited for hunting or home defense. "The AR-15 was specifically engineered for the United States military to meet the needs of changing warfare," attorney Josh...

The usual suspects are attacking Ted Cruz for doing his job.Republicans and a chorus of conservative commentators are dumping on the sole conservative Republican senator from Texas because–the horror!–he dared to force his Senate colleagues to publicly take sides on President Obama's shameful extralegal unilateral immigration amnesty.Apologists for Republican cowardice claim to be upset with Cruz because, as they claim, his parliamentary maneuvers to stymie the amnesty somehow allowed some objectionable Obama nominees to move forward in the confirmation process.Of course, they're lying. All Obama nominees are objectionable–remember, our president is a red diaper baby–yet the Senate eventually caves to...

The ruble collapsed by 10 percent against the U.S. dollar Monday earning the Russian currency the dubious laurels of the world’s worst-performing currency this year. The Russian currency has now fallen 49.3 percent against the greenback since January, according to data from the Moscow Exchange. The drop takes it below the Ukrainian hryvna, which has weakened 47.9 percent in 2014. Monday’s plunge was the largest single-day fall for the ruble since the financial crisis of 1998 when Russia was forced to default on its debt after exhausting its reserves in a fruitless bid to prop up the currency. In evening...

A funny thing happened on the way to Vladimir Putin running strategic laps around the West. Russia's economy imploded. The latest news is that Russia's central bank raised interest rates from 10.5 to 17 percent at an emergency 1 a.m. meeting in an attempt to stop the ruble, which is down 50 percent on the year against the dollar, from falling any further. It's a desperate move to save Russia's currency that comes at the cost of sacrificing Russia's economy. So even if it "works," things are about to get a lot worse. It's a classic kind of emerging markets...

VANSANT, Va. -- Some 175 miners at three SunCoke Energy facilities were laid off today after their mines were idled, company officials announced this afternoon. The Dominion No. 36 mine and parts of the Dominion No. 7 and Dominion No. 30 mines have been idled, said Steve Carlson, spokesman for SunCoke. He said those mines are all in far Southwest Virginia. The move is a step in SunCoke's ultimate plan to exit the coal-production business, Carlson said. The announcement also included plans to reduce production at the Jewell Coke plant in Vansant. "At this point, the plan is to look...

Just two weeks ago a sole gas station in Oklahoma swept headlines for dropping gas prices below $2 a gallon. Today, 13 states have joined that list and the trend is expanding. Gas for less than $1.90 a gallon can be found in at least one station in Oklahoma, Louisiana and Ohio, according to CNN. CNN cites ten additional states– Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Texas and Virginia– that now have gas below $2 a gallon. “What we’re seeing is markets at work,” Heritage Foundation economist Nick Loris said. “Significant increases in supply and a relatively...

(Reuters) - Sliding oil prices and a downbeat China factory survey weighed on Asian shares on Tuesday, while the ruble jumped against the dollar after Russia sharply increased its benchmark interest rate in a bid to halt a collapse in its currency. Activity in China's factory sector shrank in December for the first time in seven months as new orders declined, adding to a spate of data showing more fatigue in the world's second-largest economy and heightening expectations that more stimulus will be needed to avert a sharper economic slowdown. "Concerns about the Russian economy and a slowdown in the...

Six years after candidate Barack Obama vowed to make working for government “cool again,” federal hiring of young people is instead tailing off and many millennials are heading for the door. The share of the federal workforce under the age of 30 dropped to 7 percent this year, the lowest figure in nearly a decade, government figures show. With agencies starved for digital expertise and thousands of federal jobs coming open because of a wave of baby-boomer retirements, top government officials, including at the White House, are growing increasingly distressed about the dwindling role played by young workers. “Millennials are

MOSCOW — With Russia scrambling to contain a currency crisis, the country’s central bank, in a surprise middle-of-the-night move, increased its key interest rate to 17 percent, from 10.5 percent. Aleksei L. Kudrin, a former Russian finance minister who is widely credited with having steered Russia through the 2008 financial crisis by convincing President Vladimir V. Putin to build up sovereign reserves, said that uneven policy making was adding to the erosion of confidence. “The fall of the ruble and the stock market is not only a reaction to lower oil prices and sanctions, but also distrust in the government’s...

In addition to major telecommunications firms aiming to influence the public debate on net neutrality, there’s the Ford Foundation, the second-largest private foundation in the world. “If you are a foundation for justice in the world, and you don’t understand that the Internet is going to be a major battleground in this century, and you’re not engaged in that fight and supporting people who are concerned about access and security, you’re going to be left out of one of the most important justice issues of the day,” Foundation President Darren Walker told the Council on Foreign Relations this summer. “And...

If you, like this author, always dreamed of using a camo-covered, Army-issue Humvee as your personal golf cart, your dreams can finally come true — for a price. According to the Army Times, the Department of Defense will start auctioning off as many as 4,000 military-spec Humvees to the public as part of its surplus-reduction efforts. In previous years, the off-road behemoths would have been sent straight to the military scrapyard, but due to changes in policies in recent years and what the Defense Logistics Agency spokesperson Michelle McCaskill describes as “cooperation from other government offices," the used Humvees will...

Americans visiting Healthcare.gov to purchase 2015 health-insurance plans are finding a nice surprise: Average premiums for the cheap “bronze” plans have increased only by 3.4% and premiums for the middle-of-the-road “silver” plans are rising by 5.8%, according to the American Action Forum. Where are the double-digit premium increases that so many predicted? Check back around this time in 2016. That’s when you’ll see the real spikes. The Affordable Care Act includes two temporary programs that make compliant health-care plans temporarily appear far cheaper than they are: Risk corridors and reinsurance. Both programs will expire on Jan. 1, 2017. By November...

People who own all-electric cars where coal generates the power may think they are helping the environment. But a new study finds their vehicles actually make the air dirtier, worsening global warming. Ethanol isn't so green, either. "It's kind of hard to beat gasoline" for public and environmental health, said study co-author Julian Marshall, an engineering professor at the University of Minnesota. "A lot of the technologies that we think of as being clean ... are not better than gasoline."

Russia's economy is crashing and its currency appears to be in free fall. The ruble plunged by about 12% Monday, meaning it's lost nearly 50% against the dollar this year. Early Tuesday in Russia, the central bank hiked its key interest rate for a sixth time this year to 17% from 10.5%.