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Elon Musk spoke at the MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics Department's 2014 Centennial celebration. The October 22-24 Centennial Symposium featuring some of the most illustrious names in aerospace reflecting on past achievement, celebrating today’s innovative research and education, and offering their perspectives on what lies ahead. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said his company will make a first attempt to land the booster stage of its Falcon 9 rocket on a floating platform during the upcoming ISS resupply mission. If the attempt is successful, the company plans to refurbish and reuse the booster stage, making spaceflight history and paving the way for...

With business confidence at post-crisis lows (in the US and around the world), it is hardly surprising that consumer confidence would fade and at 88.7 (vs 96.0 expectations), this is the biggest miss since June 2010. It appears last month's exuberant surge/beat was anomalous as we tumble from 94.5 in October, in spite of tumbling gas prices and record high stocks... The drop was largely driven by a slide in 'hope' as expectations fell to the lowest since June. Labor, employment, and business conditions all dropped.

1 Texas 2 Florida 3 Tennessee 4 North Carolina 5 South Carolina 6 Indiana 7 Arizona 8 Nevada 9 Louisiana 10 Georgia

Confused why despite endless daily propaganda that the US economy is getting better - after all "just look at the record high S&P 500" - fewer and fewer Americans believe the narrative, as the Democrats and Obama found out the very hard way in last week's midterm elections? Then the following explanation written by the owner of a small business - the segment of the US economy that has historically led every single recovery but this time was left behind - should help answer some questions.The reason small businesses are disappearing written by a small business owner.I want to...

Rick Perry ascended from Lieutenant Governor to Governor of Texas in December 2000 when then-governor George Bush resigned after being elected the 43rd President of the United States. Perry will retire in January with the tenth longest gubernatorial tenure in U.S. history. Perry made job creation one of his principle mantras, and he has overseen remarkable employment gains under his watch with 2.1 million jobs added during his tenure. The total represents 30% of the jobs added in the U.S. since 2000 and more than twice as many as any other state. The so-called “Texas miracle” does not show any...

Enrollment for small businesses under ObamaCare is falling short of the government’s expectations, according to a federal audit to be announced Thursday. About 76,000 people have enrolled in the state-run exchanges, a dismal total that nearly guarantees that the Obama administration will miss its target for small businesses, according to a report by the nonpartisan General Accountability Office (GAO) provided early to The Hill. The report confirms fears of many Democrats, who have acknowledged that last year’s botched launch would keep people from signing up. The bad news also provides new fuel for Republicans intent on dismantling ObamaCare in the...

I heard about fifteen minutes of Rush today, when he talked about how badly the polls were predicting the election results. Is there a business opportunity for an enterprising Freeper to start an accurate polling company? Or do conservative candidates already have access to accurate polling, but it's just the midstream media types who use their own (skewed) polls to manufacture their own agenda-driven news articles?

Big news today out of Illinois: fracking can soon begin. Today, the 12-member Illinois Joint Committee on Administrative Rules adopted regulations that govern hydraulic fracturing within the state, which will be made public by November 15th. Oil and gas companies can start applying for permits later this month. The rules will require such permits to be approved within 60 days. Many in southern Illinois have long been pushing for hydraulic fracturing, citing a number of potential benefits, including increased tax revenue, high-paying jobs and additional investment. According to a study released two years ago by the Illinois Chamber Foundation, the...

I recently wrote about sluggish and stagnant wages, which are said to weaken the economy's recovery. I argued that workers' fear of losing their jobs is an important - perhaps decisive - explanation. In a nutshell: Frightened of being fired and being unable to find a new job, workers are less inclined to quit and search for something better. Therefore, employers don't have to raise wages, or can raise them less, to retain their best workers. Wage gains have been running at about 2 percent annually, a bit above the rate of inflation. There are many competing theories. The most...

Hillary Was Right: Businesses Do Not Create Jobs... I am unsure how a woman who has never started a business, who is famous for being married to Bill Clinton and who has had a fairly undistinguished career as a public servant could be so wise about business matters, but I tip my hat to her. People scoffed when she dared to speak the truth earlier this week that: “Business does not create jobs.” [sic] But I am a believer. Fifteen years ago, I struck out on my own to start a business. It was not that I had to rent...

Liberals have this terrible and annoying habit of congratulating themselves for their intellectual heft merely because they hold liberal views. Once this arrogant notion reigns, it's tough for liberals to acknowledge when one of their own says something so remarkably untrue and stupid that it makes you wonder just how ignorant is the liberal really. At an event for Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley in Boston on Oct. 24, Hillary Clinton told the assembled Democratic faithful: "Don't let anybody tell you that, you know, it's corporations and businesses that create jobs." This makes about as much sense as "Don't let...

Politics: In case you haven't heard: Hillary Clinton wants to retract the statement she made at a campaign rally last Friday in front of adoring fans that businesses and corporations don't create jobs. Never mind that it's all on camera and that she certainly looked like she was in full command of her faculties and having a grand old time ripping the nation's job creators. After becoming a national laughingstock, she now says she meant to say: "Our economy grows when businesses and entrepreneurs create good-paying jobs here in America, and workers and families are empowered to build from the...

If you plan to shop at Lowe’s (LOW) Orchard Supply Hardware store in San Jose California next month, you might find your sales associate replaced by a five-foot tall, taking robot. These robotic shopping assistants, or OSHbots, will be the first of their kind in the country. They will greet customers, ask them if they need help and show them through the store to the customers' desired products. The robot will also feature screens on its front and back which will display ads for products as well as allow customers the option to videoconference with an in-store sales associate. Yahoo...

Michigan Capitol Confidential has been reviewing how the state's economy performed during the previous decade, in answer to a question raised by a politician’s recent assertion that “those years weren’t as bad as we think.” Separate articles looked at changes in Michigan’s employment, personal income and loss of people to other states. The data shows the period was quite bad, although causes and culprits will be debated. But one sector does appear to have experienced significant growth during the 2000s: corporate welfare, euphemistically called “economic development programs” by politicians. Measuring its growth is challenging because of frequent changes in programs...

Did someone get a 3 a.m. phone call from Goldman Sachs? After her comments this week at a rally for Martha Coakley (whose campaign is touting an internal poll in which she’s down 2!) got her in some “you didn’t build that” trouble, she sought to clarify in New York: SOMERS, N.Y. — When Hillary Clinton fumbled a line at a rally last Friday — “Don’t let anybody tell you that corporations and businesses create jobs” — the comment caused a minor outrage among political observers. Republicans said she’d been pandering to liberals. Democrats wondered if she’d been trying...

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s recent comment about trickledown economics has launched a war of spin. First, here’s what the likely 2016 presidential candidate said at a campaign event last Friday for Martha Coakley, the Massachusetts Democratic gubernatorial candidate: “Don’t let anybody tell you that it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs,” former Secretary of State Clinton said in Boston. “You know that old theory, trickledown economics. That has been tried, that has failed. It has failed rather spectacularly. One of the things my husband says when people say, ‘What did you bring to Washington?’ He says, ‘I brought arithmetic.’

Hillary Clinton’s extended experiences creating jobs can’t be challenged. She has worked in such diverse fields as…1. Defending a man who raped a 12 year old2. Using her husband’s political connections to make money3. Using her husband’s political connections to get elected4. Using her political connections to get a $14 million advance for a book written by someone else which bombed resulting in millions lost… so there’s no question that she knows what she’s talking about when it comes to job creation. Or defending rapists. Or putting people in jail who make YouTube videos. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton...

We have a very serious problem with Hillary. I was asked years ago to review Hillary’s Commodity Trading to explain what went on. Effectively, they did trades and simply put winners in her account and the losers in her lawyer’s. This way she gets money that is laundered through the markets – something that would get her 25 years today. People forget, but Hillary was really President – not Bill. Just 4 days after taking office, Hillary was given the authority to start a task force for healthcare reform. The problem was, her vision was unbelievable. The costs upon...

Appearing at a Boston rally for Democrat gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley on Friday, Hillary Clinton told the crowd gathered at the Park Plaza Hotel not to listen to anybody who says that “businesses create jobs.” “Don’t let anybody tell you it’s corporations and businesses create jobs,” Clinton said. “You know that old theory, ‘trickle-down economics,’” she continued. “That has been tried, that has failed. It has failed rather spectacularly.” “You know, one of the things my husband says when people say ‘Well, what did you bring to Washington,’ he said, ‘Well, I brought arithmetic,’” Clinton said, which elicited loud laughs...

Businesses must be willing to adapt or risk going out of business. Someone as ignorant as Michelle Nunn about basic economics should not be elected to the Senate Michelle Nunn has been getting a lot of traction on the “shipping jobs overseas” rhetoric in an effort to paint her opponent, David Purdue, as unsympathetic to American workers. It’s a tactic toward anyone who is in business to demagogue them for shipping jobs overseas, just like they did to Romney in 2012. Michelle’s cheap shots have lead her to create an ad campaign specifically focused on this narrative. Hours of countless...