Free Republic

All Speakers Live and In Person - All In One Day! President Bush, General Colin Powell, Terry Bradshaw, Zig Ziglar, Dr. Robert Schuller, Tamara Lowe, Rick Belluzzo and Rudy Giuliani. Monday, October 26, 2009 Ft. Worth Convention Center Arena · 8:00AM - 4:45PM

The ninth chairman and CEO of General Electric, Jeffrey Immelt , has upended the traditional innovation model. Among his radical ideas to fire up the $183-billion conglomerate are putting India and China at the centre of a management model that talks of developing products in emerging markets and distributing them globally. In an e-mail interview with ET , Immelt discusses the idea and GE’s India plans. Excerpts: You are expected to make some announcements regarding investments and joint ventures in India. Can you give us some details? India represents one of the significant growth markets for GE globally and we...

Businessman evicted from US Mall for Anti-Obama Merchandise PDF Print E-mail Monday, 28 September 2009 Dan Fuchs said business was just starting to pick up at his kiosk in the Mall at Johnson City. Fuchs’ business, the Graphic Edge, printed slogans and pictures on items such as coffee cups, bumper stickers and T-shirts. He said more than half of his business came from the sale of anti-Obama merchandise. Bumper stickers with slogans such as “SOS: Stop Obama’s Socialism,” “Nobama,” and “Chicago got the party, but the country got the hangover” were displayed around the small stand. Now it appears Fuchs...

Last week I had yet another lunch with yet another former venture capitalist from yet another imploding VC firm. Like a slow motion train wreck, the business of backing and building startups with private risk capital continues its decline. As the last of the money raised during the glory years gets carefully doled out to those start-ups fortunate enough to survive the triage process dominating the venture business these days, it pays to pause and ponder what the future might hold for the innovators that drive progress. Like all professionals associated with the finance industry, venture capitalists have come in...

The unemployment rate for young Americans has exploded to 52.2 percent -- a post-World War II high, according to the Labor Dept. -- meaning millions of Americans are staring at the likelihood that their lifetime earning potential will be diminished and, combined with the predicted slow economic recovery, their transition into productive members of society could be put on hold for an extended period of time. And worse, without a clear economic recovery plan aimed at creating entry-level jobs, the odds of many of these young adults -- aged 16 to 24, excluding students -- getting a job and moving...

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The repatriation of the Timbit was held up by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Tim Hortons executives Wednesday as a shining example of low corporate tax rates luring business to Canada. The homegrown coffee giant has not technically been a Canadian company for years, but Tim Hortons Inc. is reorganizing as a Canadian public company after 99 per cent of shareholders voted Tuesday in favour of bringing the iconic coffee company back home from the U.S. The chain so ubiquitous north of the border had been registered in Delaware for nearly 15 years as a result of its purchase by...

You Can Spend Your Way Out Of A Recession Bob McTeer September 25, 2009 “You can’t spend your way out of recession” is a sound bite heard almost every day on financial TV. Recently a guest commentator combined that sound bite with this one: “You can’t borrow your way out of debt.” Perhaps the second one was intended to divert our attention from the first one. Clever. Perhaps too clever by half. Of course you can spend your way out of recession, almost by definition. A recession can be defined as a shrinkage of spending and income. More spending is...

Let the Progressive Democrats dream their redistributed wealth commie dreams because, sooner or later, reality always comes back to lay some serious bite marks on their asses. Democratic political committees have seen a decline in their fundraising fortunes this year, a result of complacency among their rank-and-file donors and a de facto boycott by many of their wealthiest givers, who have been put off by the party's harsh rhetoric about big business. Those currently in power in the Democratic party are from its Progressive fringe and that makes for a lot of rousing class warfare rhetoric during a campaign but...

A 21st Century Depression By Bill Bonner 09/24/09 London, England The inflation/deflation debate is hot… It crackles and pops like a pine fire. But it gives off little helpful light. Abe Lincoln may have read by the light of an open fire. But when tried it, we singed our eyebrows. It made us suspicious of Old Abe; maybe he wasn’t quite as truthful as he pretended to be. Later, we realized he was a mountebank. But that’s another story… Today, we light a candle and try to interpret the shadows on the wall… Yesterday, the Dow fell 81 points. Gold...

But I Thought The Economy Was Improving?Friday, September 25. 2009 Posted by Karl Denninger in Macro Economics at 08:42 Why is it that we're told that economic conditions are "stabilizing" and that business outlook is "improving" when even large institutions still can't pay their bills? Classified assets rated 'substandard', 'doubtful', and 'loss,' rose to $447 billion from $163 billion in 2008. The volume of SNCs rated 'doubtful' and 'loss' in 2009 rose almost 14-fold to $110 billion, while non-accrual loans touched $172 billion, up from $22 billion in 2008. 14-fold increase? 1,400% eh? Hmmmm.... But the real news in...

Nearly all the parts for the Terex Telehandler provided locally BARAGA -- Although production had dropped significantly at Terex in Baraga, over the past year, the businesses around the plant were still shocked to learn that Terex is closing its doors. And now the businesses are left wondering how they'll stay a float in a tough economy. Terex Handler's say they'll be closing the Baraga plant, between November 30th and December 11th. And this at a time when jobs in Baraga County are hard to find. "We're at 26% unemployment right now", said Baraga County Commissioner, Bill Menge. "And this...

Wichita Suffers From Bizjet Downturn AVIATION WEEK Joseph C. Anselmo janselmo@aviationweek.com William Garvey william_garvey@aviationweek.com Wichita, Kan. A severe downturn in the aviation industry has led to the loss of 30,000 jobs in Wichita as the impact from mass layoffs at companies such as Cessna, Hawker Beechcraft and Bombardier Learjet has rippled through small suppliers and the economy, according to Mayor Carl Brewer. Unemployment in this aviation-dependent city of 364,000 has hit 9.7% as business jet and general aviation manufacturers have throttled back on production after mass cancellations of existing orders and a dramatic reduction in new orders. "That type of...

It has been estimated that employer mandates forced on businesses by H.R. 3200 and the other legislation barreling through Congress will cost America’s businesses $49 billion a year if passed. According to the Heritage Foundation the mandates in the bills now under consideration will force employers to buy healthcare insurance for their employees or pay a per head tax to the federal government. This could affect between 95 million to 105 million workers and about 1 million small businesses. What will this mean to America’s business community? Read the rest at Publiusforum.com...

I saw two amazing women speak this week about mistakes that men don’t make. They presented eight ways that women sabotage their own credibility and results in their business and personal lives. Here’s the short list: 1. Seeking Validation 2. Hoping for the Best 3. Avoiding Confrontation 4. Resisting Duality (this one’s very interesting….) 5. Blending In 6. Diminishing 7. Making It Personal 8. Taking It Personal

AS a young student at the multinational Aramco school in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, Fadi Jaber, a son of Palestinian refugees, always preferred his American classmates’ cupcakes, brownies and chocolate chip cookies to his mother’s pastries: knafah, qatayef and baklawah. But when he tasted a vanilla-frosted vanilla cupcake from the Magnolia Bakery in Greenwich Village in 2004, it changed his life. He quit his marketing job at Unilever and used his savings to enroll in a baking and culinary management program at the Institute of Culinary Education in Manhattan. And after an internship at Billy’s Bakery in Chelsea, he was...

U.S. President Barack Obama will tell the U.N. General Assembly that the United States cannot solve all the problems of the global community by itself. Mr. Obama will tell leaders who "used to chastise America for acting alone in the world" it is time for a true "global response to global challenges," including climate change, terrorism, endless conflicts and poverty.

Sarah Palin, in what was billed as her first speech overseas, spoke on Wednesday to Asian bankers, investors and fund managers. A number of people who heard the speech in a packed a hotel ballroom, which was closed to the media, said Mrs. Palin spoke from notes for 90 minutes and that she was articulate, well-prepared and even compelling. “The speech was wide-ranging, very balanced, and she beat all expectations,” said Doug A. Coulter, head of private equity in the Asia-Pacific region for LGT Capital Partners. “She didn’t sound at all like a far-right-wing conservative. She seemed to be positioning...

The short story His TwitterI am going to give this guy the benefit of the doubt because twitter is a hard format to get your point across. But most of his twitter was mundane. In reading his comments, it seems there was a commonsense approach in Palin's speech. It seems from the twitter, that most of the speech was not earth shattering. But if she did say we needed to be cooperative with China when it came to the economic scuffle on the tires, it would be interesting to see what the full comments were. On the topic of...

The 1930s has become the sole object lesson for today's monetary policy. Over the past 12 months, the Federal Reserve has increased the monetary base (bank reserves plus currency in circulation) by well over 100%. While currency in circulation has grown slightly, there's been an impressive 17-fold increase in bank reserves. The federal-funds target rate now stands at an all-time low range of zero to 25 basis points, with the 91-day Treasury bill yield equally low. All this has been done to avoid a liquidity crisis and a repeat of the mistakes that led to the Great Depression. Even with...

"Bold and even savage" cuts in government spending will be necessary to bring the public deficit down after the next election, Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, says today. As all three main parties begin the conference season with competing proposals for how they would make spending cuts, Clegg used a Guardian interview to set out plans including a longterm freeze in the public sector pay bill, scaling back future public sector pensions, and withdrawal of tax credits from the middle class. He is even prepared to examine means-testing universal child benefits, though he is cautious of destroying "middle-class solidarity"...

NEW YORK, Sept 18 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on corporate profit hopes, but global equities faltered and crude oil slipped toward $72 a barrel on Friday, as the U.S. dollar rebounded from a one-year low on waning risk appetite.

World’s leading economies have already spent over $10 trillion on the anti-crisis struggle. This astronomical number makes up $10,000 per each tax-payer, economists with the International Monetary Fund said. The United States and Britain take the lead in terms of the anti-crisis spending. World’s largest financial centers – New York and London - are located on the territories of these two countries: it is simply impossible to overestimate the significance, which these two centers play in the formation of the crisis. The largest bailout programs were passed in the USA and Britain, the BBC said. The States used $3.6 trillion...

Technology blogs TechCrunch and AllThingsD reported Thursday that the San Francisco microblogging upstart has raised at least $50 million in a new round of venture capital that values the company at $1 billion. Twitter, which lets you share your thoughts online — but only if they can be kept to 140 characters or less — has generated a lot of buzz, but not a lot of revenue. ($1,000,000,000 — that's 14 characters right there.) Last week, though, Twitter changed its terms of service to open the door to advertising on the site, and co-founder Biz Stone recently said the company...

One of those hopefully seminal moments, when someone, somewhere decided to take a stand against the perpetual engine of corruption, greed, and cronyism. From Judge Rakoff's Order For example, the Consent Judgment would effectively close the case without the S.E.C. adequately accounting for why, in contravention of its own policy, see Order, 8/25/08 (quoting the policy), it did not pursue charges against either Bank management or the lawyers who allegedly were responsible for the false and misleading proxy statements...

One year after America's brush with economic catastrophe, there's plenty of looking back at the bubbles that caused financial chaos. But what's next? There are surely dangerous economic bubbles forming as we speak. As Alan Greenspan warned this week, "They [financial crises] are all different, but they have one fundamental source," he said. "That is the unquenchable capability of human beings when confronted with long periods of prosperity to presume that it will continue." The trick, of course, is spotting them. By definition, most people don't spot a bubble before they form and burst. Here's 10 for which you should...

The biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history lies at anchor east of Singapore. Never before photographed, it is bigger than the U.S. and British navies combined but has no crew, no cargo and no destination> – and is why your Christmas stocking may be on the light side this year. >Fascinating article by Simon Parry in the Daily Mail this evening on the Ghost Fleet of Singapore — 100s of empty container ships sidelined by the recession.Excerpt: Here, on a sleepy stretch of shoreline at the far end of Asia, is surely the biggest and...

U.S. Less Competitive Due to Wasteful Government Spending, Debt Video here. via ft.com Why did the World Economic Forum rate America as less competitive than it has in the past? In part, the WEF report demonstrated "particular concerns on the part of the business community about the government’s ability to maintain arm’s-length relationships with the private sector and in the perception that the government spends its resources wastefully." Yup, that sounds about right. It gets better though. America was rated very highly with regard to innovation and business efficiency, but we lost big points in the macroeconomics category, largely because...

Nicole GelinasKrugman, Keynes, and Ketchup The Times columnist offers exactly the wrong fix for the financial crisis. 9 September 2009 In “How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?,” a lengthy essay on the financial crisis, New York Times columnist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman urges fellow economists to re-embrace Keynesian theory, which would help “incorporate the realities of finance into macroeconomics.” In Krugman’s view, we should accept that finance introduces unacceptable gyrations into the broader economy and learn how to smooth these fluctuations with government spending, following the principles of economist John Maynard Keynes. But Krugman’s critique overestimates the...

Recently ABC Nightline news aired an inaccurate report which made false claims about a company trying to help people struggling in today's economy. The piece, “Deal or No Deal”, aired on July 24th. The report covered Credit Solutions, a debt settlement company working on behalf of struggling Americans seeking debt relief. Rather than confirm or check the claims made in the report, the Reporter (Elizabeth Leamy) and the Producer took the side of big political donors and supporters, mainly, credit card companies and big banks. Many of the same companies which were recently bailed out with your tax dollars. Luckily,...

Henry Hazlitt once said that good ideas have to be relearned every generation. Among the intellectuals of our time, capitalism is wildly unpopular. This in spite of the fact that it is the only social system that has permitted prosperity and flourishing. Why they continue to oppose the free market in the face of such evidence is a matter of debate. Some have argued that intellectuals dislike capitalism because they feel it doesn't offer them just rewards for their labors. Indeed, academic books do not sell particularly well, and it is easy for the dedicated scholar to feel a degree...

President Obama's announcement of his selection of Ron Bloom as "manufacturing czar" follows the weekend resignation of Van Jones, the White House "green jobs czar" who had come under fire in recent weeks for past inflammatory statements. As one White House "czar" departs amid a cloud of controversy, an undeterred President Obama is naming a new one to advise him on manufacturing, defying conservative critics who have raised concerns about these advisory positions that do not require congressional oversight. Obama chose a Labor Day union picnic on Monday as the backdrop to announce his selection of Ron Bloom, a member...

I read with great interest today a news article on a new White House initiative that calls on people to save for retirement. There will apparently be an option to get your tax return issued to you as US Savings Bonds as well as new legislation to make it easier for employers to automatically enroll workers in 401(k) plans. If you work hard and meet your responsibilities, this country is going to honor our collective responsibility to you: to ensure that you can save and secure your retirement. –US President Obama I didn’t know we all had a “collective responsibility”...

There's breaking economic data. The weekly jobs report just came out. New claims were at 570,000. The week prior it was at 574,000. The consensus was 560,00 and so this is slightly worse. That number has been bouncing in that range for the better part of two months. This is all a prelude to the monthly BLS jobs report. The consensus on that number continues to be a loss of 228,000 jobs.

I'm in the middle of an audit and I need records from a company that went bankrupt recently. The name is True North Home Systems in Kennebunk Maine. I last contacted them in January and they have since went belly-up. I have been in contact with the locality, (no response/ answer) and have been to the State dept of commerce, state atty gen, state court and nothing of any consequence has been provided. Am I looking in the right place?

The last couple days are a good example of why I believe that getting bogged down in every economic number gets people nowhere. Yesterday, the ISM index finally passed 50 which means that manufacturing is expanding. Automobile sales were up and construction spending was good. Then, this morning ADP released its August numbers for private jobs and they were worse than expected. ADP survey revealed that the private sector lost 298,000, more than the 250,000 that was expected, but less than the 367000 from July.

Having gained fame in the late '60s by building a Defense Department network that would become the Internet, BBN Technologies today is being acquired by one of the nation's leading defense contractors. Raytheon announced this morning that is buying the venerable BBN for an undisclosed sum. From Raytheon's press release: BBN's diverse portfolio encompasses a range of technologies including advanced networking, speech and language technologies, information technologies, sensor systems, and cybersecurity. The company's deep scientific and engineering talent aligns well with Raytheon's expertise and commitment to excellence. "BBN brings world class people, technologies and capabilities to Raytheon and our customers,"...

Childhood Obesity Report Calls For Government Regulations to Limit Access to ‘Unhealthy’ Restaurant Chains Wednesday, September 02, 2009 By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer (CNSNews.com) - A newly released report by the Institute for Medicine and the National Research Council details strategies for local governments to combat what it calls an epidemic of childhood obesity, including enacting zoning and land-use regulations that would “restrict fast food establishments near school grounds and public playgrounds.” The report, “Local Government Actions to Prevent Childhood Obesity,” was compiled by the Committee on Childhood Obesity Prevention Actions for Local Governments, a committee of health care...

Mazda North American Operations (MNAO) today reported its best sales month of the year and best August since 2003. Best August Ever for MAZDA3 AND MAZDA5. See full numbers: http://www.cardealerreviews.org/?p=117183

After eight straight days of being up, the three indices took a negative turn for the last two days, and they are signaling down this morning. The S&P and the NASDAQ were up the last six months in a row while the Dow has been up for five of the last six months. So, it's not yet time to call it a trend.

More than one-in-ten British businesses are seriously considering a move abroad because of the Government's "punitive" tax regime, a damning new survey claims.

Throughout history governments have ignored the rights of citizens and instead have maximized their own power. Those in public office have used it for their own personal gain, or to take wealth from some and give to others in order to maintain their own power. It is a classic model that hasn’t changed much in thousands of years. The modern iteration of this is a leviathan federal government run by a political party based precisely on such principles. The bread and circuses of Roman times have merely been replaced with redistribution of wealth and a paternalistic state. The other major...

Equities broke their winning streak on Friday and now they may be looking to start a new streak. All three major indices are down between one half and three quarters of a percent. That's not that bad. One major index in China was off by 6% this morning on price to earnings "fears". Stocks retreated from Shanghai to Frankfurt on speculation the six-month rally has outpaced prospects for earnings growth.

The national flag of the People's Republic of China (PRC) will be hoisted at the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on September 20, media reported Sunday. Chinese associations in the United States had applied to hold a ceremony in front of the US President’s residence to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of PRC. Chen Ronghua, chairman of Fujian Association of the United States, told reporters that their application was approved not only

Over the past 30 years, I've read so much on how to make money that I know I can write a series of books on the topic, books that would cut through the junk and you don't have to buy 101 things for each area. Most of the information repeats itself -- same author, different title and packaging or different author repeating someone else’s list. All the how-this and how-that was driving me crazy as to what is REALLY required to make $100,000 or more in revenue. A few months ago, I decided to go on a pilgrimage to create...

The British government decided it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom” to make Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, eligible for return to Libya, leaked ministerial letters reveal. Gordon Brown’s government made the decision after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards. The letters were sent two years ago by Jack Straw, the justice secretary, to Kenny MacAskill, his counterpart in Scotland, who has been widely criticised for taking the formal decision to permit Megrahi’s release. The correspondence makes it plain that the key...

Nevada fired the first shot, targeting California's lousy business climate. A good, old-fashioned advertising war has erupted between California and Nevada. At issue is which venue is more business-friendly. Nevada says it's more business friendly because it has no corporate income tax, no personal income tax and its worker compensation fees are much lower. California says it's more business friendly because, well, because California has a lot of consumers and nice weather. Nevada's campaign is the latest in a series run by bordering states to lure dissatisfied California businesses to greener pastures. Paid for by the Nevada Development Authority, the...

Personifying the rock’n’roll spirit of Kate’s attire, the collection is heavily inspired by the 60s, 70s and 80s, with a distinct groupie feel. A series of blouses and dresses in chiffon are voluminous with billowing sleeves and pointed collars or smock style.

This bill passed in 1999. Essentially the bill broke down the proverbial wall between a commercial bank and an investment bank. As such, there was no longer a separation. The example I use is that Merrill Lynch and Paine Webber were now able to provide checking accounts. Even today, Etrade has checking accounts. This is the mundane and reasonable part of the bill. The more sophisticated part was that bank could get into investing. Banks could get into loan securitization. All sorts of financial business could be done by the exact same institution. This lead to the second dynamic.

Francis Cianfrocca joins Ben Domenech for the Friday, August 28th edition of Coffee & Markets, a series of brief morning podcasts on politics and the marketplace.