Free Republic

Global Economy? 23 Facts Which Prove That Globalism Is Pushing The Standard Of Living Of The Middle Class Down To Third World Levels From now on, whenever you hear the term "the global economy" you should immediately equate it with the destruction of the U.S. middle class. Over the past several decades, the American economy has been slowly but surely merged into the emerging one world economic system. Unfortunately for the middle class, much of the rest of the world does not have the same minimum wage laws and worker protections that we do. Therefore, the massive global corporations that...

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that corporations have no right of personal privacy to prevent the disclosure of documents under the federal Freedom of Information Act. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the 8-0 opinion Tuesday that reversed an appeals court ruling in favor of AT&T. The outcome was notable for its unanimity, especially in view of recent criticism from liberal interest groups that the court tilts too far in favor of business. "The protection in FOIA against disclosure of law enforcement information on the ground that it would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy does not extend...

The American people are becoming increasingly angry about the extraordinary amount of power and influence that corporations have in the United States today. A new Gallup poll found that 67 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the size and influence of major corporations in the United States today. Not only that, the most recent Chicago Booth/Kellogg School Financial Trust Index found that only 26 percent of Americans trust our financial system at this point. The mainstream media is acting as if this is a new phenomenon, but the truth is that a dislike of giant corporations goes all the way...

Corporate profits are up. Stock prices are up. So why isn't anyone hiring? Actually, many American companies are — just maybe not in your town. They're hiring overseas, where sales are surging and the pipeline of orders is fat. More than half of the 15,000 people that Caterpillar Inc. has hired this year were outside the U.S. UPS is also hiring at a faster clip overseas. For both companies, sales in international markets are growing at least twice as fast as domestically. The trend helps explain why unemployment remains high in the United States, edging up to 9.8 percent last...

Last week President Obama decided to repair his strained relationship with business -- not by advocating permanent reductions in taxes and less regulation, but by interviewing a Clinton-era former Treasury official for a position as economic advisor. Obama's presidency has been torpedoed by his endemic hostility toward capitalism, and he imagines that the problem is one of perception that can be papered over with the appointment of a Wall Street insider. Just how out of touch is this guy? Week after week, Obama has used his bully pulpit to attack American corporations. Companies big and small are accused of everything...

In August, the state of Kentucky announced Mountain Valley Recycling was opening a 215,000-square-foot facility that would generate 360 jobs within two years. That state’s economic development arm was giving a $1 million performance-based tax incentive over a 5-year period through corporate income tax credits and wage assessments. Two months later, that same company brokered a deal with Michigan for a 280,000-square-foot facility that would generate 396 jobs. But Michigan offered a tax-incentive five times that of Kentucky's, paying $5.1 million over seven years. The question of whether the Michigan Economic Development Corporation’s incentives are overly generous has been raised...

  The electorate’s repudiation of Barack Obama and his Congressional allies was not only a rejection of Big Government, but also of business elites who were buffeted from the downturn by political dealing at the expense of ordinary people.Unless Corporate America heeds the election results, it too will risk the wrath of an informed and energized public. Here are CEOs who must pay attention to what happened yesterday:Pfizer CEO Jeffrey Kindler- Not only did Kindler (above) lead the charge of Big Pharma CEOs for ObamaCare, he actually got a multi-million dollar bonus from Pfizer for doing so. This is...

David Rosenberg Explains Why Corporations Are Rolling In Dough, And You're Not Joe Weisenthal Nov. 2, 2010, 9:59 AM David Rosenberg of Gluskin-Sheff explains why corporations are sitting pretty right now, and you're not. WHERE’S THE INCOME? Well, it is concentrated at the corporate level. Here is the story. Companies have no reason to hire or pay their workers more because they are sitting on so much idle capacity. So, cost-cutting and productivity gains manage to propel corporate bottom-line performance, hence acting as a critical antidote to lagging revenue growth. Remember, even at the business level, this has been a...

WASHINGTON - A Minnesota campaign law requiring disclosure of corporate donations is fast becoming a national model in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allows corporations to spend unlimited amounts in elections. Finding their elections awash in secret donations, other states are looking for a way to replicate Minnesota's law, which requires disclosure of funding sources for groups that spend on political advertising for or against a candidate.

ALL it took was some 30,000 Republican primary voters in a tiny state to turn Christine O’Donnell into the brightest all-American media meteor since Balloon Boy. For embattled liberals, not to mention the axis of Comedy Central, “Saturday Night Live” and Bill Maher, she’s been pure comic gold for weeks: a bottomless trove of baldfaced lies, radical views and sheer wackiness. True, other American politicians have dismissed evolution as a myth. Some may even have denied joining a coven. But history will always remember her for taking a fearless stand against masturbation, the one national pastime with more fans than...

Corporate America to East Coast Elitists: Take a hike! That’s one way to interpret the fact that business recruiters now rank Penn State, Virginia Tech and Purdue among the top 25 schools that produce the most qualified college graduates, according to a Wall Street Journal study. Asked by the Journal to rate majors and schools that “best prepare students to land jobs that are satisfying, well-paid and have growth potential, . . . recruiters made clear they preferred big state schools over elite liberal arts schools, such as the Ivies.” The results showed that while recruiters still hire Ivy League...

Huge Debt Levels In “Cash-Rich” Corporate America By Rocky Vega 08/06/10 Alexandria, Virgina — For some time now pundits, and to some extent politicians, have been trumpeting the mountains of cash US corporations have sitting on the sidelines just waiting for ripe opportunity and that, in one fell swoop, could seemingly restore the economy. However, an article this week questions where the cash has actually coming from, and whether it’s as readily deployable as has been suggested. According to MarketWatch: “American companies are not in robust financial shape. Federal Reserve data show that their debts have been rising, not falling....

In what is little surprise to anyone who is not a tort lawyer or megalomaniac Senator, government researchers determined that runaway Toyotas were caused by driver errors. While Toyota was quick to say that the matter is not yet settled, Shout Bits is now prepared to state that when an accelerator is pushed to the floor and the brakes are not applied at all, an accident may ensue. That’s right, when the US Government did an independent study of crashed Toyotas, they found that in every instance the gas was to the floor and brake was unapplied. Naturally, all the...

Sen. Chuck Schumer is pushing hard to limit corporate campaign spending -- and to maximize his own campaign's take from corporations. But that hypocritical chutzpah is entirely fitting when it comes to the so-called DISCLOSE Act -- which is a naked effort to squelch the speech of Americans who might criticize Democrats in this year's campaign season. Democrats are trying to rewrite campaign-finance law to limit corporate (and grass-roots) spending on politics. And Schumer -- who faces no meaningful opposition this fall -- is looking to raise every buck he can from the folks he wants to crack down on....

If you’re like me, you might enjoy a cup of Starbucks’ coffee on a regular basis. My brother-in-law tells people that if they’d be interested in assassinating me, they simply need to be on the roof of the building across the street from the neighborhood Starbucks at precisely 7:00 am on any given morning. All jokes aside (I think?), I can’t help but to be “bombarded” by literature on Starbucks’ “Social Responsibility” program each time I visit. This kind of thing, more often referred to as corporate “sustainability” in the business environment, is becoming commonplace in today’s competitive consumer markets....

Corporate Bond Devastation Shows The Global Slowdown Is Coming Share Mike "Mish" Shedlock May 26, 2010, 12:05 PM The 30-year long bond is sitting just 3 basis points away from hitting a 3-handle and the yield on 5-year treasuries is 1.94 after hitting 2.60 in April. That is quite a reversal. Yield on the 10-year note is at 3.13% a price last seen a year ago. Meanwhile, Libor Shows Strain, Sales Dwindle, Spreads Soar Corporate bond sales are poised for their worst month in a decade, while relative yields are rising the most since Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s collapse, as...

The wave of corporate announcements of the special multimillion dollar charges to their income statements that will be necessary to account for the costs of the newly enacted healthcare legislation has sparked anger among Democrat leaders. Obama Administration Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke called the announcements “unpatriotic.” “Although these kinds of adjustments to company earnings may be required under Securities and Exchange regulations, there’s no need for them to be so public about it,” Locke complained. “If people start to think that the new law is more of a burden than a benefit they may turn against the President. So,...

Henry Waxman is peeved. He expects corporate America to swallow health-care reform without a peep of protest -- and, apparently, without revealing new costs to shareholders or the Securities and Exchange Commission. Last week, AT&T announced it will take an immediate $1 billion write-down thanks to a new tax in the health bill that will cause Caterpillar ($100 million) and Deere & Co. ($150 million), among other large employers, to do the same. The benefits consultancy Towers Watson estimates that the change may reduce corporate profits by as much as $14 billion over time. That's real money. For comparison: It's...

The real cost of health care reform, as recognized by the nation's business community, is just beginning to take shape. Bloomberg Business Week (picked up by Drudge) reports that SEC filings by such companies as AT&T, Caterpillar, AK Steel Holding, and 3M Co., reflect their anticipated costs of compliance with ObamaCare. Keep three things in mind: a.) these write-downs are not reflected in any CBO estimates of the cost of funding health care reform; b.) in order to protect stock prices, these companies have a huge incentive to understate the costs they actually face; and, c.) the true cost of...

Welcome to the world of "hope" and "change." Congressional Democrats are now lashing out at corporations that have the audacity to point out the massive costs that ObamaCare is going to inflict on them and are now summoning them to testify before Congress. Chairman Henry A. Waxman and Subcommittee Chairman Bart Stupak today announced that the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will hold a hearing on April 21, 2010, regarding claims by Caterpillar, Verizon, and Deere that provisions in the new health care reform law could adversely affect their company's ability to provide health insurance to their employees. These assertions...