Free Republic

Peter Drucker wrote the first version of this book during Hitler's rise to power. Most explanations for the rise of fascism focused on political reasons or economic ones, while Drucker explains the social movements that made leaders like Mussolini and Hitler possible. It also explains what is (and isn't) fascism, how they hobble their own economies, and the social warpage they create. Peter Drucker updated "The End of Economic Man" in the 1960s, seeing horrifying parallels between the 1960s activism and the 1930s. And while history does not repeat, it rhymes - and this book explains the social trends that...

Michael Hiltzik, a columnist and Los Angeles Times reporter, wrote an article titled "Does a minimum wage raise hurt workers? Economists say: We don't know." Uncertain was his conclusion from a poll conducted by the Initiative on Global Markets, at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, of 42 nationally ranked economists on the question of whether raising the federal minimum wage to $15 over the next five years would reduce employment opportunities for low-wage workers. The Senate Budget Committee's blog says, "Top Economists Are Backing Sen. Bernie Sanders on Establishing a $15 an Hour Minimum Wage." It lists...

A few years ago, BET had a commentary titled "Where Are the Grocery Stores in Black Neighborhoods?" One wonders whether anyone thinks that the absence of supermarkets in predominantly black neighborhoods means that white merchants do not like dollars coming out of black hands. Racial discrimination cannot explain the absence of supermarkets in black communities. Compare the operation of a supermarket in a low-crime neighborhood with that of one in a high-crime neighborhood. You will see differences in how they operate. Supermarkets in low-crime neighborhoods often have merchandise on display near entrances. They may have merchandise left unattended outside...

One of the most intriguing movies I've seen in a long time is The Big Short. It's about the housing bubble and what we now call the Great Recession, based on Michael Lewis's bestselling book "The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine." The main characters are money managers who not only realized that the housing bubble was being supported by unsustainable subprime mortgages, but also found a way to make millions of dollars from the inevitable crash. Here are 10 things moviegoers need to know. Lesson 1: There will always be bubbles. Vernon Smith is an economist who won a...

MOSCOW -- Walking around downtown Moscow at Christmastime in the wake of a press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin, I was struck by a distinct feeling of deja vu from my Canadian childhood. Not since then had I heard so much English-language Christmas music infusing the cold, crisp air, or seen so many decorations everywhere that include crosses and religious symbols as well as secular reminders of the season. There is no "war on Christmas" here. Russia is moving in the opposite direction from the West in critical ways: There's a sense here that Putin is trying to preserve...

Should Obama be impeached and removed from office for being on a Terror watch list? With terrorism in the news the Democratic national socialist party has once again trotted out one of it's perennially favorite scams: The "terror watch list" issue. They have few concerns about the importation of terrorist 'Refugees' [and future illegal Democratic voters] and the down play the threat of ISIS (Daesh) but suddenly become agitated over the possibility of using those issues against their enemies. Yes, there nothing like a serious crisis that can be used for crass political gain to energize the Democratic national socialist...

Total sales in the US on Black Friday fell 10% to $10.4bn this year, down from $11.6bn in 2014, according to research firm ShopperTrak. The decline in sales on the traditional busiest shopping day of the year has been blamed on shops opening the day before. But this year, sales on Thanksgiving also dropped, and by the same percentage, to $1.8bn. A big reason for the decline is increased online shopping, as Americans hunt down deals on their smartphones, tablets and computers. Many retailers are also offering bargains long before Thanksgiving, limiting the impact of Black Friday specials.

........."We were 'Chavistas'," said Julio Coromoto...a workman next to a queue of dozens at a shabby supermarket."But they destroyed this town.".... Nationwide polls predict voters will punish the socialists next month, possibly taking away their majority in the National Assembly for the first time since Chavez took power in early 1999.To hold on to loyalists, the government is milking Chavez's legacy at every turn, re-naming voting centers after him, splashing his smiling face on billboards and filling state television with his most rousing speeches.In Barinas, his brother Argenis and cousin Asdrubal are running for the legislature, hoping to follow in...

Until the 19th century, the Chinese practiced a method of torture called lingchi. Better known as “death by a thousand cuts” it involved slicing small pieces of flesh from a victim’s body, one by one, so that death was both protracted and utterly excruciating. This is what the realities of economics are doing to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The authors of health care “reform” believed they could ignore the dismal science. The laws of economics have rewarded this hubris by ruthlessly inflicting fact after agonizing fact on Obamacare. And, like all lingchi victims, it will eventually succumb....

If you sit around believing the right wing radio propaganda that the wealthy know what's best for us then be prepared to suffer the fate that many others have suffered under the oppression of aristocrats in the past. But we live in a Democratic Republic overwhelmingly dominated by voters who are not wealthy. So its pretty simple to go out and vote for our own interest every couple of years-- without the need for any mass protest or even any union participation. We could raise the incomes of the poorest by simply passing laws to raise the minimum wage. Many...

Tuesday's Republican presidential debate wasn't the most entertaining, but it was the most educational. The two-hour session gave the candidates a chance to critique the Obama record, as well as tease out the GOP's economic fault lines.

Ted Cruz isn’t the only presidential candidate trying to hide his support of the globalist trade deal known as TPP. Marco Rubio is trying a similar approach at avoidance. It would appear that both Rubio and Cruz have recognized that not only is TPP unpopular, but their support for TPP has the potential to expose their hidden alignments with Wall Street globalists. This election will be won/lost around this issue – watch. Marco Rubio - enters race( Via Breitbart ) Marco Rubio declared the Trans-Pacific Partnership to be one of three essential “pillars” of a Rubio Presidency—is now taking issue...

The prize committee for the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel – known more commonly as the Nobel Prize in Economics – is set to discuss the nomination of bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto. The move comes days after UCLA finance professor Bhagwan Chowdhry penned an op-ed in The Huffington Post stating his intention to nominate Nakamoto for the prize. In his widely-covered article, Chowdhry wrote that Nakamoto deserves the prize because his invention, bitcoin, is "nothing short of revolutionary". Following its publication, however, some observers raised the question of whether Chowdhry violated nomination rules by...

Walter Williams, conservative economist, professor, author, commentator, and occasional fill-in host for Rush Limbaugh, is the scheduled guest on C-Span2's "In-Depth" tomorrow, Sunday November 1. The show runs from noon until 3PM EST. It features discussion of Williams' writings and philosophy and responses to viewers' emails and call-ins. Williams' most recent book is American Contempt for Liberty. His other books include Race & Economics and Up from the Projects.

By Frosty Wooldridge “Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society,” said French historian-philosopher Voltaire. Within the next 24 months, John Kerry and Congress, abetted by Barack Obama, expect to import 200,000 Syrian Muslim refugees into our country. That’s on top of the usual 1,000,000 (million) legal refugee immigrants expected to land on our shores in 2016 and another 1,000,000 (million) more in 2017. That’s on top of the 100,000,000 (million) total legal immigrant refugees projected to land on our shores within 30 years.  (Source: US Population Projections by Fogel/Martin; PEW Research Center) Ironically, you won’t hear a...

Until we entered the Great Recession, most economists regarded Keynesian economics as a relic of the past. You could still find it discussed in some introductory textbooks. But, as University of Chicago economist John Cochrane points out, it wasn’t on the syllabus in any of the leading graduate schools. Then came the most serious downturn since the Great Depression and something living economists had never seen before: interest rates that were near zero and in some cases negative. Keynes himself speculated that the economy could become stuck in a liquidity trap – where monetary policy is ineffective and only fiscal...

Listen to Jacki's interview with Scott Tinker, Director of the Bureau of Economic Geology at University of Texas in Austin. Scott Tinker, University of Texas in Austin

When it comes to considering the arguments of newly resurgent Christian progressives, we hold these truths to be self-evident: Jesus was not a socialist, the Bible is not an economics textbook, and while scripture commands believers to help the poor, it also commands the poor to help themselves. As Pope Francis gains rock-star status on the economic left, Christians would do well to remember not just scripture, but the economic reality of recent world experience. This morning, the pope addressed Congress with relative restraint. Rather than decrying the perceived excesses of global capitalism — calling it, as he once...

The “Economic Freedom of the World Index” published by the Fraser Institute of Canada measures the degree to which the world’s 157 nations and territories permit voluntary, peaceful economic exchanges between their own citizens and with people in other countries. The most recent index has just been released, and based on data from 2013, it ranks the United States 16th in economic freedom. Given this country’s history and traditions, America should be far and away No. 1; that fact that it does not hold the top slot is yet more evidence of how governance has gone off track in this...