Free Republic

For the first time in its nearly 100-year history, Orlando Health is reducing its workforce by up to 400 positions starting immediately, hospital officials announced this morning. The elimination of 300 to 400 jobs will occur in two phases, and represents a 2- to 3-percent decrease in the system's 16,000 employees, said Orlando Health spokeswoman Kena Lewis. The reductions affect all departments and all eight of its hospitals, including Orlando Regional Medical Center and Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children. The first wave of employees affected by the "labor expense reduction" portion of the initiative received their notices Friday, said Lewis....

Bad news for GE Healthcare workers in Vermont. The company, which specializes in information technology for the healthcare industry, announced last Thursday that it plans to lay off about 10 percent of its workforce in the state. The company promised, however, to try to find “alternate roles” for those who lose their jobs. “While GE Healthcare regrets the loss of any jobs, the business needs to make tough decisions in the current economic climate,” company spokesman Benjamin Fox told the Barre Montpelier Times Argus. It’s unclear at this time how much of GE Healthcare’s workforce these cuts represent, though the...

Check Out Maria Bartiromo's Super Bearish Column On The Fiscal Cliff Linette LopezNovember 19, 2012CNBC This morning Politico's Ben White wrote that the fiscal cliff is basically over. Closing Bell's Maria Bartiromo couldn't disagree with him more. She wrote a super bearish column on the issue for CNBC, and to her, words like "panic stricken" are definitely in order. From the column: The Mayans may not be right about the world ending by the end of 2012, but the next month and a half is looking a lot more panic-stricken than celebratory. The ongoing fight over the "fiscal cliff" may...

The Hostess brand is heading to the auction block, following an announcement that the company would be shutting down. But that may not mean an end to Twinkies. A Mexican company called Bimbo, which is credited as being the largest bread maker in the world, may have plans to buy the brand. Grupo Bimbo is no stranger to acquiring foreign companies. With other baking goods companies like Mrs. Baird's Bakeries and Sara Lee already under his belt, Daniel Servitje who runs Bimbo, has already shown interest in Hostess in the past. The Bimbo company attempted a deal in 2007 during...

After two foreclosures and two bankruptcies, Hermes Maldonado is as surprised as anyone that he's getting a third shot at homeownership. The 61-year-old machine operator at a plastics factory bought a $170,000 house in Moreno Valley, Calif., this summer that boasts laminate-wood floors and squeaky clean appliances. He got the four-bedroom, two-story house despite a pockmarked credit history. The last time he owned a home, Maldonado refinanced four times and took on a second mortgage. He put a Cadillac and Mercedes-Benz C300W in the driveway and racked up about $45,000 in credit card bills and other debts. His debt-fueled lifestyle...

One of the nation's largest HMOs is laying off 530 employees in Southern California this weekend, including some in San Diego County, a company official confirmed Saturday. Kaiser Permanente said the layoffs -- constituting about eight-tenths of one percent of it employees -- would be spread across its 65,700 employees and doctors working in offices and hospitals from Kern County to the Mexican border. Under its union contracts, the laid-off employees who are in unions will get income and benefits for a year. many may also be rehired next year, when Kaiser Permanente expects "significant membership growth" next year. "Health...

I hope you all have a moment for a laugh - and a cry. This article is funny and at the same time very sad as an indicator of the future of business as unions and taxes prepare to run wild. The post is an exerpt - but you must look at the three videos posted at "Reality" in tribute to the lost 18,000 jobs in america... Our perception of the insidious slide from freedom to tyranny powered by a democratic system which ignores constitutional limits can best be described as that of a slowly boiling frog. It is important...

The Smartest Investment Of The Decade by Simon Blackon November 12, 2012 Here’s something crazy to think about. Roughly 200,000 people were born today. That’s net world population growth, births minus deaths. Each one of them constitutes a new mouth to feed. And when they come of age, those 200,000 people will consume, conservatively, about 1,250 Calories per day. Collectively, that’s 91.25 billion Calories per year for the entire 200,000 people that were born today. Where will they get that food from? Consider that a cup of rice contains about 300 Calories. An average annual rice harvest yields about 150...

Obama II: In the "now they tell us" file, add a vast array of reports that have come out since the election showing just how weak the economy really is. Looks like the president will need a new scapegoat soon. Here's just a sampling of what we've learned since voters decided to give Obama four more years to "experiment" with the economy.

United Technologies Corp. announced Friday it is laying off 500 salaried and hourly employees worldwide – including some in the Charlotte area – between now and the end of the year. The multinational manufacturing and transportation company, which acquired Charlotte-based Goodrich Corp. this past summer, said it is laying off three workers at its Monroe plant and one in its Charlotte aerospace division headquarters. The company started telling workers Friday, company spokesman Dan Coulom said. The company will continue to notify affected workers through December, Coulom said. He was not aware of additional layoffs planned for the Charlotte area, he...

President Obama promotes the myth that everyone must go to college. That if you don't go, your life will be ruined -- that you will end up waiting tables, or trapped in some other mundane occupation. The truth is, even with a college degree, you may still end up waiting tables, you'll just begin your "career" four or five years later, tens of thousands of dollars in debt. Here is an example of some of the plumb jobs college grads were able to land during the Obama administration. Not just liberal arts majors mind you, but graduates with degrees in...

[Wednes]day, the President held his first press conference since being elected to a second term. President Obama was given the opportunity to come clean on the size of the tax hike he wants on small business employers when MSNBC White House Correspondent Chuck Todd asked him: “Are you -- is there no deal at the end of the year if tax rates for the top 2 percent aren't the Clinton tax rates, period, no if, ands or buts? Any room in negotiating on that specific aspect of the fiscal cliff?” The President has repeatedly argued that he wants “to go...

The Demise Of The Twinkie: Hostess Files Motion To Liquidate By Tom Gara And that’s that: Hostess Brands, maker of Twinkies, Wonder Bread and more, announced this morning it has filed a motion with bankruptcy court to start liquidating the company immediately. A huge number of jobs are soon to be lost. “Hostess Brands will move promptly to lay off most of its 18,500-member workforce,” said CEO Gregory F. Rayburn in the statement, “and focus on selling its assets to the highest bidders.” In a letter posted on a new site set up to communicate with employees and suppliers through...

You voted for it, this is what you are going to live with and you have dragged the rest of the nation with you!For edification, Marxism is the political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, later developed as the basis for communism. In this social format, the takers win, the government and its cronies, those who control the masses win.Obama's America is heading toward economics, dictated from above, redistribution and allocation of wealth and resources according to the decisions of a committee of the elite with unified and tyrannical concepts, its members know better than anyone...

Measures that began as emergency interventions became routine, suggesting a new economic paradigm. In the new paradigm, big banks, politicians and academics would decide what market outcomes, e.g., bankruptcies, interest rates or bond yields, would be permitted, as well as when to apply accounting rules, regulations and laws. Despite increased centralization of decision making and greatly expanded powers, however, policymakers were unable to repair the financial system. Instead, mounting government debt led to de facto financial repression. Financial repression occurs when governments channel funds into their own sovereign bonds ...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Congressional leaders emerging from a White House meeting to avert the fiscal cliff labeled the discussions "constructive." House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said they should have a goal to avert the cliff by Christmas, while Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner both said Republicans were willing to put revenue on the table to reach a deal.

The choice for the status quo made in last week’s presidential election was an uninformed one—at no fault of the voters—made in the fog of monetary distortion and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s continuous campaign of disinformation. President Barack Obama managed to overtake Republican challenger Mitt Romney on the exit poll question “Who is better for the economy?” and a strong majority of Obama voters felt that the economy is better off than four years ago. Indeed, anyone (particularly Bernanke) would concede that without the Fed’s zero interest rate policy we would be experiencing a far worse economy—the true Obama-Keynesian...

WASHINGTON - If you thought the presidential election would lead to an early break in the fiscal gridlock that now divides our government, think again. President Obama's post-election press conference on Wednesday signaled he is digging in for a lengthy political battle to raise tax rates amid new evidence the economy is still very weak and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future if not throughout his second term. If anything, he's taking a tougher tone with Republicans in Congress as he prepares for negotiations with House Speaker John Boehner and other House and Senate leaders on Friday. Despite...

Our large cruise ship sailed within view of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a gathering of conservatives sponsored by National Review magazine considered the wreckage of the 2012 election. Most of the writers and commentators on board agreed with Ralph Reed of the Faith and Freedom Coalition that the last thing conservatives need to do now is to form a "circular firing squad." But lessons must be learned. Was Mitt Romney, as some suggested, "our best foot forward" -- a highly intelligent, photogenic, generous, public-spirited, articulate man of great integrity whose loss can only be chalked up to the poor judgment...

A web site posting daily plant closures, layoffs, and Bank Failures. Good reference site