Free Republic

McDonald’s franchisees have indicated that they're willing to promote products for $1 — but no cheaper — as the brand makes its first moves toward a new value-heavy marketing strategy to turn around faltering sales. In an email from Fred Huebner, chair of McDonald’s Operators National Advertising Fund, or OPNAD, obtained by Nation’s Restaurant News, the brand indicated that two “value plan energizers” to be put in place for late 2012 and early next year are Snack Size Fish McBites and the Grilled Onion Cheddar Burger, which will debut on the Dollar Menu with national ads beginning in late December....

ROSENBERG: One Of The Most Reliable Economic Indicators Peaked In July Sam RoDecember 5, 2012When the official headline economic indicators don't work, savvy investors turn to the unconventional economic indicators. In his latest Breakfast With Dave note, David Rosenberg visits a signal being sent by the restaurant sector: EATING OUT IS OUT Our hedge fund desk has always told me that among the most reliable cyclical indicators for the American consumers is the restaurant sector. Traffic is slowing down precipitously and the companies are issuing negative guidance. I took a look at the monthly details from the latest PCE data...

The Coming Derivatives Panic That Will Destroy Global Financial Markets Stock-Markets / Financial CrashDec 05, 2012 - 04:24 AM By: John Rolls John Rolls Submits, Michael Snyder writes: When financial markets in the United States crash, so does the U.S. economy. Just remember what happened back in 2008. The financial markets crashed, the credit markets froze up, and suddenly the economy went into cardiac arrest. Well, there are very few things that could cause the financial markets to crash harder or farther than a derivatives panic. Sadly, most Americans don't even understand what derivatives are. Unlike stocks and bonds, a...

U.S. private-sector employers added 118,000 jobs in November shy of economists' expectations, a report by a payrolls processor showed on Wednesday. Economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast the ADP National Employment Report would show a gain of 125,000 jobs. October's private payrolls were revised slightly down to an increase of 157,000 f rom the previously reported 158,000.

Citigroup Inc. said it is cutting more than 11,000 positions, as a part of repositioning actions, resulting in an estimated pre-tax charges of nearly $1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2012 and some $100 million of related charges in the first half of 2013. Citi said it now expects the repositioning to generate $900 million of expense savings benefitting 2013 results and that the annual expense savings would exceed $1.1 billion annually beginning in 2014. Furthermore, the company anticipates that the actions would have a negative impact on annual revenues of less than $300 million. The repositioning, which includes...

Is there any reason for today's Americans to care about what happens to tomorrow's Americans? After all, what have tomorrow's Americans done for today's Americans? Moreover, since tomorrow's Americans don't vote, we can dump on them with impunity. That's a vision that describes the actual behavior of today's Americans. It would be seen as selfish, callous and ruthless only if it were actually articulated. Let's look at it. Businesses, as well as most nonprofit enterprises, by law are required to produce financial statements that include all of their present and expected future liabilities. On top of that, they are required...

Click the link. Just a quick laugh to start the day.

Among the nation’s shrinking union population, the unionized office workers at Southern California’s ports make more than most actors in the Screen Actors Guild. They make more than union construction workers, truck drivers, school teachers, cops, fire fighters, and just about any other unionized profession you can think of (with the possible exception of sports players). In fact, other than union bosses themselves, it can be easily argued that the office workers at SoCal ports are the union movement’s crème de la crème. As the office workers’ union has, so far, rejected an offer bringing their total compensation to nearly...

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s opening bid to Speaker John Boehner, a demand for $1.6 trillion in new taxes, was not meant as a serious offer. It was an ultimatum couched in an insult. Translation: “We won the election. We have the whip hand. Not only are you going to sign on to higher tax rates and higher tax revenues, we are going to rub your Tea Party noses in your coming capitulation.” That Boehner did not throw the offer back in Geithner’s face and tell him, “Give me a call, Tim, when you’re serious,” suggests that the speaker feels he...

Fiscal Policy: Talk of Clinton-era tax rates ignores the fact that the former president, working with a GOP Congress, cut spending as a share of GDP and produced four balanced budgets by focusing on growth, not spending. Even as he pushes $150 billion in new "stimulus" spending, President Obama argues that to avoid the fiscal cliff we must return to Clinton-era tax rates for wealthy households, with a top marginal rate of 39.6% vs. the Bush-era 35%. Clinton's was an age of balanced budgets and economic growth. But it was also an era of budgetary restraint in which both parties,...

For the US economy, this would be a 'Black Swan' of a totally different variety. In Bank of America/Merrill Lynch's 2013 Energy Outlook, analyst Sabine Schels and colleagues make a shocking prediction about the possible path of West Texas Intermediate oil. Surging US shale oil output creates risk of $50 WTI North America’s energy supplies are surging while the rest of the world continues to fight for scarce molecules of oil and gas. On our estimates, onshore US crude oil output now vastly exceeds previous growth rates in liquids and nat gas, particularly in Lower 48 states. With profitability for...

I sometimes refer to the Magic Formula for economic prosperity. Here it is: Low Taxes, Stable Money. It’s only four words. That’s so it is easy to remember. The United States was founded on the principles of the Magic Formula. Until the introduction of the income tax in 1913, taxation was almost nonexistent. The principle of a gold-based currency was defined in the Constitution. The result was magical: the United States was the most successful country of the 19th and 20th centuries. We seem to have forgotten the Magic Formula today. Despite Republicans’ staunch efforts, we are drifting towards “austerity”...

In the wake of strikes by Walmart workers last week and fast food workers in New York City this past Thursday, the issue of low-wage work is slowly becoming more prominent. This is a timely, important and essential conversation. Retail's Hidden Potential, a recent Demos' report about the possibility of lifting 1.5 million retail workers and their families out of poverty, provides hard evidence about the impact of low-wage work on the economy. Now a new study by researchers at Boston College and the University of Massachusetts shows the impact of parents' low-wage jobs on their children. Analyzing over 100...

White House Dossier has just obtained President Obama’s plan to roll back the crushing long term costs of entitlements, reduce unemployment, and spur the economy back to normal growth. Given the importance of this information, we decided to share the plan with you immediately. Here it is:

Lock Your Doors And Prepare To Defend Your Family By Michael Snyder December 2nd, 2012 Do you think that is an alarmist headline? Well, I am not the one saying this. Law enforcement authorities all over the country are telling citizens that they can no longer deal with all the crime and that people need to lock their doors and prepare to defend their families. Just recently, the city attorney of San Bernardino, California told citizens to "lock their doors and load their guns" because there is not enough money to pay for adequate police protection any longer. The murder...

One key difference between the U.S. economy today and that of 15 or 20 years ago is the labor environment—not just wages in factories, but the degree of flexibility displayed by unions and workers. Many observers would say these changes reflect a loss of power and leverage by workers, and they would be right. But management, more keenly aware of offshoring’s perils, is also trying to create a different (and better) factory environment. Hourly employees increasingly participate in workplace decision making in ways that are more like what you find in white-collar technology companies. In late 2008, Dirk Bowman and...

There is an antique saying -- no less true for its antiquity -- that you need to be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it. This came to mind when I read a recent report about what is happening at a Pennsylvania college. One of President Obama's most loyal -- not to say fawning -- constituencies clearly is academia. His rate of support among collegiate faculty and administrators surely approaches near-unanimity on the typical campus. This is why the news about the Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC) is so richly ironic. CCAC has just announced...

It’s an issue that has plagued states along the Mississippi River for months and has now landed squarely on the desk of President Obama: how to prevent the imminent shutdown of commercial traffic along the nation’s largest waterway. A nationwide drought, the worst to hit the U.S. in decades, has lowered water levels along the river, threatening barge traffic. White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Thursday that the President raised the issue with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack at Wednesday’s cabinet meeting, directing his administration to take “every step to mitigate” the situation. Carney added that there are a number...

President Barack Obama faces mounting pressure on a decision he had put off during his re-election campaign: whether to approve the $7 billion proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline between the U.S. and Canada. ........................Estimates for how many jobs the pipeline would create range from a few thousand up to 20,000 or more. At 36 inches in diameter, the pipeline will have an initial capacity of 700,000 barrels a day. That's significant, because demand for oil and gas pipelines is expected to surge over the next four years, according to a November report by The Freedonia Group, a market research firm....

In 1929, Deflation Started In Europe Before Overtaking The U.S. Economics / DeflationNov 30, 2012 - 05:23 AM By: EWI What Happens in Europe Will Not Stay in Europe More than 1,500 years after the fact, scholars still debate the causes of the Roman Empire's fall. What historians do agree on is that the crumbling empire's final days were marked by economic contraction, a struggle to fund Rome's routine affairs and excessive debt. Sound familiar? Mark Twain said, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." That quote seems to apply when economically comparing the Roman Empire and the United...