Free Republic

Ten stocks for the next 25 years John Melloy | @whatevermelloy As we close the book on the silver anniversary of CNBC, the company's digital arm is looking ahead to the next 25 years and the trends, challenges and innovations that will define that era. The following are companies best positioned to capitalize on these waves. Some may look familiar, while others will be a total surprise. However, they all have one or more of the following characteristics: a deep moat, an energetic leader, steady and growing cash flows, and multiple revenue streams. No need to look up their quotes...

ECB ready to pump €1 trillion into euro zone economy Central bank ramps up efforts to rescue single currency bloc from deflation risk The European Central Bank is ready to inject up to €1 trillion of new liquidity into the euro zone economy as it ramps up efforts to rescue the single currency bloc from the risk of Japanese-style deflation, Mario Draghi confirmed yesterday. The ECB president also said the central bank’s governing council was unanimous in its commitment to use further unconventional tools, including quantitative easing, should economic conditions deteriorate. He added that the central bank had stepped up...

I got a part time job in a Des office as a receptionist, but I may be able to use my phlebotomy skills to. Thanks for all your prayers. :)

Abenomics at make-or-break phase in Japan Published: 4:03 AM, November 7, 2014 TOKYO — Japan’s audacious campaign to reinvigorate its economy is entering a make-or-break phase. After nearly two years of aggressive stimulus under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, joblessness has plunged, big companies such as Toyota are earning record profits and corrosive price declines have been replaced by something Japan has rarely seen in decades — inflation. Yet the benefits of Abenomics, as the programme is known, have been unevenly distributed. Many consumers and businesses simply do not feel better off. The problem threatens to undermine support for the effort...

... What Harwood and the rest of the folks who rely solely on Washington’s mainstream thinkers and Wall Street boosters for their information don’t realize is this: The economy isn’t really doing what the statistics say it is doing. Our nation’s economic statistics are nipped and tucked, massaged, managed, fabricated and dolled up. In short, our statistics are wrong and Main Street folks know it.

Much has been written, and more will be, about what the 2014 elections mean, and most of it will focus on the small stuff—whether it was a “wave” or not, whether it was an anti-incumbency or anti-Obama phenomenon, what the president does now, what happens to gridlock and so on. Place all that to the side for the moment, and let’s get to the big picture on what this election demonstrates. It demonstrates that nobody can govern America from the left, because the country doesn’t want to go there, and because whenever it has been tried in recent decades, it...

You got to give the people, now Give the people what they want-- The O'Jays Now that Republicans have control of both houses of Congress, they are going to have to do better -- and do right by all Americans, not just their fringe conservative base. In the first days of the newly minted 112th Congress, after the 2010 midterms gave Republicans control of the House of Representatives, the American people were clamoring for action on jobs and the economy. What did the new Republican House give them? One of the first laws introduced was the No Taxpayer Funding for...

By Michael Snyder November 5th, 2014 How do you fix a superpower with exploding levels of debt, that has a rapidly aging population, that consumes far more wealth than it produces, and that has scores of zombie banks that could collapse at any moment. You might think that I am talking about the United States, but I am actually talking about Europe. You see, the truth is that the European Union has a larger population than the United States does, it has a larger economy than the United States does, and it has a much larger banking system than the...

Tyler Durden11/05/2014 When it comes to buyers of physical assets as opposed to traders of paper representations of such assets, there is one key difference: the latter, more than anything, enjoy looking at "heatmaps", chasing trends and jumping on momentum, the result being the most recent massive selloff in such "paper" representations of precious metals as the GLD and SLV ETFs, and various gold futures. On the other hand, those who prefer to hold the metal in their hands, as well as others such as China whose ravenous apetite for gold over the past 4 years has been extensively covered...

West Virginia University student Saira Blair (R) will become the youngest person to ever serve in the West Virginia state legislature after getting elected Tuesday. Blair, an 18-year-old freshman, was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates from the 59th district after beating her two opponents by a landslide. Blair received more than twice the votes of her main opponent, Democratic Party candidate Layne Dieh. “It was amazing to see that the 59th district had so much faith in me,” Blair said shortly after getting the results. Blair celebrated the victory at Buffalo Wild Wings before heading to...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUSRZo1BE5o

Elena Holodny November 5, 2014 Gold is getting crushed. Again. The yellow metal is at $1,140 per ounce, down by about 2.3%. It got as low as $1,137. This is the lowest level since April 2010. Gold has been dropping to new lows for several weeks as the dollar has strengthened. Oil is another commodity that is tumbling again. WTI crude oil prices dropped as low as $75.84 per barrel shortly after 5 a.m. ET. Brent crude touched $81.63. While this is great for consumers, this is troubling for the oil producers, who may be forced to idle unprofitable projects....

John MauldinOctober 4, 2014“The significant problems that we have created cannot be solved at the level of thinking we were at when we created them.” – Albert Einstein “Generals are notorious for their tendency to ‘fight the last war’ – by using the strategies and tactics of the past to achieve victory in the present. Indeed, we all do this to some extent. Life's lessons are hard won, and we like to apply them – even when they don't apply. Sadly enough, fighting the last war is often a losing proposition. Conditions change. Objectives change. Strategies change. And you must...

That an octopus called Paul had a better success rate than Goldman Sachs when predicting World Cup results (credit to the Wall Street Journal for the headline “Octopus Beats Vampire Squid”) tells you something about the wisdom of guessing the future in public. Guessing what the world will look like in 50 years’ time, however, is pretty safe, as I won’t be here to see myself proved wrong. Or will I? If Google’s director of engineering has his way, we’ll all be around indefinitely – in the cloud at least. AI (artificial intelligence) guru Ray Kurzweil is one of a...

The Internet is moving to a shopping center near you. In Fort Wayne, Ind., a vacated Target store is about to be home to rows of computer servers, network routers and Ethernet cables courtesy of a local data-center operator. In Jackson, Miss., a former McRae’s department store will get the same treatment next year. And one quadrant of the Marley Station Mall south of Baltimore is already occupied by a data-center company that last year offered to buy out the rest of the building. As America’s retailers struggle to keep up with online shopping, the Internet is starting to settle...

The Overwhelming Case against Capital Gains Taxation According to the bean counters at Ernst and Young, the United States has one of the highest capital gains tax rates in the world.But if you donÂ’t trust the numbers from a big accounting firm, then you can peruse a study from the pro-tax Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that reaches the same conclusion.But does this really matter? Is the United States harmed by having a high tax rate?The Wall Street Journal certainly makes a compelling case that high tax rates on capital gains are self-destructive.And this remarkable chart shows that workers...

Greg McKenna, Business Insider Australia November 3, 2014I was listening to one of my favourite bands, The Smashing Pumpkins, over the weekend. And it struck me that the opening chorus to “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” is probably how noted stock market bears around the globe feel right now after the massive rally from the October lows and the BoJ’s extra stimulus on Friday which sent stocks and the US dollar much higher. In “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” lead singer Billy Corgan opens up with haunting lyrics: The world is a vampire, sent to drain. Secret destroyers, hold you up to...

More and more companies are going “gay” while at the same time denigrating anybody who has an issue with same-sex, alternate sex, slice and dice sex (transgenderism), and take-your-pick sex. When it was found out that Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich opposed same-sex marriage, so much pressure was put on him because of his anti-same sex marriage views (he donated to Proposition 8) that he believed that he couldn’t do anything but resign. The Gaystapo would have made it unbearable for him and the company for Eich if he had remain as CEO. There is a long trail of persecution from...

The week was dominated by news by central banks as the Federal Reserve ended QE and the Bank of Japan pushed its QE program to new heights. The result was another rally in stocks around the globe that made the mini-correction earlier this month seem like a dream (or a nightmare). The question is what happens next, and all indications are that markets will continue to ride the wave of central bank liquidity as far as it takes them. Markets were also boosted by a strong initial third quarter U.S. GDP report showing the economy grew at 3.5% and strong...

@PMorici1Stocks zoomed to new highs on reasonably good news for the U.S. economy and the Bank of JapanÂ’s announcement of quantitative easing.Just a few weeks ago markets were plunging, and analysts writing on the nationÂ’s most prestigious financial pages cautioned that stocks were historically overvalued.On October 15, I wrote in the Washington Times: DonÂ’t Panic, Stocks Will Reboundhttp://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/oct/15/morici-dont-panic-stocks-will-rebound/The S&P, which accounts for about 80 percent of the publically traded shares in the United States with a price-earnings ratio at 18.68 is still trading below its 25 year average of about 18.90. And estimated earnings for the next 12 months indicate...