Free Republic

Myles Udland February 9, 2015 Millennials are storming back into the work force. Friday's monthly jobs report showed that in January nonfarm payrolls grew by 257,000 in the US. And with revisions to recent reports, the past three months were the strongest for job creation in the US in 17 years. The main driving force behind this trend? Millennials. Workers between the ages of 25 and 34 have been surging back into the workforce over the past several years, with this trend really taking off in 2014. (snip)

"This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history. This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for the, at least, 150 years, since the industrial revolution." Those were the words spoken on Feb. 4 by Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), under the auspices...

Greece’s finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has spelled out the negotiating strategy of the Syriza government with crystal clarity. “Exit from the euro does not even enter into our plans, quite simply because the euro is fragile. It is like a house of cards. If you pull away the Greek card, they all come down,” he said. “Do we really want Europe to break apart? Anybody who is tempted to think it possible to amputate Greece strategically from Europe should be careful. It is very dangerous. Who would be hit after us? Portugal? What would happen to Italy when it discovers...

India on Monday forecast that annual economic growth would accelerate to 7.4 per cent in the year ending in March after its statisticians changed the way they measure Asia's third-largest economy. The new estimate is sharply higher than the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) growth projection of around 5.5 per cent under the old method as well as a revised 6.9 per cent growth a year earlier.

In an interview with Ezra Klein of Vox, President Obama said traditional market forces that used to redistribute income are failing and the time for government to do it instead has arrived. The interview, which ran today, was conducted January 23. Touting what he referred to as inclusive capitalism, Obama made the case for what actually sounds a lot like socialism. So part of our job is, what can government do directly through tax policy? What we’ve proposed, for example, in terms of capital gains — that would make a big difference in our capacity to give a tax break...

February 08, 2015 Chris Mayer writes: That chill in the air? This is what deflation feels like... Right now, the 10-year U.S. Treasury pays just 1.8%... oil is $50 a barrel... commodity prices drift near to chilling lows... and the dollar is near multiyear highs. These are all deflationary trends. What deflation means for you as an investor is what I want to explore today. As an investor in stocks, there is a safe path through a deflationary Ice age. I'll get to that in a moment. But first... what exactly is deflation? The economic word deflation, says the Oxford...

On ABC News with host George Stephanopoulos, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) had the audacity to insist yesterday that Democrats are the “top one percent” party, reported Raw Story. Stephanopoulos was interviewing Cruz about the current economy and Hillary Clinton’s prospects of running for president in 2016. Stephanopoulos noted that there were one million new jobs added to the American labor market in the last three months. “Look, if Hillary Clinton wants to run by telling Americans that the economy is doing great and that you can credit President Obama and Hillary Clinton for that, I would encourage her to follow...

One of hazards of early morning blogging is that it allows later-in-the-day bloggers to write unfettered responses to those articles. Today, my friend Sheila Kennedy, sparks an interesting and much-needed debate over the purpose of higher education, an article posted both on her own blog and on IBJ's INForefront. I feel compelled to respond. In the column, Kennedy quotes sources reporting that Republican Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker had wanted to insert language in the budget stating the [University of Wisconsin's] mission was “to meet the state’s workforce needs.” He wanted to remove language saying UW’s mission is to “extend knowledge...

FEBRUARY 8, 2015 6:00 PM Is Texas ‘Crazy’ or Is It the Real America? Its undeniable economic success will be an issue in 2016. By John Fund Last week, everywhere I went in Washington it seemed as if the country’s cultural and ideological divisions came down to a debate over the state of Texas and whether or not it was “a crazy state” or the “place that is still most like America.” Congressman Alcee Hastings, a Florida Democrat, started the rumble during a House committee meeting by saying that Texas’s refusal to join Obamacare’s exchanges made it “a crazy state.”...

The Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) announced that loading and unloading operations at all 29 West Coast ports would temporarily be suspended this weekend in response to union slowdowns that brought freight movements at the ports to a near standstill. PMA members stated that they cannot afford the almost $1,200 per day cost to employ International Longshore and Warehouse Union members to do little work. After Breitbart broke the story on Thursday that union members of the ILWU planned to “walk out within the week,” the PMA employer group announced they can no longer continue to pay workers the premium pay...

[excerpt from NASDAQ Weekly Market Wrap: February 6, 2015 ] The fifth full trading week of 2015 comes to a close with the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and NASDAQ composite all lower in afternoon trading on Friday. Most actively traded stocks include Bank of America (BAC) up 3.5%, Twitter (TWTR) higher by 15.9%, Frontier Communications (FTR) up 3%, and Sirius XM Holdings up 1.1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite are all significantly higher in the last five days of trading. Crude oil futures are higher this week, trading at $51.83 per barrel on...

In the last decade, we’ve lost millions of manufacturing jobs to outsourcing. According to U.S. News and World Report, there are now 5.1 million fewer American manufacturing jobs than in 2001. The lure of low wages, tax advantages, and other cost savings has made for a seemingly straightforward calculus, and manufacturer after manufacturer, supported by intricate spreadsheets, has abandoned ship, until offshoring has become the emerging mantra of the new millennium. U.S. companies that still manufactured locally have slowly become outliers. Interestingly, this dynamic now seems to be changing, as we’re beginning to see more manufacturing in the U.S. Total...

A newly released map from the Tax Foundation shows the relative value of $100 varies, depending on the state in which you’re looking to spend money

The United Nation’s top climate change official Christiana Figueres announced this week that the group is actively working to "intentionally transform" the world's economic development model, a task she called the "most difficult" one the group has ever undertaken. "This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history," UNFCCC Executive Secretary Figueres stated at a press conference in Brussels Tuesday. The "intentional" reordering of the global economy, she told reporters, "will not happen overnight" due to the "depth of the transformation":...

San Francisco’s Borderlands Books will be forced to close as the city increases its minimum wage, and its owner Alan Beatts is tired of being criticized for talking about it. “Most critics say ‘how dare you blame the minimum wage increase for you closing,’” he told the Washington Free Beacon. “It’s bullshit.” “They’re either calling me a liar of chastising me for telling the truth.” Borderlands is a specialty bookstore that has been able to carve out a niche in San Francisco for the past 18 years. It has been able to support a staff of five, most of whom...

"Jobs report crushes it." "The streak continues." "It's raining jobs!" "That's great news." "This is a great jobs report across the board." From the tone of these headlines, and many others like them, you'd think the economy added a million jobs last month, instead of 257,000.

It looks like the Federal Reserve is starting to worry about Senator Rand Paul’s plan to audit the central bank. The way the Hill newspaper, which covers Congress, puts it this week is that the Fed is “lashing out” at Mr. Paul’s plan, which, it said, could gain traction now that the Republicans are in control of the Senate as well as the House. It quotes the president of the Dallas Fed, Richard Fisher, as demanding, in an interview, “Who in their right mind would ask the Congress of the United States — who can’t cobble together a fiscal policy...

A columnist for Russia's Vedomosti newspaper, a joint venture between the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal, has advised readers to pull their savings out of banks and convert them into physical dollars. The ruble has tanked over the past year, falling over 50% from 33 rubles to the dollar to 67 rubles at market open Friday. The collapse in the currency's value has helped drive up prices in the country, which is heavily reliant on imports, with inflation surging to 15% in January. Now, it seems, it is affecting sentiment on the streets. Andrey Panov, a freelance columnist...

For years, RadioShack — the retailer that helped bring personal computers to the masses — outlasted untold predictions that it would buckle in the face of bigger rivals and online competitors. But its clock has finally run out. RadioShack, a long-ailing 94-year-old electronics chain, filed for bankruptcy protection on Thursday after striking a deal to sell up to 2,400 of its stores to the wireless service provider Sprint and a hedge fund that is its biggest shareholder. The Chapter 11 filing, made in federal bankruptcy court in Delaware, took few unaware. RadioShack had not turned a profit since 2011, and...

Illinois still lays claim to the worst recession recovery in the nation. According to the BLS household survey, there are still 216,000 fewer Illinoisans working than when the Great Recession began, the worst of any state and one of only 22 states that still have fewer people working than when the recession started. .... The business-establishment survey for the 2008-2014 period shows 114,000 fewer payroll jobs in Illinois than when the recession began, the second-worst record of any state, and one of only 15 states yet to break even on the recession. Only New Jersey is down more payroll jobs....