Free Republic

"....Pleasant. That’s even how Walker’s bitterest political foes describe him.In the heat of the state’s showdown with its union four years ago, Rep. Peter Barca, the Wisconsin State Assembly’s top Democrat, publicly denounced the governor at protests across the state. “You know, Governor Walker, you have defiled our heritage,” Barca said at one rally. “You have disregarded our values.”But Walker,who declined to be interviewed for this article,never took it personally. “I’d give a speech in front of 50,000 protesters saying,‘Walker’s got to go,’“ Barca says, “and you’d see him the next day and you’d think I just sent him a...

There's a good reason why Texas is often called "America's economic miracle" — the Lone Star State led the nation in job creation before, during and after the Great Recession. From 2007 to 2014, the state created nearly 1.6 million jobs, and its employment level grew by more than 14% — 31 times the paltry 0.46% growth rate for jobs nationwide. Under Gov. Rick Perry's leadership, Texas created nearly 28% of all new jobs nationally — the majority of which paid average or above average wages. Much has been said recently about the Texas economy being tested by a drop...

....[SNIP].... Labor unions rely on density for two reasons. First, unions need monthly dues in order to be able to pay organizers and staff. The more members, the more dues, the more organizing. Second, the more unions that exist in a region, the easier it is to organize. That's because more union employers usually means smaller disparities between the wages paid by different businesses -- meaning less incentive to oppose organizing drives. That's why New York state has the highest union membership rate in the country: New York City's high union density makes it easier to organize. Again, half of...

The U.S. Treasury has been using emergency measures to avoid breaching the federal borrowing limit since March. Is it time to ditch the debt ceiling?The Government Accountability Office raises that question in a new report that both quantifies the damage caused by past episodes of debt-ceiling brinksmanship and offers Congress with possible ways out.The report is particularly relevant right now because the U.S. Treasury has been using emergency measures to avoid breaching the federal borrowing limit since March. Budget analysts estimate that it can use those measures, such as halting certain pension investments, until it is unable to borrow money sometime in November...

(Thomas Dishaw) Food may be your best investment, seriously. Prices are out of control as grocers struggle to make profit in an industry known for slim margins. At the end of the day grocery stores make about one or two cents for every customer who walks through the door. Crazy right? This is the industry standard after paying benefits, wages, rent, advertising, legal, and inventory costs, profits are slim. With that kind of business model you can expect prices to continue rising no matter what kind of economy we are in. I continue to be amazed at how high these...

".......In this modern age of hyperpartisan combat,no one running has consistently succeeded when fighting for conservative principles the way Walker has. Actually fighting and winning conservative fights is what voters are hungry for. That’s why Walker used the word “win” six times.Where the candidates announce their candidacies tells you about their campaign. Jeb Bush chose Miami Dade College so that the tableau of diverse faces could speak to his effort to expand the Republican Party. Bush has since talked about the makeup of that crowd and how it doesn’t look like the typical Republican electorate. Walker’s crowd was 99 percent...

A few months ago, I had an opportunity to take the one hour drive from my home in Cape Coral, Florida, down I-75 to Naples, where I met a man named Andy Tran. Tran, who is the founder of Southwest FL 3D, peaked my interest with some of his 3D printing related posts on social media sites such as Instagram. Upon meeting Tran, I got a feel for his extraordinary passion when it comes to 3D printing, and left Naples knowing that it wouldn’t be the last I heard from him. Tran’s innovative mind has led him to come up...

[great 4:00 Fox News VIDEO] MARK THIESSEN: I went into that book an admirer and came out a true believer... He is a truly impressive individual. First of all, he is super smart. He came into office, he took a $3.6 billion deficit and turned it into a $1 billion dollar surplus without raising taxes, cutting services to the poor, and decimating educations... He won three elections in Wisconsin in four years, in a state which hasn't voted for a Republican for president since 1984, not by tacking to the center, but by governing as an unapologetic, full-spectrum conservative... The...

A heckler was ejected from Hillary Clinton’s economic speech in New York City Monday after asking the former secretary of state about her position on investment banking regulations. Business Insider reported that Daniel Burke, a self-identified organizer for the LaRouche PAC which supports political activist Lyndon LaRouche, yelled at Clinton at the conclusion of her speech, “Senator Clinton, will you restore Glass-Steagall?” Clinton did not respond to the inquiry, and Burke was removed from the event location, the New School in Manhattan, by security. Passed in 1933 and then repealed 66 years later, the Glass-Steagall Act separates commercial banks from...

U.S. stock markets were tipped to open higher on Monday following news that Greece and its international creditors have reached a bailout agreement. European Council President Donald Tusk said early on Monday that euro zone leaders reached an unanimous agreement with Greece after all-night talks in Brussels to move forward with a bailout loan for Greece provided Athens implement tough reforms. "Markets have responded very positively to the news, which comes following months of uncertainty and increasing fears that Greece could suffer a messy exit from the euro zone," Craig Erlam, a senior market analyst at currency trading firm OANDA....

Shortly before Scott Walker was re-elected Wisconsin’s Governor for the third time in four years, I made the case that if Walker prevailed Republicans should nominate him as their presidential candidate right then and there. Since January, Walker has been at or near the top of most public opinion polls of preferred standard bearers for the GOP in 2016, and today he officially launches his White House bid, making him the 15th Republican to join the field. While this field is quite crowded, I believe it will soon become apparent that Scott Walker stands out head and shoulders above the...

LAS VEGAS -- I'm here at Planet Hollywood as the token liberal to participate in two debates -- one on what is killing the American Dream; the other a mock trial of the Federal Reserve. Paul Krugman is also here, debating the cause and cure of inequality. We're outnumbered about a thousand to one. The annual FreedomFest convention of some 2,000 libertarian conservatives is doubly surreal. What better setting for libertarian dreams than fantastical Las Vegas -- the free market as casino, made flesh. Like casino operators, these libertarians live on fantasies. They inhabit an imagined universe where markets never...

Ah the Hillary Clinton presidency, which is supposed to reinvigorate the American entrepreneurial spirit and usher in a new economic revolution. .@HillaryClinton's economic agenda to go after Uber. REALLY stupid and may put Democratic cronyism on full display Apparently, she sees Uber as the major economic obstacle of our time.Politico reports: Clinton’s aide said she will discuss some of the structural forces conspiring against sustainable wage growth, such as globalization, automation, and even consumer-friendly “sharing economy” firms like Uber and Airbnb that are creating new relationships between management and labor (and which now employ many Obama administration alumni). But she will...

The president of the board and the UW-Madison chancellor have pledged to maintain tenure and academic freedom. But faculty are skeptical they will have the same ironclad protections against retaliation for controversial research, particularly the type of scholarship that can leave winners and losers in the marketplace. MADISON, Wis. — First, Gov. Scott Walker defeated public-sector labor unions. Then, he declawed their private-sector counterparts. Now, ahead of his entry into the presidential race, the Wisconsin Republican is staring down another conservative target: college professors. The trifecta could cement Walker's reputation among conservative Republican primary voters as a bold leader...

One of the things that I have been trying to point out around here is that the United States doesn’t actually have poverty by the way that the rest of the world understands this word, “poverty”. Most certainly, there are people in the US, in America, who have more than others. This is inequality. And yet we have myriads, almost myriads of myrmidons, telling us that this equals poverty. And I’m sorry, but these two things are just not the same. Inequality is not poverty: poverty is not inequality. And now we’ve got this latest set of numbers from Pew...

Martin Crutsinger has been a business and economics writer at the Associated Press for over three decades. Certain people in high places apparently hold him in high regard. In early 2014, on his 30th anniversary with the wire service, he is said to have received congratulatory letters from soon-to-be Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, soon-to-be-former chair Ben Bernanke and Obama administration Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, which he clearly enjoyed as those in attendance munched on a very delicious-looking cake. We can't know whether the congrats from those heavy hitters merely marked a career milestone, or if they included an element...

...But there is one set of related policy ideas that would dramatically help the poor and should not be ideologically divisive. How about a renewed effort to help the poor by refusing to cheat them? I am referring to a broad and growing collaboration between government and business to systematically defraud and exploit the poor through state lotteries, payday lending and payday gambling. The lottery is a particularly awful example of political corruption. Here government is raising revenue by selling the Powerball dream of wealth without work. Studies in a number of states have shown that lottery ticket sales are...

Don’t let anyone tell you that crime is going down in America. All over the United States, rates of violent crime in our major cities are increasing by double digit percentages. Murders are way up, shootings are way up and rapes are way up. So what is behind this sudden spike in crime? In Baltimore, authorities are pointing to the racial tensions that were stirred up by the riots that erupted in protest to the death of Freddie Gray. But what about the rest of the country? From coast to coast, we are witnessing a dramatic increase in violent crime,...

This is a good video to see a more relaxed candidate Trump without the confrontational tone generally inherent in national punditry broadcast. Trump covers a lot of material within the questions, and you can see how he is able to communicate comfortably. One of the aspects I took away from watching this was a stronger belief he really is in this race to win. This is not Trump promoting Trump; this is Trump conveying he really does want to do this specifically to make America Great Again.

"Give me a one-handed economist!" Harry Truman once lamented. "All my economists say, on the one hand ... on the other hand ..." Though they're all economists themselves, Federal Reserve policymakers must be thinking along the same lines as they try to assess when to pull the trigger on the first interest rate hike in nearly a decade. On the one hand, the U.S. economy is sound. Hiring is robust, housing is finally picking up, consumers are shopping more, and even manufacturing may have stabilized after a series of shocks in the winter. On the other, fears about Greece exiting...