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The Independent Institute in cooperation with Canada’s Fraser Institute has issued a new 2017 Economic Freedom of North America report and California’s ranking shows what happens when politicians who have never held a real job or created real jobs in the private sector decide they can regulate an economy into success. California ranks 49th out of all 50 states, finishing just ahead of that slave to Big Government, New York. For some reason the wizards in Sacramento think driving out businesses and replacing them with illegal aliens attracted by “sanctuary policies” is going to pay off big the for state....

trillion during the eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency. Little was said about this phenomenal growth at the time, and even less was done about it. Of course, now that the Republicans are in charge and have had the audacity to cut taxes, the horror of the deficit is once again a topic of conversation among the chattering classes. Even so, no one has offered a viable solution to the problem, and no one ever will. The conventional wisdom says that this is so largely because the consequences of curtailing the deficit are immediate, while the consequences of not curtailing...

Over 1 million American workers with over 100 companies are set to receive a bonus, pay hike or retirement increase as a direct result of President Trump’s tax reform package.The latest list from Americans for Tax Reform, which has been collecting the names of firms paying the Trump bonus, finds that some are paying as much as $3,000.Many of those firms have reached out to Secrets to get added to the list since we’ve been publishing ATR’s list compiled by the tax reform advocate’s communications chief John Kartch.One company, IAT Insurance of Raleigh, N.C., wrote Secrets today asking to be...

RUSH: From CNBC: “Black Unemployment Rate Falls to Record Low — Unemployment among black workers is at its lowest since at least the early 1970s, when the government began tracking the data. The black unemployment rate of 6.8% in December was the lowest since the Bureau of Labor Statistics started tracking it in 1972, a year in which the rate ranged from 11.2% to 9.4%. In the 45 years the data has been tracked, the unemployment rate for black or African-American workers aged 16 years and older has never fallen below 7%.” Now, to fall below 7% under Barack Hussein...

Companies have already responded to the tax reform Opens a New Window. package, announcing plans to pass along some of the savings to their employees. AT&T (T) said it would give $1,000 bonuses even before the tax plan was signed into law and other companies such as Comcast (CMCSA), U.S. Bank and Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB) have followed suit. Wells Fargo (WFC) said it will raise the minimum wage at the company to $15 an hour. White House National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn weighed in on corporate America’s response to the tax package telling FOX Business’ Stuart Varney on...

The owner of South Point, Michael Gaughan, has announced that he will be giving employees an extra $1M this year because of President Donald Trump's tax reform bill. “Las Vegas has experienced a significant amount of growth over the past few years, and this tax reform will continue to drive the economy for the city,” said Gaughan. “The new bill will have a monumental effect on our economy and, in turn, our property. We want to be sure that our extended family is taken care of.” He also said that employee bonuses will double this year. In addition, he is...

President Trump’s historical successes in the first year of his presidency, word and the results are getting through to the only people that matter, voters. And the latest job approval numbers for the president reflect this. Even the Gallup poll, which has been an outlier with its bad news, has Trump at 40 percent approve (55 percent disapprove) after weeks in the mid-thirties. One of the reasons Gallup is an outlier is that it polls all U.S. adults, rather than screen for registered or likely voters. For a time, Trump’s disapproval in this poll was over 60 percent. The Rasmussen...

We've all heard the stories about how several big companies decided to give bonuses immediately after the December 2017 tax reform was passed... but the mainstream media quickly dropped the story. What we haven't heard about over the past week or so is how the list of companies has grown. (compliments to the good folks at Americans for Tax Reform for committing to build a running list online). Some are relatively small businesses, like banks that have a couple hundred employees... but it's remarkable how many big companies have jumped on the bonus bandwagon too. For example: - AT&T: $1000...

Most folks here support President Trump and what he is trying to do for the nation, what impact he is having on the nation. We hear good news, and we instinctively know it's good news.  At the same time I think we fail to focus on the magnitude of change at times. This is one of those times.  This good news cannot be overlooked.  Lets look at some numbers.  They are very impressive. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) closed above 25,000 points today, at 25,075.13.  LINK  It's a first.  In the 120 years of the DJIA, this is the highest...

U.S. employers announced plans to cut 32,423 jobs in December, bringing the year's total to a low not seen since 1990, global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported Thursday. "The tight labor market, coupled with uncertainty surrounding health care and tax legislation, possibly kept employers from making any long-term staffing decisions this year," CEO John Challenger said in a statement. "However, 2018 may see an increase in job cut announcements, as companies realign with consumer demand." Cuts in 2017 totaled 418,770, 20 percent below 2016's number. In 1990, companies announced plans to cut 316,047 jobs. Last month saw 7.4...

As President Trump’s first year in office comes to a close, media hysteria about the grave harm he will cause to the nation and the world continues unabated – even though predictions of disaster he would supposedly cause in the past year never came to pass. Since Donald Trump’s upset election victory in November 2016, commentators, anchors, reporters, columnists, editorial writers, op-ed writers all manner of experts have been opining on the horrors his presidency would bring about. Gazing into their crystal balls, these sages told us: a monumental stock market crash was just around the corner; there was a...

The fallout from the financial crisis, oppressive taxes and over regulations that burdened business for so long are receding, and the American economy is poised to deliver on the promised prosperity of the digital age. Since last spring, GDP growth has been much stronger than during the Bush-Obama years. As importantly, the character and content of growth is changing. The Obama recovery depended heavily on subsidies to boost employment in health care, a bailout for the auto industry and huge investments in the oil and gas sector instigated by new recovery methods. Going forward limits on Washington’s financial resources will...

McDonald's looks pretty golden-headed into 2018. The combination of McDonald's planned rollout of fresh, never-frozen beef, its recent relaunch of its Dollar Menu and woes at other restaurant chains could help the restaurant boost its same-store sales and grab more market share in the industry. The burger giant's stock ended 2017 up more than 41 percent, the largest stock move in the restaurant industry during the year, and more than one analyst is calling for more gains in the new year.

Propped up by media idolatry, California is moving from denial to delusion. Case in point: A recent AP story claimed that the state “flush with cash from an expanding economy” would consider spending an additional billion dollars on health care for the undocumented, as well as a raft of new subsidies for housing and the working poor. All this wishful thinking and noble intentions ignores a slowing state economy, and a structural deficit, keyed largely to state worker pensions, that may now be headed towards a trillion dollars. Perhaps the widely celebrated, although poorly distributed “good times” of the past...

Modern finance has many complex moving parts, and this complexity masks its inner simplicity.Let’s break down the core dynamics of the current financial system.The Core Dynamic of the “Recovery” and Asset Bubbles: Credit Credit is the foundation of the current financial system, for credit enables consumers to bring consumption forward, that is, buy more stuff today than they could buy with the cash they have on hand, in exchange for promising to pay principal and interest with their future income.Credit also enables speculators to buy more assets than they otherwise could were they limited to cash on hand.Buying goods,...

Predictions?

These six 2018 predictions are neither guaranteed, nor particularly prescient. But the best predictor of past behavior, with people and Krugman's cat, is past behavior. So if any, or all, of these predictions happen, we shouldn't be surprised. The continuing divisive and acrimonious political environment in 2018 America will bring no abatement of the decibel level held throughout 2017. In fact, it’s likely to dial-up.

For those of us who value safety, a strong military, a booming economy, high employment, a belief in the sanctity of life, and a reverence for the U.S. Constitution, the election of Donald J. Trump was a godsend It’s only weeks away from the day in January last year when Donald J. Trump ascended to the presidency and took his oath of office as the 45th President of the United States of America. In only 12 months, it’s fair to say that he has already had an extraordinary presidency—more bold, courageous, and revolutionary than any American president since the Founding...

What is it that ends a recession, and finally brings about an economic boom? After a long and painful “non-recovery recovery” – a decade-long stretch in which job growth and the labor force non-participation rate remained flat – the federal government has finally accomplished, in 2017, the primary contributions that it can make to bring about a real recovery: By year-end, Congress had passed, and the president had signed, a long-overdue tax cut, reducing the tax rate that employers pay by nearly a half. It wasn’t enough, and we will need to add additional cuts in a phase two and...

U.S. stocks closed lower on Friday, but Wall Street finished off one of its best years in a long time. The Dow raced 25% higher in 2017, getting even closer to 25,000 and making this year its best since 2013. The index breezed through milestones. It had taken the Dow 14 years to climb from 10,000 to 15,000, but just three and a half years to reach 20,000 in 2017.