Free Republic

All young Americans need to wake up and pay attention. You are being sold out by the federal government. Your future will be bleak indeed if you do not heed my warning. You are being sold down the river on so many fronts that I cannot list them all in this short article, but I will attempt to give you a small glimpse of what your future holds if you do not stand up. You need to get informed NOW. You need to speak up and let your voices be heard....or become a working slave to support the federal addiction...

STAND UP AMERICA, GET OUT OF THE FETAL POSITION AND MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD. Welcome to the GLENN BECK television thread...Shake the cobwebs out of your brain...We are another day closer to the REVOLUTION that will change the 2010 elections. All comrades, infidels, sick twisted freaks and lurkers are welcome and are encouraged to participate in the thread! Andy Stern, why is he so powerful?? Join us and find out!

Commentary: Rates to stay low as long as unemployment stays highWASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The Federal Reserve isn't going anywhere until the unemployment rate drops. In answer to all those who are clamoring for the central bank to begin raising interest rates or to at least explain when higher rates might come, the Federal Open Market Committee gave a simple response on Wednesday: Show us the jobs. Rates will stay "exceptionally low" as long as the unemployment rate is rising and inflation trends are subdued, the FOMC said. After its two-day meeting ended on Wednesday, the FOMC made essentially no changes...

Surprising Census Statistics Bethany Stotts, November 4, 2009 In terms of payroll, states and local governments faced larger escalating costs from the education sector than from corrections in 2008, according to data released by the U.S. Census Bureau. “The payroll for state governments rose by 5.3 percent ($937 million) in 2008,” stated a recent Census Bureau news release. “Among the functions with the largest increases in payroll were education ($464 million) and corrections ($113 million)” (emphasis added.) In addition, the number of education workers at the state and local level dwarfs the number of public prison and hospital staff. The...

Four Reasons Hyperinflation Hasn’t Hit The US... Yet Keith Fitz-Gerald Nov 04, 2009 11:30 am This uncertain limbo isn't good now, or ever. Everything we know about classic economic theory suggests the US economy should be experiencing Zimbabwe-like hyperinflation right now, thanks to the nearly $2.2 trillion the US Federal Reserve has pumped into the system. But we’re not... yet. Classic economic theory says that money supply can be used to stimulate the economy and our central bankers seem to agree. That’s why they’ve pumped more than $1 trillion dollars into the economy, engineered countless bailout bonanzas for zombie institutions,...

White House Budget Director Peter Orszag warned Tuesday that large federal deficits will eventually imperil the U.S. economy because they will lead to higher interest rates and more borrowing from overseas. Orszag, in a speech in New York, said that deficits, expected to add $9 trillion to the current national debt of $12 trillion over the next decade, are "serious and ultimately unsustainable." Orszag said that deficit spending was necessary to help boost the economy when unemployment is hovering around 10 percent. But he said that red ink must be stopped as the economy recovers. During a recovery, private investment...

Return to the Article November 3, 2009Why Middle Class Tax Hikes Are ComingBy Josh Barro During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama famously pledged not to raise taxes on individuals making less than $200,000 or families making less than $250,000. With this pledge, he offered over 95% of the electorate something for nothing: you'll get expanded government services, and somebody else will pay for it. The pitch worked, and he became the first winning presidential candidate in a generation whose platform explicitly contained tax hikes. Unfortunately for those who bought in, massive federal deficits will make it impossible for Obama to...

The Japanese Bond Market May Really Be Ready To Collapse The Mad Hedge Fund TraderNov. 4, 2009, 5:11 AM Having spent a decade living in Japan sharing shoe box sized apartments, living on fish heads, rice, and instant ramen, I am something of an authority on that enchanting country. I spent the seventies toiling away learning Japanese, shuffling hundreds of flash cards whenever I rode the train or subways. My friends said I was crazy when I learned obscure, seemingly useless terms like hitokabu rieki (earnings per share) and genka shokyaku (depreciation). I even made the ultimate sacrifice to improve...

Scary Specter Of '30s-Style Economic Depression Commodities / Gold & Silver Stocks Nov 04, 2009 - 02:24 AM By: The_Gold_Report Jay Taylor, who publishes Gold, Energy & Technology Stocks and hosts his "Turning Hard Times into Good Times" radio program each week, is hoping and praying for deflation to help the U.S. heal its wounds and find its way back to prosperity. He has reasons to think the dollar might bounce back, too. Nevertheless, Jay reminds The Gold Report readers about frightening parallels to the 1930s and doesn't dismiss the possibility of a hyperinflation that renders the U.S. dollar about...

The United States now borrows over 40 percent of each dollar it spends. Once we were the most prosperous nation on the earth now we are drowning in a sea of debt. Our national debt is over 11.6 trillion, the highest in the world. There is no way our nation can “grow our way out” of such overwhelming debt without cutting the size of government. Will politicians downsize our government and cut spending on their own? “Of course not,” is the right answer. When was the last time you heard anyone in Washington say they would sponsor legislation to cut...

Taxation: Policymakers piled up a $1.4 trillion deficit for fiscal 2009. The figure is so high that if Congress were to use the income tax to balance the budget, rates would have to be nearly tripled. The 2009 deficit was larger than the combined federal debt of the first two centuries of the country's existence. As staggering as that is to the mind, the 2010 deficit projects to be even bigger, roughly $1.5 trillion. The rates for joint filers earning at least $373,601 would have to be almost tripled, from 35% to 95.2%, to help close the 2010 deficit. (See...

Is Bill O'Reilly the new moderate voice of America's right? That would seem to be the case after Bill O' took on Rush Limbaugh, the fire-eating grand poobah of everything right-wing. O'Reilly took exception to Limbaugh's claim that President Obama was trying to deliberately destroy the economy. In an interview with Fox News, Limbaugh said Obama represented the most "radical leadership" in the history of the country, and that the economy was "under siege" by Obama. Limbaugh also said Obama had "not done one thing to revitalize the economy." In response, Bill O' asked the logical question — but one...

Former president George W Bush thought that the United States could turn Kabul into Peoria, the archetypal American city in the state of Illinois. President Barack Obama thinks that Kabul is just as good as Peoria. America has shed idealist delusion - that imposing the outward form of democracy in Iraq or Afghanistan would implant its content - in favor of an even stranger delusion, which refuses "to elevate one nation or group of people over another", as Obama told the United Nations on September 23. It was mad to believe that America could remake the world in its own...

Junk Science: The oracle of climate disaster has a new book out on global warming that should be on the fiction list. He asks us to commit economic suicide while he rakes in millions from his green investments. 'Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis," Al Gore's sequel to his 2006 tome "An Inconvenient Truth," came out Tuesday. Printed on recycled paper using low-VOC (volatile organic compound) ink, it will undoubtedly be a best-seller and on the desk of every attendee at next month's climate change conference in Copenhagen. In a press release announcing the book, the Oscar-...

10 Ways A China Blow-Up Will Slam America Vincent FernandoNov. 3, 2009, 8:50 AM Beware a surprise economic crash in China. The country is expanding like crazy, and while this may look great in the short term, there are many signs that the country's economic path is unsustainable. The government itself realizes the problem, but must balance the country's bubble concerns with the zealous economic expectations of its population, and most importantly, the massive need for job creation. It's also a huge country and the government has far less control over the economy than it would like to admit. Should...

Eric Sprott: "Dead Government Walking" Joe WeisenthalNov. 3, 2009, 12:48 PM If you're looking for something to cheer you up, don't read the latest letter from ultra-bear Eric Sprott (via Market Folly). Basically he argues, a US default is coming sooner, rather than later, and that there's just no hope of averting this. The projected US deficit from 2009 to 2019 is now slated to be almost $9 trillion dollars.3 How on earth does anyone expect them to raise this capital? As we stated in a previous article, in order to satisfy US capital requirements, all existing investors would have...

Budapest, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Investor and philanthropist George Soros forecast in Budapest on Friday that China would emerge as the big winner of the global financial crisis. Soros called on Chinese leaders to "rise to the occasion" and take an active role in the creation of a new multilateral financial order urgently required to reinvent the "broken international financial system." Soros also warned that "the worst financial crisis since WWII" may not be over. The Hungarian-born billionaire sounded a pessimistic note throughout the week and said that those who believe the global economy is stabilizing are wrong. In the...

STAND UP AMERICA, GET OUT OF THE FETAL POSITION AND MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD. Welcome to the GLENN BECK television thread...Shake the cobwebs out of your brain...We are another day closer to the REVOLUTION that will change the 2010 elections. All comrades, infidels, sick twisted freaks and lurkers are welcome and are encouraged to participate in the thread! Today Glenn tells us why healthcare is the key to controlling every aspect of your life, join us won't you!

Now, I firmly believe that a lot of what Democrats and liberals want, can actually be achieved through conservatism. Crazy idea, I know; but it's true. Liberals and Democrats are always talking about helping the poor. They are strong advocates of social welfare. Because of this, they get the vote of many poor people. But tell me, what dividends have we seen? Has poverty been cured? Even helped, to a noticeable level? Nope. A while back, Glenn Beck talked about this exact thing. But although the problem may unite us, the solutions don't. And perhaps nothing illustrates that better than...

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that almost half of all voters would NOT vote for President Obama if he was running for election today, 49% say they would be unlikely to vote for the president’s reelection vs. the 45% of adults say they would be at least somewhat likely to vote for Obama if he was up for reelection right now. Obama carried 53% of the vote nationally over Republican candidate John McCain’s 46% in last November’s election. Among the key independent bloc , those not at all likely to vote for the president’s reelection have a...

Belief in manmade climate change has dropped off in recent years and support for cap and trade measures also is losing steam. This latter trend is picking up speed as it becomes more obvious that climate scientists are sharply divided on whether humans play any role in global warming/global cooling/climate change. However, the U.S. Congress races blindly on with plans to enact sweeping, intrusive legislation, undaunted by either the lack of convincing evidence that human activity affects the environment, or the public’s increasing disaffection with this legislation. ... Each house of Congress has its own version of this legislative misadventure,...

Property Values Set to Fall 43% From Current Depressed Levels Michael David White November 02, 2009 Price Trends / WAR OF THE WORLDS: If you use a 20-year time horizon, and assume prices will return to the trend line, then our residential property bubble will bottom after values fall over 40% from current levels (see above (c) aka “(y) - (z)” aka “Loss Today to Bottom”). I make no predictions. I do watch numbers. The chart shows a catastrophe of falling real estate values loaded up on top of our current catastrophe in real estate values. No one would question...

Please FReep this poll.

Major Companies Hoarding Cash, Preparing for Second Wave of Financial Crisis By Rocky Vega 11/02/09 Stockholm, Sweden – If you’re looking for insight into how you should be responding to the “recovery” in the US economy, there’s actually a glimmer of sanity coming leading US companies. Right now major American companies are storing up more cash than at any other time within the past 40 years. According to media reports, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase among others are saving “as if another financial crisis were on the way.” Even the vice president of equity research at Rochdale Securities Dick Bove said,...

<p>Commerce Secretary Gary Locke told Bloomberg TV today that a second economic stimulus is "being hotly discussed and very seriously considered within the administration as well as members of Congress."</p> <p>Not surprisingly, this news triggered a spasm of backtracking: Locke's spokesman now says he was being "imprecise."</p>

Technical Analyst: The World Is About To End Henry BlodgetNov. 3, 2009, 6:59 AMSince expressing (ridicule) skepticism about technical analysis a few months ago, we have been politely badgered by reader John Brims, who has been sending us charts and murmuring about wedges. We will confess that we have not been listening too carefully, because, well, because we think technical analysis is a bunch of bullsh**. But John has been persistent, so we'll give him his chance to shine. John says the chart below indicates that the world is about to end. So hang on to your hat! Henry, I...

The White House is beginning to send strong signals that it recognizes the $1.4 trillion budget deficit is a looming political problem that needs to be addressed, even as President Obama reminds Americans that the country's fiscal crisis originated with the Bush administration and will not be resolved overnight. The president's budget director, Peter R. Orszag, on Tuesday will deliver the second major speech on the deficit in a week by a top White House official. Mr. Orszag's speech on "reining in the deficit" will be the first time that a top White House economist will look forward at the...

Global Economy is Firing On All Cylinders Economics / Economic Recovery Nov 02, 2009 - 05:43 AM Jon D. Markman writes: What a difference 12 months can make. Just one year after every national economy on earth was in deep trouble, a powerful global rebound is underway. In fact, the global upswing is a lot stronger than most investors realize. So don’t let a few days’ decline here and there cause you to lose sight of one of the most important investing trends investors will find today. According to ISI Group researchers, the transformation has been a dramatic one. A...

Economic Recovery, The Great Hoax of 2009-2010 Economics / Economic Recovery Nov 02, 2009 - 07:40 AM By: Martin_D_Weiss Before he died, Dad warned me of false profits … and fake promises. “Beware,” he said, “of shaky gains hyped up by Wall Street. “Watch out,” he insisted, “for unsustainable economic recoveries trumpeted by Washington. “And no matter when or where you may be, don’t be fooled by illusions of wealth and prosperity. “If they’re built on a foundation of shaky debt, they’re suspect. If they’re driven by unbridled speculation, they’re pure fluff. And if they’re bought and paid for by...

The Government Will Default On Its Debts Economics / Great Depression II Nov 02, 2009 - 08:01 AM By: Gary_North The governments of every major nation are going to default on their debts. There are two relevant questions: (1) How? (2) When?Establishments around the world all deny this. They have gained power and wealth by means of the expansion of government. They have justified their success by insisting that the government-business alliance is the only way to establish economic growth and economic security for the masses. This claim rests on a more fundamental claim, namely, that an unhampered free market...

The Political Economy Postponing Providence Economics / Economic Stimulus Nov 02, 2009 - 12:29 PM By: Captain_Hook That’s the game – postponing providence – putting off the inevitable until the next guy’s shift. This is the cache of our political economy, as with all other comparables before it, now maturing into rot. All dominant cultures recede this way of course, dying from within as it were. And the American Empire is no different, with its hollowed out economy, markets, and values. Despite the obvious signs of this decay, most people continue to deny and ignore the inevitable, however acceleration of...

Posted Nov 02, 2009 11:00am EST By Aaron Task in Investing Stocks rose sharply early Monday, quelling concerns (for now at least) about another rout after Friday's big decline. As Wells Capital's Jim Paulsen might say, the very fact so many people were worried about a possible crash Monday is a sign of the prevailing bearish sentiment. The market will continue to climb this proverbial "wall of worry," say bulls like Paulsen. That may well prove true but the past few weeks have reintroduced a level of volatility largely absent since the July lows. Clearly, the tenor of the market...

STAND UP AMERICA, GET OUT OF THE FETAL POSITION AND MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD. Welcome to the GLENN BECK television thread...Shake the cobwebs out of your brain...We are another day closer to the REVOLUTION that will change the 2010 elections. All comrades, infidels, sick twisted freaks and lurkers are welcome and are encouraged to participate in the thread! Glenn will discuss why America's political landscape has become almost unrecognizable, join us won't you!

As the vice president knows, I have always advocated an all-of-the-above approach to American energy independence. Among other things, my alternative energy goal for Alaska sits at 50 percent because Alaska reached more than 20 percent during my term in office. The Obama-Biden administration, on the other hand, recently announced a renewable goal of only 25 percent. However, domestic drilling should remain a top priority in order to meet America’s consumption and security needs. etc...

Soros, Ross: Commercial Real-Estate Crash Is Coming And It's Going To Be Terrific Henry BlodgetNov. 1, 2009, 8:35 AM The commercial real-estate crash is the worst-kept secret in the economy, but it's happening. It's just taking a long time to play out. (Except in the hotel industry, which essentially has "one-day leases"). Wilbur Ross and George Soros were freaking out about it on Friday: John Gittelsohn and Thomas R. Keene, Bloomberg: Billionaire investor Wilbur L. Ross Jr., said today the U.S. is in the beginning of a “huge crash in commercial real estate.” “All of the components of real estate...

GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann has put out a call for a march on Washington DC at noon this Thursday to stop the government health care takeover. Meet her on the steps of the Capitol. More from Tea Party Patriots. A little flashback to get you motivated: *** Obamacare protest posters: Print and bring! *** The SEIU is targeting moderate Democrats over health care. What are you doing to combat the Purple Shirts?

NEW YORK – Hopes for the fledgling economic recovery got a boost Monday from better-than-expected news on manufacturing, construction and contracts to buy homes.

We hear a lot today about our struggling economy, even about the failure of capitalism; we are told that our economic system, not just our economy, is broken. However, the notion that our system, that the American system is broken must be rejected. Our economy and our banking system were mismanaged to the brink of disaster by a special interest beholden congress. But is our free enterprise system broken? No, not until politicians silence Middle America; not until the people return the same bad apples back to the congressional barrel. The economic brinkmanship embodied in massive spending bills threatens to...

I Only hope we find GOD again before it is too late ! ! The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary. My confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are, Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting...

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday that more U.S. jobs will be lost in coming weeks and months but stressed the economy has recovered a lot of ground since he took office in January. Speaking at a White House meeting of his Economic Recovery Advisory Board, Obama said the current pace of job losses was "distressing" and the labor market would not improve quickly

President Obama’s highly controversial Safe Schools Czar, Kevin Jennings, is concerned about the heterosexual indoctrination of children in our public schools. In his bizarre view: “we all know what’s promoted in our schools: Heterosexuality is promoted in our schools. Every time kids read Romeo and Juliet or they’re encouraged to go to the prom or whatever it is, kids are aggressively recruited to be heterosexual in this country. And you know what, it doesn’t work. The reality is that if schools could affect your sexual orientation there would have been no gay people in the first place. But they’re still...

Title only. Too short to excerpt.

For many years, Americans indulged the global-warming fantasies of Al Gore and the loopy left because it didn't cost them anything (at least directly), it didn't materially affect their lifestyles, and it made some of them feel all warm, fuzzy and green. Now warmists are in power in Washington and pushing cap-and-trade legislation that will raise energy costs for the average household, conservatively, by a few thousand dollars a year while increasing America's dependence on intermittent and unreliable energy sources but without meaningfully changing earth's climate. Not surprisingly, Americans no longer are all that hot for global warming. Actual data...

It is becoming more and more evident, to the astute observer of realistic economics, that the second dip in the "W" global recession is coming up quickly. This is of course, identical to what took place between the 1929 collapse and the 1931 final landing. The world economy fell hard, bounced high and than fell into a deep black hole, that it took it thirty years to climb out of. This time will be worse, at least for the Anglos and more specifically the Americans. ...Now for the Yanks. The Americans, more so than any others are about to find...

[Excerpt] "Sometimes our technology, in creating these securities, outpaces our ability to cope with them." That's what Larry Fink told the New York Times in May 1987 when asked about Howie Rubin's trading disaster. In the past, Fink would have made that statement to a reporter and then celebrated with his team the fact that one of his competitors, particularly one like Merrill Lynch, which he saw as a pesky upstart in the field he aimed to dominate, was now being nailed with massive losses. But Fink wasn't celebrating, because, much like Howie Rubin, he had just gotten his first...

As I said in my previous post, that’s well into President Palin’s second term.

Once upon a time, within my living memory, families were able to survive on the wages of one breadwinner. Now it takes two people working to make ends meet and it seems to be getting harder all the time. Could anyone tell us why this is happening? Why has the cost of living grown in the past several decades? How does bad government policies effect the cost of living?

Just found out that my cousin and uncle, who both worked at the same company, both lost their jobs Friday. Their former company actually is laying off 900 people nationwide. They are involved in the logistics/shipping industry and I don't know the name of their company but it is clear that there is little demand out there for products right now. Rush was right when he said very few companies are keeping inventory and if you order something now they have to create the goods when your order arrives. My uncle will probably be okay but my cousin has a...

Geithner: The Deficit Is Gigantic, But We'll Deal With It Another Time Joe WeisenthalNov. 1, 2009, 2:35 PM On Meet The Press, Tim Geithner acknowledged the monster deficit, and said it had to be dealth with... but that was really a problem to be solved at some point down the road. ---- AP: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner acknowledges the federal budget deficit is too high, but that the priorities now are economic growth and job creation. Asked repeatedly on NBC's "Meet the Press" whether this means taxes will rise, Geithner avoided giving specifics. He did say President Barack Obama is...

At 3.5% Growth, Economy Won't Recover Until President Palin's Second Term Paul KrugmanNov. 1, 2009, 11:08 AM ...If we take 3rd quarter growth to be more or less equivalent to average Clinton-era growth, even after 8 years of growth at that rate we’d only expect unemployment to have fallen from the current 9.8% to a still uncomfortably high 6.3%. It would take us around a decade to reach more or less full employment. As I said in my previous post, that’s well into President Palin’s second term...[SNIP]