Free Republic

Brace yourself… Skepticism, doubt and criticism of Obamanomics (all of which are, undoubtedly, based in racism) will be cast aside. Why? Because, according to the 20-something-year-old White House intern that is in charge of the official White House twitter account, “Our businesses have added nearly 10 million new jobs over the past 52 months.” I know, right? Pretty awesome statistic. (Gloss over the fact that the President is referring to private enterprise as “our businesses”.) But before you rush out to slap an Obama ‘16 sticker on your car (are those stickers available yet?), you may want a little bit...

WASHINGTON - President Obama's bogus promises, predictions and claims are legendary, but perhaps you've forgotten his "sky is falling" forecast about the $85 billion budget sequester. Last February, as Congress's automatic budget cuts began chipping away at the government's out-of-control spending levels, Obama went hyperbolic. The spending cuts would deal a "huge blow... to our economy as a whole" and "all our economic progress could be at risk." In a string of speeches, the president played his fear card again. Air traffic control operations were being put at risk. Cancer research projects would be halted. Your food safety was in...

After delivering a number of “economic growth” speeches this summer, President Obama has failed to inspire any confidence, falling all the way back to square one in a recent Gallup poll. Actually, make that less than square one. Gallup reported that Obama’s approval rating on the economy has sunk to 35 percent in August from 42 percent in early June. Why should we be surprised? The actual economy shows real GDP falling well below 2 percent. This so-called recovery remains the worst in modern history dating back to 1947. And as far as solutions go, Obama keeps giving us the...

For being a former lecturer on Constitutional Law, the President seems to have a fairly precarious understanding of the separation of powers. Of course, this is assuming he concerns himself with the Constitution outside of political considerations. After his move to unilaterally delay aspects of Obamacare, and his extensive use of executive orders, the President is now considering adopting the powers of Congress in financial affairs. The wannabe-Emperor-Obama has decided that his executive branch alone (one of three total branches of government) might be able to increase taxes on all cell phone customers and use the money to build a...

I’ve relentlessly complained that the United States has the highest corporate tax rate among all developed nations. And if you look at all the world’s countries, our status is still very dismal. According to the the Economist, we have the second highest corporate tax rate, exceeded only by the United Arab Emirates. But some people argue that the statutory tax rate can be very misleading because of all the other policies that impact the actual tax burden on companies. That’s a very fair point, so I was very interested to see that a couple of economists at a German think tank put together a “tax...

The Financial Times reports Muslim Brotherhood calls for uprising after Cairo violence  The political crisis in Egypt deepened on Monday when the Muslim Brotherhood called for an uprising against those who want to “steal the revolution” after at least 51 people were killed and 435 injured at a Cairo rally in support of the nation’s ousted president, Mohamed Morsi. Adli Mansour, the interim president, ordered the creation of a judicial committee to investigate the violence while an administration spokesman, told Reuters the violence “will not stop steps to form a government or a road map”. The interim administration earlier expressed “deep...

Initial Reaction  The establishment survey showed a gain of 195,000 and that is a very respectable number. However, the household survey shows a more modest gain of 160,000 jobs. The civilian labor force rose by 177,000 thus the unemployment rate was steady at 7.6%. Digging beneath the surface, the numbers do not look so good.  326,000 Full-Time Jobs Lost Involuntary part-time jobs increased by 322,000 while voluntary part-time jobs increased by another 110,000. Thus, of the 160,000 household survey gain, 486,000 of them were part-time jobs, a loss of 326,000 full-time jobs. This caused a spike of 0.5 percentage points...

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide, No escape from reality. Open your eyes, Look up to the skies and see, I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy Bohemian RhapsodyQueen  This has been a great week for the merchants of hate that peddle politics of envy. Just look at the headlines: * McKesson CEO lump sum retirement package worth $159.0 million * CEO pay +37% since 2009 to $14.1 million or 273 times average worker pay * Queen Elizabeth gets 5% pay raise to $58.0 million next year Of course America's media...

Curve Watchers Anonymous has its eyes on the bond market as the quarter comes to a close today. It's been a very bad stretch for US treasuries as the chart below shows. Yield Curve as of 2013-06-28   click on chart for sharper image   $TYX: 30-Year Long Bond Yield - Green $TNX: 10-Year Treasury Note - Orange $FVX: 05-Year Treasury Note - Blue $IRX: 03-Mnth Treasury Bill - Brown The above chart shows the monthly close for the treasury symbols, except the current month is month to date (with the close coming up today). $TNX Daily That last candle is...

I’ve never figured out why soccer is so popular in some parts of the world. What’s the point of watching people run up and down a field for 90 minutes when the result is usually a 0-0 tie? But non-Americans generally don’t get the point of baseball, so I guess it’s all a matter of background and taste. I mention soccer because it’s an excuse to write about competitiveness and taxation. Except I’m not going to write about low tax rates and job creation, orlow tax rates and capital formation. Instead, today’s topic is tax competitiveness and French soccer. And since...

ModMark wrote: One of the coal plants shut down in Chicago was built ~90 years ago. While upgraded in the 1950's. it still did not meet EPA standards before Obama was elected. These plants were grandfather in when the clean air act was past. These ancient relics should have been converted to natural gas long ago.Do you really want to live next to one of these ancient plants? –in response to Obama Promise Kept: Coal Plants to go Bankrupt with New EPA Carbon Cap Dear Comrade Mark, The building was built 90 years ago, but the actual power plant generating electricity is considerably...

Here is an interesting Gallup poll that came my way today from a friend "BC". The poll was taken last month. It shows European Countries Lead World in Distrust of Banks.   Thirteen percent of Greeks said they had confidence in their country's banks or financial institutions in 2012, leading the nearly all-European list of countries where trust in financial institutions was among the worst in the world last year. Seven European Union countries had trust levels lower than 30%, far below the median 55% across 135 countries. Even in the EU's largest funder of the eurozone bailouts, Germany, fewer than four...

Well apparently a president can’t just make new lows for respect of American moral authority in one single term and then let it go at that. Nope. Apparently after getting stiff-armed by our ideological enemies once in the first Obama term- turning his back on American values and getting called out on it- the administration felt the need to demonstrate crumbling American might and values by going back to that well early in the second term too. During the first term, we suffered the embarrassment of the Chinese Communist who publicly lectured Obama about straying away from capitalism and taking...

Initial Reaction The establishment survey showed a gain of 175,000 a reasonably good but not spectacular print. The bright spot was involuntary part-time employment only rose by 26,000 so most of the jobs were (for a change) full-time jobs. The civilian labor force rose by 420,000 for a change, enough to raise the unemployment rate 0.1 percentage points to 7.6%. The Participation Rate rose 0.1 to 63.4%, just off the low of 63.3% dating back to 1979. Obamacare Effect Given there was not a huge jump in part-time employment this month, the bulk of the Obamacare effect of employers reducing...

No one wins a trade war. Ever. Not countries, not companies, and certainly not consumers. Yet, here we go again. People's Daily says China has more cards to play in EU trade dispute. China still has plenty more cards to play in an increasingly ugly trade dispute with the European Union, the official People's Daily newspaper said on Thursday, accusing Europe of not realizing that its global power was waning. The EU will impose duties on imports of Chinese solar panels from this week, a move that infuriated Beijing despite European attempts to soften the blow with a reduced rate....

DagNabbit wrote: Ransom cracks me up: This is the same guy that screams "Burn more oil!" at the top of his lungs every week. You want to F the Saudis? Stop buying their oil. (PS: Now I'll make the Sunday edition where he goes on and on about how the Keystone pipeline will free us from the Saudi trap. Hint: It won't). - Red, White and Saudi PrivilegeDear Comrade DN,I don’t scream, “Burn more oil!”I scream: “Drill more oil.”Comrade, it may come as a big surprise, but despite the wishes of liberals like you, our economy depends upon oil. That’s not a fact that’s...

Why socialism doesn't work, and the consequences once you've run out of other people's money. Item: Police in Venezuela seized 2,500 rolls of toilet paper in an overnight raid of a clandestine warehouse. In addition, officers seized 400 diapers and 7,000 liters of fruit juice. Item: The Elysee Palace sold off a tenth of its wine collection in a Presidential garage sale. The French government says it's no big deal, and they're trying to set the example. Selling presidential wine in a nation that loves its wine might chip away at awful approval ratings, but it speaks more to the...

Last week, the National Commission on Physician Payment Reform released its recommendations, calling for the elimination of fee-for-service healthcare within the next 5 years. This organization, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is populated by physicians from academia, the insurance industry and from the public policy world. Having former GOP Senate Majority leader and cardiac surgeon Bill Frist serving as honorary chairman gives the imprimatur of bipartisanship and legitimacy. However, Dr. Frist, a former academic himself, has long favored a government supervised healthcare system, and is therefore less than objective in this regard. The Commission was formed to assess...

By now, most people have concluded that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA, Obamacare) does not reduce the cost of healthcare for the majority of Americans, and certainly does not protect them. Healthcare costs - both insurance and out of pocket expenses - have more than doubled for many and will continue to increase. What is difficult and confusing to most of us is attempting to understand how this all fits together and why. Just a few months ago, the Obama administration had serious concerns regarding formation of state health insurance exchanges. This vital component of the ACA...

President Obama told a meeting of the National Governors Association: "At some point, we've got to do some governing. And certainly, what we can't do is keep careening from manufactured crisis to manufactured crisis." Really? Yes, really. He added, referring to the sequestration: "These cuts do not have to happen. Congress can turn them off anytime with just a little bit of compromise." Obama has repeatedly demonstrated that he does not consider himself bound by a duty of good faith to square with the American people. He has shown that he is unafraid to utter the most egregious distortions and...