Free Republic

Has the AIG CEO Robert Benmosche, just three months into the job, had enough? The Wall Street Journal scoops the field this morning with news from inside the AIG board room that Benmosche has informed the board "he is considering stepping down as chief executive of the government-controlled insurer." Benmosche dropped the bomb last week, saying he was "done." According to the Journal's sources, Benmosche "is chafing under constraints imposed by AIG's government overseers, particularly a recent compensation review by the Obama administration's pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg." He's not quite out the door yet, though. He agreed to think over...

The headline in Investor’s Business Daily, Sept. 16, 2009: “45% of Doctors Would Consider Quitting If Congress Passes Health Care Overhaul.” The headline in the Boston Globe, Sept. 28, 2009: “States risk it, raise tax on rich.” The problem with four of nine U.S. doctors saying they “would consider leaving their practice or taking an early retirement” is that “the number of doctors is already lagging population growth,” reports IBD. Add millions of new patients to a shrinking supply of doctors and the obvious result is an English-style queue, longer waits in pain, and a centrally directed rationing of service....

The resistance is well underway. Affluent Americans – defined as the top 20 percent of U.S. households by income – spent about 10 percent less in 2008 than they did in 2007, according to a study by luxury-goods researcher Unity Marketing. And those households with incomes of $250,000 or more are cutting back on spending even more than all affluent households overall. 54 percent of these consumers are spending even less in 2009 than in 2008. Those $250,000+ earners, threatened and demonized by President Obama, are retaliating with their most powerful and damaging weapon: not spending. It is a quiet,...

McDonald's, the fast food giant, will join the ranks of companies quitting the UK when it moves its European headquarters to Geneva later this year. Senior executives, including Denis Hennequin, president of McDonald's operations in Europe, will be based there. The US company, which opened its first restaurant in London in 1974, joins other large US corporations that have based their European operations in Switzerland, including Kraft, Procter & Gamble, Colgate Palmolive and Yahoo. Google also chose Zurich for its European headquarters, despite having a large office in the UK capital. McDonald's said the move "enables us to conduct the...

In order to maximize effectiveness, the 'Going Galt' plan to 'call in conservative' on July 30 needs some major adjustments. The plan as it now stands has some logistical problems that need to be corrected. If the goal is to force Washington to take notice of the rage of citizens around the country, any protest must have maximum visibility, participation, and persistence. I am not certain that only one day will do it.

Perhaps its time. There have been a number of people on the forum talking about this, with one of the most recent converts being "iflyjetzzz". Look, we can rant and rave about market manipulation and government-sponsored games. We can petition the SEC, the FBI and Congress. We can demand that they stop it all we want. But they haven't and likely won't until and unless America gets pissed off enough to force them to act. So how do we make that happen, yet remain within the law? Its not that hard, and in the intermediate and longer-term it would be...

On July 30 conservatives plan to 'go Galt,' named after Ayn Rand's character John Galt in her book Atlas Shrugged. On that day millions plan to 'call in conservative,' refusing to go to work or to spend any money. Washington needs a serious, in-your-face wakeup call as citizens continue to grow increasingly angry over the government's socialist agenda that they seem determined to shove down our throats.

The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA, H.R. 1409, S. 560) does more than take away secret ballot elections: It empowers the federal government to impose contracts on newly organized companies. The government would set wages, benefits, work assignments, promotion procedures, and any major changes to business operations. Because EFCA has no meaningful small businesses exemption, it would authorize federal control of up to 4 million small businesses employing 39 million Americans. Consequently, bureaucrats with no management experience would effectively control these small businesses, says James Sherk, the Bradley Fellow in Labor Policy at the Heritage Foundation. The misnamed Employee Free...

Are you ACTIVATED? Are you ready to do a lot of work, for no pay, for the greatest cause of your life? Then answer this call. OregonTeaParty, acting in coordination with national sponsors Michelle Malkin, Smart Girl Politics, #tcot, DontGo Movement, & Dana Loesch, is seeking volunteer county coordinators to organize local tea parties in Oregon counties. Email me NOW @ geoffludt [at] gmail [dot] com