Free Republic

Those in the fortunate group at the very top take in at least $8,000 a month—$96,000 a year. If any exclusive club has reason to celebrate the huge income-tax hike, this is it. Five years ago, 860 retired educators collected that much from their state pensions. As of fiscal 2010, the number had more than tripled to nearly 3,000 retirees. Those ranks will grow in the years ahead as rising salaries translate into more lavish pension payouts. We're just talking about educators here. There are many more retired public workers collecting from Illinois. The state, by the way, doesn't tax...

Magliocchetti sentenced for illegal campaign contributionsBy Chuck Neubauer The Washington Times 5:34 p.m., Friday, January 7, 2011 Former superlobbyist Paul Magliocchetti, once the master of getting defense earmarks for his clients from members of Congress, was sentenced Friday to 27 months in prison for making hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign contributions. U.S. District Court Judge T. S. Ellis III sentenced the 64-year-old Magliocchetti in federal court in Alexandria for devising what prosecutors called "one of the most extensive and long-running campaign finance schemes ever." "You made this choice for one reason: greed," said Judge Ellis, who also...

The Republicans are back in charge in the House of Representatives this week, and not a moment too soon! Forget "stimulus" bills and "shovel-ready" bailouts (for public school teachers, who need shovels for what they're teaching), the current financial crisis, which is the second Great Depression, was created slowly and methodically by Democrat hacks running Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the past 18 years. As even Obama's treasury secretary admitted in congressional hearings, "Fannie and Freddie were a core part of what went wrong in our system." And if it's something Tim Geithner noticed, it's probably something that's fairly...

How: Gold. Tax cuts. Debts. Wars. Fat Cats. Class gap. No fiscal disciplineARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- "How my G.O.P. destroyed the U.S. economy." Yes, that is exactly what David Stockman, President Ronald Reagan's director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed piece, "Four Deformations of the Apocalypse." Get it? Not "destroying." The GOP has already "destroyed" the U.S. economy, setting up an "American Apocalypse." Yes, Stockman is equally damning of the Democrats' Keynesian policies. But what this indictment by a party insider -- someone so close to the development of the...

UC executives threaten lawsuit over pension benefitsBy Matt Krupnick Contra Costa Times Updated: 12/29/2010 05:50:11 PM PST Some of the University of California's highest-paid employees have threatened to sue the UC system if it does not follow through on a promise to boost their retirement payments. In a letter to UC regents this month, 36 employees making at least $245,000 per year said many had turned down jobs at other schools or companies based on UC's promise. The university is in the midst of a pension overhaul to make up a $20 billion deficit caused by a 20-year hiatus in...

..Bell officials who hired him did not dig deeply into his past. They needed someone fast, and Rizzo, then 39, came cheap. His starting salary was $78,000, which was $7,000 less than his predecessor had made. "He was willing to work for the least amount of money," said then-Councilman Rolf Janssen. "That was what attracted me and several other council members." Now Rizzo and seven other Bell leaders past and present are charged with looting more than $5.5 million from one of the county's poorest municipalities. It is a hydra-headed scandal that has spawned seven federal, state and county investigations...

Occidental buys land for $1.4 billionBy Nick Smith Williston Herald Published/Last Modified on Monday, December 13, 2010 11:33 AM CST One of the largest oil and gas companies in the country has announced a billion-dollar purchase of net acreage in North Dakota. Occidental Petroleum of Los Angeles, Calif., has purchased 180,000 net contiguous acres in North Dakota. The purchase, at a price $1.4 billion, was from a private seller. According to an Occidental Petroleum press release, the North Dakota acreage currently produces approximately 5,500 barrels of oil equivalent per day. The company expects to increase that production to 30,000 barrels...

House Democratic leaders unhappy with the tax-cut deal President Obama struck with Republicans are signaling they will try to draw the line at a GOP-favored proposal for the estate tax. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Tuesday escalated the Democratic criticism of the agreement and said the estate-tax provision was “a bridge too far.” The comments by Pelosi and other party leaders reflected widespread anger among House Democrats at the president for caving too early, by their characterization, and essentially leaving them out of final negotiations with Republicans. While Pelosi retains the Speaker’s gavel for nearly another month, the tax-cut endgame...

"He's been asking me for weeks to get him a Nintendo DSi for Christmas," Alicia explained. Her son, Alex, is only nine. Christmas is well over a month away but he's been relentlessly pressing for the "must-have" electronic toy that his classmates already own. Money is tight for Alicia's family these days, and the handheld device starts at 149.99. Games are extra, at $35 a pop. Alicia doesn't indulge in expensive clothes, trendy bags, or "must have" purchases-at least for herself. But when it comes to her son, mom-guilt too easily clouds her perspective. And retailers and advertising gurus wouldn't...

Big Labor is pouring money into two Democratic U.S. Senate races, attempting to secure a union pension bailout during a lame duck session of Congress. As previously reported on HUMAN EVENTS, new Federal Accounting Standards Board rules set to take effect on Dec. 15 threaten to shake up unions and the businesses entangled in multi-employer union pension plans that have been mismanaged and underfunded well before the 2008 financial upheaval. The economic downturn has only exacerbated the problem. Recent reports show hundreds of thousands of dollars in union cash pouring into races for Democratic Senate candidates Michael Bennet and Joe...

Juan Williams once again got himself into trouble with NPR for comments he made at his other job, at Fox News. And NPR's reaction has unleashed an unprecedented firestorm of criticism directed not at Williams – but at NPR. (snip) Thursday was a day like none I’ve experienced since coming to NPR in October 2007. Office phone lines rang non-stop like an alarm bell with no off button. We’ve received more than 8,000 emails, a record with nothing a close second. (snip)At noon, the deluge of email crashed NPR’s “Contact Us” form on the web site.

From the days of the original Greek Olympics and earlier, to John Maynard Keynes' writing about economic man's "animal spirits," to the latest corporate rivalry between Apple and Google, competition has been in our collective DNA. Competitiveness expressed in a financial context sadly becomes "greed" when combined with character defects that disregard the law, and/or the well-being of one's trading partner: "only when they are both made better off" goes awry. We need to have impartial third parties that will referee our transactions--this is the essence of government protecting property rights--but ultimately the most effective judge will be the collective...

Most of the time, if you get a speeding ticket you just grumble about it and pay the fine. It’s usually not a big deal for most people unless it happens a lot or they get caught going a ridiculous amount over the posted speed limit. You can fight it in court or just pay the ticket, and for most people those are the only options. However, after receiving a $90 speeding ticket in Bluff City, Tennessee, Brian McCrary discovered a third option. The Bluff City Police Department had forgotten to renew their domain name, BluffCityPD.com, and let it expire....

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – California Attorney General Jerry Brown on Friday called on lenders to halt foreclosures in the state, following recent disclosures of problems with legal documentation in home seizures. Earlier on Friday, Bank of America Corp became the first lender to suspend foreclosures across the U.S. Brown, who is running for governor of the nation's most populous state, had previously called on GMAC and JPMorgan Chase and Co to suspend foreclosures after they disclosed problems with its legal documentation in home seizures. "Bank of America has taken an important step, and the other major lenders should follow its...

HEY JUDGE COX, THIS IS WHAT YOUR MOTION TO QUASH IS PROTECTING!

Wake up and good morning. We may not have high-speed rail (yet), but the stop-the-foreclosure-fiasco bullet train is leaving the station. Suddenly, everybody's decided to recognize (or should I say confess) that the foreclosure legal process in Florida and increasingly in other states has fallen off the tracks, imperiling clear title home ownership in the country and endangering our economic recovery. We reported extensively about this in a St. Petersburg Times Sunday column here and in a follow-up Venture blog posting here on Monday. The core of the issue? A foreclosure freeze is taking hold now that more people in...

President Barack Obama hit the campaign trail with a stern message to Democratic voters to “not let me down come November. I’ve worked too hard to have it all come crashing down because of lack of effort from people too selfish and self-absorbed to do whatever it takes to ensure that we don’t lose momentum.” Looking for a “silver lining,” the President suggested that “those of you who are unemployed have the opportunity to work full time on the campaign while those with jobs are tied down trying to earn a living.” On a more positive note, the President reminded...

.... a must-see interview on Democracy Now where he says a second, more catastrophic crisis is unavoidable because our economic model is "dramatically poisonous." ..."Greed is the dominant value today in the world and as long as that persists, we're done!" But he doesn't just mean done economically, he means done as a species. Snip ... "next crisis is coming, and it will be twice as much as this one (referring to financial collapse of 2008)." Only for this one, "there will not be enough money anymore -- so that will be it!" Even more frightening are his views that...

Gordon Gekko, the archetypal villain of iconic 1980s movie “Wall Street” has a new mantra: greed is not just good, it's legal and it's everywhere. But his words, and the sequel “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” that hits cinemas in the UAE on Thursday, is unlikely to strike the same chord with securities traders and bankers that made Gekko a cult hero and the epitome of unabashed, 1980s financial excess, industry experts say.“I don't think it will be as big an issue on Wall Street in terms of dirtying its image,” said Igor Kirman, a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen...

WEST PALM BEACH — The national battle over the government's inability to stem the tide of illegal immigrants got personal Friday in a federal courtroom. U.S. District Court Judge Kenneth Marra bristled at the suggestion that the government's time would be better spent keeping illegal immigrants from entering the country than prosecuting a suburban West Palm Beach man for hiring them. Business people such as Mark David, Marra said, are a big part of the problem. "One of the reason they come is because people hire them," Marra said. "If people wouldn't hire them they wouldn't be coming in droves."...