Free Republic

The corporate inversions just keep on coming, and the White House and its allies are calling them unpatriotic. But it's a funny sort of "patriotism" that insists American businesses put the Treasury's insatiable appetite for revenue ahead of the best interests of their customers, shareholders, and employees. The latest inversion — the term for a corporate merger or acquisition that allows a US company to reincorporate overseas — is the largest to date: Chicago-based pharmaceutical company AbbVie is paying $55 billion to acquire Shire PLC, an Irish drug maker incorporated in the United Kingdom, but with a manufacturing and management...

WASHINGTON - The news media was ecstatic when the government said in January that the economy grew by 3.2 percent in the last three months of 2013. It was convincing proof, they said on the nightly news, that the economy had finally recovered from its chronic lethargy. But according to a revised estimate released Thursday by the U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis, that 3.2 percent figure was a wild exaggeration. The U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), the broadest measure of our country's entire economic output, grew no more than 2.6 percent in the fourth quarter -- a pitifully...

"Job-lock!" It's only February, but it's already my favorite word -- or phrase, I guess -- of the year. (Who knows, by December it may be shortened to "joblock.") It's not euphonious or edgy, but it does offer insight into the unreality of the Democrats' predicament. The Congressional Budget Office issued a politically explosive report this week, finding that Obamacare will reduce the number of hours Americans work by the equivalent of 2.5 million full-time jobs. This is different than killing 2.5 million jobs, Obamacare defenders are quick to insist. This will be a shortfall on the demand, not supply,...

The “Help Wanted” sign is out again in America. But it’s not what you think. A report from the newswire Reuters says that massive hiring is in effect for Obamacare with state and federal agencies hiring both directly and issuing grants to community organizations to act as kind of insurance agents, signing up as many people to Obamacare as possible under the law. “State offices that will run insurance exchanges are hiring tens of thousands,” reports Reuters, “either on staff or through outsourcing firms. Federal agencies that are key to implementing the law, such as the Internal Revenue Service, plan...

I can't stand it. A week away from the day-to-day barrage of data and noise and NOTHING has changed. Sometimes I think everyone who invests in stocks for a living is a Junior Chartman or running for president. All I've heard about the market from trading desks this week is the same thing I heard two weeks ago: 1) Technicals continue to deteriorate and EVERY trader is a technician. (They would trade dog vomit if there was a bid and ask.) 2) There's no value to be found in the market. (Although when pressed to define value, they say "charts...