Free Republic

David Niekerk, who helped design the company's warehouse-management system, told the publication that founder Jeff Bezos' belief that people are inherently lazy helped shape the company's policies. He pointed to a short-term employment model that doesn't provide employees many opportunities for advancement and to the way Amazon used technology to keep workers on task. Amazon doesn't guarantee wage increases after a worker's first three years, the report said, as a way to oust employees who might become too comfortable at Amazon. The practices that Niekerk described are some of the company's most contentious - like firing employees for a single...

For years the Obama administration has been accused of micromanaging the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from inside the White House. Now in an astonishing report from Fox News anchor Bret Baier, three former Obama Defense Secretaries are openly slamming him for his distrust of the military, his failure to lead and they're exposing his inexperienced and closest advisors for second guessing senior field commanders with phone calls to the battlefield. "President Obama, he's one of the youngest presidents we've ever had. One of the most inexperienced presidents we've ever had. He has a staff around him that is very...

Ten years since Malta accessed the European Union, the country’s business community has been provided with the necessary platform to expand their produce and improve their opportunities, but while the majority of companies have flourished amid increasing competition, some failed to meet EU standards. In the wake of Malta’s milestone anniversary, Sunday newspaper Illum interviewed four business directors – all of whom voiced their delight at how the local business community improved since May 2004. Famalco’s Business Director Hermann Mallia, Saint James Hospital Director Maria Bugeja, Impressions Managing Director Ron Mifsud and the CEO of Malta Business Bureau Joe Tanti,...

Frustrated by the lack of jobs and middle-class progress? Dispirited by the fading American Dream? Don't blame capitalism. Blame regulation and politicians who push it. Some people, it seems, live to rail against free markets and free enterprise, holding them responsible for flat wages, lack of opportunity, income gaps, middle-class stagnation, poverty and economic listlessness. They're convinced private greed holds back the government's ability to improve conditions. But it's the government that's done the most damage to economic growth, new research shows. America is now more of a regulatory state than a haven of free enterprise — a development that...

The federal government posted 61 new regulations in the Federal Register on Friday, including the Department of Interior’s 500-page document outlining a new rule to protect the southwestern willow flycatcher’s “critical habitat” in six states. That small insect-eating bird’s habitat covers 1,227 miles of streams and 208,973 acres in California, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and New Mexico, on “federal, state, tribal and private lands.” …

WASHINGTON — US President Barack Obama will lay out broad strategic guidelines for Afghanistan after November 7 runoff elections there but will not "micromanage" the generals fighting the war, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday. Clinton made the remarks when asked whether forces would be pulled back from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border under a new strategy that reportedly will refocus the US-led military effort on protecting Afghan population centers. "The president is not going to micromanage what our generals do," she said in an interview with PBS television. "The president is going to say, 'Here's our strategic objectives, here's what...

Lawmakers plan to stage more inquisitions again this week, scolding Detroit auto executives for everything from product design to travel expenses. Not that the Democrat-controlled Congress intends to let them go bankrupt. That would hurt the unions more than any other campaign contributor, and labor unions just raised $80M to get Obama elected. The UAW PAC alone spent $11.5M this year on Democrat candidates, including a $3M ad campaign for Obama, so congress inevitably will acknowledge those "bribes" with a taxpayer-funded bailout. But that inevitability won’t let the auto company CEOs avoid more symbolic water-boarding. Torturing auto execs benefits lawmakers...