Free Republic

Layoffs have touched nearly every American household in some fashion over the last few years, according to new survey data to be released Thursday by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University. While about 8 percent of Americans are unemployed, nearly a quarter of Americans say they were laid off at some point during the recession or afterward, according to the survey. More broadly, nearly eight in 10 say they know someone in their circle of family and friends who has lost a job. “This to me is why the recession was so all-consuming and is...

Once upon a time, Congress didn't want to raise the debt ceiling,sending the country into default. It was bad, and we shouldn't do it again. The end. Oh, you wanted to hear the rest of the story? Okay, here it is. Back in 1979, Congress waited, and waited, and waited to lift the debt ceiling, because Congress never likes taking responsibility for the tax and spending decisions it's already made. Now, Congress usually does the right thing after it's exhausted every other possibility, at least when it comes to paying our bills, and this debt limit increase was no exception....

If there's been one consistent thread running through the U.S. economic story since 2008, it's been the steady drumbeat of gloom. Outright recession or sub-standard growth, stubbornly high unemployment and fiscal crises have been the topics du jour when it comes to the world's biggest economy. But now an unlikely champion for U.S. growth under the Obama administration has emerged -- a former adviser to a Republican Party presidential candidate and Harvard history professor, Niall Ferguson, who says America could actually be heading toward a new economic "golden age." And it has nothing to do with Washington and everything...

A new study from the Congressional Budget Office starts with the scariest graph you’ll see today. Source: Congressional Budget Office In other words, you’re not imagining it: This economic recovery has been a big disappointment relative to what the United States has usually experienced after a recession. Growth has been 9 percent below what was seen in past recoveries on average in its first three years. The CBO report tries to disentangle where that underperformance is coming from and its answer is deeply unsettling: The U.S. economy just isn’t as good at growing as it used to be. The new...

Barack Obama and John Boehner traded opening bids Friday in negotiations over the fiscal cliff. With talks scheduled for the White House later this week and members of Congress back in town, Washington is abuzz with the possibility of a deal. Don’t bet on it. Obama and Boehner drew the outlines of a compromise less in what they said than in what they didn’t say. The two men failed to reach a deal in 2011 because they couldn’t agree on raising tax rates for the rich. Now they are leaving open the possibility of avoiding the automatic tax hikes and...

Emergency-Preps.com:Hoping for the Best Preparing for the Worst provides a laundry list of forums topics that cover every conceivable survival forums discussion group conceivable.

On the eve of his first trip to the United States as Egypt’s new Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi said the United States needed to fundamentally change its approach to the Arab world, showing greater respect for its values and helping build a Palestinian state, if it hoped to overcome decades of pent-up anger. A former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mr. Morsi sought in a 90-minute interview with The New York Times to introduce himself to the American public and to revise the terms of relations between his country and the United States after...

For those to whom this comes as a surprise, following the periodic jaunts of Tim Geithner to Europe explaining just what is truly important in life, not to mention Obama's daily phone calls to Mario Monti, we feel truly sorry: •EU-IMF REVIEW OF GREEK DEBT SITUATION SET TO BE DELAYED UNTIL AFTER U.S. ELECTION - EUROPEAN OFFICIALS And the punchlines: •"Obama doesn't want anything on a macroeconomic scale that is going to rock the global economy before Nov. 6," a senior EU official told •"As far as European leaders are concerned, they don't want Romney, so they're probably willing to...

Sometimes a few facts tell important stories. The American economy now is full of facts that tell stories that you really don't want, but need, to hear. Where are we now? Did you know that annual spending by the federal government now exceeds the 2007 level by about $1 trillion? With a slow economy, revenues are little changed. The result is an unprecedented string of federal budget deficits, $1.4 trillion in 2009, $1.3 trillion in 2010, $1.3 trillion in 2011, and another $1.2 trillion on the way this year. The four-year increase in borrowing amounts to $55,000 per U.S. household....

During my book "tour," radio hosts are forever asking me whether I believe that Obama is intentionally attempting to destroy America. It's a fair question, especially given the title of my book and because so many people legitimately believe he is. I have never been too receptive to conspiracy theories, and I'm not particularly enamored of ones circulating about Obama. But unlike many other such theories, this one is about a truly unprecedented assault on the American idea and on those first principles that have made America the unique experiment in constitutional governance that it has been. Ordinary people --...

By now you know what the Supreme Court verdict is: ObamaCare is a tax. So what does that mean in terms of actual dollar amounts for Americans and businesses who will pay this new tax? The Heritage Foundation and Americans for Tax Reform have released a series of summaries, tables and charts to help families understand what this means for their wallet. Heritage: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)[1] imposes numerous tax hikes that transfer more than $500 billion over 10 years—and more in the future—from hardworking American families and businesses to Congress for spending on new entitlements...

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indespensible supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness -- these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. ... [L]et us with caution indulge the opposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of...

Another month, another bad jobs report. For the month of May, the U.S. economy only added 69,000 jobs and the unemployment rate rose to 8.2%. Many are calling this a total "disaster" and are worried that the U.S. economy could be headed back into another recession. Economists had been expecting 150,000 payroll jobs would be added, so the 69,000 number really shocked a lot of people. The truth is that the economy needs to add approximately 125,000 new jobs every single month just to keep the unemployment rate steady. So yes, this bad jobs report is not welcome news...

So it starts. "Taking down the US growth projection has almost become a summertime ritual, and in keeping with tradition we are shaving our 2012 GDP outlook (Q4/Q4) from 2.3% to 2.1%. Over the first five months of the year the labor market has steadily lost momentum and we are now confronted with a global growth slowdown which will provide a further headwind to the economy. As such, we are taking Q3 growth from 3.0% to 2.0%, with much of the downward revision accounted for by an expectation that the pace of export growth will slow. We are leaving our...

As much as most in Hollywood bow, kneel, and even weep in joy before their Messiah Barack Obama, they are not doing him any favors of late with the release and massive viewing of first, The Hunger Games and now, The Avengers. In The Hunger Games, the young heroes of the film were literally trying to survive the big-government, nanny-state ordered “death panel” competition created to thin-out the freedom seeking herd of human sheep who foolishly thought their destiny should be in their hands and not that of the government.At one point as they televise the games into a huge...

TULSA, Okla. - While discussing the threat of Iran today to a crowd of about 4,000 people at Oral Roberts University, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said that defeating Barack Obama was "in fact, a duty of national security." "Because the fact is, he is incapable of defending the United States," Gingrich said. Gingrich told the crowd, many of them young students, there was a real threat of an American city being wiped out. Gingrich said the Obama administration refuses to acknowledge radical Islamists. "All of you should be very deeply concerned about national security. Barack Obama is the most...

After three years with unemployment topping 8 percent, the U.S. has seen the longest period of high unemployment since the Great Depression, the Congressional Budget Office noted in a report issued today. And, despite some recent good news on the economic front, the CBO is still predicting that unemployment will remain above 8 percent until 2014. The report also notes that, including those who haven't sought work in the past four weeks and those who are working part-time but seeking full-time employment, the unemployment rate would be 15 percent.

<p>As searches dragged on, many just stopped looking. Now they aren’t even counted among the jobless.</p> <p>Jackson Julien looked for a fun job, then for anything. Finally, demoralization set in.</p> <p>Millions of Americans have vanished from the US labor force in the past three years, many of them so discouraged by long, fruitless job searches that they have given up looking for work, convinced that no employer wants them, according to a new study.</p>

President Obama last week brandished new jobs numbers as proof that his policies were having an effect on the unemployment rate, which the report said declined to 8.3 percent in January. The president is right about one thing: his big government agenda and class warfare tactics are having an effect -- but it's not the one he claims. In truth, last month's drop in the unemployment statistic was due largely to the evaporation of 1.2 million people from the labor force number. When people become so discouraged they stop actively looking for work, they are no longer counted as unemployed...

Who’s Really To Blame For America’s Catastrophic Financial Meltdown And Devastating National Recession? Contrary to what the “Occupy Movement” might tell you, it’s not greedy Wall Street executives. No, as one of America’s top financial professionals reveals in this shocking new book, the real culprit is economic warfare, with our foreign enemies exploiting our lurking financial weaknesses. In Secret Weapon, Kevin D. Freeman unveils how all the evidence – including motive, means, and opportunity – points to America’s foreign enemies as deliberately pushing our economy over the brink. In this stunning expose, Freeman reveals: * The evidence linking Communist China...