Free Republic

Fla. Rep. Allen West was asked if President Obama is just inept or if he is intentionally harming the economy. West says he’s definitely doing this on purpose. (Video at the Fox News link.)

Orders for long-lasting goods unexpectedly fell during August, the second drop in three months as manufacturers struggle with a bad economy. Durable-goods orders decreased by 0.1% from the prior month to $201.76 billion, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast a 0.2% rise in orders during August for durables, which are goods designed to last at least three years. The drop followed a 4.1% surge in July and a 1.1% decline during June. In an encouraging sign within an otherwise uninspiring report, a barometer used to gauge spending by businesses on equipment rose. Orders...

“Get out of the way.” With this statement, John Galt articulated the simple and necessary policy solution to the disastrous centrally-planned economy in Atlas Shrugged. It’s also sage advice that President Obama should consider before he unveils his latest jobs plan before the Joint Session of Congress tonight. This advice is strikingly prescient as our nation’s economy moves ever-closer to mirroring the calamitous state of affairs that befell society in Rand’s novel. During his two and half years in office, Obama has crushed the labor market with a pro-statist agenda, which includes ObamaCare, the stimulus package, coziness to Big Labor,...

If history is a guide, the odds that the American economy is falling into a double-dip recession have risen sharply in recent weeks and may even have reached 50 percent. Economies have a strong self-reinforcing nature. When people are optimistic, they spend, which begets hiring and then more spending. When people are anxious, they pull back, which leads to a cycle of hiring freezes and further anxiety that often lasts for months. The United States appears to have entered some version of the vicious cycle. Most ominously, job growth has slowed to a pace that typically signals the start of...

Obama’s Illegal Move On Immigration By David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey Only Congress has constitutional authority to establish U.S. immigration policy, and fundamental reform requires legislative action. Thus the administration’s recent announcement that deportation will be sought only for undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes in the United States violates the separation of powers and is unconstitutional. No president, of course, can hope to expel every undocumented person in the United States — they number perhaps upward of 11 million people. Human and financial resources to identify, apprehend, process and promptly deport millions have been lacking for...

President Barack Obama told Scholastic News Kid Reporters during a TV interview that one of the "greatest challenges facing" their generation is “climate change.” "Another big challenge that your generation is going to face is the environmental challenge,” Obama stated, after citing the economy as another big issue. The interview was conducted by Scholastic News kid reporters as part of the new program on the “Challenges Facing America's Youth.” Video available here. Obama explained: “There are some big challenges around climate change. The temperature of the planet is getting warmer because of the pollution that we are sending up in...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: There weren't any jobs. What is there to say? In fact, I'll tell you, I don't know how they're gonna revise this number down. They revise the number down every month, right? How are they gonna revise zero down? Well, yeah, there had to be a net loss of jobs. Now, actually, there was a guy hired in August. And all of the networks had planned live interviews with the guy who got the job in August, but he got laid off on August 31st, so there was no job created. There was one guy who got...

<p>WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Job growth was unchanged in August, the weakest performance in almost a year...lower than the 53,000 gain expected.</p>

...after "the largest selloff in years" last week.

Yes, you read correctly. “Spread the jobs around.” You’re probably familiar with Barack Obama’s well documented intentions to “spread the wealth around.” In a discussion about his vision for economic recovery back during the campaign of 2008, he expressed that intention using those precise words (do a web search with the President’s name and the phrase, and see what pops up). Today, the President struggles with the political consequences brought about by the stifled economy, which has been brought about his own “wealth spreading” ways. Yet within the Obama worldview, it makes sense that a President who has displayed no...

The rising impatience with the leadership of President Obama was epitomized on Aug. 8 in the middle of one of the now-habitual Wall Street roller coasters. His speech on the economy was 53 minutes late. What showed on TV screens was an empty White House podium, an image suggestive of the absence of leadership. When the president did speak, the best he could come up with was "We've always been and always will be a triple-A country." The market's response was a Bronx cheer, a drop of another 300 points. Mr. Obama seems unable to get a firm grip on...

New applications for U.S. unemployment compensation rose 5,000 to 417,000 , the Labor Department said Thursday. Initial claims from two weeks ago were revised up to 412,000 from an original reading of 408,000... The average of new claims over the past four weeks, meanwhile, increased by 4,000 to 407,500...In addition, the Labor Department said the number of Americans who continue to receive state unemployment checks fell by 80,000 to 3.64 million in the week ended Aug 13. Continuing claims are reported with a one-week lag.

Deep prices waiting to pounceWe well remember candidate Barack Obama’s ’08 throngs laying in breathless wait for the “Lightworker” to appear and speak as “sort of like God” from his teleprompter on high. Now, with nearly everything this president has touched lying in shambles, a shrunken Obama whines from town to town, transported in a taxpayer-purchased bus that resembles a big, fat hearse — the perfect symbol for the harbinger of economic death that Obama’s presidency has become.It’s painfully apparent now that the American people were scammed in ’08 by Barack the Bamboozler in what will be known historically as...

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Nearly one of every 10 midsized or big employers expects to stop offering health coverage to workers once federal insurance exchanges start in 2014, according to a new survey from a large benefits consultant. Towers Watson also found in a survey completed last month that an additional 20 percent of the companies are unsure about what they will do. Another big benefits consultant, Mercer, found in a June survey of large and smaller employers that 8 percent are either "likely" or "very likely" to end health benefits once the exchanges start. Employer-sponsored health insurance has long been...

Last Monday, President Obama made news by promising to give a speech in September detailing, "a very specific plan to boost the economy, to create jobs and to control our deficit." But has that "very specific plan" already been downgraded to an outline? That is, at least, the impression I got watching Obama advisors Robert Gibbs and David Axelrod on yesterday's Sunday morning shows. "The president is going to outline a short-term plan to accelerate the economy," Axelrod said on ABC's This Week, "in the face of the hits we've taken, because of the Arab Spring and oil prices, because...

Only 26 percent of the public approves of President Obama's handling of the economy in the latest Gallup poll, conducted Aug. 11-14, while a whopping 71 percent said they disapproved. That's down from Obama's previous low point of 35 percent on this top issue. The public's growing dissatisfaction shouldn't be surprising. Going back to 1890, reports the National Bureau of Economic Research, the only U.S. president with a worse record than Obama in job creation in his first two and a half years in office, measured in terms of percentage change, was Herbert Hoover, presiding over the emergence of the...

Despite a politically and economically tumultuous start to the month of August, CEO confidence stayed steadily pessimistic. Although the index did rise – for the first time in months and by only 0.4 percent—it still remains at a low 5.30 out of a possible 10. The Index, Chief Executive’s monthly gauge of CEOs’ perceptions of overall business conditions, has seen a 17 percent drop from February’s 2011 high of 6.39. Now, only 45.3 percent of CEOs expect business conditions to be at least ‘good’ in the next year, up from July’s 41 percent. Despite the debt ceiling drama and the...

They lined up dozens deep to tell of their economic struggles and to plead for help from the four Democrats lawmakers on the stage. A single mother laid off in 2009; an electrician who has worked only six of the past 24 months; a janitor locked out of her job over a medical-benefits dispute; and many more -- the frustration was palpable at the "Speak Out for Good Jobs Now!" town hall meeting that Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, hosted Tuesday night at Acts Full Gospel Church of God in Christ. Some of it was aimed squarely at House Minority Leader...

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter needs to look at who really "damaged their own race." A week ago, in the midst of this, the summer of the flash mob — groups of mostly black teens who have attacked non-blacks at random in public places — Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter angrily lectured his city’s young black thugs: If you walk into somebody’s office with your hair uncombed and a pick in the back, and your shoes untied, and your pants half down, tattoos up and down your arms and on your neck, and you wonder why somebody won’t hire you? They don’t...

The White House announced that President Obama will deliver a major address on job creation early in September. Mr. Obama could address proposed Labor Department regulations that would hobble employers with paperwork, reducing hiring. These regulations include affirmative action rules for minorities and women at on-site construction jobs for federally-funded projects; requirements for federal contractors to keep records of the race, sex, and earnings of employees; rules governing dust levels in coal mines; and rules to expand preferences for veterans in the workplace. Such regulations are even more extraordinary in light of Mr. Obama's avowed pursuit of regulatory simplicity and...