Free Republic

There are multiple levels of irony in this New York Times report on the impact of ObamaCare on poor patients in the nation’s hospitals. Congress demanded the power to revamp the health-insurance industry and expand Medicaid in order to help the poor get better medical care for less money. In reality, the opposite appears to be happening, as hospitals attempt to force the poor into ObamaCare: Hospital systems around the country have started scaling back financial assistance for lower- and middle-income people without health insurance, hoping to push them into signing up for coverage through the new online marketplaces...

Concerned that the City is an inhomogeneous hodgepodge with pockets of great wealth in some neighborhoods and squalor in others, newly appointed Housing Preservation and Development Commissar Vicki Been announced a plan to move 80,000 to 120,000 poorer families into middle class neighborhoods. “This way instead of having blight and filth in every direction they might look poorer families will be within easy walking distance of a better kept neighborhood,” Been boasted. “The crimes that plague poorer sections of our City would be more evenly dispersed throughout the whole City. Victims will come from a more broadly representative subset of...

One of the struggles that many Christians experience is that the needs around us are so great, and yet we are limited, both in personal strength, and in resources. And, lurking in the back of our mind, is a notion that whatever the problem, Jesus would always help and so should we. But, then, is it always wrong to say no when there is need?It is a true fact, Jesus was quite generous with his time, attention, and resources. We too are counseled to be rich in mercy and kindness, expansive in our charity and to be willing to forsake...

Democrats have long since realized that people who are poor and dependent on the government will vote for them, even if it is their liberal policies that created the poverty and dependency. That's why every ghetto in America is controlled lock, stock, and barrel by liberal Democrats. Unfortunately, so many destitute Americans have yet to realize that liberal policies don't fight poverty; they maintain it. Perhaps the worst thing about that is the betrayal of the poor people involved. Most of them are just having a hard time and looking for a little help to make life easier for themselves...

Former 2012 GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, who took his sweater-vest Image and Blue Collar message to victory in several primaries, is joining a growing chorus of Republicans who claim the party has forgotten about the poor and lower middle class with its push to help businesses and cut taxes. “Do Republicans really care less about the person at the bottom of the ladder than Democrats do? To be painfully honest, I would have to say in some ways ‘yes,”' Santorum writes in his new book out Monday, Blue Collar Conservatives: Recommitting to an America That Works. “There are some...

Have you ever wondered why poor people are poor? It's not as though there aren't plenty of role models around. Millions of people live highly successful, productive lives in this country. So why don't people at the bottom of the income ladder copy the behavior of those several rungs above them and better their lot in life? As I wrote previously, the federal government's own pilot programs established conclusively from the very early days of the War on Poverty that the welfare state encourages people not to be married, not to work and not to invest in human capital. This...

All too often, rich individuals in this country are demonized for simply being rich. If some sort of financial catastrophe happens, such as the latest recession in 2009, the rich are to blame. If the government is running large deficits, the rich are not paying their “fair share”. If an individual is poor and cannot find employment, it is because the rich hoard all their profits and don’t share with anyone else. It’s time to set the record straight by looking at the facts. The top 1% of all individual income earners in this country pay nearly37% of all federal...

One phenomenon of the modern economy is affluence that doesn’t feel like it. You work, earn and spend quite a lot, yet it seems you’re getting nowhere. Some new economic analysis helps quantify just how many people might be characterized as the “wealthy poor”— and it’s a surprisingly large chunk of the overall population. A new paper by economists Greg Kaplan and Justin Weidner of Princeton University, and Giovanni Violante of New York University, finds that about 70 million Americans may live in families they describe as “wealthy hand-to-mouth” households. These are families that own assets such as homes, cars,...

Today in America, the lawless and lazy American victicrats hide behind the title "the poor". These individuals masquerade as victims and seek sympathy from the American people so they can pursue their narcissistic ambitions. The tragic TRUTH and REALITY of this matter is that these have reaped upon themselves the horrific consequences of their LAWLESS and LAZY lifestyles (Rom. 1:18-32, Gal. 6:7). These masses have been oppressed by their compounded acts of lawlessness and violence and are never held responsible or accountable to society by the Left and Moderates in Washington. Those who try to overcome this decadent and lawless...

Todd Wilemon, a managing director at NYSE Euronext and a Fox Business contributor, was foolish enough to do an interview on health care with The Daily Show (a program about which I had a bit to say over the weekend), and the results are approximately what one would expect, which is to say, he came off like an inarticulate jackass. The headline quote came when Mr. Wilemon was asked about what poor people who cannot afford health insurance should do. His answer: “Stop being poor.” For that, he is being treated as the second coming of Marie Antoinette (the cartoon...

The Vatican announced an immediate end to new hires, wage-increases and overtime in an effort to cut costs and offset budget shortfalls. Pope Francis, with input from the Vatican’s central accounting office, also determined that volunteers could be used to help provide the labor needed to make up for the hiring freeze and eventual attrition. Cardinal-designate Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, sent a letter, dated Feb. 13, to the heads of all Vatican offices, institutions and agencies. He said the budget forecast for 2014 “necessitated the immediate adoption of some measures needed to contain” personnel costs. In its last...

There is no material poverty in the U.S. Here are a few facts about people whom the Census Bureau labels as poor. Dr. Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield, in their study "Understanding Poverty in the United States: Surprising Facts About America's Poor" (http://tinyurl.com/448flj8), report that 80 percent of poor households have air conditioning; nearly three-quarters have a car or truck, and 31 percent have two or more. Two-thirds have cable or satellite TV. Half have one or more computers. Forty-two percent own their homes. Poor Americans have more living space than the typical non-poor person in Sweden, France or the...

It turns out that you can bring produce sections to poor neighborhoods, but you can't get poor people to eat healthier food. This comes as a shock to liberals who believe in the comprehensive theory of victimology -- that all problems afflicting people who fall into ethnic, sexual, or other identities regarded as victims are due to external factors, not to their own choices. Patti Neighmond writes for NPR: In inner cities and poor rural areas across the country, public health advocates have been working hard to turn around food deserts - neighborhoods where fresh produce is scarce, and greasy fast...

Thomas James Perkins is a stud. If he weren’t an octogenarian, I’d ask for his hand in marriage because he courageously and eloquently defends free market capitalism. Perkins is the founder of the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB). He is also the ex-husband of the world’s reigning best-selling author alive: American novelist and San Francisco resident Danielle Steel. Last week, the Wall Street Journal published a three-paragraph op-ed by Perkins in which he defended free market economics. The liberal media, especially the Silicon Valley tech blogs, went up in arms. HOW could he have...

Unless you are exceptionally coldblooded, it's hard not to be disturbed by today's huge economic inequality. The gap between the rich and the poor is enormous, wider than most Americans would (almost certainly) wish. But this incontestable reality has made economic inequality a misleading intellectual fad, blamed for many of our problems. Actually, the reverse is true: Economic inequality is usually a consequence of our problems and not a cause. For starters, the poor are not poor because the rich are rich. The two conditions are generally unrelated. Mostly, the rich got rich by running profitable small businesses (car dealerships,...

This year President Barack Obama and his party will begin their campaign against “the rich” while emphasizing the “gap” in wages between those on top and those on the bottom. Their solution will be to increase the minimum wage, raise taxes on “the rich” and increase government spending. They will exploit ignorance and envy to maintain power. Their solution will make the gap larger and create an endless recession. Unless reversed, the result is likely to be a financial collapse, wiping out savings, retirement accounts and putting almost everyone in the country into the category we now call the "working...

The economic picture is looking brighter these days. The federal government announced Thursday that economic growth had picked up to its fastest pace in two years, while employment growth over the past five months has averaged a healthy 185,000 new jobs. But as evidenced by a report out Thursday from the Corporation for Enterprise Development, nearly half of Americans are living in a state of “persistent economic security,” that makes it “difficult to look beyond immediate needs and plan for a more secure future.” In other words, too many of us are living paycheck to paycheck. The CFED calls these...

"By almost any measure, the world is better than it has ever been." -Bill Gates In his annual letter, Bill Gates opens with a statement that I've been saying for a few years. In fact, my investment thesis begins with global peace and prosperity. It's amazing how many people snicker at this notion without ever taking a second to consider its authenticity or merits. (Of course, I've been ridiculed for reading income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements. There is so much misinformation out there, with less research and more rhetoric, than anytime I can remember.) Connect the dots,...

...Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (Fla.-Dem.), said she hopes to see funding restored for food programs that benefit South Florida residents. "The need is absolutely still there," she said, "In fact, we've had increasing need with the recovery of the Great Recession. We're coming out of that recovery, but there are still many gaps." Wasserman-Schultz said she will continue the fight in Congress for funding needy families in South Florida.

Folks, I am a poor boy who would like to be helped and educated by someone who knows what they're doing--what they're talking about. I have been reading some, but there are a lot of basic things I don't yet understand. How much money would I need to start the whole shebang? Can you use online stock sites to purchase shares, or do you have to go through a broker? You get the picture. My friend said that me thinking about penny stock trading is like trusting Lou Costello or Jerry Lewis to assemble an H-bomb. I'm looking for advice,...