Free Republic

Have you been watching economists around the world discussing the American economy? Extremely interesting conversations. One of the things they have in common is that they are unable to arrive at a logical reason why there exists no financially sound basis for the high public spending the government is doing. This leads us to a bright ray of hope coming our way. For as long as I can remember, the economy has always been the number-one concern of voters, always, and therein is the light. The influence of the radical left on our government is about to be its downfall....

The standard of living in France has seen a slight rise, but remains below the levels seen before the financial crisis, new figures show. The median standard of living was €20,300 per year in 2015, the most recent year for which data is available, according to figures published by national statistics agency Insee this week. That works out at €1,692 each month. This was a small increase of 0.4 percent from the previous year, but is still below the standard of living recorded in 2008. Insee said that the small rise remains in keeping with the long-term stagnation of the...

This Atlantic story reveals how Americans lived 100 years ago. (HT Warren Smith) By the standards of a middle-class American today, that lifestyle was poor, inconvenient, dreary, and dangerous. (Only a few years later – in 1924 – the 16-year-old son of a sitting U.S. president would die of an infected blister that the boy got on his toe while playing tennis on the White House grounds.)You could, however, afford the state-of-the-art phonograph of the era. Obviously, you could not download music.So here’s a question that I’ve asked in one form or another on earlier occasions, but that is...

Between 1970 and 1990, the population of Philadelphia shrank by a quarter, dropping from 1.95 to 1.59 million. Like many American cities, it seemed caught in a downward spiral. Since then – like many American cities – Philadelphia has stabilized. The population now appears to have bottomed out at the millennium, and has been regaining residents over the past decade. But as it rebounds, Philly is becoming a different kind of city. In the two most recent decades, which comprise the bounce of the city’s population curve, owner-occupied housing dropped even more steeply than in the ’70s and ’80s. Between...

Count yourself fortunate, or something, if you’re among the 48 percent of Americans who can cough up a spare $400 in emergency cash without having to beg, borrow or steal. According to a Federal Reserve report on American households’ “economic well-being” in 2013, fewer than half of all Americans said they’d be able to come up with four Benjamins on short notice to deal with an unexpected expense. The report, released last week by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, indicates a disparity between how Americans view their financial situation and the reality of where their finances actually...

Perhaps this explains that “you’re dead to me” look in Big Guy’s eyes while toasting his guests at Tuesday’s State dinner: To the dictators! Long may we not “just be standing around.” Or if that’s not it, maybe it’s because of this: A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that despite the steady pace of hiring in recent months, 76% of adults lack confidence that their children's generation will have a better life than they do—an all-time high. Some 71% of adults think the country is on the wrong track, a leap of 8 points from a June survey,...

Once upon a time an American family’s home was their castle and the bigger the better, but growing concerns about meeting mortgage payments and the environmental impact of large houses has helped fuel a new movement of people who are happy to live small. The Tiny House Movement is a growing group of people who are happy to downsize the space that they live in and enjoy simplified lives as a result. While the average American home is around 2600 square feet, the typical small or tiny house is around 100-400 square feet.

Everyone should be thankful for how far we've come. - Morgan Housel - Financials 1. U.S. life expectancy at birth was 39 years in 1800, 49 years in 1900, 68 years in 1950, and 79 years today. The average newborn today can expect to live an entire generation longer than his great-grandparents could. 2. A flu pandemic in 1918 infected 500 million people and killed as many as 100 million. In his book The Great Influenza, John Barry describes the illness as if "someone were hammering a wedge into your skull just behind the eyes, and body aches so intense...

If your New Year’s resolution is to change your light bulbs, don’t worry—the federal government’s here to help. Beginning January 1, 2014, the federal government will ban the use of 60-watt and 40-watt incandescent light bulbs. The light bulb has become a symbol in the fight for consumer freedom and against unnecessary governmental interference into the lives of the American people. 2007, Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed into law an energy bill that placed stringent efficiency requirements on ordinary incandescent bulbs in an attempt to have them completely eliminated by 2014. The law phased out 100-watt and...

I think the poor need another Reagan in the White House. The income of black heads-of-households dropped by 10.9 percent from June 2009 to June 2013. This decline in black income is more than double the overall 4.4 percent drop nationally in real, adjusted for inflation, median household income during the same four years of alleged “recovery.” In dollar terms, the median income per year ... in female-headed households and black households has dropped, respectively, by $2,300 and over $4,000 since Obama's stimulus-led “recovery” began in June 2009. The CBO report shows that after-tax household income, adjusted for inflation, increased...

The Economic Collapse….people envision bank runs, life WROL (without rule of law), piles of worthless currency, rampant homelessness, and breathless news reports on CNN and the network channels (if you happen to still have access to a television, that is). They imagine a grim, gray world, devoid of entertainment, with unwashed citizens digging desperately through the trash. Because of this apocalyptic image, the idea of an economic collapse seems pretty far-fetched to most people. After all, we still see cars in every driveway, lights in every window at night, children going to school and parents going to work. Everything’s fine,...

I was reading a thread on "tax the rich" and thought of the old comedy bit byJeff Foxworthy: "You Might Be A Redneck if". I found a few* answers meant to be on a more serious note; but added some on the satirical side. You have shelter for your car* Your kid decides what he wants to eat based on which kid's meal has the best toy* You have a guest bedroom* You run or walk for exercise, not transportation* You can pay your satellite bill You own a flat screen, one or more You own a snowmobile You...

If you still have a job and you can put food on the table and you still have a warm house to come home to, then you should consider yourself to be very fortunate. The truth is that every single month hundreds of thousands more Americans fall out of the middle class and into poverty. The statistics that you are about to read are incredibly sobering. Household incomes are down from coast to coast. Enrollment in government anti-poverty programs sets new records month after month after month. Home ownership is down, personal bankruptcies are way up and there are not...

My Sweden often prides itself with enjoying a higher standard of living than all other countries do. But does Sweden really beat America and Switzerland? Another question: Is there "real" poverty in Sweden? Whether Sweden, Switzerland or the US is the best place to live on Earth, this offers an insight into Sweden: http://www.hitta.se/LargeMap.aspx?start http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK9PgESFd0I Whatever your conclusions are, it probably resembles truth.

Proving that there is no folly fallacious enough that it can't be written down, both in a book and in an oped in the Washington Post, Stan Cox, an agricultural scientist, has proposed to ban or greatly restrict air conditioning.

(Link to clip below) I, personally find this lecture very boring, but I would say Sweden is worth some study. My country is one of the most well functioning on Earth. If not the most.

Julie Lindahl has learnt to understand why Swedes disappear to their islands for the summer. These are places for rediscovering our humanity, she writes. The tomato plants are in the boat with the bags of soil. A light wind blows across the lake and sways their delicate leaves, threatening to break them. I too lean forward at bow, mimicking their action and looking out to a land mass of rock, sand and virgin forest on the other side of the bay. I am off to our island for the summer but there are still a hundred thoughts darting through my...

"The environment here is good, it's beautiful, it's clean," summed up Anna Elig, a 37 year-old Stockholm dweller pushing her eight-week-old daughter's carriage through the city centre on a cool, sunny afternoon. "All the moms and dads who are on parental leave go out for walks around the city ... This wouldn't work in Paris," she chuckled, strolling along the broad walkway near the sparkling water. With 40 percent of the inner city composed of green spaces, the Baltic Sea archipelago city seems a natural place to begin the European Commission's Green Capital initiative. "I wasn't surprised," said Katarina Eckerberg,...

H*ll no! Scandinavia is evidence Capitalism works and Socialism does not. Yes, our taxes are high. But seriously speaking, does this mean we have surrendered to Marxism - or that we wish to impose this yoke on others? Our high standard of living isn't a question of luck. I'm poor by Swedish standards, but drive a very nice car. In any case, the Swedish government and our unions have very little to do with this. I'd say it has much more to do with the ethics I've been taught by my father and my grandfather. Today, the Scandinavian/Nordic ("Nordic" includes...

- In Sweden that is. All the same, if various experts are right, the Nordic countries are not only the richest part of the world, but also global leaders in the domain of QUALITY of life. Therefore, living in this part of Stockholm is probably as good as life gets, or? The article: "The Stockholm suburb of Danderyd is the best municipality in which to live, according to a new ranking by the magazine Fokus. Lund and nearby Lomma in southern Sweden follow closely behind. Ljusnarsberg municipality in the Bergslagen region of central Sweden ended up in last place. The...