Free Republic

Congress asked the IRS to report on why it audits the poor more than the affluent. Its response is that it doesn’t have enough money and people to audit the wealthy properly. So it’s not going to. ================================================================ he IRS audits the working poor at about the same rate as the wealthiest 1%. Now, in response to questions from a U.S. senator, the IRS has acknowledged that’s true but professes it can’t change anything unless it is given more money. ProPublica reported the disproportionate audit focus on lower-income families in April. Lawmakers confronted IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig about the emphasis,...

Will people have to postpone - or cancel - retirement? Why is Pelosi not being asked this question?

Three years ago today, the IMF added China’s yuan to the basket of currencies underpinning its Special Drawing Rights (SDR)—its proprietary reserve accounting unit and means of extending credit to countries in need. At the time, the IMF touted it as “an important milestone in the integration of the Chinese economy into the global financial system.” Many investors took a less benign view, seeing the IMF’s move as threatening to end the dollar’s status as the world’s leading reserve currency—sending interest rates spiking and rendering US debt unaffordable. That was always a false fear, in our view, as the...

Oct. 2 (UPI) -- Private-sector hiring increased by approximately 135,000 jobs in September, beating projections but indicating a slowing in growth, a report by ADP Research in collaboration with Moody's Analytics said Wednesday. Analysts said the number and three-month average is down from this point last year, suggesting that U.S. job expansion is losing steam. The report comes ahead of employment figures that will be released in the Employment Situation Summary by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday. Economists interviewed by Dow Jones had anticipated 125,000 hires in September, but both numbers are down from the 157,000 hired in...

The Universal Postal Union has reached a compromise agreement on mailing rates that has averted a threatened walkout by the United States, which could have caused a major disruption to the global postal system. The United States declared victory in the UPU’s “Extraordinary Congress,” saying it got what it wanted. The head of the U.S. delegation, Peter Navarro, said member countries unanimously approved the adoption of a comprehensive set of reforms based on the U.S. proposal. Navarro, who is the director of trade and manufacturing policy at the White House, said the measure lets the United States immediately self-declare its...

Congressman Mo Brooks said Thursday in Decatur he doesn't plan to run for the U.S. Senate in 2020, the use of tariffs needs to be balanced and socialism is a failed system.

Just gonna link. Fascinating if you're into AI, manufacturing, trade, future...

The discussion is in its preliminary stages and nothing has been decided, CNBC’s source says. There’s also no time frame for their implementation, the source adds. Restricting investments in Chinese entities would be meant to protect U.S. investors from excessive risk due to lack of regulatory supervision, the source says... The deliberations come as the U.S. looks for additional levers of influence in trade talks, which resume on Oct. 10 in Washington... Bloomberg News first reported earlier on Friday that Trump administration officials are considering ways to limit U.S. investors’ portfolio flows into China, including delisting Chinese companies from American...

China’s factory activity is expected to have contracted for a fifth straight month in September, a Reuters poll showed, adding to the country’s economic woes as Beijing remains locked in an escalating trade war with the United States... fuelling expectations the authorities will have to roll out more stimulus measures to avert a sharper slowdown... The slowdown in the manufacturing sector which saw double-digit on-quarter deceleration in revenue, profits and sale prices, according to a third-quarter survey of thousands of Chinese firms by China Beige Book International (CBB) published this week. That was despite borrowing at the highest level nationally...

America's economic relationship with China is rupturing. Tariffs now cover around two-thirds of the countries’ bilateral trade in goods, and will include almost all of it from December 15th. A timely new book by a former reporter for the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal explores the origins of the conflict, which date from well before Donald Trump’s presidency. https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/09/28/the-trade-war-did-not-start-with-president-donald-trump

In 2008, Barack Obama won 26% of the evangelical vote; in 2012, he won 21%. Hillary Clinton won 16%. If she had simply replicated Obama's performance among evangelicals, she would likely be President. In his new book, Do We Have a Center? 2016, 2020 and the Challenge of the Trump Presidency, Walter Frank, author of Law and the Gay Rights Story and Making Sense of the Constitution, warns that Democrats ignore the many lessons of the 2016 campaign at their peril. "The Democrats," Frank counsels, "are in grave trouble if they don't understand exactly what happened in 2016 and all...

Remarks by President Trump and Prime Minister Abe of Japan in Signing of Joint Trade Agreement | New York, NY FOREIGN POLICY Issued on: September 25, 2019 SHARE: menuALL NEWS InterContinental New York Barclay New York, New York 12:04 P.M. EDT PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much everybody for being here. I’m honored to be alongside my great friend, Prime Minister Abe of Japan, to formally announce our first stage of a phenomenal new trade agreement with our close ally. They’ve been a great friend, and the Prime Minister has been my great friend. I want to thank Ambassador Lighthizer...

Issued on: September 25, 2019"We’re going to have a really great relationship, better than ever before on trade. I think it’s going to be better for Japan and better for the United States." President Donald J. Trump  AGREEING TO NEW DEALS: President Donald J. Trump has reached agreements to modernize and strengthen our trade relationship with Japan. Today, President Trump and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan reached two agreements to rebalance trade between our two great nations. These agreements achieve concrete outcomes from negotiations, which were launched at last year’s meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. Under a market...

Wall Street warns clients that the House Democrat impeachment inquiry into President Trump will snare trade policy in the months to come. The announcement from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday threatens ratification of the USMCA and poses a risk to U.S.-China trade talks. “Legislating is dead. As we previously said, impeachment will lead to Congress doing nothing,” Raymond James analysts wrote.

China already lost in the trade war with the U.S. Although you will never hear Chinese authorities, especially President Xi Jinping, admit it as such, the evidence is everywhere and only becoming more compelling by the day. Reuters recently reported that based on the Chinese government's own data, China's economic slowdown has worsened in August, with "growth in industrial production is at its weakest in 17-1/2 years amid spreading pain from a trade war with the United States and softening domestic demand. Retail sales and investment gauges worsened too." Despite such poor readings, Premier Li Keqiang insists that China is...

Once confined to the small scientific community of climate researchers and ecological economists, the idea of degrowth is now blazing into the mainstream. Not surprisingly, people are trying to figure out what to make of it. Is it an inspiring idea that points the way to a better economy? Or is it a mad notion that’s sure to plunge us all into poverty? Degrowth is a planned reduction of total energy and material use to bring the economy in line with planetary boundaries, while improving people’s lives by distributing income and resources more fairly. The scientific case for degrowth is...

Donald Trump is waging a nonstop, all-encompassing war against progressive culture, in magnitude analogous to what 19th-century Germans once called a Kulturkampf. As a result, not even former President George W. Bush has incurred the degree of hatred from the left that is now directed at Trump. For most of his time in office, Trump, his family, his friends and his businesses have been investigated, probed, dissected and constantly attacked.

The donor-class Koch network headed by GOP mega-donor Charles Koch is now admitting they failed to turn the American people against President Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports. In June 2018, the Koch network of organizations — which include Americans for Prosperity, Freedom Partners, and the Libre Initiative — launched a campaign against Trump’s economic nationalist policies that have helped weaken China’s economy and brought the U.S. steel industry roaring back, mostly by imposing tariffs on various foreign imports. The goal of the Koch network’s campaign was to champion free trade at all costs by claiming tariffs are increasing prices on...

Chinese agriculture officials who were due to visit U.S. farm states next week have canceled their trip to Montana as the officials will return to China sooner than originally scheduled, the Montana Farm Bureau told Reuters on Friday. The cancellation came as U.S.-Chinese trade talks were held in Washington and U.S. President Donald Trump said he wanted a complete trade deal with the Asian nation, not just an agreement for China to buy more U.S. agricultural goods.

CNN’s Martin Savidge traveled to the iron range area of Minnesota this week. The Iron Range near Lake Superior is traditionally a Democratic stronghold. Not anymore. Miners and working families are voting for Trump. Democrats and their Socialist promises scare the hell out of middle Americ