Free Republic

Eighteen-year-old Alicia Donaldson works at a busy McDonald's in East Oakland. Her job is more complicated than anyone might think. "When you do the grill and the chicken by yourself, it's not easy," she admits. "You have to put down the meat on the grill, and then put chicken in the grease. People get burned a lot." That's a lot of pain for only $9 an hour. Today it's still hard work, but now Alicia is making $12.25 instead. "When I worked 56 hours my check was about $480," she remembers. This month the highest minimum wage in the nation...

Of S&P 500 companies providing first-quarter outlooks, MarketWatch reports 84% have been negative as Profit Warnings Pile Up.Ahead of the start of earnings reporting season, which unofficially kicks off when Alcoa Inc., reports results on April 8, about 84% of the companies that have provided first-quarter outlooks gave negative outlooks. That’s above the 81% that warned Q1 2014, and the five-year average of 68%.< I believe that yellow highlight I added should say Q3. More importantly, it would have been nice for MarketWatch to actually link to FactSet because it contains some interesting charts and analysis.Earnings Insight Let's dive into...

Where should we learn how to handle money? School. But we don’t. Instead, what you know — or don’t know — about finances stems from a number of factors: how you were raised and what you learned from friends, financial advisors, a spouse, random Internet searches, and so on. Which leads to money habits that aren’t ideal. So we talked to the pros to find out what you should have learned in school. Here’s what they said.

Have you ever visited your favorite fast-food restaurant and, as you grab that sack of burgers or chicken, wondered how much money that restaurant makes? Well, restaurant trade magazines track those stats for the big fast-food chains. And the answers can be surprising. It turns out that only seven of the top 50 quick-serve brands in the country pull in more than $2 million per store. For perspective on that, for a full-service restaurant to be a profitable enterprise, it needs to pull in $1 million a year — that’s the rule of thumb I learned in my years as...

One Nevada senator wants to cut the state’s minimum wage by $2 an hour. Another wants to raise it by $8 an hour. Guess which senator is a Democrat and which is a Republican. That is an easy one. But this is tougher. Guess which party is also pushing to raise the state’s minimum wage by 75 cents. Nevada Republican Sen. Joe Hardy wants to scrap the state’s constitutional amendment that provides a minimum wage of $7.25 an hour with health insurance coverage — same amount as the federal minimum wage — and $8.25 an hour if the employer does...

Two days ago I ordered online a used copy of Milton & Rose Friedman's classic "Free to Choose," hoping a liberal loved one would be willing to read it. That doesn't look like it's going to happen, so now I'm tempted to send the book to Barney Frank—since it's apparent that, like many liberals, he doesn't understand the most basic notions of how free markets work. On Steve Kornacki's MSNBC show today, Frank described business creators as being "given privileges." Barney then added this mind-boggler: "there's only a limited amount of space, there's only a limited amount of businesses. Your...

John “Jack” Bogle is an icon in the investing industry. The founder of Vanguard and the “father” of index mutual fund investing has had a lot of good ideas over the years. Unfortunately, the ideas in his recent editorial in the Financial Times are not among those good ideas. According to Mr. Bogle, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are something that investors should “beware” of. As Bogle writes, “Mark me as a member of a small group of cohorts who are dubious about the utility of ETFs for long-term investors.” Bogle goes on to express some rather bad views about ETFs as...

NEW ORLEANS - There will be no more Domino's deliveries in the Lower 9th Ward after dark.It is one of the changes the pizza company is making after another one of its drivers was murdered in the Lower 9th Ward while on the job, but residents and one city leader say the policy change is a knee-jerk reaction that is singling out their community."It just, again, puts a black eye on this community," said Vanessa Gueringer, a life-long resident of the Lower 9th Ward.Michael Price, a 36-year-old father of three, is the second Domino's delivery driver murdered on the job...

Chuck Schumer is set to get a big promotion -- and that's welcome news to Wall Street. The veteran Democratic senator from New York is widely expected to take Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's job when he retires at the end of 2016. Reid, who announced he would not be running for reelection Friday morning, quickly endorsed his New York colleague for the role. Schumer's ascension to the top Democratic position in the Senate -- and even possibly to Senate majority leader if his party regains control of the chamber -- is a boon for the finance and business communities,...

In terms of skills and education, Israel probably has the highest level of human capital per person in the whole world. Yet it’s per capita output is mediocre – in the middle of the developed country pack. Why is that? Because Israel has been slow to adopt capitalism. How do I know that? Because Bibi Netanyahu told me that in an interview in Dallas, several years before he became prime minister. Once he became Israel’s leader, he was been able to do something about it. In recent years Israel has become a center for entrepreneurship, innovation and capitalist spirit. But...

At a breakout session during the recent Conservative Political Action Conference, one of us posed a question to the audience: What do members of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street have in common?Hint: it has something to do with the 2008 bailout of private banks by American taxpayers. The insidious stink from that sorry episode lingers to this day—on both parties. Now the reasons for outrage over the bailouts were different for each group. For the Tea Partiers it was an unwarranted intrusion into the free market; for the Occupiers a taxpayer-financed gift to wealthy executives they believe caused...

Progressive icon Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) recently dropped a bombshell in a private meeting with Boston-area donors, according to a report in Politico. The dispatch focuses primarily on WarrenÂ’s candid criticisms of President Barack Obama and his pick to serve as undersecretary for domestic finance at the Treasury Department, Antonio Weiss. This bit of fractious infighting within the Democratic Party will provide pundits with an opportunity to examine the divisions within the Democratic coalition, but Warren also made a more interesting contention in this meeting that merits further review. According to sources who attended that meeting, Warren heavily criticized...

Today on Journal Editorial Report

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a possible candidate for president in 2016, told a private gathering of New Hampshire Republicans this month that he supported a pathway to legal status — but not citizenship — for undocumented immigrants in the United States, according to the chairwoman of the state’s Republican Party. The chairwoman, Jennifer Horn, described Mr. Walker’s statements on Thursday after The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post reported that Mr. Walker had endorsed eventual citizenship for those immigrants, which many Republicans oppose. A spokeswoman for Mr. Walker, Kirsten Kukowski, disputed those reports about Mr. Walker embracing a...

So, to recap: The Wall Street Journal claimed yesterday that Walker told an audience of New Hampshire Republicans that he supported a path to citizenship, which was — supposedly — a flip-flop from what Walker’s been telling reporters lately about opposing “amnesty.” Except that it’s not a flip-flop, as I tried to explain. Walker’s supported a path to citizenship for nearly 15 years. As recently as this month, when asked by Chris Wallace if he can imagine a path to citizenship if illegals paid a penalty first, he replied, “I believe there’s a way you can do that.” No...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A dispute over Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s position on immigration erupted on Thursday, highlighting the Republican’s struggle to appeal to conservatives on the explosive issue as he prepares to launch a Republican presidential bid. The two-term governor has consistently opposed what he calls “amnesty” for immigrants in the country illegally, but his definition of amnesty has evolved. In a recent closed-door meeting with top New Hampshire Republicans, Walker said such immigrants should be allowed to stay in the country legally.

Potential 2016 candidate Scott Walker’s staff is denying that he endorsed amnesty for illegal immigrants during a closed-door dinner with Republican donors in New Hampshire.“Governor Walker has been very clear that he does not support amnesty and believes that border security must be established and the rule of law must be followed,” said Kirsten Kukowski, the spokesman he recently hired from the Republican National Committee.“He does not support citizenship for illegal immigrants, and this story line is false,” she said. The denials follow a March 26 report in The Wall Street Journal, which said that Walker told New Hampshire...

The Wall Street Journal’s Reid Epstein is up with a report that, if true — and it is well sourced — will prove very troubling for Scott Walker on the campaign trail. Epstein writes that Walker “told a private dinner of New Hampshire Republicans this month that he backed the idea of allowing undocumented immigrants to stay in the country and to eventually become eligible for citizenship.” That conflicts with statements the governor made as recently as three weeks ago that, in a reversal of his previously held position, he no longer supports comprehensive immigration reform that includes a path...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker told a private dinner of New Hampshire Republicans this month that he backed the idea of allowing undocumented immigrants to stay in the country and to eventually become eligible for citizenship, a position at odds with his previous public statements on the matter.

"Under Mr. Obama, friends are enemies, denial is wisdom, capitulation is victory," Wall Street Journal foreign affairs columnist Bret Stephens writes • Stephens advises Israeli government to "repay contempt with contempt." In an exceptionally sharp critique published on Monday, Wall Street Journal foreign affairs columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner Bret Stephens ripped apart U.S. President Barack Obama's foreign policy. The op-ed, titled "The Orwellian Obama Presidency," detailed the flaws of Obama's approach to foreign affairs. "To adapt George Orwell's motto for Oceania: Under Mr. Obama, friends are enemies, denial is wisdom, capitulation is victory," Stephens wrote. "There is an upside-down...