Free Republic

KEY TAKEAWAYS • Several asset classes perform well in inflationary environments. • Tangible assets, like real estate and commodities, have historically been seen as inflation hedges. • Some specialized securities can maintain a portfolio’s buying power including certain sector stocks, inflation-indexed bonds, and securitized debt. • Inflation-sensitive investments are accessed in a variety of ways as both direct and indirect investments. Real Estate Real estate is a popular choice because it becomes a more useful and popular store of value amid inflation while generating increased rental income.

Amid intensifying inflation, the White House has struggled to point the finger on whose to blame for the crisis. President Joe Biden has continued to blame inflation on Russia, although prices had been soaring for several months before the Ukraine crisis.Biden gave a speech in Iowa on Tuesday after the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) revealed U.S. inflation rate accelerated to 8.5 percent in March. The BLS also said inflation rose just 1.2 percent from a month prior while most of price increases took place before February. The Ukraine crisis began on February 24 when U.S. inflation already stood at...

Going strongly counter to the prevailing narrative, Nate Silver predicts that the Democrats will INCREASE their House majority in November. Key findings: Although Republicans went into the redistricting cycle with control over drawing more districts, it is actually Democrats who have gained ground from the process. So far, redistricting has created 10 more Democratic-leaning seats nationally, six fewer Republican-leaning seats and five fewer highly competitive seats. After accounting for incumbency, however, Democrats’ gains should be smaller: Democrats will likely flip between one and four seats in 2022 due to redistricting. In addition, Republicans have helped their own cause by converting...

Here's the 2023 Kia Telluride! Kia is adding new X-Line and X-PRO trims to the Telluride in addition to adding more standard equipment AND a new interior design! We now have digital gauges as well as standard LED lighting! is it now the segment leader?

Water Island, St. Thomas is only 8 miles by boat (or submarine) from “Epstein Island” (Little St. James, St. Thomas.) In 2005, Joe Biden’s brother James, was involved in a somewhat shady looking land deal involving a few parcels of undeveloped lots on Water Island, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. The amount of money involved was pretty immaterial in the context of “political scandals” ($150,000 is mentioned) and it would likely have gone unnoticed until Politico published a piece in January 2020. The potential “shadiness” described in Politico is barely, marginally interesting, given everything that has come out about...

WASHINGTON, Saturday, April 12. The Secretary of War has received information that Huntsville, Ala., was occupied yesterday by Gen. MITCHELL, without much resistance. Two hundred prisoners were taken; also fifteen locomotives and a large amount of rolling stock. The news of the capture of Huntsville is of greater importance to the Government than at first appears. Efforts have been making for a longtime to cut the railroad leading from Richmond to the West. It was expected that we should be able to do this at Knoxville, in Tennessee, and more recently at Salem, in Virginia, but the news of to-day...

The claim arrives in the form of a footnote in a 41-page motion to dismiss charges against members of the Oath Keepers. An attorney for a Jan. 6 defendant says in a recent court filing that at least 20 FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives "assets" were embedded around the U.S. Capitol on the day of the riot. The attorney, David Fischer, is seeking a dismissal of charges of seditious conspiracy and obstruction charges against nearly a dozen members of the Oath Keepers and client Thomas Caldwell. The 41-page motion was filed Tuesday before U.S. District Judge...

WASHINGTON, April 13 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Wednesday appealed to China to take action to help end Russia's war in Ukraine, warning in a landmark speech that Beijing's standing in the world would suffer if it fails to do so.In remarks prepared for delivery at the Atlantic Council in Washington, Yellen said she "fervently" hoped that China would make something positive out of its "special relationship" with Russia and help end the war.

Some of the nation’s most famous corporations, including Lions Gate Entertainment and Live Nation, have not reported compliance with a California law that required boards of directors to meet a diversity quota. The law has just been declared unconstitutional by a Los Angeles judge, and yet a “shame list” remains online for the public to scrutinize which corporations have the most ethnic minorities on their boards.

The wholesale inflation report came out a day after the Labor Department reported that consumer prices last month jumped 8.5% from a year earlier — fastest annual clip since December 1981.

Most of the baby strollers my family observed on vacation in Savannah, Georgia were not transporting babies. Instead, couples perambulated about the city with . . . dogs. By the end of our vacation, we had counted more than 200 different dogs in strollers across the city. Seeing an actual baby in a stroller proved to be the exception, not the rule. The U.S. birthrate has fallen by about 20 percent since 2007, and shows no signs of recovering.

Delta Air Lines will end its $200 per month healthcare surcharge imposed on employees not vaccinated against COVID-19, CEO Ed Bastian said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The healthcare surcharge will discontinue at the end of this month, he said. Bastian also said if the federal mask mandate for air travel is discontinued, Delta will not require passengers or employees to wear masks. Both stances are shifts in how the Atlanta-based airline is approaching an evolving COVID-19 pandemic. Delta took a lead role early in the pandemic instituting precautions including mask requirements, middle seat blocks and testing, then...

Georgia’s Republican Governor, Brian Kemp, pulled no punches over the weekend in shutting down Republican activists accusing him of participating in election fraud during and after the 2020 presidential election.The Atlanta Journal-Consitution highlighted on Tuesday Kemp’s tussling with right-wing activists during a Fulton County GOP meeting. “If you thought Gov. Brian Kemp had moved beyond the hecklers and naysayers at GOP grassroots meetings, think again,” noted the AJC.AJC reporter Greg Bluestein shared a video from the event, in which Kemp can be seen strongly pushing back against accusations from the audience, while also receiving loud applause from the group as...

The man who 'invented Putinism' has been detained in Russia and is under house arrest, say reports in Moscow. If confirmed, the move against Vladislav Surkov appears to show Vladimir Putin is turning on his inner circle, and also deep splits among his closest henchmen. Unconfirmed accounts say Putin's 'ideologist' is being held in a wide-ranging criminal probe that has also seen the arrest of 150 FSB agents. The case evidently involves the alleged embezzlement of $5 billion (£3.85billion) by the secret services to create an undercover and intelligence network in Ukraine. The shadowy Surkov, seen as crucial to Putin's...

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appears to be cementing his stance as a prominent Republican leader ahead of 2024 as other red states mimic the Sunshine State's policies. DeSantis has been leading the charge on several GOP priorities, including the coronavirus pandemic, critical race theory and LGBTQ issues. "He's obviously the most high-profile Republican governor in the country," Brad Coker, the director at Mason-Dixon Polling and Strategy in Florida, told Newsweek. "No one else has his level of national coverage, and he's the center of attention in Florida." The Florida leader was one of the first in the nation to begin...

Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry on Wednesday pushed renewable offshore energy, claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot manipulate the wind and sun. “Now is the time to accelerate the transition to an independent and a clean energy future. President Putin cannot control the power of the wind or the sun,” Kerry said at the Our Oceans conference in the pacific island of Palau, according to Reuters.

If the second round of the presidential election were held next Sunday, which of the following candidates would you be most likely to vote for? [Macron (En Marche)/Le Pen (National Rally)]

President Biden announced his latest supposed silver bullet to deal with inflated gas prices that reached their all-time high last month — more ethanol than usually allowed in American gas — during a speech on Tuesday evening in Iowa. As usual, Biden's announcement was more about avoiding blame that explaining what his plan would do...because it won't do much. Biden's decision to use executive authority to have the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) waive normal rules to allow grain-based ethanol mixtures of up to 15 percent in American gas supplies is, according to the White House, more action aimed at lowering...

The start-up is working on a metaverse wristband to be used alongside a VR headset. The wristband aims to allow users to move around in the virtual world but feel sensations like pain and the weight of objects. It works by electrically stimulating a wearers arm muscles. A user is said to be able to feel sensations like their skin being pinched or a weight in their hands. Emi Tamaki, the CEO of H2L Technologies...told the FT: "Feeling pain enables us to turn the metaverse world into a real [world], with increased feelings of presence and immersion." Tamaki is a...

PORTLAND, Ore. — Frustrations are high as Portland moves closer to building six Safe Rest Villages. Neighbors near two of the sites reached out to KATU to talk about what they call "failed civic engagement." In Lents, homeowner Joe Papasadero is outraged. "I've had my gas stolen just this last month -- four times," said Papasadero. Papasadero does not care if he comes off as indelicate when he talks about Portland and its problems. "It used to be called City of Roses. I call it the city dump," said Papasadero. He says you can call him a NIMBY because that's...