Free Republic

For many in the global North, retirement is a time to wave goodbye to workday stresses and discover an idyllic spot where you can take things easy. For some, it's a deckchair, for other it's a whole other country. For the lucky latter, the only question is…where to live? Everyone has their own take on what makes the perfect retirement location, but International Living’s 2022 Global Retirement Index may make it easier to find it. The annual index features a list of global retirement hotspots, compiled using personal experiences of expats in each location, combined with factors like cost of...

"Google was one of the three largest bundlers of contributions to President Obama. The year after the America Invents Act was passed, Google contributions were almost $1 million. Google spent $18 million on lobbyists. What did Google get for its money? A new, weaker patent system that allows challenges to patents outside of court, without a jury, without presumption of validity, using a low standard of proof. Google and friends killed the presumption that makes patents valuable. The expectations of patent owners that their rights would be enforceable against infringers.... "As the U.S. weakens its patent system, other countries are...

Sharp Reaction to Immigration Bill's Defeat By Manuel Roig-Franzia Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, June 30, 2007; Page A18 MEXICO CITY, June 29 -- Latin America reacted with sharp disappointment Friday to the U.S. Senate's defeat of an immigration bill, a decision that Mexican President Felipe Calderón called "a grave error" and Salvadoran President Elías Antonio Saca said was "a pity." Latin American governments have long hoped for a comprehensive reform package that would include guest-worker provisions and a route to legal status for the estimated 12 million undocumented migrants in the United States -- half of whom are Mexican....

This may not be of interest to many, but I found it interesting. I´m on vacation in Argentina (Buonos Aires) and have found that FreeRebublic is banned at many of the Internet Cafes. Fortunately, I can use Remote Desktop to get to my PC at home and browse from there. I also tried democraticunderground.com, and that does work. What did FreeRepublic.com ever do to Argentina?!

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. In their desperation to conclude another outsourcing-based, anti-US domestic manufacturing free trade deal, the proponents of CAFTA are advancing yet another specious argument in an attempt to win votes from national-security-minded Members of Congress. The argument is essentially that because CAFTA will allegedly help the economies of the CENTRAL American countries, it will, therefore, also help with their respective national security situations and provide political stability as well. Just as the flawed economic argument for CAFTA is that it will help American and Central American firms compete better against the Chinese...

Guatemala, where I'll be traveling this week, is one of those mysterious, out-of-the-way countries you never hear much about. Third World-poor with a population of 13 million, Central America's largest and most populated country has been tortured by earthquakes, corrupt governments and a bloody 36-year civil war that killed at least 100,000 and only ended in 1996. For most Americans, Guatemala is known -- if it's known at all -- for its ancient Mayan urban ruins, its sad record of human rights violations or the "successful" anti-communist coup orchestrated by our CIA in 1956, which was followed by decades of...

<p>Asset managers getting booted for poor public pension fund performance.</p> <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. state pension fund managers have decided to cut their ties with Wall Street asset managers whom they blame for allowing already-bad stock market losses to grow even bigger.</p>