Free Republic

President Joe Biden has dropped out of this year's presidential election race, the White House said Sunday, and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to represent the Democratic party against Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. "It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President," Biden said in a message from his verified account on the X social media platform. "And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as...

Americans spend more money on health care on a per capita basis than people in any other developed nation, yet almost half say they've struggled recently to pay for medical treatment or prescription drugs, according to a new study from Gallup and West Health. About 45% of those polled by the organizations said they'd recently had to skip treatment or medicine either because of cost or lack of easy access. Of those, about 8% said they also wouldn't have access to affordable care if they required it today, a group that Gallup and West Health termed "cost desperate." While 55%...

The federal government ran another big deficit in June, as the national debt inches closer to $35 trillion.$35 trillion USD.Trillion with a 'T.' That's an unfathomable number. It's meaningless to most people. We simply can't comprehend a number that big.Let's try to put the $34.9 trillion national debt into perspective.According to the National Debt Clock, every American citizen would have to write a check for $103,565 to pay off the national debt. Of course, a lot of people don't pay taxes. That means the taxpayer burden is much higher. Every U.S. taxpayer would have to write a check for $266,953...

During an interview on Tuesday for Wednesday’s BET News interview special “Black America Votes: The Biden Interview,” President Joe Biden said that his economic policies haven’t resonated with people “because the Republican Party and the MAGA Republicans have been opposed to it, and they’ve been beating up on it.” And because “it’s just taking time for people to see it. And the other thing is, there’s not been a very good job done about saying, this new billion-dollar bridge going over there is brought to you by Joe Biden.” But some of his policy agenda has “resonated for those who...

The national office vacancy rate hit a record 19.8% in the first quarter of 2024, according to a preliminary report from Moody’s Analytics. And it could get worse, as companies continue to lease substantial space despite a decline in the in-office footprint. The 'urban doom loop' cycleWhile the shift to remote work in recent years offers plenty of flexibility to employees, some experts have concerns the decline in office building usage could spell a more sinister problem for big cities. “Everybody’s affected by this issue,” Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, a professor of real estate at Columbia Business School, told CNN. Van...

Bankruptcy courts are working overtime this year, with corporate America seeing the highest monthly bankruptcy count since 2020. According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, the US recorded 75 new bankruptcies filed by mid-size and large corporations in June. Given ongoing economic pressures, this trend could continue.So far, in 2024, there have been 346 bankruptcy filings, including 17 cases with liabilities exceeding ~$1B — outstripping any comparable figure from the last 13 years.The consumer discretionary sector accounted for 55 of these filings — while the healthcare and industrial sectors each had 40.‘Til debt do us part: S&P Global blames high interest...

A growing number of companies are filing for bankruptcy, according to S&P There is a "historic surge" of corporate bankruptcies underway in the U.S., as debt-saddled companies struggle to adjust to the new era of high interest rates. New figures published by S&P Global Intelligence show that 75 companies filed for bankruptcy in June, the highest number recorded in a single month since early 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. That pushed this year's total number of bankruptcies so far to 346, which is notably higher than comparable levels seen in the past 13 years. Before this, the...

Amtrak, the national passenger railroad company of the U.S., continues to have routine breakdowns despite receiving massive injections of taxpayer dollars from the Biden administration, according to data from the Department of Transportation (DOT). Since 2021, there have been 333 Amtrak train incidents reported nationwide as of July 9, 2024, slightly less than the 397 incidents that occurred between 2016 and July 2020 during former President Trump’s tenure, according to the DOT. The Biden administration, as a part of an announced $66 billion for passenger rail in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, has dedicated huge amounts of taxpayer cash to Amtrak,...

Grocery store prices are changing faster than ever before — literally. This month, Walmart became the latest retailer to announce it’s replacing the price stickers in its aisles with electronic shelf labels. The new labels allow employees to change prices as often as every ten seconds.“If it’s hot outside, we can raise the price of water and ice cream. If there's something that’s close to the expiration date, we can lower the price — that’s the good news,” said Phil Lempert, a grocery industry analyst. Apps like Uber already use surge pricing, in which higher demand leads to higher prices...

The media’s umpteenth month of mishandling CPI data to protect the Biden White House comes as no surprise. Contrary to the corporate media cabal’s desperate attempt to paint the Consumer Price Index report for June 2024 as a sign that inflation “cooled” and will continue “cooling” and “slowing” the closer the nation gets to November’s presidential election, Americans are still paying higher prices on basic day-to-day goods and services than they did in the last four years. When the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its latest inflation index showing a 0.1 percent decrease in prices from May 2024 to...

If you use Redbox’s streaming service, you may have noticed you can’t stream the movies you bought or even the free collection of movies they offer. Earlier today, Redbox’s website stopped working. Now it just displaying an error message where you would typically find the free movies and movies or TV shows for sale. For now, the issue is limited to Redbox, as Crackle, also owned by the same company, is still working. The exact cause of the issue is unknown and Cord Cutters News has reached out to Redbox for comment. If we hear back we will update our...

Hot ‘Lanta! Or perhaps COLD ‘Lanta! And despite what Biden says, thiere isn’t an economic revival. Yes. everyone can see the mental decline in President Biden and he should be in a nursing home. While he vows to run for President against Donald Trump, can you imagine what he will be like in 2 years? Let alone another 4 years?? Speaking of decline, GDP growth estimates are plummeting: The most recent Atlanta Fed estimate for real US GDP quarterly growth in Q2 2024 is down to 1.7%. This estimate is down from 4.2% seen in mid-May and from 2.2% seen...

Whoopi Goldberg, the star actress of Sister Act and The Colour Purple, has come under significant public backlash after she had some harsh advice for Gen Zs and millennials. Goldberg emphasised during a session on The View, where she hosts alongside others, that they "just need to work harder" if they want to purchase property and provide for their families.

Bidenomics is Working!! 😳 ["We are proud of Bidenomics!" - Kamala Harris]

JPMorgan Chase just issued a major warning to its 86 million customers. The banking giant says a list of new regulations from Washington, D.C. will force the company to begin charging customers for checking accounts, reports the Wall Street Journal. The bank cites proposed regulations from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Reserve, which are pushing for new caps on credit and debit card late fees and higher capital reserves, as primary catalysts that would push the bank to eliminate free checking services.

Even though most Americans have been struggling financially over the past few years, not everyone has been doing badly during the current economic turmoil. In fact, there are some households that are doing exceptionally well. Some articles point out that companies that cater to average Americans are doing quite poorly right now while companies that market luxury goods and services are reporting massive profits. However, overall consumer spending has been slowing down. It looks like the majority of U.S. workers either can’t spend a lot of money right now or are very hesitant to. At the same time, there is...

In LA in 2020, I was living with three other roommates — one was my sister, and the other two were friends. There were four of us in this five-bedroom townhome, and the rent was $3,800 a month — which was actually pretty good. My portion of that rent was $1,100 because I had the master bedroom. I bought the house in Tulsa in November 2020, and it just sat vacant until I moved there in December. It's a three-bedroom, two-bath house with a two-car garage, and my mortgage is $1,185.

Grocery costs are too high for families across the country. We have a plan to tackle them. Partnering with 31 state Attorneys General to take on price gougingSuccessfully calling on grocery chains to lower costs -- urging more to join leaders like Target, Walmart and ALDI in lowering pricesProviding low-income families of four $2000 more for groceries by improving SNAP and launching summer EBT

'The economy is fine!' 'Wages are up!' 'Inflation is down!' If all of those things sound familiar, it's because that's what the Biden administration has been telling us for years. They bragged about saving you a whopping 16 cents on your Fourth of July dinner a couple of years ago and bragged about cheaper Thanksgiving dinners, too. Now -- four months from the election -- Biden finally admits grocery prices are still too high. This is something 99.9% of Americans could've told you, and something that pops up as a major concern in polling. And here's Biden's plan to 'fix'...

Bob's Stores, which sells athletic and casual clothing across six states, is shutting all its stores. It began 'Going Out Of Business' sales on Friday, with customers able to pick up goods with 30 to 70 percent off at the 21 stores. The website no longer works. Shoppers will find reduced prices on leading national brands like Nike across the stores. Select shop fixtures, furniture, and equipment like TVs and registers will also be on sale. But then the 40-year-old chain - which operated in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island - will be gone...