Free Republic

On 21 November, at the end of the first shift at the Tyson Foods beef processing plant in Lexington, Nebraska, all workers were called to the lunchroom and told they no longer had jobs.. And the move didn’t seem to make sense. Tyson is one of four beef producers – along with JBS, Cargill and National Beef, known collectively as “the Big Four” – that control 85% of the industry, and their profit margins are at their highest levels in years as consumer prices soar. Tyson had just announced that its profits were up 6.5% over the previous year. Why...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger described the state budget impasse Thursday as "very damaging" and added: "California deserves much better than that." He's right, but probably not as he intended. The fact that the budget is more than a month overdue is not the most shameful aspect. It is that he and most legislators are willing to enact another deficit budget at a moment when revenues are flattening and the gap is destined to widen. Schwarzenegger and others who want the current version of the budget enacted -- which it would be if one more Republican senator would vote for it --...