Free Republic

Homebuyers stuck on the sidelines waiting for mortgage interest rates to fall (or home prices to level off) may not have to wait much longer. With a combined cooling inflation rate and concerning unemployment figures, the Federal Reserve is now poised to issue its first cut to the federal funds rate since 2020. And some economists think it could be a substantial reduction. While the Fed doesn't directly dictate what lenders offer borrowers, it goes a long way toward influencing their rates, as homebuyers contending with the highest mortgage interest rates in decades can attest. But a reduction in the...

One of the things that riles even those Americans who aren’t politically inclined is seeing their tax dollars pay for illegal aliens’ education, housing, food, and medical care. When they raise these concerns, though, they’re immediately told, “quit yer whining” because even illegal aliens pay taxes and buy American products. The implication is that the illegal aliens are paying their way. This is a lie.According to leftist sites, illegal aliens are a net good to the economy. Not only do “they do the jobs Americans won’t do,” but they are also good taxpayers. According to a July report from the...

Metro NYC migrant crisis costs will crack eye-popping $5 billion on shelters, security and food — amount could double by 2025 By Carl Campanile and Haley Brown Published Aug. 13, 2024, 8:07 p.m. ET 928 Comments The financial hits from the migrant crisis keep on coming. New York City has likely surpassed $5 billion in spending on services for migrants — including nearly $2 billion alone on housing the scores of new arrivals flooding into the Big Apple, according to city data. The eye-popping figures, listed on the city’s online asylum-seeker funding tracker, shows the city overall spent $4.88 billion...

The 2024 Summer Olympics are finally set to get underway in Paris today amid some substantial safety concerns like ISIS threats and this morning, large-scale vandalism of France's train network. These high-level issues are momentarily distracting observers from another train wreck affecting most Olympic Games: cost overrun.Spending more than you have budgeted for has become the norm for host cities, but as Statista's Katharina Buchholz reports, Paris is actually not the worst of the bunch (as of current estimates) despite an overrun of more than 100 percent landing it at a cost of $8.7 billion for hosting the Games (excluding...

What can a Big Mac tell us about currency rates? As it turns out, quite a lot.The Big Mac Index, created by The Economist in 1986, started out as a simple tool to make currency theory more digestible. Now, it’s a widely-known measure in popular economics to assess and compare currency valuations.In short, the Big Mac index compares the purchasing power parity (PPP) of currencies using the price of a Big Mac in the U.S. as the benchmark. It shows how much a Big Mac costs in various countries compared to the U.S., but it also works as a way...

Joe Biden’s self-inflicted electoral crisis is a classic case study in the “sunk cost fallacy.” As Vice President Kamala Harris and party leaders pour resources into the president’s flailing campaign, the argument that Biden is the only one who can defeat Donald Trump in November and “protect democracy” is increasingly falling on electoral and donor deaf ears. Coined in 1980 by economist Richard Thaler, the sunk-cost fallacy describes a cognitive bias that leads people to double down on failed strategies in which they have invested time, resources and emotional energy. Thaler used this concept to describe the irrational decisions that...

Despite what feels like the constantly rising costs of modern life, the prices of some essential commodities such as gas and eggs have actually remained relatively stable compared to dollar values and wages in the past. Other items, meanwhile, have actually become much cheaper over time, even when accounting for inflation. Innovations in technology, increased competition, and improvements in manufacturing and logistics are most often the reason for these surprising price drops. Here are seven everyday items that are much cheaper now than they were in decades past. Clothing In the mid-20th century, the average American family spent about 10%...

Forty-two was the mystical number that explained “life, the universe, and everything” in Douglas Adams’ comic novel, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Today, another mystical number, the so-called social cost of carbon (SSC), is providing the excuse for the Environmental Protection Agency and green-energy-enamored state regulators to enact crippling energy policies.The SCC is the thumb on the scale that can justify virtually any policy aimed at eliminating fossil fuels. When the EPA first proposed its rule to reduce mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants, the agency’s cost-benefit analysis determined the benefits would be minuscule. Any putative benefits, it turns...

Converting America’s medium- and heavy-duty trucks to electric vehicles (EV) in accordance with goals from the Biden administration would add massive costs to commercial trucking, according to a new analysis released Wednesday. The cost to switch over to light-duty EVs like a transit van would equate to a 5% increase in costs per year while switching over medium- and heavy-duty trucks would add up to 114% in costs per year to already struggling businesses, according to a report from transportation and logistics company Ryder Systems. The Biden administration, in an effort to facilitate a transition to EVs, finalized new emission...

Illegal immigration weighs heavily on the wallets of hardworking American taxpayers - to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars annually.Still, the Biden administration turns a blind eye to these fiscal strains, neglecting the toll on our economy, the structural integrity of our nation, and the safety of our citizens.Estimates suggest that illegal immigrants cost each household about $1,000, adding up to more than $120 billion a year.Sources such as Newsweek hint that the true cost may be even higher, possibly reaching $150 billion annually, an amount shared by both federal and state governments. In all actuality, the financial...

Let’s check in on the not exactly impressive energy and inflation results of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)...Data from the BLS, chart by MishBiden’s energy policy has been an inflationary disaster. And make no mistake, the IRA was nothing but energy policy, more precisely, climate policy.The Inflation Reduction Act Is a Climate BillBloomberg flashback, August 15, 2022: The Inflation Reduction Act Is a Climate Bill. Just Don’t Call It One.“It does seem kind of wacky and counterintuitive for the most consequential climate legislation ever to be called the ‘Inflation Reduction Act,’” says Angela Bradbery, a professor of public interest communications...

The Interior Department on Friday finalized a rule making it more expensive for oil and gas producers to drill on federally owned lands. Several of the provisions in the rule — like raising the rent the government charges to oil companies for using its land and increasing the government’s share of the profits from that oil — were set out in law by the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act. The Biden administration will additionally make it more expensive for drillers to abandon their oil wells after use instead of cleaning them up. The administration argues that current bonding rates do not...

President Biden’s new student debt relief plan is estimated to cost around $84 billion if it is implemented, according to a Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM) analysis released Thursday. PWBM analyzed the five components of Biden’s proposed plan, totaling the initiatives to $84.06 billion that could be implemented before the November election. The biggest cost of the plan is Biden’s proposal to cancel up to $20,000 for all borrowers who have a balance that has grown due to unpaid interest. Borrowers who qualify for the SAVE plan or other income-driven repayment (IDR) plans would get all of that balance wiped...

California lacks information on the costs or efficacy of its homelessness programs, despite allocating billions of dollars to them, a report released by the state auditor’s office on Tuesday found. California Interagency Council on Homelessness (ICH) is responsible for coordinating and evaluating the efforts of California’s state agency in reducing homelessness. ICH, however, “has not consistently tracked and evaluated” the state’s efforts to prevent and end homelessness and, as a result, California “lacks current information on the ongoing costs and outcomes of its homelessness programs,” according to a report from the California State Auditor. The homeless population in California has...

We all know life has gotten more expensive lately… but has anything provided more sticker shock than healthcare? Health insurance premiums rose 7% last year. Medical costs are expected to rise 7% this year after increasing 6% last year. And I’ve exclaimed “What?! That can’t be right!” after receiving a medical bill or checking out at the pharmacy more times than I can count. Yet my doctor friends claim they make less money and spend more time doing insurance paperwork than ever before. I felt bad that one of my physician friends recently had to spend time fighting with my...

Efforts to build a bridge where the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, stood until Tuesday are estimated to cost anywhere from $400 million to several billion dollars, according to reports. Punchbowl News reports — citing sources from the Biden administration, Capitol Hill, and Annapolis — that the undertaking to replace the bridge, which collapsed after a cargo ship named Dali crashed into one of its pier foundations, will cost “several billion dollars.”

If you pay for car insurance, you’ve probably noticed that rates are really high lately. You’re not alone. Last week’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) report — the government’s method for tracking what people are paying for goods and services and how that’s changing over time — noted that the price of car insurance was up more than 20 percent over the same time last year. What’s particularly painful is that rates were already rising: CPI reports have shown that, overall, car insurance rates are up more than 38 percent since January 2020. What’s going on? The big insurance companies have...

I have a friend who frequently says that, if you control CO2 outputs, you control everything. Let me explain: Every aspect of modern life is dependent on hydrocarbons and, when hydrocarbons are burned for energy, they produce CO2. By demonizing CO2, you demonize hydrocarbons, which means…ta-dah!...you get to block hydrocarbons and control everything. We’re getting a glimpse of that with Joe Biden’s new energy emission rules, which will effectively make it impossible to build a gas-powered car in a few years, forcing people into costly, dangerous, unreliable, and dirty electric vehicles. Here’s the report from Fox:The Biden administration has finalized...

Tranheuser-Busch claimed it earned record revenues in 2023 but admitted its “full growth potential was constrained” in the U.S. due to a boycott after Bud Light signed transvestite Dylan Mulvaney as a sponsor. Yeah, “constrained” by $1.4 BILLION. In North America, organic revenue, seen as the best measure of operating performance, plunged $1.4 billion last year as beer sales by volume tumbled in the region, primarily due to a decline in Bud Light sales in the United States. Beer makes up the lion’s share of Anheuser-Busch InBev’s revenue. Bud Light sales tanked after the company’s partnership with Mulvaney last April...

I graduated from college in the 1980s. I took my bachelor’s degree in 2.5 years by taking overloads—up to 22 credits--every semester, and full loads every summer and interim session, as well as a number of correspondence courses from another university when I had to have a class that wasn’t offered when I needed it. At that state college, my education cost a bit less than $10,000. I was an adult, paying my own freight, and needed to get back into the workforce as quickly as possible. I took out no student loans. Tuition then was a fraction of current...