Free Republic

I see The Lord picking up a gem and brushing it off then he breathes into it and it comes alive as he laughs and smiles so many colors of light shine forth from it in all directions . He holds it up high and then let's go of it as it rises out of his hand pulsating with delightful colors of the rainbow . I hear him saying " Rise up oh well , Rise up even higher for The Voice of many waters is calling to you for His Glory ! And this Gem is you . Revelation...

LONDON (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell RDSa. cut its dividend for the first time since World War Two on Thursday in a drastic step to preserve cash as it prepares for a protracted slump in demand for oil because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Anglo-Dutch energy company also suspended share buybacks and said it would reduce oil and gas output by about a quarter after its net profit almost halved in the first three months of 2020 to $2.9 billion. The new measures combined with cuts in capital spending and planned cost reductions announced last month could save Shell almost...

Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang said Tuesday that he’d like to sit down with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., to explain the Freedom Dividend, the universal basic income proposal that’s the cornerstone of his campaign for the White House. "I haven’t sat down with Alexandria. It could just be politics. I’m very optimistic that if she understood the Freedom Dividend, she’d be excited about it," Yang told Fox News after a campaign event at Colby-Sawyer College in New London, N.H. "She’s demonstrated openness to universal basic income in the past and I think she’ll be very excited when she sees what...

Are you tempted by nice dividends such as BP’s 7.53 percent and Shell’s 7.31 percent? Long-term investors are. They’re lapping up the oil majors on dips to cash in on their impressive dividend yields in hopes that the massive rally in crude oil from the lows of $27.10 per barrel is an indication that crude has bottomed out and higher prices are around the corner. The large investors are pursuing the oil majors for their stability and safety, which has boosted their prices, but even after the rise, prices remain below their 2015 highs. The oil majors are expected to...

Investing in the energy industry right now can be scary. On the one hand, oil prices have been extremely volatile and look likely to stay that way. On the other hand, while clean energy, especially wind power, is growing rapidly, valuations are astronomical and, for income-focused investors there are few good options. With that in mind, investors looking for income in energy have little choice but to turn to the safest conventional energy play available; oil majors. Companies like ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell have been around for decades, so regardless of what happens to oil prices, these firms have...

General Motors announced disappointing earnings results today and issued a warning that first quarter results will underwhelm as well. The reasons behind the earnings' miss are surely going to be explained away by pundits and proponents of the company still known as Government Motors to many. Sorting through the smoke and mirrors can lead to some important and simple explanations as to what is going on at GM. Before looking at the reasons why GM has drastically underperformed the broader markets since the Obama-orchestrated bankruptcy process of 2009, let's take a look at one of the most critical takeaways from...

<p>General Motors Co posted a weaker-than-expected fourth-quarter profit on Thursday as results in North America, Asia and South America disappointed.</p> <p>Net income rose to $913 million, or 57 cents a share, from $892 million, or 54 cents a share, in the year-earlier quarter.</p>

The internet was ablaze Tuesday evening with stories presenting a perceived positive move by General Motors' outgoing government-appointed management. All hail! "General Motors to pay first dividend since 2008," trumpeted the headlines. GM shares immediately spiked up in after-hours trading with shares rising about $1.60 or 4% on the news. Unfortunately for those duped by the proclamation, GM followed the story hours later with a profit warning. For the time being, the bad news outweighed the good with GM shares reversing course and ending the day Wednesday with a loss of over one and a half percent on a day...

SNIP SNIP Capital gains taxes will also revert to Clinton-era levels, rising from 15% to 20%, with a 3.8% Obamacare surcharge to be tacked on top. That's also a meaningful increase, but not a life- or behavior-changing one. And the 23.8% rate will also still be historically low. Much less noted--and much more meaningful for many high-earning Americans--is the scheduled increase in dividend taxes. Thanks to Obamacare, dividend taxes will already have the extra 3.8% surcharge tacked on top of them regardless of what happens with the Fiscal Cliff deal. More importantly, dividend taxes for the highest earning Americans are...

Item One: Obama-friendly retailer issues special dividend to avoid Obama tax increase... Late last week, Sinegal and the rest of the Costco Board of Directors voted to pay shareholders a special $7 per share dividend to avoid higher dividend taxes that are scheduled to go into effect on January 1, 2013. As the Wall Street Journal notes... That’s a $3 billion Christmas gift for shareholders that will let them be taxed at the current dividend rate of 15%, rather than next year’s rate of up to 43.4% — an increase to 39.6% as the Bush-era rates expire plus another 3.8%...

Unless Congress intervenes, taxes are set to rise significantly on January 1st, when we hit the "fiscal cliff." Most of the focus of this tax increase has been on income taxes. Income taxes for incomes over ~$388,351, for example, are set to revert back to the Clinton-era 39.6% from the current 35%. That's a relatively modest increase, and a 39.6% tax for the top bracket is still historically low. Capital gains taxes are also set to rise, from 15% to 20%. That's a bigger percentage increase, but the resulting capital-gains rate will still be historically low. Screams about how these...

Apple announced a quarterly dividend of $2.65 a share and authorized a share buyback plan this morning. According to the release, it anticipates spending about $45 billion in cash over the first three years of the dividend and buyback plan.  The buyback authorization is worth $10 billion and starts in fiscal 2013, which starts after September 30, 2012. (Important note: a buyback authorization doesn't mean Apple is going to rush out and buy stock, it just means it could buy stock.) The dividend starts in fiscal Q4, which is after July 1, 2012. The $45 billion Apple anticipates spending will...

President Obama's 2013 budget is the gift that keeps on giving—to government. One buried surprise is his proposal to triple the tax rate on corporate dividends, which believe it or not is higher than in his previous budgets. Mr. Obama is proposing to raise the dividend tax rate to the higher personal income tax rate of 39.6% that will kick in next year. Add in the planned phase-out of deductions and exemptions, and the rate hits 41%. Then add the 3.8% investment tax surcharge in ObamaCare, and the new dividend tax rate in 2013 would be 44.8%—nearly three times today's...

To all those wondering why the Treserve scrambled on Friday to allow banks to resume paying dividends (even something as downright hilarious as Citi's $0.01...Is that the lowest recorded dividend yield in history?) here is your answer. The Treasury just announced it would sell its $142 billion MBS portfolio, supposedly to the same banks who are now using their cash on the books to satisfy shareholders too. The Treserve will sell $10 billion per month depending on market conditions, meaning a downtick in the market will now crash not only that given day's POMO (a UST market operation), but also...

The sweeping overhaul and surprising recovery of the American auto industry is about to pay off handsomely for the blue-collar workers at Ford and General Motors. The two big Detroit carmakers will announce profit-sharing checks this month for their hourly workers, perhaps the largest in a decade, company officials and industry analysts say. While the payouts — expected to top $5,000 at Ford... [snip] Ford’s total labor cost for a worker — a combination of wages, benefits and pensions — has been reduced more than 20 percent and is now about $59 an hour

While most other states are cutting services and laying off workers, Alaska is preparing to send dividend checks to about 657,000 of its citizens, who have their former governor and the state constitution to thank. United Press International reports: ANCHORAGE, Ala., Sept. 10 (UPI) -- Citizens qualified to receive dividends from Alaska's Permanent Fund will receive dividends of more than $1,300 this autumn, state officials said. The Anchorage Daily News reported that even though the $32 billion oil profits savings account lost $2.5 billion in the last fiscal year, the five-year dividend program will temper the effect of the losses...

The dividend aristocrats index has had five dividend cuts so far this year. Because of the way that the index is rebalanced, the dividend cutters will remain a part of the elite basket of S&P 500 companies which have consistently raised their dividends for over 25 consecutive years. Unless a member of the Dividend Aristocrats index is removed from the S&P 500, it won’t be removed from the elite income index. The five companies, which cut dividends so far in 2009, will most likely be booted out of the index at the annual December reconstitution. Back in February, General Electric...

Paulson urges banks to raise more capital By Krishna Guha and James Politi in Washington Published: March 13 2008 15:42 | Last updated: March 13 2008 15:42 Hank Paulson on Thursday called on financial institutions to raise more capital and reduce their dividends in order to strengthen their balance sheets as he set out the US government’s regulatory response to the credit crisis. The US Treasury secretary backed plans to make it easier for banks to issue “covered bonds” to finance mortgages kept on their own books as an alternative to selling them on to investors as mortgage-backed securities. He...

Meredith Whitney, Oppenheimer & Co's banking analyst who was the first to say Citigroup Inc. (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research) needed to cut its dividend last year, said on Thursday the bank would need to cut payouts again and raise more capital. Whitney also told television channel CNBC she believes financial stocks, which have been weak recently in the wake of the credit crisis, housing crunch and fears of a recession, could fall at least another 15 percent and as much as 50 percent. "The best case downside scenario is that there is a 15 percent downside in the financials; worst...

Memo on the MarginAugust 2, 2000Dick Cheney, Peace DividendMemo To: Political & Financial Writers From: Jude Wanniski Re: A Jack of All Trades My father was a jack of all trades, master of none. He could do everything passably, nothing to perfection. I could tell countless stories about him, but my favorite was when he discovered in 1950 that it would cost him $4 to have a TV repairman fix the set we had bought just six months earlier. He cut out an ad from a Superman comic book offering a book for $2 or so on how to fix...