Free Republic

Gilder Guideposts: Cacophonous are the voices decrying the implosion of “the U.S. Innovation Ecosystem,” as the Harvard Business Review puts it. Do not hope, the voices warn, to see in our future anything like the miraculous progress of the last two centuries, or even the last 50 years. It’s done. Tighten your belts. Supporting the doomsters are dozens of academic studies arguing that “big research,” whether at our great corporations or our universities, yields increasingly diminishing returns. Making headlines recently was a Nature study concluding, “We find that papers and patents are increasingly less likely to break with the past...

If you are at all interested in matters of climate and energy, you have probably read hundreds of articles over the past few years about the inevitability of the coming energy transition. A piece of the claimed inevitability is that all good and decent people support this transition as a matter of moral urgency; but it’s not just that. Nor is it just that government backs the transition with all its coercive powers, from subsidies to mandates to regulations. No, most importantly, the transition is said to have become inevitable due to unstoppable economic forces. Wind and solar are now...

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 38,000 for the first time on Monday, setting a record high and capping a steady rise that stretches back to last week. The S&P 500 also reached a record high, closing at about 4,850. The tech-heavy Nasdaq inched up to 15,360 by the end of trading on Monday. The major stock indexes kicked off the year with sluggish performance but began to turn upward in the middle of last week. The recent surge follows a stellar showing for markets in 2023, driven in large part by optimism about the prospects for a "soft...

Introduction We are living in a time of grassroots demands to transform our built environment and our relationships with one another and the earth.2 To abolish prisons and police, rent, debt, borders, and billionaires.3 To decommodify housing and healthcare and to decolonize land.4 To exercise more collective ownership over our collectively generated wealth.5 Some of us are reimagining the state. Others are dreaming of moving beyond it.6 But these are more than dreams. These are demands for a democratic political economy. These demands increased in volume this year as the violence of policing continued, the fires burned in California and...

On Friday’s “CNN This Morning,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson stated that local economies are going to be crushed by the migrant “crisis” and that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is “governing out of fear.” Johnson said, “[W]e have infrastructure in our local communities that [is] not designed to carry such a burden. Local municipalities are not structured to be able to carry the weight of a crisis like this. And I’ve sent a delegation to the border to see firsthand what our bordering cities are experiencing, and what we have said repeatedly is that there has to be better coordination....

As we look ahead to another year – and another presidential election, and another international Olympics, and all the other disparate opportunities for confusion that come with a new year in the modern world – it might be a pipe dream, but we should try to demand a return to honesty from our public figures. We can’t demand easy, painless answers; too many of the problems they’ve made for us will be painful to fix, no matter what course we take. But surely we can demand honesty, at least about the big picture. CARBON DIOXIDE One of the biggest lies...

We must have been fifteen or sixteen when we discovered the church visitor’s book. It was an old church, maybe medieval, and I would pass it with my school friends on our way to the town center. I’m not sure what possessed us to go in; it might have been my idea. I’ve always loved old churches. For a long time, I would tell myself that I liked the sense of history or the architecture, which was true as far as it went. Like the narrator in Philip Larkin’s poem “Church Going,” I would venture into any church I found,...

Ahead of the December meeting, one economist argued the Federal Reserve's "dangerously high" interest rate hikes are transitory, and that the Fed will make cuts in the first quarter of next year.On "Mornings with Maria," Monday, TrendMacro CIO Donald Luskin explained his frustration with the Fed's rate hike campaign and his economic outlook."Please, please, please, can we all stop listening to Jay Powell? Please. Mr. Inflation is transitory. He is still so embarrassed about that one. He's now insisting that his dangerously high-interest rates are not transitory. Oh, they will be," Luskin said. "Inflation is collapsing and he knows it....

The nearby cities of Cambridge and Chelsea have experimented with similar programs and supporters say it could be a boost to nearly 18% of Boston residents.

An elderly American has been arrested after a gunman was caught on camera walking up to environmental protesters blocking a Panamanian highway Tuesday and blasting two of them to death. Disturbing footage showed a man with gray hair and glasses casually approaching the blockade on the Pan-American Highway and waving his finger while arguing with the demonstrators — before pulling out a gun and opening fire. Other footage showed people standing around bodies in the road in the Chame sector west of Panama City as well as the gunman being cuffed and led to a squad car. Police later shared...

The average monthly mortgage payment is a whopping 52% higher than the average monthly rent on a house or apartment — a ratio that hasn’t been this out of whack since before the 2008 housing crash, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Privacy Notice An Alaska Airlines passenger inside the cockpit attempted to seize control of a plane headed from a Seattle airport to San Francisco on Sunday, the airline said. A pilot told air traffic controllers a person riding in the cockpit of flight 2059 attempted to turn off the aircraft's engines in flight. An airline's pilots, or pilots at other airlines, will occasionally ride a cockpit "jump seat" when traveling in an official capacity or commuting to another airport. The passenger, who has not been named, was an off-duty pilot and has been arrested by Port of Portland Police Department,...

The metro Atlanta area has some of the highest inflation rates of any city in the country. WalletHub, a personal finance website, compared 23 major Metropolitan Statistical Areas using two key Consumer Price Index-related metrics. According to a new analysis, the Atlanta area ranked fifth among the metropolitan areas with the biggest inflation problems. While the Miami area topped the list, Atlanta has consistently ranked among the cities with the highest inflation, previous WalletHub reviews reveal. "The Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell MSA has registered a 1.10% spike in inflation in the last couple of months, as well as an almost 5% increase...

The Biden administration’s massive expansion of food stamp benefits is linked to at least a 15% rise in grocery prices, a new study said on Thursday. President Biden’s Department of Agriculture rolled out revised nutritional standards for federal food benefits in 2021 that expanded the program by roughly 25% from pre-COVID pandemic levels. Overall spending on the Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program (SNAP) more than doubled between 2019 and 2022, according to findings from the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) previewed by Fox News Digital. It went from $4.5 billion in 2019 to $11 billion in 2022, the study said.

All aboard the Bidenomics Crazy Train! Let’s see. We have inflation that is eroding wage growth so that REAL wage growth is negative. Meanwhile, the Biden Administration and Congress are spending like they can print infinite amounts of cash with no consequences. The result? The Federal government is paying nearly $1 trillion in interest on an annualized basis. On the corporate side, we are seeing a surge in bankruptcies. As Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld and Sabrina Fortin show in the graphic below, based on data from S&P Global, corporate bankruptcies in 2023 are surging… U.S. Corporate Bankruptcies Grow So far...

It’s NOT always sunny in Philadelphia. Particularly when the Philly Fed non-manufacturing survey screams stagflation (a nauseating combination of economic slowdown and inflation). After a positive surprise in July, Philly Fed’s non-manufacturing survey slumped back into contraction in August (from +1.4 to -13.1). Additionally, while respondents continue to expect a growth over the next 6 months, that optimism is fading rapidly… Source: Bloomberg On a non-seasonally-adjusted basis, the Philly Fed Services survey plunged to -20.0 – practically its lowest level since the COVID lockdowns… Source: Bloomberg Under the hood it’s even uglier with stagflationary impulses rearing their ugly heads. Price...

As massive consumer tailwinds like excess savings fade, one wonders what — if anything — could help fuel the next leg of the consumer spending boom that has been juicing economic activity.In a research note Tuesday, Wells Fargo economists Tim Quinlan and Shannon Seery put a spotlight on a potential whopper: home equity."Strong home price appreciation in the years following the pandemic may be an underappreciated tailwind for the household sector," the economists wrote. "The total value of the U.S. single-family market breached $40 trillion last year, and the mix between debt and equity has shifted over time with the...

Biden: “Its my Presidency and I’ll lie if I want to.” As well as demolish the economy to serve his Progressive green energy agenda. One of the casualties? Yellow trucking. Carrier Yellow Corp. ceased all operations at 12 p.m. Sunday, according to a notice on the gates at its terminals. Its stock price is now sub $1. Separate internal documents showed the procedures for closing the facilities as well as “talking points” to be used when informing union employees not to show up for their shifts. The documents indicated the company plans to issue a public statement Monday updating “the...

Last Monday I pointed out that China’s foreign minister Qin Gang had suddenly vanished and hadn’t been seen in three weeks. Officially, he was said to be ill but unofficially there rumors that he’d done something potentially embarrassing to the party. Today, Qin was officially removed from his post and replaced, once again suggesting that whatever led to his disappearance was seen as a career-ending mistake.Mr. Qin was abruptly removed as foreign minister on Tuesday after having disappeared from public view for 30 days. The move ended the career of a diplomat who had leaped to the top as one...

Jane is a junior doctor working several extra locum shifts to make ends meet. Burnt out after the pandemic, and struggling with her physical and mental health, she would really like to take unpaid leave, but she cannot do so. Last month, her landlord hiked up her rent, then served her with an eviction notice when she said she couldn’t afford it. She now has to move for the fourth time in three years, and is back in a flat-hunting market where rents are higher everywhere. Trapped in her job, with her accommodation options diminishing and her time permanently constrained...