Free Republic

Back in the 1980s, the big fear was that Japan was buying up America. At the start of the third decade of the 21st century, the fear is that China is buying up America, a threat much more potent than Japan ever was. Unlike China, which expanded by building a better mousetrap, China’s reach is predicated upon Marxist expansionism, military and private-sector espionage, corrupt business practices, slave labor, and a large military.Investing.com assembled a list of 76 American brands that China owns in whole or in part. (There are also companies that Hong Kong owns but China’s aggressive inroads in...

Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos and the heirs to Walmart have made approximately $116 billion during the pandemic even as their employees have made a fraction of that in hazard pay, according to a Brookings Institution report. Jeff Bezos and the Walmart heirs, the Walton family, have made 35 times the amount their companies gave to more than 2.5 million workers in pandemic-related hazard pay, according to the December Brookings Institution report. Amazon and Walmart have given significantly less than competitors such as Best Buy, Target and Costco.

Leave it to the New York Times blowhard economist Paul Krugman to exploit the pandemic and dance on the imaginary grave on one of his oldest foes: Reaganism. Krugman declared in a new op-ed that “The government promised to help — and it did.” This was a pathetic attempt at repudiating late President Ronald Reagan’s famous 1986 warning: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help.” Krugman based his assessment on the federal government’s stimulus spending, including the recent 5,593-page pork-infested relief package. Krugman was just giddy about what...

Republicans worry a Biden administration will muck up the economic strides made during President Trump’s four years in office. The index of consumer sentiment fell to 78.2 in December for Republicans, the lowest reading since October 2016, the month before Trump’s election victory over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The reading hit a high of 127.2 in February 2020 – just before COVID-19 lockdowns sent the U.S. economy spiraling into its sharpest slowdown of the post-World War II era.

It’s a cold day in hell when leftist CNN concedes that President Donald Trump actually “won” anything. But a recent CNN story was literally headlined, “How Trump won the economic message battle.” CNN Politics Senior Writer Harry Enten wrote that “Although judging a president's economic performance can be difficult because there's only so much he can control, Americans at large, and voters specifically, seemed to agree with Trump.” More shockingly, Enten admitted that “If the economy were the only thing that mattered, [Trump] probably would have won reelection.” Wow, seems like that’s why the liberal media-at-large were so intent on...

(Yes, a little old, but really worth the read. I hope this is OK.) On January 19, 2020, Washington state reported the first US case of coronavirus. By the end of March, 245 million Americans were under stay-at-home restrictions to “flatten the curve.” Mainstream news terrorized the public with exponential graphs, threats of a medical supply shortage, and displays of hygiene theater. Appeals to science were weaponized to enforce conformity, and the media portrayed anti-lockdown protesters as backwards, astroturfed white nationalists bent on endangering the public. Today millions of Americans have fallen into poverty or are on the verge of...

In the President’s signing statement, accompanying his signature of the COVID aid/government funding plan, he points out he wants "far less wasteful spending and more money going to the American people in the form of $2,000 checks per adult and $600 per child." Under the Budget Act of 1974, the President is required to submit a "budget request" to Congress in the winter. Many of the spending requests flagged by the President were consistent with his own budget request to Capitol Hill earlier this year.

Trump had refused to sign a Covid relief bill until Congress raised the amount of money paid to everyday Americans. President Trump on Sunday night signed a $2.3 trillion federal spending and COVID relief bill, averting a government shutdown and ensuring millions of Americans continue to get unemployment benefits. Despite his misgivings about wasteful spending and low stimulus payments in the bill, Trump said he signed the legislation because “I have an obligation to protect the people of our country“ from further economic devastation. He said, however, “more money is coming” as Congress votes this week on larger checks. The...

Joe Biden’s America would look a lot like COVID-19 lockdowns if he does become president and that should terrify us all. It has been my contention since the Wuhan, China coronavirus hit America’s shores that the leaders of the Democratic Party would use the occasion to financially crush America’s middle-class. As stunning as that may sound, the truth is democrats need a permanent underclass as well as a perpetually expanding victim class they can exploit every couple of years to maintain their power in Washington D.C. and state capitols. This explains the left’s obsession with socialism and identity politics. To...

LONDON (Reuters) - China will overtake the United States to become the world’s biggest economy in 2028, five years earlier than previously estimated due to the contrasting recoveries of the two countries from the COVID-19 pandemic, a think tank said.

The only demonstrable result of government-imposed COVID-19 lockdowns has been the destruction of national economies, the crippling of domestic and cultural life, the suffering and death of multitudes due to untreated prior medical conditions, and the drastic rise in suicide rates. The lockdowns themselves have seemed to do little to prevent the onset of the disease, hence one lockdown after another has led to no discernible effect—apart from the fact that the virus appears to strike primarily a designated older cohort of the population already suffering from comorbidities. A recent graph charting the effects of repeated lockdowns in the province...

You may have noticed that the nation entered a political crisis after election day. However all that turns out, and whomever occupies the White House, a Pandora’s box of pressing problems and quandaries lie beyond this battle, and they will determine how we arrange daily life in this land, especially the question of what our towns and cities will look like, and how they’ll function, which has been the focus of this monthly column the past year. Due to the incessant blathering of economists who only follow the movements of money, most Americans do not understand what supports our techno-industrial...

What should a proper Covid-19 stimulus bill look like? Well, the one thing we know for sure is that the current one isn’t it. After nine to ten months of partial to complete shutdowns, $600 per person isn’t enough to provide much help. President Trump is right to press Congress for a higher figure. Government caused this problem, so it makes sense for government to do something to help solve it. That being said, however, what is the right “something”, both short term and long term? Short term, an infusion of cash in the form of a tax credit for...

Harris County Commissioners approved a restructuring of how county toll road revenue can be used, which is concerning some people in northwest Harris County about how road projects will be funded. The measure approved creates a corporation to oversee duties performed by the Harris County Toll Road Authority. According to HCTRA, this measure would also change the grip the state has on where toll revenue can be spent by the county. A memo from Peter Key, HCTRA’s interim executive director, said HCTRA currently can only provide the issuance of revenue bonds for tolled infrastructure, and not non-toll transportation infrastructure challenges....

China is not a rising power but a faltering one. At first glance, this seems an absurd statement. Since it initiated market reforms in 1978, the Asian giant has claimed economic growth averaging 10 percent annually, rising from the world’s seventh-largest economy in 1980 to the second-largest today.During those decades, it converted its newfound wealth into military power and geopolitical influence, asserting itself both regionally and globally. It now seems to be on the verge of realizing President Xi Jinping’s goal of creating a Sino-centric world order – one that reflects Chinese, rather than American, values and interests.To many, the...

Congress has done the right thing in finalizing a nearly $900 billion coronavirus stimulus package. Welcome as that might be, it is another matter whether this coronavirus stimulus will spare the U.S. from tough economic sledding next year. Against the backdrop of a slowing economy, an imminent dark Covid-19 winter, and a Federal Reserve that has run out of road, Congress had very little choice but to provide the economy with another boost. Such a fillip was all the more necessary to bail out those millions of households and small businesses now in dire economic straits. Absent another coronavirus stimulus...

Eureka! We found that gold you hear about in California. And it just left.California lost so many people in the last decade that when the census numbers are all tabulated, it could lose a congressional seat. Even the state’s Rose Bowl game just left for Texas.The San Diego Union-Tribune reports the California Department of Finance says the state grew by only 21,200 residents in the past year, the lowest since 1900.“This is a real sea change in California, which used to be this state of pretty robust population growth,” said Hans Johnson, a demographer at the Public Policy Institute of...

“But let me offer you my definition of social justice: I keep what I earn and you keep what you earn. Do you disagree? Well then tell me how much of what I earn belongs to you – and why?” “Prior to capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving your fellow man.” “Democracy and liberty are not the same. Democracy is little more than mob rule, while liberty refers to the sovereignty of the individual.” “The public good is promoted best by...

Key TakeawaysSilicon Valley has been the epicenter of the tech industry for decades.High housing costs, high tax rates, and strict regulations have made it challenging to live, work, and do business in the area.More tech companies are opting to move operations to Texas and other states with lower costs of living and more-favorable tax laws.Oracle and Hewlett Packard are among the tech giants who have recently announced plans to move their headquarters to Texas. A Tech Exodus An impossible housing market, high tax rates, and strict regulations have made it challenging to live, work, and do business in Silicon...

California Appeals Court Blocks Judge’s Order Allowing San Diego Restaurants to Resume Indoor Dining – Keeps Newsom’s Lockdown in Full Effect By Cristina Laila Published December 18, 2020 at 8:48pm ------------------------------------------------------- The Hill Reports????? https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/531009-california-appeals-court-order-allowing-strip-clubs-to-remain-open California appeals court order allowing strip clubs to remain open during pandemic (And Restaurants NO LOCKDOWN) BY JORDAN WILLIAMS - 12/19/20 06:11 PM EST