Free Republic

I’ve spent two decades consulting extensively for consumer packaged goods companies. Early in my career I gathered some data for a client on cooking. This research found that consumers fell into one of three groups: (1) people who love to cook, and cook often, (2) people who hate to cook, and avoid that activity by heating up convenience food or outsourcing their meals (by ordering out or dining in restaurants), and, finally, (3) people who like to cook sometimes, and do a mix of cooking and outsourcing, depending on the situation. At the time, the sizes of the three respective...

The Connecticut Centinal has viewed internal text messages (on PV devices/servers) between former Project Veritas (PV) head James O'Keefe and board members at PV. What emerges is an image of O'Keefe constantly traveling and fundraising, while at the same time relaying the stress he is under to deliver large donations to the board. [embedded texts] In the fall of 2022, O'Keefe begins to complain of firm management stamping large checks with his signature (illegally according to O'Keefe) and lack of cash flow analysis on a timely basis. [embedded texts] On February 21, 2023 declared on social media he had been...

A political committee, funded in part by Senate President Don Harmon’s campaign that helped expand the Democratic majority on the Illinois Supreme Court, failed to file timely campaign reports as required by state law and didn’t disclose the bulk of its $7.3 million in spending until after the election. The committee — All for Justice — spent heavily on television ads in support of winning Democratic Justices Elizabeth Rochford and Mary Kay O’Brien. The commercials painted Republican opponents as virulent anti-abortion candidates, politically potent attacks given the U.S. Supreme Court decision that sent the issue of abortion rights to the...

Audits of 12 school districts has state Auditor General Timothy DeFoor believing school boards are playing a “shell game” with taxpayer funds by moving money into reserve accounts to allow them to make a case for raising property tax rates. State laws limit how much school districts can raise property taxes and sets limits on those increases but allows for exceptions to be granted in one of two ways: ask voters’ permission through a referendum or ask the state Department of Education for a referendum exception. “These 12 districts collectively raised taxes 37 times during the four years we reviewed...

The Walt Disney Co. is shaking up its board of directors, tapping Nike executive chairman Mark Parker to be chairman, effective as of its next annual meeting. Susan Arnold, who has been chair since Bob Iger retired from the company at the end of 2021 (and who asked him to return last year), will step down from the board at that time. The company says her departure is consistent with Disney’s 15-year board term limit. “Mark Parker’s vision, incredible depth of experience and wise counsel have been invaluable to Disney, and I look forward to continuing working with him in...

The U.S. Department of Defense has, once again, failed a comprehensive financial audit. The audit is the fifth comprehensive review the department has completed, and the fifth where auditors were unable to find sufficient record keeping for the DoD to pass off on a clean audit.This year’s DoD-wide audit report involved 27 smaller component audits, of which seven component audits received “unmodified opinions,” which mean that auditors determined the underlying military financial information was recorded fairly and in line with U.S. accounting standards. One component audit received a “qualified opinion,” meaning auditors found material accounting misstatements that were not pervasive.The...

Several charity auditors have expressed concern over how Black Lives Matter’s $60 million in donations was managed after it emerged that some people announced as the organization’s leaders never actually took on the position, and no one seemed to know who handled the finances. Tax documents for the BLM charity, from 2019, mention an address in Los Angeles that does not exist, and the remaining two directors were unable to provide information – with one even removing BLM associations from his social media accounts after being approached by the Washington Examiner. BLM has yet to submit its 2020 tax return,...

Dozens of federal lawmakers and at least 182 top staffers have violated a conflict-of-interest law. Numerous members of Congress personally invest in industries they oversee. Few face serious consequences, legally or otherwise. The nation is unabashedly polarized. Republicans and Democrats enjoy little goodwill and less commonality. But in Washington, DC, a bipartisan phenomenon is thriving. Numerous members of Congress, both liberal and conservative, are united in their demonstrated indifference toward a law designed to quash corruption and curb conflicts-of-interest. Insider's new investigative reporting project, "Conflicted Congress," chronicles the myriad ways members of the US House and Senate have eviscerated their...

Former President Donald Trump provided “misleading information about the financial situation” of his hotel in Washington while he was in office, according to the House Oversight and Reform Committee. The committee, which recently obtained documents from the General Services Administration, found that Trump reported his hotel in downtown D.C. brought in $150 million in income while he served in the White House, but the hotel actually incurred more than $70 million in losses. “By filing these misleading public disclosures, President Trump grossly exaggerated the financial health of the Trump Hotel,” the committee said Friday in a news release. The Trump...

Given the future plans of that Joetato in D.C. regarding the economy and USA life in general: would it be better to keep funds in a local financial institution or purchase farmland?

On "Glenn TV" Wednesday, Glenn Beck said he's just as nervous about America's future today as he was in 2007, except this time it's not just the economy he fears is near collapse. Inflation is out of control. You feel it every time you buy anything these days. And now, even with income tax, sales tax, property tax, death tax, capital gains tax, and ESG-related tax rate increases, the taxes you're paying are no longer enough for the government. To ensure you're paying your "fair share," the Biden administration now wants to require banks to report aggregate transactions into and...

If you’ve been to the grocery store, or the gas station, or the building supply store, you know we have an inflation problem. Last month’s hotter than expected CPI confirmed what we already intuitively know. But the folks over at the Federal Reserve continue to tell us there’s nothing to worry about. They insist inflation is transitory.Their reassurances notwithstanding, people are worried. Searches for the word “inflation” hit an all-time high on Google trends in May. In this clip from a recent podcast, Peter Schiff talked about the growing public worry about inflation and why the Fed’s response is bogus....

Lincoln Project (TLP) co-founder George Conway said the organization “should shut down, absent full disclosure of its finances” in response to fresh reporting that TLP knew about the inappropriate behavior by Co-founder John Weaver as early as last year, along with additional information conveying that one-third of “TLP’s fundraising went to a firm run by one of the founders,” from which the four co-founders “were paid.”

People of color are more likely to be relying on the relief, especially Black women. Half of Black Americans and 40% of Hispanics said they were counting on it, while 57% of Black women said the same. Additionally, 24% of Blacks and Hispanics need it but don’t think it will come to fruition.

House Financial Services Committee chair Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) said Friday on MSNBC’s “Live” that she will continue her congressional investigations into former President Donald Trump’s finances. Melvin asked, “Your committee notably also subpoenaed former President Trump’s financial documents. Will the committee’s investigation into his finances continue?”

Word to the wise. While being in debt is not normally a good thing, sometimes it can be wise. Take for instance the Communist Democrats being in power means that inflation will rise. With inflation comes higher prices, which means you need to reconsider certain aspects of your finances to deal with the oncoming higher cost of living.It's inevitable, because of the Democrat's social agenda of higher taxes, increased regulations, higher Federal minimum wage, and their war on the fossil fuels, because of their 100 trillion dollar Green New Deal plans. That is just the things the Democrats are promising...

Regardless of whether Biden would find a loophole or merely attempt to cajole Congress, it remains concerning that there are many people who want him to force taxpayers to bail out the well off.Will a newly inaugurated President Joe Biden make taxpayers pay off $50,000 in student debt for everyone who has it? That’s what Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has called for, according to recent reporting.Although Biden does have a plan to make taxpayers pay $10,000 a year for each college debt-holder for up to five years of work for government or non-profit organizations, he dodged the question...

Swiss refiners — chief among them Valcambi — are under scrutiny due to the high risk of conflict gold originating in Africa entering their supply chain via the United Arab Emirates. Two parallel NGO reports on the subject were published on Thursday. This content was published on July 16, 2020 - 18:00 July 16, 2020 - 18:00 Dominique Soguel-dit-Picard See in another language: 1 One of the reports, Golden Detour [Détour Dorée] by Bern-based Swissaid, examines the gold trade in the UAE, with a focus on the scandal-stricken Dubai company Kaloti Precious Metals and its ties to Valcambi, a precious...

While Trump foes and the media have played up the gloomy surveys, the latest Gallup poll shows that American optimism in personal finances is just three-points shy of the all-time record, and significantly higher than it was under former President Obama. The numbers: 53% call their personal finances "excellent" or "good," compared with 49% in April. The Gallup high was 56% last year. Under Obama, it never hit higher than 48%. By 41% to 37%, Americans said their situation is getting better rather than worse. 61% of Republicans said their finances are getting better, up from 47% in May. 27%...

All the happy-story analogies to past pandemics being mere bumps in the road miss the mark. A popular claim is that the 1918-1919 flu pandemic killed millions but no biggie, the Roaring 20s started the following year. It's onward and upward, baby, once we toss the masks. Wrong. Completely, totally, dead wrong. The drivers of the past 75 years of growth-- globalization and financialization--are dead, and so is everything that depended on them for "growth". (Growth is in quotes because once external costs and currency arbitrage are factored in, most of what's been glorified as "growth" is nothing but losses...